"But don't you see that subordination becomes impossible when each officer--"

Sir John interrupted his colleague.

"Mr. Dale, perhaps short words will be more comprehensible to you than long ones."

Dale flushed, and spoke hurriedly.

"I'm not without education, sir--as my record shows. I won the Rowland Hill Fourth Cla.s.s Annual and the Divisional Prize for English composition."

Sir John and the Colonel exchanged a significant glance; and Dale, making a clumsy bow, went on very submissively. "However you are good enough to word it, sir, I shall endeavor to understand."

"Then," said Sir John, with a sudden crispness and severity, "the opinion I have derived from the correspondence is that you were altogether too uppish. You had got too big for your boots."

"Sorry that should be your opinion, sir."

"It is the opinion of my colleague too," said Sir John sharply. "The impudence of a little Jack in office. I'm the king of the castle."

"I employed no such expression, sir."

"No, but you couldn't keep your temper in writing to your superiors, any more than you could in managing the ordinary business of your office.

"Who makes the allegation?" Unconsciously Dale had raised his voice to a high pitch. "That's what I ask. Let's have facts, not allegations, sir."

"Or," said Sir John, calmly and gravely, "any more than you can keep your temper now;" and he leaned back in his chair and looked at Dale with fixed attention.

Dale's face was red. He opened and shut his mouth as if taking gulps of air.

Sir John smiled, and continued very quietly and courteously. "You must forgive me, Mr. Dale, if by my bruskness and apparent lack of consideration I put you to a little test. But it seemed necessary. You see, as to Rodhaven, the gravamen of their charge against you--"

"Charge!" Dale's voice had dropped to a whisper. "Do they lodge a charge against me, sir--in spite of my record?"

"Their report is of course strictly confidential, and it is not perhaps my duty to inform you as to its details."

"I thought if a person's accused, he should at least know his indictment, sir."

Sir John smiled, and nudged the Colonel's elbow. "Then, Mr. Dale, it merely amounts to this. They say you are unquestionably an efficient servant, but that your efficiency--at any rate, in the position you have held of late--has been marred by what seem to be faults of temperament. They believe--and we believe--that you honestly try to do your best; but, well, you do not succeed."

"I'd be glad to know where I've failed, sir. Mr. Ridgett, he said he found everything in apple-pie order. That was Mr. Ridgett's very own word."

"Who is Mr. Ridgett?"

"Your inspector, sir--what you sent to take over."

"Ah, yes. But he no doubt referred to the office itself. What I am referring to is a much wider question--the necessity of avoiding friction with the public. We have to remember that we are the servants of the public, and not its masters. Now in country districts--You were at Portsmouth, weren't you, before you went to Rodchurch?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, of course, in the poorer parts of big towns like Portsmouth, one has rather a rough crowd to deal with; good manners may not be required; a dictatorial method is not so much resented. But in a country village, in a residential neighborhood, where high and low are accustomed to live in amity--well, I must say candidly, a postmaster who adopts bullying tactics, and is always losing his temper--"

"Sir," said Dale earnestly, "I do a.s.sure you I am not a bully, nor one who is always losing his temper."

"Yet you gave me the impression of irascibility just now, when I drew you."

Dale inwardly cursed his stupidity in having allowed himself to be drawn. He had made a mistake that might prove fatal. He felt that the whole point of the affair was being lost sight of; they seemed to have drifted away into a discussion of good and bad manners, while he wanted to get back to the great issue of right and wrong, justice or injustice. And he understood the ever-increasing danger of being condemned on the minor count, with the cause itself, the great fundamental principle, remaining unweighed.

"No one," he said, humbly but firmly, "regrets it more than I do, gentlemen, if I spoke up too hot. But, sir," and he bowed to Sir John, "you were wishing to nettle me, and there's no question that for the moment I was nettled."

All three judges smiled; and Dale, accepting the smiles as a happy augury, went on with greater confidence.

"I'm sure I apologize. And I ask you not to turn it to more than its proper consequence--or to make the conclusion that I'm that way as a rule. With all respect, I'd ask you to think that this means a great deal to me--a very great deal; and that it has dragged on until--naturally--it begins to prey on one's mind. I am like to that extent shaken and off my balance; but I beg, as no more than is due, gentlemen, that you won't take me for quite the man up here, where all's strange, to what I am down there, where I'm in my element and on my own ground. And I would further submit, under the head of all parties at Rodhaven, that there may be a bit of malice behind their report."

"What malice could there possibly be? They appear to have shown an inclination to pa.s.s over the whole matter."

"Only if I took a black mark, sir. That's where the shoe pinched with me, sir--and perhaps with them too. They mayn't have been best pleased when I asked to have _your_ decision over theirs."

Then the Colonel spoke instead of Sir John.

"But apart from Rodhaven, we have evidence against you from the village. Your neighbors, Mr. Dale, complain more forcibly than anybody else."

"Is that so?" Dale felt as if he had received a wickedly violent blow in the dark. "Of course," and he moved his hands spasmodically--"Of course I've long expected I'd enemies." Then he snorted. "But I suppose, sir, you're alluding now to a certain Member of Parliament whose name I needn't mention."

"Yes, I allude to him, and to others--to several others."

"If some have spoken against me, there's a many more would have spoken for me."

"But they have not done so," said the Colonel dryly.

For a moment Dale's mental distress was so acute that his ideas seemed to blend in one vast confused whirl. Some answer was imperatively necessary, and no answer could evolve itself. Hesitation would be interpreted as the sign of a guilty conscience. And in this dreadful arrest of his faculties, the sense of bodily fatigue accentuated itself till it seemed that it would absolutely crush him.

"Gentlemen, as I was venturing to say--" Really the pause had been imperceptible: "From the vicar downwards, there's many would have spoke to my credit--if I'd asked them. And I did not ask them--and for why?"

"Well, why?"

"Because," said Dale, with a brave effort, "I relied implicitly on the fair play that would be meted out here. From the hour I knew I was to be heard at headquarters, I said this is now between me and headquarters, and I don't require any one--be it the highest in the land--coming between us."

"Ah, I understand," said the Colonel, with great politeness.

"Such was my confident feeling, sir--my full confidence that, having heard me, you'd bear me out as doing my duty, and no more nor no less than my duty."

Yet, even as he said so, his whole brain seemed as if fumes from some horrid corrosive acid were creeping through and through it. In truth, all his confidence had gone, and only his courage remained. These men were hostile to him; they had prejudged him; their deadly politeness and their airs of suave impartiality could not conceal their abominable intentions. He had trusted them, and they were going to show themselves unworthy of trust.

"Gentlemen," he said the word very loudly, and again there came the check to the sequence of his ideas. In another whirl of thought he remembered those courtyards at the Abbey House, the loyal service of his wife's family, the great personage who might have spoken up for him. Oh, why hadn't he allowed Mavis to write a second time imploring aid? "Gentlemen--" He echoed the word twice, and then was able to go on. "My desire has ever bin to conduct the service smooth and expeditious, and in strict accordance with the regulations--more particularly as set out in the manual, which I can truly a.s.s-a.s.s-a.s.sev'rate that I read more constant and careful than what I do the Bible."

He knew that the crisis was close upon him. Now or never he must speak the words that should convince and prevail; and instinct told him that he would speak in vain. Nevertheless, he succeeded in stimulating himself adequately for the last great effort. He would fight game and he would die game.

"If," he said stoutly, "I am at liberty now to make my plain statement of the facts, I do so. It was seven-thirty-five P.M. Miss Yorke was at the instrument. I was here"--and he moved a step away. "The soldier was there;" and he pointed. "The soldier began his audacity by--"

"But, good gracious," said Sir John, "you are going back to the very beginning."