He turned abruptly, and when Cary, half fearful for him, would have followed, he motioned her away, and went out alone on the back terrace.
Stewart had not moved from the window, and Cary went and stood beside him, gravely looking out at the sunlight shifting on the lawn. She did not say anything, but as though conscious that they were alone, he spoke, his face still hidden on his arm.
"I did it," he said at last in a broken voice of confession. "I _did_ think to help him best by making him get away from the old crowd and the regiment—but it was because I thought of the Service, too—and I judged _him_——!"
She waited, and she did not speak, but she slipped one of her hands into the pocket of his tweed coat and held on to it.
"I broke his life—he loved _me_ better than that—" he began.
"Do you call a life that ended _so_—broken?"
He raised his face from his arm and looked at her.
"No—no—I didn’t mean that—but think of my judging him! All last night it came back to me—I thought I was going stark mad." And he brushed away the tears clumsily.
"It all hurts _so_! But, by and by—" she looked straight out of the oriel window, and she spoke disjointedly, and somehow she thought of western Scotland, and his sword. "I knew when we got those letters from Argyll—when I got my letter—Rob wasn’t coming back to us."
"Oh! Cary, tell me that it doesn’t mean to you all—all that it might have done! Lassie—tell me——"
"You are foolish," she told him. "You know I love you," and then looking into his eyes—"It is only you."
He hid his mouth against the soft coil of her hair.
"Last night, I was almost jealous of the dead," he whispered, "and then when I passed the heather fields to-day—and the bracken—" his voice broke.
"I know," she said simply. "It is always the bracken and the heather—and Rob—isn’t it?"
From the south window the sun poured into the room and lighted up the heavy carvings of black walnut. The bit of heather still lay upon the floor and withered there. A silent linnet perched itself upon the window sill.
Somewhere from beyond the turn in the wooded drive, Maggie was coming home, singing:
"Some talk of Alexander, And some of Hercules, Of Hector and Lysander, And such great names as these!"