"You mean--that--he--?" With a strong effort she added the one word, then gave up the effort to shape the question. Her hand closed convulsively.
Benton slowly nodded his head. The girl leaned forward toward him. Her lips parted, her eyes widened.
The next instant they were misty with tears. Not hypocritical tears for an unloved husband, but sincere tears for a generous friend.
"Delgado escaped," he explained simply. "Karyl was captured." Again he spoke in few words. It seemed that he could not manage long sentences. "Then he tried to escape," he added.
She pressed her fingers to her temples, and leaned forward, speaking rapidly in a half-whisper that sometimes broke.
"Oh, it's not fair! It's not fair! I want to think only how splendid he was--how unselfish--how brave! I want to think of him always as he deserves, lovingly, fondly--and I've got to remember forever how little I could give him in return!"
"Yes, I guess he was the whitest man--" Benton stopped, then blurted out like a boy. "Oh, what's the use of my sitting here eulogizing him. I guess he doesn't need my praises. I guess he can stand on his own record."
"It's monstrous!" she said, and then she, too, fell back on silence.
Suddenly she rose to her feet, carried one hand to her heart and swayed uncertainly for a moment, steadying herself with one hand on the table.
The man turned, following her half-hypnotic gaze, in time to see Colonel Von Ritz bending over her hand. With recognition, Benton started up, then his jaw dropped and, doubting his own sanity, he fell back into his chair and sat gazing with blank eyes.
Slowly Benton came to his feet, his ears ringing. Then as Karyl turned from the girl and held out his hand to him, the American heard, as one listening through the roaring of a fever, some question about affairs in Galavia.
He heard Karyl answer, and though the words seemed to come from somewhere beyond Port Said, he recognized that the former King tried to speak in a matter-of-fact voice.
Karyl had held out his left hand. The right was bound down in a sling. But these things were all vague to Benton because it seemed that the pilgrim's tom-toms were beating inside his brain, and beating out of time. He could see that Karyl's eyes also were weary and lusterless.