Rujub, the Juggler, G. A. Henty [top fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

He took a seat beside her. There were two or three others in the court, but these were upon the other side, quite out of hearing.

“I congratulate you, Mr. Bathurst,” she said quietly, “on yesterday. The Doctor has, of course, told me all about it. It can make no difference to us who knew you, but I am heartily glad for your sake. I can understand how great a difference it must make to you.”

“It has made all the difference in the world,” he replied. “No one can tell the load it has lifted from my mind. I only wish it had taken place earlier.”

“I know what you mean, Mr. Bathurst; the Doctor has told me about that too. You may wish that you had remained in the boat, but it was well for me that you did not. You would have lost your life without benefiting me. I should be now in the well of Cawnpore, or worse, at Bithoor.”

“That may be,” he said gravely, “but it does not alter the fact.”

“I have no reason to know why you consider you should have stopped in the boat, Mr. Bathurst,” she went on quietly, but with a slight flush on her cheek. “I can perhaps guess by what you afterwards did for me, by the risks you ran to save me; but I cannot go by guesses, I think I have a right to know.”

“You are making me say what I did not mean to say,” he exclaimed passionately, “at least not now; but you do more than guess, you know—you know that I love you.”

“And what do you know?” she asked softly.

“I know that you ought not to love me.” he said. “No woman should love a coward.”

“I quite agree with you, but then I know that you are not a coward.”

“Not when I jumped over and left you alone? It was the act of a cur.”

“It was an act for which you were not really responsible. Had you been able to think, you would not have done so. I do not take the view the Doctor does, and I agree with you that a man loving a woman should first of all think of her and of her safety. So you thought when you could think, but you were no more responsible for your action than a madman for a murder committed when in a state of frenzy. It was an impulse you could not control. Had you, after the impulse had passed, come down here, believing, as you might well have believed, that it was absolutely impossible to rescue me from my fate, it would have been different. But the moment you came to yourself you deliberately took every risk and showed how brave you were when master of yourself. I am speaking plainly, perhaps more plainly than I ought to. But I should despise myself had I not the courage to speak out now when so much is at stake, and after all you have done for me.

“You love me?”

“You know that I love you.”

“And I love you,” the girl said; “more than that, I honor and esteem you. I am proud of your love. I am jealous for your honor as for my own, and I hold that honor to be spotless. Even now, even with my happiness at stake, I could not speak so plainly had I not spoken so cruelly and wrongly before. I did not know you then as I know you now, but having said what I thought then, I am bound to say what I think now, if only as a penance. Did I hesitate to do so, I should be less grateful than that poor Indian girl who was ready as she said, to give her life for the life you had saved.”

“Had you spoken so bravely but two days since,” Bathurst said, taking her hand, “I would have said. 'I love you too well, Isobel, to link your fate to that of a disgraced man.' but now I have it in my power to retrieve myself, to wipe out the unhappy memory of my first failure, and still more, to restore the self respect which I have lost during the last month. But to do so I must stay here: I must bear part in the terrible struggle there will be before this mutiny is put down, India conquered, and Cawnpore revenged.”

“I will not try to prevent you,” Isobel said. “I feel it would be wrong to do so. I could not honor you as I do, if for my sake you turned away now. Even though I knew I should never see you again, I would that you had died so, than lived with even the shadow of dishonor on your name. I shall suffer, but there are hundreds of other women whose husbands, lovers, or sons are in the fray, and I shall not flinch more than they do from giving my dearest to the work of avenging our murdered friends and winning back India.”

So quietly had they been talking that no thought of how momentous their conversation had been had entered the minds of the ladies sitting working but a few paces away. One, indeed, had remarked to another, “I thought when Dr. Wade was telling us how Mr. Bathurst had rescued that unfortunate girl with the disfigured face at Cawnpore, that there was a romance in the case, but I don't see any signs of it. They are goods friends, of course, but there is nothing lover-like in their way of talking.”

So thought Dr. Wade when he came in and saw them sitting there, and gave vent to his feeling in a grunt of dissatisfaction.

“It is like driving two pigs to market,” he muttered; “they won't go the way I want them to, out of pure contrariness.”

“It is all settled, Doctor,” Bathurst said, rising. “Come, shake hands; it is to you I owe my happiness chiefly.”

“Isobel, my dear, give me a kiss,” the Doctor exclaimed. “I am glad, my dear, I am glad with all my heart. And what have you settled besides that?”

“We have settled that I am to go home as soon as I can go down country, and he is going up with you and the others to Cawnpore.”

“That is right,” the Doctor said heartily. “I told you that was what he would decide upon; it is right that he should do so. No man ought to turn his face to the coast till Lucknow is relieved and Delhi is captured. I thank God it has all come right at last. I began to be afraid that Bathurst's wrong headedness was going to mar both your lives.”

The news had already come down that Havelock had found that it would be absolutely impossible with the small force at his command to fight his way into Lucknow through the multitude of foes that surrounded it, and that he must wait until reinforcements arrived. There was, therefore, no urgent hurry, and it was not until ten days later that a second troop of volunteer horse, composed of civilians unable to resume their duties, and officers whose regiments had mutinied, started for Cawnpore.

Half an hour before they mounted, Isobel Hannay and Ralph Bathurst were married by the chaplain in the fort. This was at Bathurst's earnest wish.

“I