“Val did.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“The original fault was Val’s, and you and Major Clowes were entangled in the consequences of it.  Let us two face the truth once and for all!  Val can stand it—­can’t you, Val? . . .  He broke his military oath.  He deserved a sharp stinging punishment, and if you had reported him he would have had it; perhaps a worse one than you exacted, except for that last awful hour at Wanhope, and for that Major Clowes, not you, was responsible.  Oh, I won’t say he deserved precisely what he got! because judgment ought to be dispassionate, and in yours there was an element of cruelty for cruelty’s sake; wasn’t there?  You half enjoyed it and half shivered under it . . .”

“More than half enjoyed it,” said Hyde under his breath.

“But I do not believe that was your only motive.  I think you were sorry for Val.  Haven’t I seen you watching him at Wanhope? with such a strange half-unwilling pity, as if you hated yourself for it.  Oh Lawrence, it’s for that I love you!” Lawrence shook his head.  He had never been able to analyse the complex of feelings that had determined his attitude to Val.  “Well, in any case it was not your fault only.  A coward is an irresistible temptation to a bully.”

“Do you call Val a coward?  Nervous collapses were not so uncommon as you may have gathered from the Daily Mail.”

“Did Major Clowes describe the scene truthfully?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever break down like Val?”

“I was older.”

“There were plenty of boys of nineteen, officers and men.  Did you ever know such another case so complete, so prolonged?”

“I’ve commanded a firing party.”

“For cowardice?”

“For cowardice.”

“A worse exhibition than Val’s?”

“Isabel, you are pitiless!”

“Because Val deserves justice not mercy.  It’s his due:  he died to earn it.”

Hyde was silent, not thoroughly understanding her.

“He wasn’t a coward when he died,” said Isabel with her sweet half melancholy smile.  “He fought under a heavy handicap, and won:  he paid his debt, paid it to the last farthing; and now do you grudge him his sleep?  ’He hates him, that would upon the rack of this tough world stretch him out longer. . . .’” Her beautiful voice dropped to a murmur which was almost lost in the rustling of flames on the hearth and the stir of wind among budded branches in the garden.

The clock struck ten and Lawrence raised his head.  “It’s growing late, Isabel.  Aren’t you tired?”

“A little.  I got up at five to say good-bye to all the animals.”

“All the—?”

“My cocks and hens and Val’s mare and Dodor and Zou-zou and Rowsley’s old rabbits.  They’re at the Castle, don’t you remember?  Jack Bendish offered to take charge of them when we turned out of the vicarage.”

“I hope you put your pinafore on,” said her husband.