“Yes,” said Tyson, “the thing’s done now.  I’m off to the Soudan with fifty other fellows—­glorious devils—­and we mean fighting this time.  It’s the old field, you see, and the old enemy.”

“When do you sail?”

“Wednesday—­midnight.  See me off?”

“Yes.  It’s the least I can do.”

“Thanks, Stanny.”  He made a cut at the air with his walking-stick.  “Don’t you wish you’d half my luck?  You poor devils never get a chance.  By Jove! if I’d only stuck to mine!”

They parted.  Not a word of his wife.

Stanistreet looked back over his shoulder as Tyson crossed Trafalgar Square with the bold swinging step of a free man.  He was still cutting the air.

The packing was the worst of it.  It had to be done in silence and a guilty secrecy, for Molly was in bed again, suffering from a sort of nervous relapse.  Up to the last day Tyson was wretched, haunted by the fear of some unforeseen calamity that might still happen and destroy his plans.  By way of guarding against it he had stuck the Steamship Company’s labels on all his luggage long ago.  That seemed to make his decision irrevocable whatever happened.  But he would not be safe till he felt water under him.

At the last minute Molly took a feverish turn, and was on no account to be agitated.  If he must go it would be better not to say Good-bye.  Oh, much better.

He went into her room.  She was drowsy.  Her small forehead was furrowed with much thinking; there was a deep flush on her cheek, and her breath came and went like sighing.  He stooped over her and whispered “Goodnight,” the same as any other night.  No, not quite the same, for Molly started and trembled.  He had kissed not her hands only, but her mouth and her face.

His ship sailed at midnight, and he sailed with it.  She had not stood in his way, the little thing.  When, indeed, had she ever hindered him?

Towards midnight Mrs. Wilcox and the servants were startled from their sleep by hearing Mrs. Nevill Tyson calling “Nevill, Nevill!” They hurried to her room; her bed was empty; the clothes were all rumpled back as if flung off suddenly.  They looked into the charred, dismantled drawing-room, she was not there; but the door of communication, always kept shut at night, was ajar.  She must have gone through into the dining-room.  They found her there, stretched across the couch, unconscious.  The cord that had held Nevill’s sword to the nail above was lying on the floor where she had found it.  She had divined his destiny.

The next day she was slightly delirious.  The doctors and nurses came and went softly, and Mrs. Wilcox brooded over the sick-room like a vast hope.  They listened now and then.  She was talking about the baby, the baby that died two years ago.

“It’s very strange,” said Mrs. Wilcox, “she never took much notice of the little thing when it was alive.”