She paused, and with a sudden instinctive movement Sara grasped Selwyn’s arm, while the sharp sibilance of her quick-drawn breath cut across the momentary silence.

“No,” Elisabeth repeated.  “Maurice ought never to have been cashiered.  He was absolutely innocent of the charge against him.  The real offender was Geoffrey . . . my husband.  It was he—­Geoffrey, not Maurice—­who was sent out in charge of the reconnaissance party from the fort—­and it was he whose nerve gave way when surprised by the enemy.  Maurice kept his head and tried to steady him, but, at the time, Geoffrey must have been mad—­caught by sudden panic, together with his men.  Don’t judge him too hardly”—­her voice took on a note of pleading—­“you must remember that he had been enduring days and nights of frightful strain, and that the attack came without any warning . . . in the darkness.  He had no time to think—­to pull himself together.  And he lost his head. . . .  Maurice did his best to save the situation.  Realizing that for the moment Geoffrey was hardly accountable, he deliberately shot him in the leg, to incapacitate him, and took command himself, trying to rally the men.  But they stampeded past him, panic-stricken, and it was while he was storming at them to turn round and put up a fight that—­that he was shot in the back.”  She faltered, meeting the measureless reproach in Sara’s eyes, and strickenly aware of the hateful interpretation she had put upon the same incident when describing it to her on a former occasion.

For the first time, she seemed to lose her composure, rocking a little where she stood and supporting herself by gripping the edge of the table with straining fingers.

But no one stirred.  In poignant silence they awaited the continuance of the tale which each one sensed to be developing towards a climax of inevitable calamity.

“Afterwards,” pursued Elisabeth at last, “at the court-martial, two of the men gave evidence that they had seen Geoffrey fall wounded at the beginning of the skirmish—­they did not know that it was Maurice who had disabled him intentionally—­so that he was completely exonerated from all blame, and the Court came to the conclusion that, the command having thus fallen to Maurice, he had lost his nerve and been guilty of cowardice in face of the enemy.  Geoffrey himself knew nothing of the actual facts—­either then or later.  He had gone down like a log when Maurice shot him, striking his head as he fell, and concussion of the brain wiped out of his mind all recollection of what had occurred in the fight prior to his fall.  The last thing he remembered was mustering his men together in readiness to leave the fort.  Everything else was a blank.”

Out of the shadows of the fire-lit room came a muttered question.

“Yes.”  Elisabeth bent her head in answer.  “There was—­other evidence forthcoming.  But not then, not at the time of the trial.  Then Maurice was dismissed from the Army.”