Chapter 12 - Page 2

strain of attendance on Dick had worn his nerves
thin.

'There remains a third fate,' said the Keneu, thoughtfully. 'Consider this,
and be not larger fools than necessary. Dick is--or rather was--an
able-bodied man of moderate attractions and a certain amount of
audacity.'

'Oho!' said the Nilghai, who remembered an affair at Cairo. 'I begin to
see,--Torp, I'm sorry.'

Torpenhow nodded forgiveness: 'You were more sorry when he cut you
out, though.--Go on, Keneu.'

'I've often thought, when I've seen men die out in the desert, that if the
news could be sent through the world, and the means of transport were
quick enough, there would be one woman at least at each man's bedside.'

'There would be some mighty quaint revelations. Let us be grateful
things are as they are,' said the Nilghai.

'Let us rather reverently consider whether Torp's three-cornered
ministrations are exactly what Dick needs just now.--What do you think
yourself, Torp?'

'I know they aren't. But what can I do?'

'Lay the matter before the board. We are all Dick's friends here. You've
been most in his life.'

'But I picked it up when he was off his head.'

'The greater chance of its being true. I thought we should arrive. Who is
she?'

Then Torpenhow told a tale in plain words, as a special correspondent
who knows how to make a verbal precis should tell it. The men listened
without interruption.

'Is it possible that a man can come back across the years to his calf-love?'

said the Keneu. 'Is it possible?'

'I give the facts. He says nothing about it now, but he sits fumbling three
letters from her when he thinks I'm not looking. What am I to do?'

'Speak to him,' said the Nilghai.

'Oh yes! Write to her,--I don't know her full name, remember,--and ask
her to accept him out of pity. I believe you once told Dick you were sorry
for him, Nilghai. You remember what happened, eh? Go into the
bedroom and suggest full confession and an appeal to this Maisie girl,
whoever she is. I honestly believe he'd try to kill you; and the blindness
has made him rather muscular.'

'Torpenhow's course is perfectly clear,' said the Keneu. 'He will go to
Vitry-sur-Marne, which is on the Bezieres-Landes Railway,--single track
from Tourgas. The Prussians shelled it out in '70 because there was a
poplar on the top of a hill eighteen hundred yards from the church spire
There's a squadron of cavalry quartered there,--or ought to be. Where
this studio Torp spoke about may be I cannot tell. That is Torp's
business. I have given him his route. He will dispassionately explain the
situation to the girl, and she will come back to Dick,--the more especially
because, to use