"I"m not inhuman, I trust," said Eagle, "but it doesn"t soften _my_ heart toward him."
"I don"t ask that," Diana wept. "All I ask is your forgiveness for me--that you soften your heart for me!"
"I forgive you freely, Lady Diana," Eagle answered, "for any injury you may have done me in the past, for I have lived it down. The injury Vand.y.k.e did me, I thought--till to-night--I could never live down. But thanks to the most loyal friend a man ever had I"ve been given my chance."
Diana flung up her head, and there were no tears in her eyes. "Peggy a loyal friend!" she cried. "She"s a traitor to Father and me when she betrays Sidney. What right has she to be loyal to you at our expense?
And it isn"t loyalty, not what _you_ mean by loyalty. She has always hated Sidney for your sake, and now she can calmly see him ruined, not because of any wish for justice, but simply because she"s desperately, idiotically in love with you; because she"d do anything--no matter how cruel to others--in the hope of winning you for herself. Now you know the real truth about Peggy."
"I wish I could think it were the real truth," said Eagle very quietly and very slowly. "To have Peggy"s love would be the best thing in the world. I"ve realized that for some time now--while I was under arrest before my court-martial and had plenty of time to think. That was the time it was borne in on me, Lady Diana, just how much difference there is between you and Peggy."
Diana stood speechless, staring at him.
I was afraid the two out there might hear my heartbeats, they sounded so loudly in my own ears.
"I realized how foolish I"d been, not to see that difference before,"
Eagle went on, still speaking with a deliberate distinctness, as if he were willing I should catch every word.
That he should be saying such things to Diana was so wonderful, so almost incredible, that I asked myself if he were saying them only to save my pride because Di had s.n.a.t.c.hed my love for him out of hiding and trailed it in the dust at his feet. "I ought to have loved Peggy almost as much as I love her now, the very day we met first. I ought to have felt she was the _one_ woman--the one thing in the world for me. But she looked such a child! It would have seemed like sacrilege to love her as a man loves a woman--that little sprite of a creature. And then I met you. You dazzled me, Lady Diana. That"s the word for it. I think no other would fit. But I didn"t know I was _only_ dazzled, till you took the light away. As soon as the bright spots faded from before my eyes, as bright spots do at last when you"ve been staring at the sun, I saw things as they really were. I saw what my feeling for you was worth, and what my feeling for Peggy might grow to be. But I tried not to let it grow. I"d suffered enough. I was down and out, and if I wasn"t worthy of you, still less was I worthy of Peggy. Besides, I thought she was engaged to Dalziel, and I wanted to be glad for her. He"s a good fellow.
Then we were thrown together in Belgium, she and I; and if I hadn"t loved her before, I should have begun to love her then, as a man loves just one girl in his life. Whatever I have done since--the few small things I have been able to do--have all been with the thought of her in my heart as a lodestar. So now you will understand, Lady Diana, how little impression you can make upon me by calling your sister a traitor."
"You say all this to hurt me!" Diana cried out. "But you did care for me once, Eagle. Do not forget that!"
"I forget nothing," he said. "But the time you speak of seems a long time ago, I care so much more for Peggy now. Just how much I care for her, I am going to prove to you in a moment."
For a second he paused, while Di waited, not knowing what to say; and it seemed as if I were waiting, too; my heart and breath stopped for his next words.
"If I had ever loved you as dearly as I once thought I did," he went on, sadness in his voice, "I suppose I could have refused you nothing when you came to me to-night. But--I don"t defend myself--I only confess to the hardness in me; you haven"t moved me at all. You were cruel as the grave to me. I could be cruel in return to you. That is, I could act as I thought right and be indifferent to the effect on you. Your husband did his best to ruin me. Virtually, he did ruin me. Even to-night he has lied again, the same old lie, to pull me down if he could from the miserable little height I"ve crawled up to, like a singed moth creeping out of the flame. Did you ever believe in his truth and my guilt--believe in the depths of your soul--if you have a soul? I doubt it! Anyhow, you helped his lies to-night, as often before; of that I have no doubt at all. I"ve no mercy for you in my heart, and none for Vand.y.k.e. I had none, even when I stopped the horses on your wedding day.
I didn"t do that from any softening of heart toward either of you. It was purely mechanical. I"d have done the same for a pair of thieves, I a.s.sure you. Nothing you could say to me for yourself, Lady Diana, would make me give up my revenge, or rather my justification, which--by his own fault--can"t come to me without Vand.y.k.e"s ruin. But something you have said about Peggy has made all the difference."
"About Peggy? What do you mean?" Di faltered.
"You said that she was a "traitor to her people" for my sake. Now, because I love her, I can"t let her be that. I won"t profit by her loyalty to me--at your expense. And I won"t have the world say in speaking of her, "There"s Lady Peggy O"Malley, who bore witness against her brother-in-law and ruined him." For myself, I believe it wouldn"t give me a qualm if Vand.y.k.e blew out his brains to-morrow, but you have made me realize that I couldn"t bear it for _her_ sake. Thank you for that, Lady Diana. Here is the paper which Peggy found inside the lining of your husband"s coat, and brought to me. Because of Peggy and my love for her, take it and do with it as you choose."
Diana gave a little joyous shriek, but my cry of despair mingled with it. I pushed back the screen so that it tottered and fell with a crash, as I flew out in time to seize Eagle"s hand with the paper in it.
"No!" I gasped. "Don"t let me have lived for nothing, Eagle! I would gladly have given my life to get this bit of paper for you. I shall die of grief if I"m not to help you after all."
Holding the written message firmly in one hand, he laid the other over mine.
"You heard all I said?" he asked. "I am glad. I meant you to hear it in your sister"s presence. Yet, though you heard, you speak of not _helping_ me, Peggy? What she said isn"t true, then? It isn"t true that you love me?"
"It is true, and you know it only too well," I answered, hardly remembering that Diana listened, hanging anxiously on every word as on a verdict for life or death. "I worship you, Eagle; and that"s why I don"t care to live if you are not saved. The great chance has come, when we least expected it, and if you don"t take it now it"s in your hand----"
"It seems to me that my way of taking the great chance is after all the only way, if we are to be happy. Peggy, I find that I love you too much to take any other way. Can you love me as I am, love me enough to say: "Do what is right for you?""
"It is right for you to have justice!" I pleaded with him.
"I would rather have love."
"You can have both!"
"No. It doesn"t seem so to me."
"Oh, you are obstinate--obstinate!"
"Perhaps! I"m afraid I always was. But I love you. I"ve suffered, and now I want to be happy and at peace. It isn"t only for your sake. It"s for mine as well. Great love is worthy of the only great revenge. Shall I burn the paper?"
"For G.o.d"s sake, say yes, Peggy!" I heard Diana sob. But I hardly listened. If she said more, I did not hear it. I was looking at Eagle.
"Does silence give consent?" he asked. There was a new light in his eyes, brighter and clearer than the careless light of youth that was lost. I could not quench it. So I bowed my head and let the khaki coat, which half unconsciously I had been holding all the time, drop to the floor. The glory of Eagle"s smile repaid me. He took my hand in his, and leading me, walked to the fireplace. There he stooped, and without hesitation dropped the paper, which might have changed his whole life, into the flames.
"Good-bye to the past!" he cried. "Hail to the future! Peggy, such as it is, such as it can be for me now, will you share it?"
"You know!" I whispered.
He pressed my hand tightly, then turned to Diana.
"You had better go home to your husband," he said. "You can sleep in peace to-night, and all nights. Presently I shall take Peggy to Hampstead; but I want her to myself for a moment first."
Without a word to either of us, Diana obeyed, her head bent low. I suppose she could find nothing to say, since "Thank you" would be commonplace: and Di is never commonplace.
I heard Eagle open the door for her, and shut it behind the trailing white satin and purple brocade. Then he came back to me and held out his arms.
I had been in the sky with him before, but this was heaven.
He is at the front now, and has been for a long time, but whatever may happen, neither life nor death can part our souls. The sacrifice he made was for my sake, and for the sake of love. So you see why, changing only our names, I have written this bit of secret history and told the truth about Eagle March and Monsieur Mars.
THE END