LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter X.

       Much Ado About Almost Nothing—a Trooper

       Table of Contents

      Mr. Ormonde Delorme, Second Lieutenant of the 34th Lancers, sat in his quarters at Aldershot, reading and re-reading with mingled feelings a letter from the woman he loved.

      It is one thing to extract a promise from The Woman that she will turn to you for help if ever your help should be needed (knowing that there could be no greater joy than to serve her at any cost whatsoever, though it led to death or ruin), but it is quite another thing when that help is invited for the benefit of the successful rival!

      To go to the world's end for Lucille were a very small matter to Ormonde Delorme—but to go across the road for the man who had won her away, was not.

      For Dam had won her away from him, Delorme considered, inasmuch as he had brought him to Monksmead, time after time, had seen him falling in love with Lucille, had received his confidences, and spoken no warning word. Had he said but "No poaching, Delorme," nothing more would have been necessary; he would have kept away thenceforth, and smothered the flame ere it became a raging and consuming fire. No, de Warrenne had served him badly in not telling him plainly that there was an understanding between him and his cousin, in letting him sink more and more deeply over head and ears in love, in letting him go on until he proposed to Lucille and learnt from her that while she liked him better than any man in the world but one—she did not love him, and that, frankly, yes, she did love somebody else, and it was hopeless for him to hope….

      He read the letter again:—

       "My Dear Ormonde,

      "This is a begging letter, and I should loathe to write it, under the circumstances, to any man but such a one as you. For I am going to ask a great deal of you and to appeal to that nobleness of character for which I have always admired you and which made you poor Dam's hero from Lower School days at Wellingborough until you left Sandhurst (and, alas! quarrelled with him—or rather with his memory—about me). That was a sad blow to me, and I tell you again as I told you before, Dam had not the faintest notion that I cared for him and would not have told me that he cared for me had I not shown it. Your belief that he didn't trouble to warn you because he had me safe is utterly wrong, absurd, and unjust.

      "When you did me the great honour and paid me the undeserved and tremendous compliment of asking me to marry you, and I told you that I could not, and why I could not, I never dreamed that Dam could care for me in that way, and I knew that I should never marry any one at all unless he did.

      "And on the same occasion, Ormonde, you begged me to promise that if ever you could serve me in any way, I would ask for your help. You were a dear romantic boy then, Ormonde, and I loved you in a different way, and cried all night that you and I could not be friends without thought of love, and I most solemnly promised that I would turn to you if I ever needed help that you could give. (Alas, I thought to myself then that nobody in the world could do anything for me that Dam could not do, and that I should never need help from others while he lived.)

      "I want your help, Ormonde, and I want it for Dam—and me.

      "You have, of course, heard some garbled scandal about his being driven away from home and cut off from Sandhurst by grandfather. I need not ask if you have believed ill of him and I need not say he is absolutely innocent of any wrong or failure whatever. He is not an effeminate coward, he is as brave as a lion. He is a splendid hero, Ormonde, and I want you to simply strangle and kill any man who says a word to the contrary.

      "When he left home, he enlisted, and Haddon Berners saw him in uniform at Folkestone where he had gone from Canterbury (cricket week) to see Amelia Harringport's gang. Amelia whose sister is to be the Reverend Mrs. Canon Mellifle at Folkestone, you know, met the wretched Haddon being rushed along the front by a soldier and nearly died at the sight—she declares he was weeping!

      "Directly she told me I guessed at once that he had met Dam and either insulted or cut him, and that poor Dam, in his bitter humour and self-loathing had used his own presence as a punishment and had made the Haddock walk with him! Imagine the company of Damocles de Warrenne being anything but an ennobling condescension! Fancy Dam's society a horrible injury and disgrace! To a thing like Haddon Berners!

      "Well, I simply haunted Folkestone after that, and developed a love for Amelia Harringport and her brothers that surprised them—hypocrite that I am! (but I was punished when they talked slightingly of Dam and she sneered at the man whom she had shamelessly pursued when all was well with him. She 'admires' Haddon now.)

      "At last I met him on one of my week-end visits—on a Sunday evening it was—and I simply flew at him in the sight of all respectable, prayer-book-displaying, before-Church-parading, well-behaved Folkestone, and kissed him nearly to death…. And can you believe a woman could be such a fool, Ormonde—while carefully noting the '2 Q.G.' on his shoulder-straps, I never thought to find out his alias—for of course he hides his identity, thinking as he does, poor darling boy, that he has brought eternal disgrace on an honoured name—a name that appears twice on the rolls of the V.C. records.

      "Ormonde, were it not that it would increase his misery and agony of mind I would run away from Monksmead, take a room near the Queen's Greys barracks, and haunt the main gates until I saw him again. He should then tell me how to communicate with him, or I would hang about there till he did. I'd marry him 'off the strength' and live (till I am 'of age') by needlework if he would have me. But, of course, he'd never understand that I'd be happier, and a better woman, in a Shorncliffe lodging, as a soldier's wife, than ever I shall be here in this dreary Monksmead—until he is restored and re-habilitated (is that the word? I mean—comes into his own as a brave and noble gentleman who never did a mean or cowardly action in his life).

      "And he is so thin and unhappy looking, Ormonde, and his poor hands are in such a state and his beautiful hair is all hacked about and done like a soldier's, all short except for a long piece brushed down his forehead and round to his cap—oh, dreadful … and he has a scar on his face! No wonder Amelia never recognized him. Oh, do help me, Ormonde. I must find out how to address him. I dare not let them know there is a D. de Warrenne in the regiment—and he'd never get it either—he's probably Smith or Jones or Robinson now. If some horrid Sergeant called out 'Trooper D. de Warrenne,' when distributing letters, Dam would never answer to the name he thinks he has eternally disgraced, and disgrace it further by dragging it in the mire of the ranks. How can people be such snobs? Isn't a good private a better man than a bad officer? Why should there be any 'taint' about serving your country in any capacity?

      "How

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