Larkyn, seeing that the Colonel had not
cleared himself:--"This thing has gone far enough. I move we tell the
Colonel's Wife how it happened." Mrs. Larkyn shut her lips and shook her head,
and vowed that the Colonel's Wife must bear her punishment as best she could.
Now Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous woman, in whom none would have suspected deep
hate. So Platte took no action, and came to believe gradually, from the
Colonel's silence, that the Colonel must have "run off the line" somewhere
that night, and, therefore, preferred to stand sentence on the lesser count of
rambling into other people's compounds out of calling hours. Platte forgot
about the watch business after a while, and moved down-country with his
regiment. Mrs. Larkyn went home when her husband's tour of Indian service
expired. She never forgot.
But Platte was quite right when he said that the joke had gone too far. The
mistrust and the tragedy of it--which we outsiders cannot see and do not
believe in--are killing the Colonel's Wife, and are making the Colonel
wretched. If either of them read this story, they can depend upon its being a
fairly true account of the case, and can "kiss and make friends."
Shakespeare alludes to the pleasure of watching an Engineer being shelled by
his own Battery.
Pages:
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630