Perhaps they were afraid that their wives had come from
Home unbeknownst. The fourth said that he had acted on the impulse of the
moment. He explained this afterwards.
Then the voice cried:--"Oh, Lionel!" Lionel was the Senior Subaltern's name. A
woman came into the little circle of light by the candles on the peg-tables,
stretching out her hands to the dark where the Senior Subaltern was, and
sobbing. We rose to our feet, feeling that things were going to happen and
ready to believe the worst. In this bad, small world of ours, one knows so
little of the life of the next man--which, after all, is entirely his own
concern--that one is not surprised when a crash comes. Anything might turn up
any day for any one. Perhaps the Senior Subaltern had been trapped in his
youth. Men are crippled that way occasionally. We didn't know; we wanted to
hear; and the Captains' wives were as anxious as we. If he HAD been trapped,
he was to be excused; for the woman from nowhere, in the dusty shoes, and gray
travelling dress, was very lovely, with black hair and great eyes full of
tears. She was tall, with a fine figure, and her voice had a running sob in it
pitiful to hear. As soon as the Senior Subaltern stood up, she threw her arms
round his neck, and called him "my darling," and said she could not bear
waiting alone in England, and his letters were so short and cold, and she was
his to the end of the world, and would he forgive her.
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