"I am much to blame," he said. "I should have spoken that night at Broad
Place, and I held my tongue. I shall hardly forgive myself." The
knowledge that it was Muriel Graham's son who had thus brought ruin and
disgrace upon himself was uppermost in the lieutenant's mind. He felt
that he had failed in the discharge of an obligation, self-imposed, no
doubt, but a very real obligation none the less. "You see, I
understood," he continued remorsefully. "Your father, I am afraid, never
would."
"He never will," interrupted Harry.
"No," Sutch agreed. "Your mother, of course, had she lived, would have
seen clearly; but few women, I think, except your mother. Brute courage!
Women make a god of it. That girl, for instance,"--and again Harry
Feversham interrupted.
"You must not blame her. I was defrauding her into marriage."
Sutch took his hand suddenly from his forehead.
"Suppose that you had never met her, would you still have sent in your
papers?"
"I think not," said Harry, slowly. "I want to be fair. Disgracing my
name and those dead men in the hall I think I would have risked. I could
not risk disgracing her."
And Lieutenant Sutch thumped his fist despairingly upon the table.
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