Harry English put out his hand and clapped him on the shoulder. "My God!" said Bethune again. He turned his head sharply away and his jaw worked. The cry broke from him. "I ought to have died for you! Would to Heaven I had died for you at Inziri! ..." The grasp of his shoulder was tightened. English shook his comrade almost fiercely. "Old man, you were never one of the talkers. Hold your tongue now." Bethune drew a deep breath. The intolerable weight rolled from his heart. English’s hand dropped. It was over and done with; the two friends had met again, soul to soul. In silence they turned and walked towards the house, side by side, steps together, as so often—God, so often!—in the good old days of hardship. "Let us go in," said English, at the door. "They tell me that there can be no change, up there, and she’s in good hands, thank Heaven, but I cannot find a moment’s peace out of the house. Come, we’ll have a cup of tea together." The sun had risen just clear of the moor line into a space of clarity, and shone, a white dazzling disc, sending faint spears into their eyes. It shone, too, pale yet brisk, through the open window of the little dining-room, where, as yet, the board was but half spread, where an ill-kindled fire had flickered into death. (What self-respecting servant could do her work as usual when the family is in affliction?) "Just see to the fire, Ray," said English, and went out of the room. Bethune, with the bachelor’s expediency, had recourse to a candle culled from a sconce, and produced a cheerful, if somewhat acrid flame, to greet his friend when he returned, black kettle in one hand, brown teapot in the other. Soon the hot fragrance circled into the room. "If we’d had a brew of this up at Inziri, those last days, it would have made a difference, eh?" said the master of the house. They drew their chairs to the hearth and sat, each with his cup in his hand, even as in times bygone, with their tin mugs before the camp fire at dawn. In spite of the sense of that hushed room above and the suspense of its brooding over them, Bethune had not felt so warm in his heart these many years. "Man!" he exclaimed suddenly, reverting unconsciously to the Scotch idiom of his youth, "why in the name of Heaven did you do it?" Harry English, staring at the red coals, answered nothing for a while. Not that he had failed to understand the train of thought that ended in the vague-seeming, yet comprehensive question—but that the answer was difficult if not painful. "You see," he said slowly, at last, without shifting his abstracted gaze, "there was so much to find out and so much to consider...." "To find out?" "I had to be sure." Bethune laid his cup on the hob and leaned over towards his friend, his fingers lightly touching the arm of the other’s chair. After a while: "I think I understand," he said, knitting his rugged brows. English gave him a fleeting smile of peculiar sadness.