Gerrard's ill-used feelings were still unhealed a week later, when Sir Edmund Antony, learning of the imminent danger of war with Agpur, descended from the hills like a whirlwind to take command of the situation, and incidentally to upset as many as possible of his brother's arrangements. Having learnt all that Gerrard could tell him of the circumstances, he took occasion, while his secretary was at work on the fresh orders he had hastily drafted to Nisbet, the political officer in charge of the negociations with Sher Singh, to speak on more personal matters. "I am sorry to see this continued depression of spirits on your part, Gerrard. The sin of despondency is one to which I myself am so conspicuously prone that I dare lose no opportunity of warning others against it." "Forgive me, sir. Our conversation has led me to recall things so vividly----" "True. But you feel, as you have assured me, that our friend Charteris fell in a good cause?" "There could be no better, sir. But if only I could have died instead of him!" Sir Edmund frowned. "These things are not in our hands. If Charteris's work was done, no efforts of yours or mine could have saved him. If your work is not done, all the powers of hell could not prevail to bring about your death." "But his work was not complete, sir. There was so much in him that no one realised--he had had no opportunity to display it. You and I, and one other person, have some faint idea of what he really was, but no one else can possibly know--the world can never know."