It was discovered later, at the inquest, that the discharge of a punkha coolie had given Dalton's watchful enemies the opportunity they had been seeking to carry out their plan of revenge; and that the man who had been engaged to fill the vacant post was a marked character, living in the village of Panipara, who was well known to the police. Doubtless he had been heavily bribed for the perpetration of the intended crime which had so strangely miscarried. The instigators pointed to their own complicity by disappearing from the District, and the vain search for them occupied Mr. Bright and his staff for many months. As well might one look for a needle in a stack of hay, as expect to find fugitive criminals among the numerous villages of Bengal.
Captain Dalton left for Europe soon after his wife's funeral, his services having been placed at the disposal of the War Office, and Honor treasured in her memory his brief words spoken in farewell as he held her hands in his. "We have both a great deal to do while the War lasts. Will you follow me, and let us work together?" In the moment of parting, it was not possible to keep out of his eyes all his lips could not say, and Honor promised.
EPILOGUE
ALL'S WELL
It was something more than four years later, when the Armistice was signed amid world-wide rejoicings of the Allied Nations, that a young soldier, bronzed and upright, rang the bell of a beautiful flat in Brighton, over-looking the sea. Above his breast pocket, on the left, were two ribbons, the D.S.O. and the M.C., the sight of which had won him glances of approval and soft looks of admiration, all the way along. Those bits of ribbon told wordlessly of self-sacrifice and devotion to duty; valour and endurance;—they suggested to the subconscious mind, danger, bodily discomfort, and endurance to the limit of human suffering, so that this brisk little freckled officer of very ordinary looks, was marked for all time, by those who knew, as one of the many special heroes of the most terrible war the world has ever known.
He was shown into the drawing-room, and, in a moment, a gracious lady swept in with welcome in her eyes and both hands extended.
"Oh, Tommy!—how good it is to see you safe!"