The Four Feathers

mulating topic of Harry Feversham's disappearance. The townsmen in the climbing street and the gentry at their dinner-tables gossiped to their hearts' c

d to Rathmullen, indeed, went so far as to refuse salmon on the plea that he was not a cannibal, and the saying had a general vogue. Their conjectures as to the cause of the disappearance were no nearer to the truth. For there were only two who knew, and those two went stead

was rumoured that an English general had been killed, that the York and Lancaster Regiment had been cut up. London was uneasy, and at eleven o'clock at night a great crowd of people had gathered beneath the gas-lamps in Pall Mall, watching with pale upturned faces the lighted blinds of the War Office. The crowd was silent and impressively still. Only if a figure moved for an instant across the blinds, a thrill of expectation passed from man to man, and the cro

it! I might have been out there, sitting by a camp-fire in the desert, talking over the battle wit

how his fortunes had gone seriously wrong. He had many questions in his mind, but he did n

remember, a long time ago you gave me your card? I have always kept it, because I have always fear

pped his

upper smoking-room;" and Harry, looking up, saw that

re no light fell directly on his face. Sutch limped after him. "Nor to-night. It is late. To-

nt Sutch asked

ine, we shall meet no one whom we know. I will meet you just

, at a table in the corner of the Criterion grill-room.

!" The throbbing of the engines working the electric light

"I can almost fancy myself in the gun-room again. We

ing of it?" asked Fe

had seemed to him that every one must know. He imagine

as thin and haggard with lack of sleep, there were black hollows beneath his eyes; he drew his breath and made his movements in a restless feverish fashion

g out his cigar-case.

fact speech, so that in the end Sutch almost fell into the illusion that it was just the story of a stranger which Feversham w

gles calling in the barrack-yard beneath my windows. At night I prowl about the streets or lie in bed waiting for the Westminster clock to sound each new quarter of an hour. On

after he raised a hand to his forehead, and so remained with his face screened while the rest was told. Feversham had no doubt of the reason. Lieutenant Sutch wished to conceal the scorn he felt, and could not trust the muscles of his face. Feversham, however, mitigated nothing, but continued steadily an

el 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 obliga

ill," inter

learly; but few women, I think, except your mother. Brute courage! Women make

her. I was defraudin

hand suddenly f

r met her, would you still

Disgracing my name and those dead men in the hall I thi

eak? I might have saved you many unnecessary years of torture. Good heavens! what a childhood you must have spent with that fear all alo

uncomprehending father and the relentless dead men on the walls, had done the harm. There had been no one in whom the boy could confide. The fear of cowardice had sapped incessantly at his heart. He had walked about with it; he had taken it with him to his bed. It had haunted

read 'Hamlet

" said Harr

nk from, upbraiding himself even as you have done. Yet when the moment of action comes, sharp and immediate, does he fail? No, he excels, and just by reason of that foresight. I have seen men i

a c

illain? Breaks

eard, and blows

nutshell. If only I ha

our was eleven. Some plan of action must be decided upon that night. It was not enough to hear Harry Feversham's story. There still remained the question,

y night," he said with a shiver. "That's too like-" and he

told so many years ago, and which he had never forgotten, even for a single day. "But W

ady the plan of action concerning which Lieutenant Sutch was so

? How many people?" he ask

on, Willoughby,"

edit of their regiment they are likely to ho

stace and-

ill not

e perhaps, an

ack in his cha

er! You wr

into Surrey

on, recognised and not used,

r father with that story to tell to him! You do not even write! You stand up and tell it to him face to face! Harr

ther and son which was vouchsafed to any one. But Lieutenant Sutch knew the father and knew the son. He coul

-otherwise I should have taken nothing. But I am not to go home again

and took from it the four white feather

pt them?" ex

isgrace. To me they are much more. They are my opportunities of retrieving it." He looked about the room, separ

that it is possible. But there is a chance that it may be possible, and I must wait upon that chance. There will be few men leading active lives as these three do who wi

nt of human nature disregarded without a scruple the prudence and the calculation proper to the character which he assumed. The obstacles in Harry Feversham's way, the possibility that at the last moment he might shrink ag

I am a civilian, these three are soldiers, surrounded by sol

d be themselves in peril," objected Sutch, "for y

s way out of it sprang clearly up in my mind. But I have thought it over since during these last weeks while I sat listening to the bugles in the barrack-yard. And I am sure there is no other way. But it is well worth trying.

nk?" asked Sutch; and Harr

e feathers came-something rather sacred. I think that I will tell you, because what she said is just what sends me out upon this errand. But for her words, I would very likely never have thought of it. I find in them my motive and a great hope. They may seem strange to you, Mr. Sutch; but I ask you to believe that they are very real to me. She said-it was w

culty, not looking at his companion, and

be repaired,"-and he pointed to the feathers,-"we might

ing with the simple serious issues, and they had reached a point where they could not be affected by any incongruity in their surroundings. Lieutenant Sutch did not speak for some w

se from his chair. He gathered the feathers t

hat case I shall not come back at all. Or they may come only at the very end and after many years. Therefore I thought that I would like just one person

tand," sa

ve just said about Ethne and my chief motive, for I do not think that h

t with an absent face, and Fe

er hard you may be pressed, except to my father under th

ands. His thoughts, indeed, were occupied with the limit Harry had set upon the knowledge which was to be imparted to General Feversham. Even if he died with his mission unfulfilled, Sutch was to hide from the father that which was best in the son, at the son's request. And the saddest part of it, to Sutch's thinking, was that the son wa

nding up, reached for his hat. "Many things are irrevocable, Harry," he said, "but one never knows

the boat had passed into the darkness and until the throb of its paddles could no longer be heard. Then he limped through the rain to his hotel, aware, and regretfully aware, that he was growing old. It was long since he had felt regret on that account, and the feeling was very strange to him. Ever since the Crimea he had been upon the world's half-