Afterwards

"Daresay. Rather rough on the poor devil." The civilian, beneath his pompous exterior, had a kind heart. "Bad enough to have to shoot the girl first, without explaining it all afterwards. Hope to goodness the other chap lets him down lightly."

"Oh, well, he can't say much." Trent broke off abruptly. "Here is Cheniston ... by Jove, I wouldn't like to be Anstice at this moment."

Unconscious of the interest he was arousing, a young man had just entered the room. He was of medium height, broad-shouldered and bronzed, with a good-looking, square face and a resolute chin. Just now he was pale beneath his tan, and his eyes, which were narrow in shape and of a rather hard blue, were strained and anxious.

Inside the room, he looked uncertainly round; and the next moment Anstice rose slowly to his feet.

"You are Mr. Cheniston?" They might have been alone in a desert for all the notice he took of any onlookers. "I think you are looking for me. My name is Anstice."

Bruce Cheniston nodded abruptly.

"Yes. I'm Cheniston. We can't talk here. Will you come up to my room?"

"Thanks." He moved forward, and Cheniston turned to the door.

"This way. I'm some floors up--we'll take the lift."

In silence they made the ascent; and now to his own unwelcome surprise Anstice felt himself awaking from the merciful stupor in which he had been sunk for so many unnoticed days.

Suddenly he began to realize what this interview must mean to Cheniston; and the knowledge that he must tear the knife from his own wound in order to plunge it into the heart of the young man opposite him made him feel as though he were already inwardly bleeding to death.

From being vague and blurred his senses now became preternaturally acute. His surroundings were no longer dim and formless, rather everything grew inhumanly sharp and vivid. To the end of his life he would preserve an extraordinarily faithful recollection of the room into which Cheniston presently ushered him--the usual hotel bedroom in India, with high green walls, mosquito curtains, and an entire absence of all superfluities in the way of furniture or adornment.

On the floor lay a Gladstone bag, half open as the owner had carelessly left it; and Anstice found himself idly speculating as to whether the white and purple striped glory which protruded from it was a shirt or a pair of pyjamas....

His wandering thoughts were suddenly recalled to the affair of the moment; and the minor things of life were forgotten in the onrush of the vital things, the things which matter....