Blake's Burden by Harold Bindloss

The morning was mild and Challoner paced slowly up and down his shrubbery. Bright sunshine fell upon him, the massed evergreens cut off the wind, and in a sheltered border spear-like green points were pushing through the soil in promise of the spring. Challoner knew them all, the veined crocus blades, the tight-closed heads of the hyacinths, and the twin shoots of the daffodils, but, fond as he was of his garden, he gave them scanty attention, and by and by sat down in a sheltered nook lost in painful thought. He had a careworn look and had left the house in a restless mood with a wish to be alone in the open air.

Mrs. Chudleigh's revelation had been a shock. With his sense of duty and family pride, he had, when the news of the frontier disaster first reached him, found it almost impossible to believe that his nephew had been guilty of shameful cowardice; and now it looked as if the disgrace might be brought still closer home. Bertram would presently take his place and, retiring from active service, rule the estate in accordance with Challoner traditions and perhaps exert some influence in politics; he remembered that Mrs. Chudleigh had laid some stress on this. She had, however, told him that Bertram, from whom so much was expected, had shown himself a poltroon and, what was even worse, had allowed an innocent man to suffer for his baseness. Challoner had spent the last few days pondering the evidence she had offered him and had seen one or two weak points in it.