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" Lady Tresham remarked, "our guest to-night seems scarcely likely to distinguish himself."
Ernestine looked over her fan across the drawing-room.
"I have never seen such an alteration in a man," she said, "in so short a time. This morning he amazed me. He knew the right people and did the right things - carried himself too like a man who is sure of himself. To-night he is simply a booby."
"Perhaps it is his evening clothes," Lady Tresham remarked, "they take some getting used to, I believe."
"This morning," Ernestine said, "he had passed that stage altogether. This is, I suppose, a relapse! Such a nuisance for you!"
Lady Tresham rose and smiled sweetly at the man who was taking her in.
"Well, he is to be your charge, so I hope you may find him more amusing than he looks," she answered.
It was an early dinner, to be followed by a visit to a popular theatre. A few hours ago Trent was looking forward to his evening with the keenest pleasure - now he was dazed - he could not readjust his point of view to the new conditions. He knew very well that it was his wealth, and his wealth only, which had brought him as an equal amongst these people, all, so far as education and social breeding was concerned, of so entirely a different sphere. He looked around the table. What would they say if they knew? He would be thrust out as an interloper. Opposite to him was a Peer who was even then engaged in threading the meshes of the Bankruptcy Court, what did they care for that? - not a whit! He was of their order though he was a beggar. But as regards himself, he was fully conscious of the difference. The measure of his wealth was the measure of his standing amongst them. Without it he would be thrust forth - he could make no claim to association with them. The thought filled him with a slow, bitter anger. He sent away his soup untasted, and he could not find heart to speak to the girl who had been the will-o'-the-wisp leading him into this evil plight.
Presently she addressed him.
"Mr. Trent!"
He turned round and looked at her.
"Is it necessary for me to remind you, I wonder," she said, "that it is usual to address a few remarks - quite as a matter of form, you know - to the woman whom you bring in to dinner?"
He eyed her dispassionately.
"I am not used to making conversation," he said. "Is there anything in the world which I could talk about likely to interest you?"
She took a salted almond from a silver dish by his side and smiled sweetly upon him. "Dear me!" she said, "how fierce! Don't attempt it if you feel like that, please! What have you been doing since I saw you last? - losing your money or your temper, or both?"
He looked at her with a curiously grim smile.
"If I lost the former," he said, "I should very soon cease to be a person of interest, or of any account at all, amongst your friends."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You do not strike one," she remarked, "as the sort of person likely to lose a fortune on the race-course."
"You are quite right," he answered, "I think that I won money. A couple of thousand at least."
"Two thousand pounds!" She actually sighed, and lost her appetite for the oyster patty with which she had been trifling. Trent looked around the table.
"At the same time," he continued in a lower key, "I'll make a confession to you, Miss Wendermott, I wouldn't care to make to any one else here. I've been pretty lucky as you know, made money fast - piled it up in fact. To-day, for the first time, I have come face to face with the possibility of a reverse."
"Is this a new character?" she murmured. "Are you becoming faint-hearted?"
"It is no ordinary reverse," he said slowly. "It is collapse - everything!"
"0 - oh!"
She looked at him attentively. Her own heart was beating. If he had not been engrossed by his care lest any one might over-hear their conversation, he would have been astonished at the change in her face
"You are talking in enigmas surely," she said. "Nothing of that sort could possibly happen to you. They tell me that the Bekwando Land shares are priceless, and that you must make millions."
"This afternoon," he said, raising his glass to his lips and draining it, "I think that I must have dozed upon the lawn at Ascot. I sat there for some time, back amongst the trees, and I think that I must have fallen to sleep. There was a whisper in my ears and I saw myself stripped of everything. How was it? I forget now! A concession repudiated, a bank failure, a big slump - what does it matter? The money was gone, and I was simply myself again, Scarlett Trent, a labourer, penniless and of no account."
"It must have been an odd sensation," she said thoughtfully.
"I will tell you what it made me realise," be said. "I am drifting into a dangerous position. I am linking myself to a little world to whom, personally, I am as nothing and less than nothing. I am tolerated for my belongings! If by any chance I were to lose these, what would become of me?"
"You are a man," she said, looking at him earnestly; "you have the nerve and wits of a man, what you have done before you might do again."
"In the meantime I should be ostracised."
"By a good many people, no doubt."
He held his peace for a time, and ate and drank what was set before him. He was conscious that his was scarcely a dinner-table manner. He was too eager, too deeply in earnest. People opposite were looking at them, Ernestine talked to her vis-a-vis. It was some time before he spoke again, when he did he took up the thread of their conversation where he had left it.
"By the majority, of course," he said. "I have wondered sometimes whether there might be any one who would be different."
"I should be sorry," she said demurely.
"Sorry, yes; so would the tradespeople who had had my money and the men who call themselves my friends and forget that they are my debtors."
"You are cynical."
"I cannot help it," he answered. "It is my dream. To-day, you know, I have stood face to face with evil things."
"Do you know," she said, "I should never have called you a dreamer, a man likely to fancy things. I wonder if anything has really happened to make you talk like this?"
He flashed a quick glance at her underneath his heavy brows. Nothing in her face betrayed any more than the most ordinary interest in what he was saying. Yet somehow, from that moment, he had uneasy doubts concerning her, whether there might be by any chance some reason for the tolerance and the interest with which she had regarded him from the first. The mere suspicion of it was a shock to him. He relapsed once more into a state of nervous silence. Ernestine yawned, and her hostess threw more than one pitying glance towards her.
Afterwards the whole party adjourned to the theatre, altogether in an informal manner. Some of the guests had carriages waiting, others went down in hansoms. Ernestine was rather late in coming downstairs and found Trent waiting for her in the hall. She was wearing a wonderful black satin opera cloak with pale green lining, her maid had touched up her hair and wound a string of pearls around her neck. He watched her as she came slowly down the stairs, buttoning her gloves, and looking at him with eyebrows faintly raised to see him waiting there alone. After all, what folly! Was it likely that wealth, however great, could ever make him of her world, could ever bring him in reality one degree nearer to her? That night he had lost all confidence. He told himself that it was the rankest presumption to even think of her.
"The others," he said, "have gone on. Lady Tresham left word that I was to take you."
She glanced at the old-fashioned clock which stood in the corner of the hall.
"How ridiculous to have hurried so!" she said. One might surely be comfortable here instead of waiting at the theatre."
She walked towards the door with him. His own little night-brougham was waiting there, and she stepped into it.
"I am surprised at Lady Tresham," she said, smiling. "I really don't think that I am at all properly chaperoned. This comes, I suppose, from having acquired a character for independence."
Her gown seemed to fill the carriage - a little sea of frothy lace and muslin. He hesitated on the pavement.
"Shall I ride outside?" he suggested. "I don't want to crush you."
She gathered up her skirt at once and made room for him. He directed the driver and stepped in beside her.
"I hope," she said, "that your cigarette restored your spirits. You are not going to be as dull all the evening as you were at dinner, are you?"
He sighed a little wistfully. "I'd like to talk to you," he said simply, "but somehow to-night... you know it was much easier when you were a journalist from the 'Hour'."
"Well, that is what I am now," she said, laughing. "Only I can't get away from all my old friends at once. The day after to-morrow I shall be back at work."
"Do you mean it?" he asked incredulously.
"Of course I do! You don't suppose I find this sort of thing particularly amusing, do you? Hasn't it ever occurred to you that there must be a terrible sameness about people who have been brought up amongst exactly the same surroundings and taught to regard life from exactly the same point of view?"
"But you belong to them - you have their instincts."
"I may belong to them in some ways, but you know that I am a revolted daughter. Haven't I proved it? Haven't I gone out into the world, to the horror of all my relatives, for the sole purpose of getting a firmer grip of life? And yet, do you know, Mr. Trent, I believe that to-night you have forgotten that. You have remembered my present character only, and, in despair of interesting a fashionable young lady, you have not talked to me at all, and I have been very dull."
"It is quite true," he assented. "All around us they were talking of things of which I knew nothing, and you were one of them."
"How foolish! You could have talked to me about Fred and the road-making in Africa and I should have been more interested than in anything they could have said to me."
They were passing a brilliantly-lit corner, and the light flashed upon his strong, set face with its heavy eyebrows and firm lips. He leaned back and laughed hoarsely. Was it her fancy, she wondered, or did he seem not wholly at his ease.
"Haven't I told you a good deal? I should have thought that Fred and I between us had told you all about Africa that you would care to hear."
She shook her head. What she said next sounded to him, in a certain sense, enigmatic.
"There is a good deal left for you to tell me," she said. "Some day I shall hope to know everything."
He met her gaze without flinching.
"Some day," he said, "I hope you will."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The carriage drew up at the theatre and he handed her out - a little awkwardly perhaps, but without absolute clumsiness. They found all the rest of the party already in their seats and the curtain about to go up. They took the two end stalls, Trent on the outside. One chair only, next to him, remained unoccupied.
"You people haven't hurried," Lady Tresham remarked, leaning forward.
"We are in time at any rate," Ernestine answered, letting her cloak fall upon the back of the stall.
The curtain was rung up and the play began. It was a modern society drama, full of all the most up-to-date fashionable jargon and topical illusions. Trent grew more and more bewildered at every moment. Suddenly, towards the end of the first act, a fine dramatic situation leaped out like a tongue of fire. The interest of the whole audience, up to then only mildly amused, became suddenly intense. Trent sat forward in his seat. Ernestine ceased to fan herself. The man and the woman stood face to face - the light badinage which had been passing between them suddenly ended - the man, with his sin stripped bare, mercilessly exposed, the woman, his accuser, passionately eloquent, pouring out her scorn upon a mute victim. The audience knew what the woman in the play did not know, that it was for love of her that the man had sinned, to save her from a terrible danger which had hovered very near her life. The curtain fell, the woman leaving the room with a final taunt flung over her shoulder, the man seated at a table looking steadfastly into the fire with fixed, unseeing eyes. The audience drew a little breath and then applauded; the orchestra struck up and a buzz of conversation began.
It was then that Ernestine first noticed how absorbed the man at her side had become. His hands were gripping the arms of the stall, his eyes were fixed upon the spot somewhere behind the curtain where this sudden little drama had been played out, as though indeed they could pierce the heavy upholstery and see beyond into the room where the very air seemed quivering still with the vehemence of the woman's outpoured scorn. Ernestine spoke to him at last, the sound of her voice brought him back with a start to the present.
"You like it?"
"The latter part," he answered. "What a sudden change! At first I thought it rubbish, afterwards it was wonderful!"
"Hubert is a fine actor," she remarked, fanning herself. "It was his first opportunity in the play, and he certainly took advantage of it."
He turned deliberately round in his seat towards her, and she was struck with the forceful eagerness of his dark, set face.
"The man," he whispered hoarsely, "sinned for the love of the woman. Was he right? Would a woman forgive a man who deceived her for her own sake - when she knew?"
Ernestine held up her programme and studied it deeply.
"I cannot tell," she said, "it depends."
Trent drew a little breath and turned away. A quiet voice from his other side whispered in his ear - "The woman would forgive if she cared for the man."
* * * * *
Trent turned sharply and the light died out of his voice. Surely it was an evil omen, this man's coming; for it was Captain Francis who had taken the vacant seat and who was watching his astonishment with a somewhat saturnine smile.
"Rather a stupid play, isn't it? By the by, Trent, I wish you would ask Miss Wendermott's permission to present me. I met her young cousin out at Attra."
Ernestine heard and leaned forward smiling. Trent did as he was asked, with set teeth and an ill grace. From then, until the curtain went up for the next act, he had only to sit still and listen.
Afterwards the play scarcely fulfilled the promise of its commencement. At the third act Trent had lost all interest in it. Suddenly an idea occurred to him. He drew a card from his pocket and, scribbling a word or two on it, passed it along to Lady Tresham. She leaned forward and smiled approval upon him.
"Delightful!"
Trent reached for his hat and whispered in Ernestine's ear.
"You are all coming to supper with me at the 'Milan,'" he said; "I am going on now to see about it."
She smiled upon him, evidently pleased.
"What a charming idea! But do you mean all of us?"
"Why not?"
He found his carriage outside without much difficulty and drove quickly round to the Milan Restaurant. The director looked doubtful.
"A table for eighteen, sir! It is quite too late to arrange it, except in a private room."
"The ladies prefer the large room," Trent answered decidedly, "and you must arrange it somehow. I'll give you carte blanche as to what you serve, but it must be of the best."
The man bowed. This must be a millionaire, for the restaurant was the "Milan."
"And the name, sir?"
"Scarlett Trent - you may not know me, but Lady Tresham, Lord Colliston, and the Earl of Howton are amongst my guests."
The man saw no more difficulties. The name of Scarlett Trent was the name which impressed him. The English aristocrat he had but little respect for, but a millionaire was certainly next to the gods.
"We must arrange the table crossways, sir, at the end of the room," he said. "And about the flowers?"
"The best, and as many as you can get," Trent answered shortly. "I have a 1OO pound note with me. I shall not grumble if I get little change out of it, but I want value for the money."
"You shall have it, sir! " the man answered significantly - and he kept his word.
Trent reached the theatre only as the people were streaming out. In the lobby he came face to face with Ernestine and Francis. They were talking together earnestly, but ceased directly they saw him.
"I have been telling Captain Francis," Ernestine said, "of your delightful invitation."
"I hope that Captain Francis will join us," Trent said coldly.
Francis stepped behind for a moment to light a cigarette.
"I shall be delighted," he answered.
* * * * *
The supper party was one of those absolute and complete successes which rarely fall to the lot of even the most carefully thought out of social functions. Every one of Lady Tresham's guests had accepted the hurried invitation, every one seemed in good spirits, and delighted at the opportunity of unrestrained conversation after several hours at the theatre. The supper itself, absolutely the best of its kind, from the caviare and plovers' eggs to the marvellous ices, and served in one of the handsomest rooms in London, was really beyond criticism. To Trent it seemed almost like a dream, as he leaned back in his chair and looked down at the little party - the women with their bare shoulders and jewels, bathed in the soft glow of the rose-shaded electric lights, the piles of beautiful pink and white flowers, the gleaming silver, and the wine which frothed in their glasses. The music of the violins on the balcony blended with the soft, gay voices of the women. Ernestine was by his side, every one was good-humoured and enjoying his hospitality. Only one face at the table was a reminder of the instability of his fortunes - a face he had grown to hate during the last few hours with a passionate, concentrated hatred. Yet the man was of the same race as these people, his connections were known to many of them, he was making new friends and reviving old ties every moment. During a brief lull in the conversation his clear, soft voice suddenly reached Trent's ears. He was telling a story.
"Africa," he was saying, "is a country of surprises. Attra seems to be a city of hopeless exile for all white people. Last time I was there I used to notice every day a very old man making a pretence of working in a kitchen garden attached to a little white mission-house - a Basle Society depot. He always seemed to be leaning on his spade, always gazing out seawards in the same intent, fascinated way. Some one told me his history at last. He was an Englishman of good position who had got into trouble in his younger days and served a term of years in prison. When he came out, sooner than disgrace his family further, he published a false account of his death and sailed under a disguised name for Africa. There he has lived ever since, growing older and sinking lower, often near fortune but always missing it, a slave to bad habits, weak and dissolute if you like, but ever keeping up his voluntary sacrifice, ever with that unconquerable longing for one last glimpse of his own country and his own people. I saw him, not many months ago, still there, still with his eyes turned seawards and with the same wistful droop of the head. Somehow I can't help thinking that that old man was also a hero."
The tinkling of glasses and the sort murmuring of whispered conversation had ceased during Francis' story. Every one was a little affected - the soft throbbing of the violins upon the balcony was almost a relief. Then there was a little murmur of sympathetic remarks - but amongst it all Trent sat at the head of the table with white, set face but with red fire before his eyes. This man had played him false. He dared not look at Ernestine - only he knew that her eyes were wet with tears and that her bosom was heaving.
The spirits of men and women who sup are mercurial things, and it was a gay leave-taking half an hour or so later in the little Moorish room at the head of the staircase. But Ernestine left her host without even appearing to see his outstretched hand, and he let her go without a word. Only when Francis would have followed her Trent laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder.
"I must have a word with you, Francis," he said.
"I will come back," he said. "I must see Miss Wendermott into her carriage."
But Trent's hand remained there, a grip of iron from which there was no escaping. He said nothing, but Francis knew his man and had no idea of making a scene. So he remained till the last had gone and a tall, black servant had brought their coats from the cloak-room.
"You will come with me please," Trent said, "I have a few words to say to you."
Francis shrugged his shoulders and obeyed.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Scarcely a word passed between the two men until they found themselves in the smoking-room of Trent's house. A servant noiselessly arranged decanters and cigars upon the sideboard, and, in response to an impatient movement of Trent's, withdrew. Francis lit a cigarette. Trent, contrary to his custom, did not smoke. He walked to the door and softly locked it. Then he returned and stood looking down at his companion.
"Francis," he said, "you have been my enemy since the day I saw you first in Bekwando village."
Scarcely that," Francis objected. "I have distrusted you since then if you like."
"Call it what you like," Trent answered. "Only to-night you have served me a scurvy trick. You were a guest at my table and you gave me not the slightest warning. On the contrary, this morning you offered me a week's respite."
"The story I told," Francis answered, "could have had no significance to them."
"I don't know whether you are trying to deceive me or not," Trent said, "only if you do not know, let me tell you - Miss Wendermott is that old man's daughter!"
The man's start was real. There was no doubt about that. "And she knew?"
"She knew that he had been in Africa, but she believed that he had died there. What she believes at this moment I cannot tell. Your story evidently moved her. She will probably try to find out from you the truth."
Francis nodded.
"She has asked me to call upon her to-morrow."
"Exactly. Now, forgive my troubling you with personal details, but you've got to understand. I mean Miss Wendermott to be my wife."
Francis sat up in his chair genuinely surprised. Something like a scowl was on his dark, sallow face.
"Your wife !' he exclaimed, "aren't you joking, Trent?"
"I am not," Trent answered sharply. "From the moment I saw her that has been my fixed intention. Every one thinks of me as simply a speculator with the money fever in my veins. Perhaps that was true once. It isn't now! I must be rich to give her the position she deserves. That's all I care for money."'
"I am very much interested," Francis said slowly, "to hear of your intentions. Hasn't it occurred to you, however, that your behaviour toward Miss Wendermott's father will take a great deal of explanation?"
"If there is no interference," Trent said, "I can do it. There is mystery on her part too, for I offered a large reward and news of him through my solicitor, and she actually refused to reply. She has refused any money accruing to her through her father, or to be brought into contact with any one who could tell her about him."
"The fact," Francis remarked drily, "is scarcely to her credit. Monty may have been disreputable enough, I've no doubt he was; but his going away and staying there all these years was a piece of noble unselfishness."
"Monty has been hardly used in some ways," Trent said. "I've done my best by him, though."
"That," Francis said coldly, "is a matter of opinion."
"I know very well," Trent answered, "what yours is. You are welcome to it. You can blackguard me all round London if you like in a week - but I want a week's grace."
"Why should I grant it you?"
Trent shrugged his shoulders.
"I won't threaten," he said, "and I won't offer to bribe you, but I've got to have that week's grace. We're both men, Francis, who've been accustomed to our own way, I think. I want to know on what terms you'll grant it me."
Francis knocked the ash off his cigarette and rose slowly to his feet.
"You want to know," he repeated meditatively, "on what terms I'll hold my tongue for a week. Well, here's my answer! On no terms at all!"
"You don't mean that," Trent said quietly.
"We shall see," Francis answered grimly. "I'll be frank with you, Trent. When we came in here you called me your enemy. Well, in a sense you were right. I distrusted and disliked you from the moment I first met you in Bekwando village with poor old Monty for a partner, and read the agreement you had drawn up and the clause about the death of either making the survivor sole legatee. In a regular fever swamp Monty was drinking poison like water - and you were watching. That may have seemed all right to you. To me it was very much like murder. It was my mistrust of you which made me send men after you both through the bush, and, sure enough, they found poor Monty abandoned, left to die while you had hastened off to claim your booty. After that I had adventures enough of my own for a bit and I lost sight of you until I came across you and your gang road-making, and I am bound to admit that you saved my life. That's neither here nor there. I asked about Monty and you told me some plausible tale. I went to the place you spoke of - to find him of course spirited away. We have met again in England, Scarlett Trent, and I have asked once more for Monty. Once more I am met with evasions. This morning I granted you a week - now I take back my word. I am going to make public what I know to-morrow morning."
"Since this morning, then," Trent said, "your ill-will toward me has increased."
"Quite true," Francis answered. "We are playing with the cards upon the table, so I will be frank with you. What you told me about your intentions towards Miss Wendermott makes me determined to strike at once!"
"You yourself, I fancy," Trent said quietly, "admired her?"
"More than any woman I have ever met," Francis answered promptly, "and I consider your attitude towards her grossly presumptuous."
Trent stood quite still for a moment - then he unlocked the door.
"You had better go, Francis," he said quietly. "I have a defence prepared but I will reserve it. And listen, when I locked that door it was with a purpose. I had no mind to let you leave as you are leaving. Never mind. You can go - only be quick."
Francis paused upon the threshold. "You understand," he said significantly.
"I understand," Trent answered.
* * * * *
An hour passed, and Trent still remained in the chair before his writing-table, his head upon his hand, his eyes fixed upon vacancy. Afterwards he always thought of that hour as one of the bitterest of his life. A strong and self-reliant man, he had all his life ignored companionship, had been well content to live without friends, self-contained and self-sufficient. To-night the spectre of a great loneliness sat silently by his side! His heart was sore, his pride had been bitterly touched, the desire and the whole fabric of his life was in imminent and serious danger.
The man who had left him was an enemy and a prejudiced man, but Trent knew that he was honest. He was the first human being to whom he had ever betrayed the solitary ambition of his life, and his scornful words seemed still to bite the air. If - he was right! Why not? Trent looked with keen, merciless eyes through his past, and saw never a thing there to make him glad. He had started life a workman, with a few ambitions' all of a material nature - he had lived the life of a cold, scheming money-getter, absolutely selfish, negatively moral, doing little evil perhaps, but less good. There was nothing in his life to make him worthy of a woman's love, most surely there was nothing which could ever make it possible that such a woman as Ernestine Wendermott should ever care for him. All the wealth of Africa could never make him anything different from what he was. And yet, as he sat and realised this, he knew that he was writing down his life a failure. For, beside his desire for her, there were no other things he cared for in life. Already he was weary of financial warfare - the City life had palled upon him. He looked around the magnificent room in the mansion which his agents had bought and furnished for him. He looked at the pile of letters waiting for him upon his desk, little square envelopes many of them, but all telling the same tale, all tributes to his great success, and the mockery of it all smote hard upon the walls of his fortitude. Lower and lower his head drooped until it was buried in his folded arms - and the hour which followed he always reckoned the bitterest of his life.
CHAPTER XL
A little earlier than usual next morning Trent was at his office in the City, prepared for the worst, and in less than half an hour he found himself face to face with one of those crises known to most great financiers at some time or other during their lives. His credit was not actually assailed, but it was suspended. The general public did not understand the situation, even those who were in a measure behind the scenes found it hard to believe that the attack upon the Bekwando Gold and Land shares was purely a personal one. For it was Da Souza who had fired the train, who had flung his large holding of shares upon the market, and, finding them promptly taken up, had gone about with many pious exclamations of thankfulness and sinister remarks. Many smaller holders followed suit, and yet never for a moment did the market waver. Gradually it leaked out that Scarlett Trent was the buyer, and public interest leaped up at once. Would Trent be able to face settling-day without putting his vast holdings upon the market? If so the bulls were going to have the worst knock they had had for years - and yet - and yet - the murmur went round from friend to friend - " Sell your Bekwandos."
At midday there came an urgent message from Trent's bankers, and as he read it he cursed. It was short but eloquent.
"DEAR SIR, - We notice that your account to-day stands 119,000 pounds overdrawn, against which we hold as collateral security shares in the Bekwando Land Company to the value of 150,000 pounds. As we have received certain very disquieting information concerning the value of these shares, we must ask you to adjust the account before closing hours to-day, or we shall be compelled to place the shares upon the market. "Yours truly, "A. SINCLAIR, General Manager."
Trent tore the letter into atoms, but he never quailed. Telegraph and telephone worked his will, he saw all callers, a cigar in his mouth and flower in his buttonhole, perfectly at his ease, sanguine and confident. A few minutes before closing time he strolled into the bank and no one noticed a great bead of perspiration which stood out upon his forehead. He made out a credit slip for 119,000 pounds, and, passing it across the counter with a roll of notes and cheques, asked for his shares.
They sent for the manager. Trent was ushered with much ceremony into his private room. The manager was flushed and nervous.
"I am afraid you must have misunderstood my note, Mr. Trent," he stammered. But Trent, remembering all that he had gone through to raise the money, stopped him short.
"This is not a friendly call, Mr. Sinclair," he said, "but simply a matter of business. I wish to clear my account with you to the last halfpenny, and I will take my shares away with me. I have paid in the amount I owe. Let one of your clerks make out the interest account."
The manager rang the bell for the key of the security safe. He opened it and took out the shares with fingers which trembled a good deal.
"Did I understand you, Mr. Trent, that you desired to absolutely close the account?" he asked.
"Most decidedly," Trent answered.
"We shall be very sorry to lose you."
"The sorrow will be all on your side, then," Trent answered grimly. "You have done your best to ruin me, you and that blackguard Da Souza, who brought me here. If you had succeeded in lumping those shares upon the market to-day or to-morrow, you know very well what the result would have been. I don't know whose game you have been playing, but I can guess!"
"I can assure you, Mr. Trent," the manager declared in his suavest and most professional manner, "that you are acting under a complete misapprehension. I will admit that our notice was a little short. Suppose we withdraw it altogether, eh? I am quite satisfied. We will put back the shares in the safe and you shall keep your money."
"No, I'm d - d if you do!" Trent answered bluntly. "You've had your money and I'll have the shares. I don't leave this bank without them, and I'll be shot if ever I enter it again."
So Trent, with his back against the wall and not a friend to help him, faced for twenty-four hours the most powerful bull syndicate which had ever been formed against a single Company. Inquiries as to his right of title had poured in upon him, and to all of them he had returned the most absolute and final assurances. Yet he knew when closing-time came, that he had exhausted every farthing he possessed in the world - it seemed hopeless to imagine that he could survive another day. But with the morning came a booming cable from Bekwando. There had been a great find of gold before ever a shaft had been sunk; an expert, from whom as yet nothing had been heard, wired an excited and wonderful report. Then the men who had held on to their Bekwandos rustled their morning papers and walked smiling to their offices. Prices leaped up. Trent's directors ceased to worry him and wired invitations to luncheon at the West End. The bulls were the sport of everybody. When closing-time came Trent had made 100,000 pounds, and was looked upon everywhere as one of the rocks of finance.
Only then he began to realise what the strain had been to him. His hard, impassive look had never altered, he had been seen everywhere in his accustomed City haunts, his hat a little better brushed than usual, his clothes a little more carefully put on, his buttonhole more obvious and his laugh readier. No one guessed the agony through which he had passed, no one knew that he had spent the night at a little inn twelve miles away, to which he had walked after nine o'clock at night. He had not a single confidant, even his cashier had no idea whence came the large sums of money which he had paid away right and left. But when it was all over he left the City, and, leaning back in the corner of his little brougham, was driven away to Pont Street. Here he locked himself in his room, took off his coat and threw himself upon a sofa with a big cigar between his teeth.
"If you let any one in to see me, Miles," he told the footman, "I'll kick you out of the house." So, though the bell rang often, he remained alone. But as he lay there with half-closed eyes living again through the tortures of the last few hours, he heard a voice that startled him. It was surely hers - already! He sprang up and opened the door. Ernestine and Captain Francis were in the hall.
He motioned them to follow him into the room. Ernestine was flushed and her eyes were very bright. She threw up her veil and faced him haughtily. "Where is he?" she asked. "I know everything. I insist upon seeing him at once."
"That," he said coolly, "will depend upon whether he is fit to see you!"
He rang the bell.
"Tell Miss Fullagher to step this way a moment," he ordered.
"He is in this house, then," she cried. He took no notice. In a moment a young woman dressed in the uniform of one of the principal hospitals entered.
"Miss Fullagher," he asked, "how is the patient?"
"We've had a lot of trouble with him, sir," she said significantly. "He was terrible all last night, and he's very weak this morning. Is this the young lady, sir?"
"This is the young lady who I told you would want to see him when you thought it advisable."
The nurse looked doubtful. "Sir Henry is upstairs, sir," she said. "I had better ask his advice."
Trent nodded and she withdrew. The three were left alone, Ernestine and Francis remained apart as though by design. Trent was silent.
She returned in a moment or two.
"Sir Henry has not quite finished his examination, sir," she announced. "The young lady can come up in half an hour."
Again they were left alone. Then Trent crossed the room and stood between them and the door.
"Before you see your father, Miss Wendermott," he said, "I have an explanation to make to you!"
CHAPTER XLI
He looked at him calmly, but in her set, white face he seemed to read already his sentence!
"Do you think it worth while, Mr. Trent? There is so much, as you put it, to be explained, that the task, even to a man of your versatility, seems hopeless!"
"I shall not trouble you long," he said. "At least one man's word should be as good as another's - and you have listened to what my enemy " - he motioned towards Francis - " has to say."
Francis shrugged his shoulders.
"I can assure you," he interrupted, "that I have no feeling of enmity towards you in the slightest. My opinion you know. I have never troubled to conceal it. But I deny that I am prejudiced by any personal feeling."
Trent ignored his speech.
"What I have to say to you," he continued addressing Ernestine, "I want to say before you see your father. I won't take up your time. I won't waste words. I take you back ten years to when I met him at Attra and we became partners in a certain enterprise. Your father at that time was a harmless wreck of a man who was fast killing himself with brandy. He had some money, I had none. With it we bought the necessary outfit and presents for my enterprise and started for Bekwando. The whole of the work fell to my share, and with great trouble I succeeded in obtaining the concessions we were working for. Your father spent all his time drinking, and playing cards, when I would play with him. The agreement as to the sharing of the profits was drawn up, it is true, by me, but at that time he made no word of complaint. I had no relations, he described himself as cut off wholly from his. It was here Francis first came on the scene. He found your father half drunk, and when he read the agreement it was plain what he thought. He thought that I was letting your father kill himself that the whole thing might be mine. He has probably told you so. I deny it. I did all I could to keep him sober!
"On our homeward way your father was ill and our bearers deserted us. We were pursued by the natives, who repented their concession, and I had to fight them more than once, half a dozen strong, with your father unconscious at my feet. It is true that I left him in the bush, but it was at his bidding and I believed him dying. It was my only chance and I took it. I escaped and reached Attra. Then, to raise money to reach England, I had to borrow from a man named Da Souza, and afterwards, in London, to start the Company, I had to make him my partner in the profits of the concession. One day I quarrelled with him - it was just at the time I met you - and then, for the first time, I heard of your father's being alive. I went out to Africa to bring him back and Da Souza followed me in abject fear, for as my partner he lost half if your father's claim was good. I found your father infirm and only half sane. I did all I could for him whilst I worked in the interior, and meant to bring him back to England with me when I came. unfortunately he recovered a little and suddenly seized upon the idea of visiting England. He left before me and fell into the hands of Da Souza, who had the best possible reasons in the world for keeping him in the background. I rescued him from them in time to save him from death and brought him to my own house, sent for doctors and nurses, and, when he was fit for you to see, I should have sent for you. I did not, I'll admit, make any public declaration of his existence, for the simple reason that it would have crippled our Company, and there are the interests of the shareholders to be considered, but I executed and signed a deed of partnership days ago which makes him an equal sharer in every penny I possess. Now this is the truth, Miss Wendermott, and if it is not a story I am particularly proud of, I don't very well see what else I could have done. It is my story and it is a true one. Will you believe it or will you take his word against mine?"
She would have spoken, but Francis held up his hand.
"My story," he said coolly, "has been told behind your back. It is only fair to repeat it to your face. I have told Miss Wendermott this - that I met you first in the village of Bekwando with a concession in your hand made out to you and her father jointly, with the curious proviso that in the event of the death of one the other was his heir. I pointed out to Miss Wendermott that you were in the prime of life and in magnificent condition, while her father was already on the threshold of the grave and drinking himself into a fever in a squalid hut in a village of swamps. I told her that I suspected foul play, that I followed you both and found her father left to the tender mercies of the savages, deserted by you in the bush. I told her that many months afterwards he disappeared, simultaneously with your arrival in the country, that a day or two ago you swore to me you had no idea where he was. That has been my story, Trent, let Miss Wendermott choose between them."
"I am content," Trent cried fiercely. "Your story is true enough, but it is cunningly linked together. You have done your worst. Choose!"
For ever afterwards he was glad of that single look of reproach which seemed to escape her unwittingly as her eyes met his. But she turned away and his heart was like a stone.
"You have deceived me, Mr. Trent. I am very sorry, and very disappointed."
"And you," he cried passionately, "are you yourself so blameless? Were you altogether deceived by your relations, or had you never a suspicion that your father might still be alive? You had my message through Mr. Cuthbert; I met you day by day after you knew that I had been your father's partner, and never once did you give yourself away! Were you tarred with the same brush as those canting snobs who doomed a poor old man to a living death? Doesn't it look like it? What am I to think of you?"
"Your judgment, Mr. Trent," she answered quietly, "is of no importance to me! It does not interest me in any way. But I will tell you this. If I did not disclose myself, it was because I distrusted you. I wanted to know the truth, and I set myself to find it out."
"Your friendship was a lie, then!" he cried, with flashing eyes. "To you I was nothing but a suspected man to be spied upon and betrayed."
She faltered and did not answer him. Outside the nurse was knocking at the door. Trent waved them away with an imperious gesture.
"Be off," he cried, "both of you! You can do your worst! I thank Heaven that I am not of your class, whose men have flints for hearts and whose women can lie like angels."
They left him alone, and Trent, with a groan, plucked from his heart the one strong, sweet hope which had changed his life so wonderfully. Upstairs, Monty was sobbing, with his little girl's arms about him.
CHAPTER XLII
With the darkness had come a wind from the sea, and the boy crept outside in his flannels and planter's hat and threw himself down in a cane chair with a little murmur of relief. Below him burned the white lights of the town, a little noisier than usual to-night, for out in the bay a steamer was lying-to, and there had been a few passengers and cargo to land. The boy had had a hard day's work, or he would have been in the town himself to watch for arrivals and wait for the mail. He closed his eyes, half asleep, for the sun had been hot and the murmurs of the sea below was almost like a lullaby. As he lay there a man's voice from the path reached him. He sprang up, listening intently. It must have been fancy - and yet! He leaned over the wooden balcony. The figure of a man loomed out through the darkness, came nearer, became distinct. Fred recognised him with a glad shout.
"Trent!" he cried. "Scarlett Trent, by all that's amazing!"
Trent held out his hand quickly. Somehow the glad young voice, quivering with excitement, touched his heart in an unexpected and unusual manner. It was pleasant to be welcomed like this - to feel that one person in the world at least was glad of his coming. For Trent was a sorely stricken man and the flavour of life had gone from him. Many a time he had looked over the steamer's side during that long, lonely voyage and gazed almost wishfully into the sea, in whose embrace was rest. It seemed to him that he had been a gambler playing for great stakes, and the turn of the wheel had gone against him.
"Fred!"
They stood with hands locked together, the boy breathless with surprise. Then he saw that something was wrong.
"What is it, Trent?" he asked quickly. "Have we gone smash after all, or have you been ill?"
Trent shook his head and smiled gravely.
"Neither," he said. "The Company is booming, I believe. Civilised ways didn't agree with me, I'm afraid. That's all! I've come back to have a month or two's hard work - the best physic in the world."
"I am delighted to see you," Fred said heartily. "Everything's going A1 here, and they've built me this little bungalow, only got in it last week - stunning, isn't it? But - just fancy your being here again so soon! Are your traps coming up?"
"I haven't many," Trent answered. "They're on the way. Have you got room for me?"
"Room for you!" the boy repeated scornfully. "Why, I'm all alone here. It's the only thing against the place, being a bit lonely. Room for you! I should think there is! Here, Dick! Dinner at once, and some wine!"
Trent was taken to see his room, the boy talking all the time, and later on dinner was served and the boy did the honours, chaffing and talking lightly. But later on when they sat outside, smoking furiously to keep off the mosquitoes and watching the fireflies dart in and out amongst the trees, the boy was silent. Then he leaned over and laid his hand on Trent's arm.
"Tell me all about it - do," he begged.
Trent was startled, touched, and suddenly filled with a desire for sympathy such as he had never before in his life experienced. He hesitated, but it was only for a moment.
"I never thought to tell any one," he said slowly, "I think I'd like to!"
And he did. He told his whole story. He did not spare himself. He spoke of the days of his earlier partnership with Monty, and he admitted the apparent brutality of his treatment of him on more than one occasion. He spoke of Ernestine too - of his strange fancy for the photograph of Monty's little girl, a fancy which later on when he met her became almost immediately the dominant passion of his life. Then he spoke of the coming of Francis, of the awakening of Ernestine's suspicions, and of that desperate moment when he risked everything on her faith in him - and lost. There was little else to tell and afterwards there was a silence. But presently the boy's hand fell upon his arm almost caressingly and he leaned over through the darkness.
"Women are such idiots," the boy declared, with all the vigour and certainty of long experience. "If only Aunt Ernestine had known you half as well as I do, she would have been quite content to have trusted you and to have believed that what you did was for the best. But I say, Trent, you ought to have waited for it. After she had seen her father and talked with him she must have understood you better. I shall write to her."
But Trent shook his head.
"No," he said sternly, "it is too late now. That moment taught me all I wanted to know. It was her love I wanted, Fred, and - that - no use hoping for that, or she would have trusted me. After all I was half a madman ever to have expected it - a rough, coarse chap like me, with only a smattering of polite ways! It was madness! Some day I shall get over it! We'll chuck work for a bit, soon, Fred, and go for some lions. That'll give us something to think about at any rate."
But the lions which Trent might have shot lived in peace, for on the morrow he was restless and ill, and within a week the deadly fever of the place had him in its clutches. The boy nursed him and the German doctor came up from Attra and, when he learnt who his patient was, took up his quarters in the place. But for all his care and the boy's nursing things went badly with Scarlett Trent.
To him ended for a while all measure of days - time became one long night, full of strange, tormenting flashes of thought, passing like red fire before his burning eyes. Sometimes it was Monty crying to him from the bush, sometimes the yelling of those savages at Bekwando seemed to fill the air, sometimes Ernestine was there, listening to his passionate pleading with cold, set face, In the dead of night he saw her and the still silence was broken by his hoarse, passionate cries, which they strove in vain to check. And when at last he lay white and still with exhaustion, the doctor looked at the boy and softly shook his head. He had very little hope.
Trent grew worse. In those rare flashes of semi-consciousness which sometimes come to the fever-stricken, he reckoned himself a dying man and contemplated the end of all things without enthusiasm and without regret. The one and only failure of his life had eaten like canker into his heart. It was death he craved for in the hot, burning nights, and death came and sat, a grisly shadow, at his pillow. The doctor and the boy did their best, but it was not they who saved him.
There came a night when he raved, and the sound of a woman's name rang out from the open windows of the little bungalow, rang out through the drawn mosquito netting amongst the palm-trees, across the surf-topped sea to the great steamer which lay in the bay. Perhaps she heard it - perhaps after all it was a fancy. Only, in the midst of his fever, a hand as soft as velvet and as cool as the night sea-wind touched his forehead, and a voice sounded in his ears so sweetly that the blood burned no longer in his veins, so sweetly that he lay back upon his pillow like a man under the influence of a strong narcotic and slept. Then the doctor smiled and the boy sobbed.
"I came," she said softly, "because it was the only atonement I could make. I ought to have trusted you. Do you know, even my father told me that."
"I have made mistakes," he said, "and of course behaved badly to him."
"Now that everything has been explained," she said, "I scarcely see what else you could have done. At least you saved him from Da Souza when his death would have made you a freer man. He is looking forward to seeing you, you must make haste and get strong."
"For his sake," he murmured.
She leaned over and caressed him lightly. "For mine, dear."
End
" Lady Tresham remarked, "our guest to-night seems scarcely likely to distinguish himself."
Ernestine looked over her fan across the drawing-room.
"I have never seen such an alteration in a man," she said, "in so short a time. This morning he amazed me. He knew the right people and did the right things - carried himself too like a man who is sure of himself. To-night he is simply a booby."
"Perhaps it is his evening clothes," Lady Tresham remarked, "they take some getting used to, I believe."
"This morning," Ernestine said, "he had passed that stage altogether. This is, I suppose, a relapse! Such a nuisance for you!"
Lady Tresham rose and smiled sweetly at the man who was taking her in.
"Well, he is to be your charge, so I hope you may find him more amusing than he looks," she answered.
It was an early dinner, to be followed by a visit to a popular theatre. A few hours ago Trent was looking forward to his evening with the keenest pleasure - now he was dazed - he could not readjust his point of view to the new conditions. He knew very well that it was his wealth, and his wealth only, which had brought him as an equal amongst these people, all, so far as education and social breeding was concerned, of so entirely a different sphere. He looked around the table. What would they say if they knew? He would be thrust out as an interloper. Opposite to him was a Peer who was even then engaged in threading the meshes of the Bankruptcy Court, what did they care for that? - not a whit! He was of their order though he was a beggar. But as regards himself, he was fully conscious of the difference. The measure of his wealth was the measure of his standing amongst them. Without it he would be thrust forth - he could make no claim to association with them. The thought filled him with a slow, bitter anger. He sent away his soup untasted, and he could not find heart to speak to the girl who had been the will-o'-the-wisp leading him into this evil plight.
Presently she addressed him.
"Mr. Trent!"
He turned round and looked at her.
"Is it necessary for me to remind you, I wonder," she said, "that it is usual to address a few remarks - quite as a matter of form, you know - to the woman whom you bring in to dinner?"
He eyed her dispassionately.
"I am not used to making conversation," he said. "Is there anything in the world which I could talk about likely to interest you?"
She took a salted almond from a silver dish by his side and smiled sweetly upon him. "Dear me!" she said, "how fierce! Don't attempt it if you feel like that, please! What have you been doing since I saw you last? - losing your money or your temper, or both?"
He looked at her with a curiously grim smile.
"If I lost the former," he said, "I should very soon cease to be a person of interest, or of any account at all, amongst your friends."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You do not strike one," she remarked, "as the sort of person likely to lose a fortune on the race-course."
"You are quite right," he answered, "I think that I won money. A couple of thousand at least."
"Two thousand pounds!" She actually sighed, and lost her appetite for the oyster patty with which she had been trifling. Trent looked around the table.
"At the same time," he continued in a lower key, "I'll make a confession to you, Miss Wendermott, I wouldn't care to make to any one else here. I've been pretty lucky as you know, made money fast - piled it up in fact. To-day, for the first time, I have come face to face with the possibility of a reverse."
"Is this a new character?" she murmured. "Are you becoming faint-hearted?"
"It is no ordinary reverse," he said slowly. "It is collapse - everything!"
"0 - oh!"
She looked at him attentively. Her own heart was beating. If he had not been engrossed by his care lest any one might over-hear their conversation, he would have been astonished at the change in her face
"You are talking in enigmas surely," she said. "Nothing of that sort could possibly happen to you. They tell me that the Bekwando Land shares are priceless, and that you must make millions."
"This afternoon," he said, raising his glass to his lips and draining it, "I think that I must have dozed upon the lawn at Ascot. I sat there for some time, back amongst the trees, and I think that I must have fallen to sleep. There was a whisper in my ears and I saw myself stripped of everything. How was it? I forget now! A concession repudiated, a bank failure, a big slump - what does it matter? The money was gone, and I was simply myself again, Scarlett Trent, a labourer, penniless and of no account."
"It must have been an odd sensation," she said thoughtfully.
"I will tell you what it made me realise," be said. "I am drifting into a dangerous position. I am linking myself to a little world to whom, personally, I am as nothing and less than nothing. I am tolerated for my belongings! If by any chance I were to lose these, what would become of me?"
"You are a man," she said, looking at him earnestly; "you have the nerve and wits of a man, what you have done before you might do again."
"In the meantime I should be ostracised."
"By a good many people, no doubt."
He held his peace for a time, and ate and drank what was set before him. He was conscious that his was scarcely a dinner-table manner. He was too eager, too deeply in earnest. People opposite were looking at them, Ernestine talked to her vis-a-vis. It was some time before he spoke again, when he did he took up the thread of their conversation where he had left it.
"By the majority, of course," he said. "I have wondered sometimes whether there might be any one who would be different."
"I should be sorry," she said demurely.
"Sorry, yes; so would the tradespeople who had had my money and the men who call themselves my friends and forget that they are my debtors."
"You are cynical."
"I cannot help it," he answered. "It is my dream. To-day, you know, I have stood face to face with evil things."
"Do you know," she said, "I should never have called you a dreamer, a man likely to fancy things. I wonder if anything has really happened to make you talk like this?"
He flashed a quick glance at her underneath his heavy brows. Nothing in her face betrayed any more than the most ordinary interest in what he was saying. Yet somehow, from that moment, he had uneasy doubts concerning her, whether there might be by any chance some reason for the tolerance and the interest with which she had regarded him from the first. The mere suspicion of it was a shock to him. He relapsed once more into a state of nervous silence. Ernestine yawned, and her hostess threw more than one pitying glance towards her.
Afterwards the whole party adjourned to the theatre, altogether in an informal manner. Some of the guests had carriages waiting, others went down in hansoms. Ernestine was rather late in coming downstairs and found Trent waiting for her in the hall. She was wearing a wonderful black satin opera cloak with pale green lining, her maid had touched up her hair and wound a string of pearls around her neck. He watched her as she came slowly down the stairs, buttoning her gloves, and looking at him with eyebrows faintly raised to see him waiting there alone. After all, what folly! Was it likely that wealth, however great, could ever make him of her world, could ever bring him in reality one degree nearer to her? That night he had lost all confidence. He told himself that it was the rankest presumption to even think of her.
"The others," he said, "have gone on. Lady Tresham left word that I was to take you."
She glanced at the old-fashioned clock which stood in the corner of the hall.
"How ridiculous to have hurried so!" she said. One might surely be comfortable here instead of waiting at the theatre."
She walked towards the door with him. His own little night-brougham was waiting there, and she stepped into it.
"I am surprised at Lady Tresham," she said, smiling. "I really don't think that I am at all properly chaperoned. This comes, I suppose, from having acquired a character for independence."
Her gown seemed to fill the carriage - a little sea of frothy lace and muslin. He hesitated on the pavement.
"Shall I ride outside?" he suggested. "I don't want to crush you."
She gathered up her skirt at once and made room for him. He directed the driver and stepped in beside her.
"I hope," she said, "that your cigarette restored your spirits. You are not going to be as dull all the evening as you were at dinner, are you?"
He sighed a little wistfully. "I'd like to talk to you," he said simply, "but somehow to-night... you know it was much easier when you were a journalist from the 'Hour'."
"Well, that is what I am now," she said, laughing. "Only I can't get away from all my old friends at once. The day after to-morrow I shall be back at work."
"Do you mean it?" he asked incredulously.
"Of course I do! You don't suppose I find this sort of thing particularly amusing, do you? Hasn't it ever occurred to you that there must be a terrible sameness about people who have been brought up amongst exactly the same surroundings and taught to regard life from exactly the same point of view?"
"But you belong to them - you have their instincts."
"I may belong to them in some ways, but you know that I am a revolted daughter. Haven't I proved it? Haven't I gone out into the world, to the horror of all my relatives, for the sole purpose of getting a firmer grip of life? And yet, do you know, Mr. Trent, I believe that to-night you have forgotten that. You have remembered my present character only, and, in despair of interesting a fashionable young lady, you have not talked to me at all, and I have been very dull."
"It is quite true," he assented. "All around us they were talking of things of which I knew nothing, and you were one of them."
"How foolish! You could have talked to me about Fred and the road-making in Africa and I should have been more interested than in anything they could have said to me."
They were passing a brilliantly-lit corner, and the light flashed upon his strong, set face with its heavy eyebrows and firm lips. He leaned back and laughed hoarsely. Was it her fancy, she wondered, or did he seem not wholly at his ease.
"Haven't I told you a good deal? I should have thought that Fred and I between us had told you all about Africa that you would care to hear."
She shook her head. What she said next sounded to him, in a certain sense, enigmatic.
"There is a good deal left for you to tell me," she said. "Some day I shall hope to know everything."
He met her gaze without flinching.
"Some day," he said, "I hope you will."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The carriage drew up at the theatre and he handed her out - a little awkwardly perhaps, but without absolute clumsiness. They found all the rest of the party already in their seats and the curtain about to go up. They took the two end stalls, Trent on the outside. One chair only, next to him, remained unoccupied.
"You people haven't hurried," Lady Tresham remarked, leaning forward.
"We are in time at any rate," Ernestine answered, letting her cloak fall upon the back of the stall.
The curtain was rung up and the play began. It was a modern society drama, full of all the most up-to-date fashionable jargon and topical illusions. Trent grew more and more bewildered at every moment. Suddenly, towards the end of the first act, a fine dramatic situation leaped out like a tongue of fire. The interest of the whole audience, up to then only mildly amused, became suddenly intense. Trent sat forward in his seat. Ernestine ceased to fan herself. The man and the woman stood face to face - the light badinage which had been passing between them suddenly ended - the man, with his sin stripped bare, mercilessly exposed, the woman, his accuser, passionately eloquent, pouring out her scorn upon a mute victim. The audience knew what the woman in the play did not know, that it was for love of her that the man had sinned, to save her from a terrible danger which had hovered very near her life. The curtain fell, the woman leaving the room with a final taunt flung over her shoulder, the man seated at a table looking steadfastly into the fire with fixed, unseeing eyes. The audience drew a little breath and then applauded; the orchestra struck up and a buzz of conversation began.
It was then that Ernestine first noticed how absorbed the man at her side had become. His hands were gripping the arms of the stall, his eyes were fixed upon the spot somewhere behind the curtain where this sudden little drama had been played out, as though indeed they could pierce the heavy upholstery and see beyond into the room where the very air seemed quivering still with the vehemence of the woman's outpoured scorn. Ernestine spoke to him at last, the sound of her voice brought him back with a start to the present.
"You like it?"
"The latter part," he answered. "What a sudden change! At first I thought it rubbish, afterwards it was wonderful!"
"Hubert is a fine actor," she remarked, fanning herself. "It was his first opportunity in the play, and he certainly took advantage of it."
He turned deliberately round in his seat towards her, and she was struck with the forceful eagerness of his dark, set face.
"The man," he whispered hoarsely, "sinned for the love of the woman. Was he right? Would a woman forgive a man who deceived her for her own sake - when she knew?"
Ernestine held up her programme and studied it deeply.
"I cannot tell," she said, "it depends."
Trent drew a little breath and turned away. A quiet voice from his other side whispered in his ear - "The woman would forgive if she cared for the man."
* * * * *
Trent turned sharply and the light died out of his voice. Surely it was an evil omen, this man's coming; for it was Captain Francis who had taken the vacant seat and who was watching his astonishment with a somewhat saturnine smile.
"Rather a stupid play, isn't it? By the by, Trent, I wish you would ask Miss Wendermott's permission to present me. I met her young cousin out at Attra."
Ernestine heard and leaned forward smiling. Trent did as he was asked, with set teeth and an ill grace. From then, until the curtain went up for the next act, he had only to sit still and listen.
Afterwards the play scarcely fulfilled the promise of its commencement. At the third act Trent had lost all interest in it. Suddenly an idea occurred to him. He drew a card from his pocket and, scribbling a word or two on it, passed it along to Lady Tresham. She leaned forward and smiled approval upon him.
"Delightful!"
Trent reached for his hat and whispered in Ernestine's ear.
"You are all coming to supper with me at the 'Milan,'" he said; "I am going on now to see about it."
She smiled upon him, evidently pleased.
"What a charming idea! But do you mean all of us?"
"Why not?"
He found his carriage outside without much difficulty and drove quickly round to the Milan Restaurant. The director looked doubtful.
"A table for eighteen, sir! It is quite too late to arrange it, except in a private room."
"The ladies prefer the large room," Trent answered decidedly, "and you must arrange it somehow. I'll give you carte blanche as to what you serve, but it must be of the best."
The man bowed. This must be a millionaire, for the restaurant was the "Milan."
"And the name, sir?"
"Scarlett Trent - you may not know me, but Lady Tresham, Lord Colliston, and the Earl of Howton are amongst my guests."
The man saw no more difficulties. The name of Scarlett Trent was the name which impressed him. The English aristocrat he had but little respect for, but a millionaire was certainly next to the gods.
"We must arrange the table crossways, sir, at the end of the room," he said. "And about the flowers?"
"The best, and as many as you can get," Trent answered shortly. "I have a 1OO pound note with me. I shall not grumble if I get little change out of it, but I want value for the money."
"You shall have it, sir! " the man answered significantly - and he kept his word.
Trent reached the theatre only as the people were streaming out. In the lobby he came face to face with Ernestine and Francis. They were talking together earnestly, but ceased directly they saw him.
"I have been telling Captain Francis," Ernestine said, "of your delightful invitation."
"I hope that Captain Francis will join us," Trent said coldly.
Francis stepped behind for a moment to light a cigarette.
"I shall be delighted," he answered.
* * * * *
The supper party was one of those absolute and complete successes which rarely fall to the lot of even the most carefully thought out of social functions. Every one of Lady Tresham's guests had accepted the hurried invitation, every one seemed in good spirits, and delighted at the opportunity of unrestrained conversation after several hours at the theatre. The supper itself, absolutely the best of its kind, from the caviare and plovers' eggs to the marvellous ices, and served in one of the handsomest rooms in London, was really beyond criticism. To Trent it seemed almost like a dream, as he leaned back in his chair and looked down at the little party - the women with their bare shoulders and jewels, bathed in the soft glow of the rose-shaded electric lights, the piles of beautiful pink and white flowers, the gleaming silver, and the wine which frothed in their glasses. The music of the violins on the balcony blended with the soft, gay voices of the women. Ernestine was by his side, every one was good-humoured and enjoying his hospitality. Only one face at the table was a reminder of the instability of his fortunes - a face he had grown to hate during the last few hours with a passionate, concentrated hatred. Yet the man was of the same race as these people, his connections were known to many of them, he was making new friends and reviving old ties every moment. During a brief lull in the conversation his clear, soft voice suddenly reached Trent's ears. He was telling a story.
"Africa," he was saying, "is a country of surprises. Attra seems to be a city of hopeless exile for all white people. Last time I was there I used to notice every day a very old man making a pretence of working in a kitchen garden attached to a little white mission-house - a Basle Society depot. He always seemed to be leaning on his spade, always gazing out seawards in the same intent, fascinated way. Some one told me his history at last. He was an Englishman of good position who had got into trouble in his younger days and served a term of years in prison. When he came out, sooner than disgrace his family further, he published a false account of his death and sailed under a disguised name for Africa. There he has lived ever since, growing older and sinking lower, often near fortune but always missing it, a slave to bad habits, weak and dissolute if you like, but ever keeping up his voluntary sacrifice, ever with that unconquerable longing for one last glimpse of his own country and his own people. I saw him, not many months ago, still there, still with his eyes turned seawards and with the same wistful droop of the head. Somehow I can't help thinking that that old man was also a hero."
The tinkling of glasses and the sort murmuring of whispered conversation had ceased during Francis' story. Every one was a little affected - the soft throbbing of the violins upon the balcony was almost a relief. Then there was a little murmur of sympathetic remarks - but amongst it all Trent sat at the head of the table with white, set face but with red fire before his eyes. This man had played him false. He dared not look at Ernestine - only he knew that her eyes were wet with tears and that her bosom was heaving.
The spirits of men and women who sup are mercurial things, and it was a gay leave-taking half an hour or so later in the little Moorish room at the head of the staircase. But Ernestine left her host without even appearing to see his outstretched hand, and he let her go without a word. Only when Francis would have followed her Trent laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder.
"I must have a word with you, Francis," he said.
"I will come back," he said. "I must see Miss Wendermott into her carriage."
But Trent's hand remained there, a grip of iron from which there was no escaping. He said nothing, but Francis knew his man and had no idea of making a scene. So he remained till the last had gone and a tall, black servant had brought their coats from the cloak-room.
"You will come with me please," Trent said, "I have a few words to say to you."
Francis shrugged his shoulders and obeyed.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Scarcely a word passed between the two men until they found themselves in the smoking-room of Trent's house. A servant noiselessly arranged decanters and cigars upon the sideboard, and, in response to an impatient movement of Trent's, withdrew. Francis lit a cigarette. Trent, contrary to his custom, did not smoke. He walked to the door and softly locked it. Then he returned and stood looking down at his companion.
"Francis," he said, "you have been my enemy since the day I saw you first in Bekwando village."
Scarcely that," Francis objected. "I have distrusted you since then if you like."
"Call it what you like," Trent answered. "Only to-night you have served me a scurvy trick. You were a guest at my table and you gave me not the slightest warning. On the contrary, this morning you offered me a week's respite."
"The story I told," Francis answered, "could have had no significance to them."
"I don't know whether you are trying to deceive me or not," Trent said, "only if you do not know, let me tell you - Miss Wendermott is that old man's daughter!"
The man's start was real. There was no doubt about that. "And she knew?"
"She knew that he had been in Africa, but she believed that he had died there. What she believes at this moment I cannot tell. Your story evidently moved her. She will probably try to find out from you the truth."
Francis nodded.
"She has asked me to call upon her to-morrow."
"Exactly. Now, forgive my troubling you with personal details, but you've got to understand. I mean Miss Wendermott to be my wife."
Francis sat up in his chair genuinely surprised. Something like a scowl was on his dark, sallow face.
"Your wife !' he exclaimed, "aren't you joking, Trent?"
"I am not," Trent answered sharply. "From the moment I saw her that has been my fixed intention. Every one thinks of me as simply a speculator with the money fever in my veins. Perhaps that was true once. It isn't now! I must be rich to give her the position she deserves. That's all I care for money."'
"I am very much interested," Francis said slowly, "to hear of your intentions. Hasn't it occurred to you, however, that your behaviour toward Miss Wendermott's father will take a great deal of explanation?"
"If there is no interference," Trent said, "I can do it. There is mystery on her part too, for I offered a large reward and news of him through my solicitor, and she actually refused to reply. She has refused any money accruing to her through her father, or to be brought into contact with any one who could tell her about him."
"The fact," Francis remarked drily, "is scarcely to her credit. Monty may have been disreputable enough, I've no doubt he was; but his going away and staying there all these years was a piece of noble unselfishness."
"Monty has been hardly used in some ways," Trent said. "I've done my best by him, though."
"That," Francis said coldly, "is a matter of opinion."
"I know very well," Trent answered, "what yours is. You are welcome to it. You can blackguard me all round London if you like in a week - but I want a week's grace."
"Why should I grant it you?"
Trent shrugged his shoulders.
"I won't threaten," he said, "and I won't offer to bribe you, but I've got to have that week's grace. We're both men, Francis, who've been accustomed to our own way, I think. I want to know on what terms you'll grant it me."
Francis knocked the ash off his cigarette and rose slowly to his feet.
"You want to know," he repeated meditatively, "on what terms I'll hold my tongue for a week. Well, here's my answer! On no terms at all!"
"You don't mean that," Trent said quietly.
"We shall see," Francis answered grimly. "I'll be frank with you, Trent. When we came in here you called me your enemy. Well, in a sense you were right. I distrusted and disliked you from the moment I first met you in Bekwando village with poor old Monty for a partner, and read the agreement you had drawn up and the clause about the death of either making the survivor sole legatee. In a regular fever swamp Monty was drinking poison like water - and you were watching. That may have seemed all right to you. To me it was very much like murder. It was my mistrust of you which made me send men after you both through the bush, and, sure enough, they found poor Monty abandoned, left to die while you had hastened off to claim your booty. After that I had adventures enough of my own for a bit and I lost sight of you until I came across you and your gang road-making, and I am bound to admit that you saved my life. That's neither here nor there. I asked about Monty and you told me some plausible tale. I went to the place you spoke of - to find him of course spirited away. We have met again in England, Scarlett Trent, and I have asked once more for Monty. Once more I am met with evasions. This morning I granted you a week - now I take back my word. I am going to make public what I know to-morrow morning."
"Since this morning, then," Trent said, "your ill-will toward me has increased."
"Quite true," Francis answered. "We are playing with the cards upon the table, so I will be frank with you. What you told me about your intentions towards Miss Wendermott makes me determined to strike at once!"
"You yourself, I fancy," Trent said quietly, "admired her?"
"More than any woman I have ever met," Francis answered promptly, "and I consider your attitude towards her grossly presumptuous."
Trent stood quite still for a moment - then he unlocked the door.
"You had better go, Francis," he said quietly. "I have a defence prepared but I will reserve it. And listen, when I locked that door it was with a purpose. I had no mind to let you leave as you are leaving. Never mind. You can go - only be quick."
Francis paused upon the threshold. "You understand," he said significantly.
"I understand," Trent answered.
* * * * *
An hour passed, and Trent still remained in the chair before his writing-table, his head upon his hand, his eyes fixed upon vacancy. Afterwards he always thought of that hour as one of the bitterest of his life. A strong and self-reliant man, he had all his life ignored companionship, had been well content to live without friends, self-contained and self-sufficient. To-night the spectre of a great loneliness sat silently by his side! His heart was sore, his pride had been bitterly touched, the desire and the whole fabric of his life was in imminent and serious danger.
The man who had left him was an enemy and a prejudiced man, but Trent knew that he was honest. He was the first human being to whom he had ever betrayed the solitary ambition of his life, and his scornful words seemed still to bite the air. If - he was right! Why not? Trent looked with keen, merciless eyes through his past, and saw never a thing there to make him glad. He had started life a workman, with a few ambitions' all of a material nature - he had lived the life of a cold, scheming money-getter, absolutely selfish, negatively moral, doing little evil perhaps, but less good. There was nothing in his life to make him worthy of a woman's love, most surely there was nothing which could ever make it possible that such a woman as Ernestine Wendermott should ever care for him. All the wealth of Africa could never make him anything different from what he was. And yet, as he sat and realised this, he knew that he was writing down his life a failure. For, beside his desire for her, there were no other things he cared for in life. Already he was weary of financial warfare - the City life had palled upon him. He looked around the magnificent room in the mansion which his agents had bought and furnished for him. He looked at the pile of letters waiting for him upon his desk, little square envelopes many of them, but all telling the same tale, all tributes to his great success, and the mockery of it all smote hard upon the walls of his fortitude. Lower and lower his head drooped until it was buried in his folded arms - and the hour which followed he always reckoned the bitterest of his life.
CHAPTER XL
A little earlier than usual next morning Trent was at his office in the City, prepared for the worst, and in less than half an hour he found himself face to face with one of those crises known to most great financiers at some time or other during their lives. His credit was not actually assailed, but it was suspended. The general public did not understand the situation, even those who were in a measure behind the scenes found it hard to believe that the attack upon the Bekwando Gold and Land shares was purely a personal one. For it was Da Souza who had fired the train, who had flung his large holding of shares upon the market, and, finding them promptly taken up, had gone about with many pious exclamations of thankfulness and sinister remarks. Many smaller holders followed suit, and yet never for a moment did the market waver. Gradually it leaked out that Scarlett Trent was the buyer, and public interest leaped up at once. Would Trent be able to face settling-day without putting his vast holdings upon the market? If so the bulls were going to have the worst knock they had had for years - and yet - and yet - the murmur went round from friend to friend - " Sell your Bekwandos."
At midday there came an urgent message from Trent's bankers, and as he read it he cursed. It was short but eloquent.
"DEAR SIR, - We notice that your account to-day stands 119,000 pounds overdrawn, against which we hold as collateral security shares in the Bekwando Land Company to the value of 150,000 pounds. As we have received certain very disquieting information concerning the value of these shares, we must ask you to adjust the account before closing hours to-day, or we shall be compelled to place the shares upon the market. "Yours truly, "A. SINCLAIR, General Manager."
Trent tore the letter into atoms, but he never quailed. Telegraph and telephone worked his will, he saw all callers, a cigar in his mouth and flower in his buttonhole, perfectly at his ease, sanguine and confident. A few minutes before closing time he strolled into the bank and no one noticed a great bead of perspiration which stood out upon his forehead. He made out a credit slip for 119,000 pounds, and, passing it across the counter with a roll of notes and cheques, asked for his shares.
They sent for the manager. Trent was ushered with much ceremony into his private room. The manager was flushed and nervous.
"I am afraid you must have misunderstood my note, Mr. Trent," he stammered. But Trent, remembering all that he had gone through to raise the money, stopped him short.
"This is not a friendly call, Mr. Sinclair," he said, "but simply a matter of business. I wish to clear my account with you to the last halfpenny, and I will take my shares away with me. I have paid in the amount I owe. Let one of your clerks make out the interest account."
The manager rang the bell for the key of the security safe. He opened it and took out the shares with fingers which trembled a good deal.
"Did I understand you, Mr. Trent, that you desired to absolutely close the account?" he asked.
"Most decidedly," Trent answered.
"We shall be very sorry to lose you."
"The sorrow will be all on your side, then," Trent answered grimly. "You have done your best to ruin me, you and that blackguard Da Souza, who brought me here. If you had succeeded in lumping those shares upon the market to-day or to-morrow, you know very well what the result would have been. I don't know whose game you have been playing, but I can guess!"
"I can assure you, Mr. Trent," the manager declared in his suavest and most professional manner, "that you are acting under a complete misapprehension. I will admit that our notice was a little short. Suppose we withdraw it altogether, eh? I am quite satisfied. We will put back the shares in the safe and you shall keep your money."
"No, I'm d - d if you do!" Trent answered bluntly. "You've had your money and I'll have the shares. I don't leave this bank without them, and I'll be shot if ever I enter it again."
So Trent, with his back against the wall and not a friend to help him, faced for twenty-four hours the most powerful bull syndicate which had ever been formed against a single Company. Inquiries as to his right of title had poured in upon him, and to all of them he had returned the most absolute and final assurances. Yet he knew when closing-time came, that he had exhausted every farthing he possessed in the world - it seemed hopeless to imagine that he could survive another day. But with the morning came a booming cable from Bekwando. There had been a great find of gold before ever a shaft had been sunk; an expert, from whom as yet nothing had been heard, wired an excited and wonderful report. Then the men who had held on to their Bekwandos rustled their morning papers and walked smiling to their offices. Prices leaped up. Trent's directors ceased to worry him and wired invitations to luncheon at the West End. The bulls were the sport of everybody. When closing-time came Trent had made 100,000 pounds, and was looked upon everywhere as one of the rocks of finance.
Only then he began to realise what the strain had been to him. His hard, impassive look had never altered, he had been seen everywhere in his accustomed City haunts, his hat a little better brushed than usual, his clothes a little more carefully put on, his buttonhole more obvious and his laugh readier. No one guessed the agony through which he had passed, no one knew that he had spent the night at a little inn twelve miles away, to which he had walked after nine o'clock at night. He had not a single confidant, even his cashier had no idea whence came the large sums of money which he had paid away right and left. But when it was all over he left the City, and, leaning back in the corner of his little brougham, was driven away to Pont Street. Here he locked himself in his room, took off his coat and threw himself upon a sofa with a big cigar between his teeth.
"If you let any one in to see me, Miles," he told the footman, "I'll kick you out of the house." So, though the bell rang often, he remained alone. But as he lay there with half-closed eyes living again through the tortures of the last few hours, he heard a voice that startled him. It was surely hers - already! He sprang up and opened the door. Ernestine and Captain Francis were in the hall.
He motioned them to follow him into the room. Ernestine was flushed and her eyes were very bright. She threw up her veil and faced him haughtily. "Where is he?" she asked. "I know everything. I insist upon seeing him at once."
"That," he said coolly, "will depend upon whether he is fit to see you!"
He rang the bell.
"Tell Miss Fullagher to step this way a moment," he ordered.
"He is in this house, then," she cried. He took no notice. In a moment a young woman dressed in the uniform of one of the principal hospitals entered.
"Miss Fullagher," he asked, "how is the patient?"
"We've had a lot of trouble with him, sir," she said significantly. "He was terrible all last night, and he's very weak this morning. Is this the young lady, sir?"
"This is the young lady who I told you would want to see him when you thought it advisable."
The nurse looked doubtful. "Sir Henry is upstairs, sir," she said. "I had better ask his advice."
Trent nodded and she withdrew. The three were left alone, Ernestine and Francis remained apart as though by design. Trent was silent.
She returned in a moment or two.
"Sir Henry has not quite finished his examination, sir," she announced. "The young lady can come up in half an hour."
Again they were left alone. Then Trent crossed the room and stood between them and the door.
"Before you see your father, Miss Wendermott," he said, "I have an explanation to make to you!"
CHAPTER XLI
He looked at him calmly, but in her set, white face he seemed to read already his sentence!
"Do you think it worth while, Mr. Trent? There is so much, as you put it, to be explained, that the task, even to a man of your versatility, seems hopeless!"
"I shall not trouble you long," he said. "At least one man's word should be as good as another's - and you have listened to what my enemy " - he motioned towards Francis - " has to say."
Francis shrugged his shoulders.
"I can assure you," he interrupted, "that I have no feeling of enmity towards you in the slightest. My opinion you know. I have never troubled to conceal it. But I deny that I am prejudiced by any personal feeling."
Trent ignored his speech.
"What I have to say to you," he continued addressing Ernestine, "I want to say before you see your father. I won't take up your time. I won't waste words. I take you back ten years to when I met him at Attra and we became partners in a certain enterprise. Your father at that time was a harmless wreck of a man who was fast killing himself with brandy. He had some money, I had none. With it we bought the necessary outfit and presents for my enterprise and started for Bekwando. The whole of the work fell to my share, and with great trouble I succeeded in obtaining the concessions we were working for. Your father spent all his time drinking, and playing cards, when I would play with him. The agreement as to the sharing of the profits was drawn up, it is true, by me, but at that time he made no word of complaint. I had no relations, he described himself as cut off wholly from his. It was here Francis first came on the scene. He found your father half drunk, and when he read the agreement it was plain what he thought. He thought that I was letting your father kill himself that the whole thing might be mine. He has probably told you so. I deny it. I did all I could to keep him sober!
"On our homeward way your father was ill and our bearers deserted us. We were pursued by the natives, who repented their concession, and I had to fight them more than once, half a dozen strong, with your father unconscious at my feet. It is true that I left him in the bush, but it was at his bidding and I believed him dying. It was my only chance and I took it. I escaped and reached Attra. Then, to raise money to reach England, I had to borrow from a man named Da Souza, and afterwards, in London, to start the Company, I had to make him my partner in the profits of the concession. One day I quarrelled with him - it was just at the time I met you - and then, for the first time, I heard of your father's being alive. I went out to Africa to bring him back and Da Souza followed me in abject fear, for as my partner he lost half if your father's claim was good. I found your father infirm and only half sane. I did all I could for him whilst I worked in the interior, and meant to bring him back to England with me when I came. unfortunately he recovered a little and suddenly seized upon the idea of visiting England. He left before me and fell into the hands of Da Souza, who had the best possible reasons in the world for keeping him in the background. I rescued him from them in time to save him from death and brought him to my own house, sent for doctors and nurses, and, when he was fit for you to see, I should have sent for you. I did not, I'll admit, make any public declaration of his existence, for the simple reason that it would have crippled our Company, and there are the interests of the shareholders to be considered, but I executed and signed a deed of partnership days ago which makes him an equal sharer in every penny I possess. Now this is the truth, Miss Wendermott, and if it is not a story I am particularly proud of, I don't very well see what else I could have done. It is my story and it is a true one. Will you believe it or will you take his word against mine?"
She would have spoken, but Francis held up his hand.
"My story," he said coolly, "has been told behind your back. It is only fair to repeat it to your face. I have told Miss Wendermott this - that I met you first in the village of Bekwando with a concession in your hand made out to you and her father jointly, with the curious proviso that in the event of the death of one the other was his heir. I pointed out to Miss Wendermott that you were in the prime of life and in magnificent condition, while her father was already on the threshold of the grave and drinking himself into a fever in a squalid hut in a village of swamps. I told her that I suspected foul play, that I followed you both and found her father left to the tender mercies of the savages, deserted by you in the bush. I told her that many months afterwards he disappeared, simultaneously with your arrival in the country, that a day or two ago you swore to me you had no idea where he was. That has been my story, Trent, let Miss Wendermott choose between them."
"I am content," Trent cried fiercely. "Your story is true enough, but it is cunningly linked together. You have done your worst. Choose!"
For ever afterwards he was glad of that single look of reproach which seemed to escape her unwittingly as her eyes met his. But she turned away and his heart was like a stone.
"You have deceived me, Mr. Trent. I am very sorry, and very disappointed."
"And you," he cried passionately, "are you yourself so blameless? Were you altogether deceived by your relations, or had you never a suspicion that your father might still be alive? You had my message through Mr. Cuthbert; I met you day by day after you knew that I had been your father's partner, and never once did you give yourself away! Were you tarred with the same brush as those canting snobs who doomed a poor old man to a living death? Doesn't it look like it? What am I to think of you?"
"Your judgment, Mr. Trent," she answered quietly, "is of no importance to me! It does not interest me in any way. But I will tell you this. If I did not disclose myself, it was because I distrusted you. I wanted to know the truth, and I set myself to find it out."
"Your friendship was a lie, then!" he cried, with flashing eyes. "To you I was nothing but a suspected man to be spied upon and betrayed."
She faltered and did not answer him. Outside the nurse was knocking at the door. Trent waved them away with an imperious gesture.
"Be off," he cried, "both of you! You can do your worst! I thank Heaven that I am not of your class, whose men have flints for hearts and whose women can lie like angels."
They left him alone, and Trent, with a groan, plucked from his heart the one strong, sweet hope which had changed his life so wonderfully. Upstairs, Monty was sobbing, with his little girl's arms about him.
CHAPTER XLII
With the darkness had come a wind from the sea, and the boy crept outside in his flannels and planter's hat and threw himself down in a cane chair with a little murmur of relief. Below him burned the white lights of the town, a little noisier than usual to-night, for out in the bay a steamer was lying-to, and there had been a few passengers and cargo to land. The boy had had a hard day's work, or he would have been in the town himself to watch for arrivals and wait for the mail. He closed his eyes, half asleep, for the sun had been hot and the murmurs of the sea below was almost like a lullaby. As he lay there a man's voice from the path reached him. He sprang up, listening intently. It must have been fancy - and yet! He leaned over the wooden balcony. The figure of a man loomed out through the darkness, came nearer, became distinct. Fred recognised him with a glad shout.
"Trent!" he cried. "Scarlett Trent, by all that's amazing!"
Trent held out his hand quickly. Somehow the glad young voice, quivering with excitement, touched his heart in an unexpected and unusual manner. It was pleasant to be welcomed like this - to feel that one person in the world at least was glad of his coming. For Trent was a sorely stricken man and the flavour of life had gone from him. Many a time he had looked over the steamer's side during that long, lonely voyage and gazed almost wishfully into the sea, in whose embrace was rest. It seemed to him that he had been a gambler playing for great stakes, and the turn of the wheel had gone against him.
"Fred!"
They stood with hands locked together, the boy breathless with surprise. Then he saw that something was wrong.
"What is it, Trent?" he asked quickly. "Have we gone smash after all, or have you been ill?"
Trent shook his head and smiled gravely.
"Neither," he said. "The Company is booming, I believe. Civilised ways didn't agree with me, I'm afraid. That's all! I've come back to have a month or two's hard work - the best physic in the world."
"I am delighted to see you," Fred said heartily. "Everything's going A1 here, and they've built me this little bungalow, only got in it last week - stunning, isn't it? But - just fancy your being here again so soon! Are your traps coming up?"
"I haven't many," Trent answered. "They're on the way. Have you got room for me?"
"Room for you!" the boy repeated scornfully. "Why, I'm all alone here. It's the only thing against the place, being a bit lonely. Room for you! I should think there is! Here, Dick! Dinner at once, and some wine!"
Trent was taken to see his room, the boy talking all the time, and later on dinner was served and the boy did the honours, chaffing and talking lightly. But later on when they sat outside, smoking furiously to keep off the mosquitoes and watching the fireflies dart in and out amongst the trees, the boy was silent. Then he leaned over and laid his hand on Trent's arm.
"Tell me all about it - do," he begged.
Trent was startled, touched, and suddenly filled with a desire for sympathy such as he had never before in his life experienced. He hesitated, but it was only for a moment.
"I never thought to tell any one," he said slowly, "I think I'd like to!"
And he did. He told his whole story. He did not spare himself. He spoke of the days of his earlier partnership with Monty, and he admitted the apparent brutality of his treatment of him on more than one occasion. He spoke of Ernestine too - of his strange fancy for the photograph of Monty's little girl, a fancy which later on when he met her became almost immediately the dominant passion of his life. Then he spoke of the coming of Francis, of the awakening of Ernestine's suspicions, and of that desperate moment when he risked everything on her faith in him - and lost. There was little else to tell and afterwards there was a silence. But presently the boy's hand fell upon his arm almost caressingly and he leaned over through the darkness.
"Women are such idiots," the boy declared, with all the vigour and certainty of long experience. "If only Aunt Ernestine had known you half as well as I do, she would have been quite content to have trusted you and to have believed that what you did was for the best. But I say, Trent, you ought to have waited for it. After she had seen her father and talked with him she must have understood you better. I shall write to her."
But Trent shook his head.
"No," he said sternly, "it is too late now. That moment taught me all I wanted to know. It was her love I wanted, Fred, and - that - no use hoping for that, or she would have trusted me. After all I was half a madman ever to have expected it - a rough, coarse chap like me, with only a smattering of polite ways! It was madness! Some day I shall get over it! We'll chuck work for a bit, soon, Fred, and go for some lions. That'll give us something to think about at any rate."
But the lions which Trent might have shot lived in peace, for on the morrow he was restless and ill, and within a week the deadly fever of the place had him in its clutches. The boy nursed him and the German doctor came up from Attra and, when he learnt who his patient was, took up his quarters in the place. But for all his care and the boy's nursing things went badly with Scarlett Trent.
To him ended for a while all measure of days - time became one long night, full of strange, tormenting flashes of thought, passing like red fire before his burning eyes. Sometimes it was Monty crying to him from the bush, sometimes the yelling of those savages at Bekwando seemed to fill the air, sometimes Ernestine was there, listening to his passionate pleading with cold, set face, In the dead of night he saw her and the still silence was broken by his hoarse, passionate cries, which they strove in vain to check. And when at last he lay white and still with exhaustion, the doctor looked at the boy and softly shook his head. He had very little hope.
Trent grew worse. In those rare flashes of semi-consciousness which sometimes come to the fever-stricken, he reckoned himself a dying man and contemplated the end of all things without enthusiasm and without regret. The one and only failure of his life had eaten like canker into his heart. It was death he craved for in the hot, burning nights, and death came and sat, a grisly shadow, at his pillow. The doctor and the boy did their best, but it was not they who saved him.
There came a night when he raved, and the sound of a woman's name rang out from the open windows of the little bungalow, rang out through the drawn mosquito netting amongst the palm-trees, across the surf-topped sea to the great steamer which lay in the bay. Perhaps she heard it - perhaps after all it was a fancy. Only, in the midst of his fever, a hand as soft as velvet and as cool as the night sea-wind touched his forehead, and a voice sounded in his ears so sweetly that the blood burned no longer in his veins, so sweetly that he lay back upon his pillow like a man under the influence of a strong narcotic and slept. Then the doctor smiled and the boy sobbed.
"I came," she said softly, "because it was the only atonement I could make. I ought to have trusted you. Do you know, even my father told me that."
"I have made mistakes," he said, "and of course behaved badly to him."
"Now that everything has been explained," she said, "I scarcely see what else you could have done. At least you saved him from Da Souza when his death would have made you a freer man. He is looking forward to seeing you, you must make haste and get strong."
"For his sake," he murmured.
She leaned over and caressed him lightly. "For mine, dear."
End
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