There were three of them in 1886, the big drought year: old Eversofar, Billy Marshall, and Bingong. I never was very jealous of them, not even when Billy gave undoubted ground for divorce by kissing her boldly in the front garden, with Eversofar and Bingong looking on—to say nothing of myself. So far as public opinion went it could not matter, because we were all living at Tilbar Station in the Tibbooburra country, and the nearest neighbour to us was Mulholland of Nimgi, a hundred miles away. Billy was the son of my manager, John Marshall, and, like his father, had an excellent reputation as a bushman, and, like his mother, was very good-looking. He was very much indeed about my house, suggesting improvements in household arrangements; making remarks on my wife’s personal appearance—with corresponding disparagement of myself; riding with my wife across the plains; shooting kangaroos with her by night; and secretly instructing her in the mysteries of a rabbit-trap, with which, he was sure, he could make “dead loads of metal” (he was proficient in the argot of the back-blocks); and with this he would buy her a beautiful diamond ring, and a horse that had won the Melbourne Cup, and an air-gun! Once when she was taken ill, and I was away in the South, he used to sit by her bedside, fanning her hour after hour, being scarcely willing to sleep at night; and was always on hand, smoothing her pillow, and issuing a bulletin to Eversofar and Bingong the first thing in the morning. I have no doubt that Eversofar and Bingong cared for her just as much as he did; but, from first to last, they never had his privileges, and were always subordinate to him in showing her devotion. He was sound and frank with them. He told Eversofar that, of course, she only was kind to him, and let him have a hut all to himself, because he was old and had had a bad time out on the farthest back-station (that was why he was called Eversofar), and had once carried Bingong with a broken leg, on his back, for twenty miles. As for Bingong, he was only a black fellow, aged fifteen, and height inconsiderable. So, of the three, Billy had his own way, and even shamelessly attempted to lord it over me.
Most husbands would consider my position painful, particularly when I say that my wife accepted the attention of all three lovers with calm pleasure, and that of Billy with a shocking indifference to my feelings. She never tried to explain away any circumstance, no matter how awkward it might look if put down in black and white. Billy never quailed before my look; he faced me down with his ingenuous smile; he patted me on the arms approvingly; or, with apparent malice, asked me questions difficult to answer, when I came back from a journey to Brisbane—for a man naturally finds it hard to lay bare how he spent all his time in town. Because he did it so suavely and naively, one could not be resentful. It might seem that matters had reached a climax, when, one day, Mulholland came over, and, seeing my wife and her lovers together watering the garden and teaching cockatoos, said to me that Billy had the advantage of me on my own ground. It may not be to my credit that I only grinned, and forbore even looking foolish. Yet I was very fond of my wife all the time. We stood pretty high on the Charwon Downs, and though it was terribly hot at times, it was healthy enough; and she never lost her prettiness, though, maybe, she lacked bloom.
I think I never saw her look better than she did that day when Mulholland was with me. She had on the lightest, softest kind of stuff, with sleeves reaching only a little below her elbow—her hands and arms never got sunburnt in the hottest weather—her face smiled out from under the coolest-looking hat imaginable, and her hair, though gathered, had a happy trick of always lying very loose and free about the head, saving her from any primness otherwise possible, she was so neat. Mulholland and I were sitting in the veranda. I glanced up at the thermometer, and it registered a hundred in the shade! Mechanically I pushed the lime-juice towards Mulholland, and pointed to the water-bag. There was nothing else to do except grumble at the drought. Yet there my wife was, a picture of coolness and delight; the intense heat seemed only to make her the more refreshing to the eye. Water was not abundant, but we still felt justified in trying to keep her bushes and flowers alive; and she stood there holding the hose and throwing the water in the cheerfulest shower upon the beds. Billy stood with his hands on his hips watching her, very hot, very self-contained. He was shining with perspiration; and he looked the better of it. Eversofar was camped beneath a sandal-tree teaching a cockatoo, also hot and panting, but laughing low through his white beard; and Bingong, black, hatless—less everything but a pair of trousers which only reached to his knees—was dividing his time between the cockatoo and my wife.
Presently Bingong sighted an iguana and caught it, and the three gathered about it in the shade of the sandal. After a time the interest in the iguana seemed to have shifted to something else; and they were all speaking very earnestly. At last I saw Billy and my wife only talking. Billy was excited, and apparently indignant. I could not hear what they were saying, but I saw he was pale, and his compatriots in worship rather frightened; for he suddenly got into a lofty rage. It was undoubtedly a quarrel. Mulholland saw, too, and said to me: “This looks as if there would be a chance for you yet.” He laughed. So did I.
Soon I saw by my wife’s face that she was saying something sarcastical. Then Billy drew himself up very proudly, and waving his hand in a grand way, said loudly, so that we could hear: “It’s as true as gospel; and you’ll be sorry for this-like anything and anything!” Then he stalked away from her, raising his hat proudly, but immediately turned, and beckoning to Eversofar and Bingong added: “Come on with me to barracks, you two.”
They started away towards him, looking sheepishly at my wife as they did so; but Billy finding occasion to give counter-orders, said: “But you needn’t come until you put the cockatoos away, and stuck the iguana in a barrel, and put the hose up for—for her.”
He watched them obey his orders, his head in the air the while, and when they had finished, and were come towards him, he again took off his hat, and they all left her standing alone in the garden.
Then she laughed a little oddly to herself, and stood picking to pieces the wet leaves of a geranium, looking after the three. After a little she came slowly over to us. “Well,” said I, feigning great irony, “all loves must have their day, both old and new. You see how they’ve deserted you. Yet you smile at it!”
“Indeed, my lord and master,” she said, “it is not a thing to laugh at. It’s very serious.”
“And what has broken the charm of your companionship?” I asked.
“The mere matter of the fabled Bunyip. He claimed that he had seen it, and I doubted his word. Had it been you it would not have mattered. You would have turned the other cheek, you are so tame. But he has fire and soul, and so we quarrelled.”
“And your other lovers turned tail,” I maliciously, said.
“Which only shows how superior he is,” was her reply. “If you had been in the case they would never have left me.”
“Oh, oh!” blurted Mulholland, “I am better out of this; for I little care to be called as a witness in divorce.” He rose from his chair, but I pushed him back, and he did not leave till “the cool of the evening.”
The next morning, at breakfast-time, a rouseabout brought us a piece of paper which had been nailed to the sandal-tree. On it was written:
“We have gone for the Bunyip. We travel on foot! Farewell and Farewell!”
We had scarcely read it, when John Marshall and his wife came in agitation, and said that Billy’s bed had not been slept in during the night. From the rouseabout we found that Eversofar and Bingong were also gone. They had not taken horses, doubtless because Billy thought it would hardly be valiant and adventurous enough, and because neither Bingong nor Eversofar owned one, and it might look criminal to go off with mine. We suspected that they had headed for the great Debil-devil Waterhole, where, it was said, the Bunyip appeared: that mysterious animal, or devil, or thing, which nobody has ever seen, but many have pretended to see. Now, this must be said of Billy, that he never had the feeling of fear—he was never even afraid of me. He had often said he had seen a Bunyip, and that he’d bring one home some day, but no one took him seriously. It showed what great influence he had over his companions, that he could induce them to go with him; for Bingong, being a native, must naturally have a constitutional fear of the Debil-debil, as the Bunyip is often called. The Debil-debil Waterhole was a long way off, and through a terrible country—quartz plains, ragged scrub, and little or no water all the way. Then, had they taken plenty of food with them? So far as we could see, they had taken some, but we could not tell how much.
My wife smiled at the business at first; then became worried as the day wore on, and she could see the danger and hardship of wandering about this forsaken country without a horse and with uncertain water. The day passed. They did not return. We determined on a search the next morning. At daybreak, Marshall and I and the rouseabout started on good horses, each going at different angles, but agreeing to meet at the Debil debil Waterhole, and to wait there for each other. If any one of us did not come after a certain time, we were to conclude that he had found the adventurers and was making his way back with them. After a day of painful travel and little water, Marshall and I arrived, almost within an hour of each other. We could see no sign of anybody having been at the lagoon. We waited twelve hours, and were about to go, leaving a mark behind us to show we had been there, when we saw the rouseabout and his exhausted horse coming slowly through the bluebush to us. He had suffered much for want of water.
We all started back again at different angles, our final rendezvous being arranged for the station homestead, the rouseabout taking a direct line, and making for the Little Black Billabong on the way. I saw no sign of the adventurers. I sickened with the heat, and my eyes became inflamed. I was glad enough when, at last, I drew rein in the home paddock. I couldn’t see any distance, though I was not far from the house. But when I got into the garden I saw that others had just arrived. It was the rouseabout with my wife’s lovers. He had found Billy nursing Eversofar in the shade of a stunted brigalow, while Bingong was away hunting for water. Billy himself had pushed his cause as bravely as possible, and had in fact visited the Little Black Billabong, where—he always maintains—he had seen the great Bunyip. But after watching one night, they tried to push on to the Debil-debil Waterhole. Old Eversofar, being weak and old, gave in, and Billy became a little delirious—he has denied it, but Bingong says it is so; yet he pulled himself together as became the leader of an expedition, and did what he could for Eversofar until the rouseabout came with food and water. Then he broke down and cried—he denies this also. They tied the sick man on the horse and trudged back to the station in a bad plight.
As I came near the group I heard my wife say to Billy, who looked sadly haggard and ill, that she was sure he would have got the Bunyip if it hadn’t been for the terrible drought; and at that, regardless of my presence, he took her by the arms and kissed her, and then she kissed him several times.
Perhaps I ought to have mentioned before that Billy was just nine years old.
I had come a long journey across country with Glenn, the squatter, and now we were entering the homestead paddock of his sheep-station, Winnanbar. Afar to the left was a stone building, solitary in a waste of saltbush and dead-finish scrub. I asked Glenn what it was.
He answered, smilingly: “The Strangers’ Hut. Sundowners and that lot sleep there; there’s always some flour and tea in a hammock, under the roof, and there they are with a pub of their own. It’s a fashion we have in Australia.”
“It seems all right, Glenn,” I said with admiration. “It’s surer than Elijah’s ravens.”
“It saves us from their prowling about the barracks, and camping on the front veranda.”
“How many do you have of a week?”
“That depends. Sundowners are as uncertain as they are unknown quantities. After shearing-time they’re thickest; in the dead of summer fewest. This is the dead of summer,” and, for the hundredth time in our travel, Glenn shook his head sadly.
Sadness was ill-suited to his burly form and bronzed face, but it was there. He had some trouble, I thought, deeper than drought. It was too introspective to have its origin solely in the fact that sheep were dying by thousands, that the stock-routes were as dry of water as the hard sky above us, and that it was a toss-up whether many families in the West should not presently abandon their stations, driven out by a water-famine—and worse.
After a short silence Glenn stood up in the trap, and, following the circle of the horizon with his hand, said: “There’s not an honest blade of grass in all this wretched West. This whole business is gambling with God.”
“It is hard on women and children that they must live here,” I remarked, with my eyes on the Strangers’ Hut.
“It’s harder for men without them,” he mournfully replied; and at that moment I began to doubt whether Glenn, whom I had heard to be a bachelor, was not tired of that calm but chilly state. He followed up this speech immediately by this: “Look at that drinking-tank!”
The thing was not pleasant in the eye. Sheep were dying and dead by thousands round it, and the crows were feasting horribly. We became silent again.
The Strangers’ Hut, and its unique and, to me, awesome hospitality, was still in my mind. It remained with me until, impelled by curiosity, I wandered away towards it in the glow and silence of the evening. The walk was no brief matter, but at length I stood near the lonely public, where no name of guest is ever asked, and no bill ever paid. And then I fell to musing on how many life-histories these grey walls had sheltered for a fitful hour, how many stumbling wayfarers had eaten and drunken in this Hotel of Refuge. I dropped my glances on the ground; a bird, newly dead, lay at my feet, killed by the heat.
At that moment I heard a child’s crying. I started forward, then faltered. Why, I could not tell, save that the crying seemed so a part of the landscape that it might have come out of the sickly sunset, out of the yellow sky, out of the aching earth about me. To follow it might be like pursuing dreams. The crying ceased.
Thus for a moment, and then I walked round to the door of the hut. At the sound of slight moaning I paused again. Then I crossed the threshold resolutely.
A woman with a child in her arms sat on a rude couch. Her lips were clinging to the infant’s forehead. At the sound of my footsteps she raised her head.
“Ah!” she said, and, trembling, rose to her feet. She was fair-haired and strong, if sad, of face. Perhaps she never had been beautiful, but in health her face must have been persistent in its charm. Even now it was something noble.
With that patronage of compassion which we use towards those who are unfortunate and humble, I was about to say to her, “My poor woman!” but there was something in her manner so above her rude surroundings that I was impelled to this instead: “Madam, you are ill. Can I be of service to you?”
Then I doffed my hat. I had not done so before, and I blushed now as I did it, for I saw that she had compelled me. She sank back upon the couch again as though the effort to achieve my courtesy had unnerved her, and she murmured simply and painfully: “Thank you very much: I have travelled far.”
“May I ask how far?”
“From Mount o’ Eden, two hundred miles and more, I think”; and her eyes sought the child’s face, while her cheek grew paler. She had lighted a tiny fire on the hearthstone and had put the kettle on the wood. Her eyes were upon it now with the covetousness of thirst and hunger. I kneeled, and put in the tin of water left behind by some other pilgrim, a handful of tea from the same source—the outcast and suffering giving to their kind. I poured out for her soon a little of the tea. Then I asked for her burden. She gave it to my arms—a wan, wise-faced child.
“Madam,” I said, “I am only a visitor here, but, if you feel able, and will come with me to the homestead, you shall, I know, find welcome and kindness, or, if you will wait, there are horses, and you shall be brought—yes, indeed,” I added, as she shook her head in sad negation, “you will be welcome.”
I was sure that, whatever ill chances had befallen the mother of this child, she was one of those who are found in the sight of the Perfect Justice sworn for by the angels. I knew also that Glenn would see that she should be cordially sheltered and brought back to health; for men like Glenn, I said to myself, are kinder in their thought of suffering women than women themselves-are kinder, juster, and less prone to think evil.
She raised her head, and answered: “I think that I could walk; but this, you see, is the only hospitality that I can accept, save, it may be, some bread and a little meat, that the child suffer no more, until I reach Winnanbar, which, I fear, is still far away.”
“This,” I replied, “is Winnanbar; the homestead is over there, beyond the hill.”
“This is—Winnanbar?” she whisperingly said, “this—is—Winnanbar! I did not think—I was-so near.”... A thankful look came to her face. She rose, and took the child again and pressed it to her breast, and her eyes brooded upon it. “Now she is beautiful,” I thought, and waited for her to speak.
“Sir—” she said at last, and paused. In the silence a footstep sounded without, and then a form appeared in the doorway. It was Glenn.
“I followed you,” he said to me; “and—!” He saw the woman, and a low cry broke from her.
“Agnes! Agnes!” he cried, with something of sternness and a little shame.
“I have come—to you—again-Robert,” she brokenly, but not abjectly, said.
He came close to her and looked into her face, then into the face of the child, with a sharp questioning. She did not flinch, but answered his scrutiny clearly and proudly. Then, after a moment, she turned a disappointed look upon me, as though to say that I, a stranger, had read her aright at once, while this man held her afar in the cold courts of his judgment ere he gave her any welcome or said a word of pity.
She sank back on the bench, and drew a hand with sorrowful slowness across her brow. He saw a ring upon her finger. He took her hand and said: “You are married, Agnes?”
“My husband is dead, and the sister of this poor one also,” she replied; and she fondled the child and raised her eyes to her brother’s.
His face now showed compassion. He stooped and kissed her cheek. And it seemed to me at that moment that she could not be gladder than I.
“Agnes,” he said, “can you forgive me?”
“He was only a stock-rider,” she murmured, as if to herself, “but he was well-born. I loved him. You were angry. I went away with him in the night ... far away to the north. God was good—” Here she brushed her lips tenderly across the curls of the child. “Then the drought came and sickness fell and... death... and I was alone with my baby—”
His lips trembled and his hand was hurting my arm, though he knew it not.
“Where could I go?” she continued.
Glenn answered pleadingly now: “To your unworthy brother, God bless you and forgive me, dear!—though even here at Winnanbar there is drought and famine and the cattle die.”
“But my little one shall live!” she cried joyfully. That night Glenn of Winnanbar was a happy man, for rain fell on the land, and he held his sister’s child in his arms.
I
She was the daughter of a ruined squatter, whose family had been pursued with bad luck; he was a planter, named Houghton. She was not an uncommon woman; he was not an unusual man. They were not happy, they might never be; he was almost sure they would not be; she had long ceased to think they could be. She had told him when she married him that she did not love him. He had been willing to wait for her love, believing that by patience and devotion he could win it. They were both sorry for each other now. They accepted things as they were, but they knew there was danger in the situation. She loved some one else, and he knew it, but he had never spoken to her of it—he was of too good stuff for that. He was big and burly, and something awkward in his ways. She was pretty, clear-minded, kind, and very grave. There were days when they were both bitter at heart. On one such day they sat at luncheon, eating little, and looking much out of the door across the rice fields and banana plantations to the Hebron Mountains. The wife’s eyes fixed on the hills and stayed. A road ran down the hill towards a platform of rock which swept smooth and straight to the sheer side of the mountain called White Bluff. At first glance it seemed that the road ended at the cliff—a mighty slide to destruction. Instead, however, of coming straight to the cliff it veered suddenly, and ran round the mountain side, coming down at a steep but fairly safe incline. The platform or cliff was fenced off by a low barricade of fallen trees, scarcely noticeable from the valley below. The wife’s eyes had often wandered to the spot with a strange fascination, as now. Her husband looked at her meditatively. He nodded slightly, as though to himself. She looked up. Their understanding of each other’s thoughts was singular.
“Tom,” she said, “I will ride the chestnut, Bowline, to that fence some day. It will be a big steeplechase.” He winced, but answered slowly. “You have meant to say that for a long time past. I am glad it has been said at last.”
She was struck by the perfect quietness of his tone. Her eyes sought his face and rested for a moment, half bewildered, half pitying.
“Yes, it has been in my mind often—often,” she said. “It’s a horrible thought,” he gravely replied; “but it is better to be frank. Still, you’ll never do it, Alice—you’ll never dare to do it.”
“Dare, dare,” she answered, springing to her feet, and a shuddering sigh broke from her. “The thing itself is easy enough, Tom.”
“And why haven’t you done it?” he asked in a hard voice, but still calmly.
She leaned one hand upon the table, the other lay at her cheek, and her head bent forward at him. “Because,” she answered, “because I have tried to be thoughtful for you.”
“Oh, as to that,” he said—“as to that!” and he shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“You don’t care a straw,” she said sharply, “you never did.”
He looked up suddenly at her, a great bitterness in his face, and laughed strangely, as he answered: “Care! Good God! Care!... What’s the use of caring? It’s been all a mistake; all wrong.”
“That is no news,” she said wearily. “You discovered that long ago.”
He looked out of the door across the warm fields again; he lifted his eyes to that mountain road; he looked down at her. “I haven’t any hope left now, Alice. Let’s be plain with each other. We’ve always been plain, but let us be plainer still. There are those rice fields out there, that banana plantation, and the sugar-cane stretching back as far as the valley goes—it’s all mine, all mine. I worked hard for it. I had only one wish with it all, one hope through it all, and it was, that when I brought you here as my wife, you would come to love me—some time. Well, I’ve waited, and waited. It hasn’t come. We’re as far apart to-day as we were the day I married you. Farther, for I had hope then, but I’ve no hope now, none at all.”
They both turned towards the intemperate sunlight and the great hill. The hollowness of life as they lived it came home to them with an aching force. Yet she lifted her fan from the table and fanned herself gently with it, and he mechanically lit a cigar. Servants passed in and out removing the things from the table. Presently they were left alone. The heavy breath of the palm trees floated in upon them; the fruit of the passion-flower hung temptingly at the window; they could hear the sound of a torrent just behind the house. The day was droning luxuriously, yet the eyes of both, as by some weird influence, were fastened upon the hill; and presently they saw, at the highest point where the road was visible, a horseman. He came slowly down until he reached the spot where the road was barricaded from the platform of the cliff. Here he paused. He sat long, looking, as it appeared, down into the valley. The husband rose and took down a field-glass from a shelf; he levelled it at the figure.
“Strange, strange,” he said to himself; “he seems familiar, and yet—”
She rose and reached out her hand for the glass. He gave it to her. She raised it to her eyes, but, at that moment, the horseman swerved into the road again, and was lost to view. Suddenly Houghton started; an enigmatical smile passed across his face.
“Alice,” said he, “did you mean what you said about the steeplechase—I mean about the ride down the White Bluff road?”
“I meant all I said,” was her bitter reply.
“You think life is a mistake?” he rejoined.
“I think we have made a mistake,” was her answer; “a deadly mistake, and it lasts all our lives.”
He walked to the door, trained the glass again on the hill, then afterwards turned round, and said:
“If ever you think of riding the White Bluff road—straight for the cliff itself and over—tell me, and I’ll ride it with you. If it’s all wrong as it is, it’s all wrong for both, and, maybe, the worst of what comes after is better than the worst of what is here.”
They had been frank with each other in the past, but never so frank as this. He was determined that they should be still more frank; and so was she. “Alice,” he said—
“Wait a minute,” she interjected. “I have something to say, Tom. I never told you—indeed, I thought I never should tell you; but now I think it’s best to do so. I loved a man once—with all my soul.”
“You love him still,” was the reply; and he screwed and unscrewed the field-glass in his hand, looking bluntly at her the while. She nodded, returning his gaze most earnestly and choking back a sob.
“Well, it’s a pity, it’s a pity,” he replied. “We oughtn’t to live together as it is. It’s all wrong; it’s wicked—I can see that now.”
“You are not angry with me?” she answered in surprise.
“You can’t help it, I suppose,” he answered drearily.
“Do you really mean,” she breathlessly said, “that we might as well die together, since we can’t live together and be happy?”
“There’s nothing in life that gives me a pleasant taste in the mouth, so what’s the good? Mind you, my girl, I think it a terrible pity that you should have the thought to die; and if you could be happy living, I’d die myself to save you. But can you? That’s the question—can you be happy, even if I went and you stayed?”
“I don’t think so,” she said thoughtfully, and without excitement.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“The man’s name was Cayley—Cayley,” he said to her bluntly.
“How did you know?” she asked, astonished. “You never saw him.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve seen him,” was the reply—“seen him often. I knew him once.”
“I do not understand you,” she rejoined.
“I knew it all along,” he continued, “and I’ve waited for you to tell me.”
“How did you know?”
“Cayley told me.”
“When did he tell you?”
“The morning that I married you.” His voice was thick with misery.
She became white and dazed. “Before—or after?” she asked. He paused a moment, looking steadily at her, and answered, “Before.”
She drew back as though she had been struck. “Good God!” she cried. “Why did he not—” she paused.
“Why did he not marry you himself?” he rejoined.
“You must ask him that yourself, if you do not know.”
“And yet you married me, knowing all—that he loved me,” she gasped.
“I would have married you then, knowing a thousand times that.”
She cowered, but presently advanced to him. “You have sinned as much as I,” she said. “Do you dare pay the penalty?”
“Do I dare ride with you to the cliff—and beyond?” Her lips framed a reply, but no sound came.
“But we will wait till to-morrow,” he said absently.
“Why not to-day?” she painfully asked.
“We will wait till to-morrow,” he urged, and his eyes followed the trail of a horseman on the hill.
“Why not while we have courage?” she persisted, as though the suspense hurt her.
“But we will wait till to-morrow, Alice,” he again repeated.
“Very well,” she answered, with the indifference of despair.
He stood in the doorway and watched a horseman descending into valley.
“Strange things may chance before to-morrow,” he said to himself, and he mechanically lighted another cigar. She idled with her fan.
II
He did not leave the house that afternoon. He kept his post on the veranda, watching the valley. With an iron kind of calmness he was facing a strange event. It was full of the element of chance, and he had been taking chances all his life. With the chances of fortune he had won; with the chances of love and happiness he had lost. He knew that the horseman on the mountain-side was Cayley; he knew that Cayley would not be near his home without a purpose. Besides, Cayley had said he would come—he had said it in half banter, half threat. Houghton had had too many experiences backward and forward in the world, to be afflicted with littleness of mind. He had never looked to get an immense amount of happiness out of life, but he thought that love and marriage would give him a possible approach to content. He had chanced it, and he had lost. At first he had taken it with a dreadful bitterness; now he regarded it with a quiet, unimpassioned despair. He regarded his wife, himself, and Cayley, as an impartial judge would view the extraordinary claims of three desperate litigants. He thought it all over as he sat there smoking. When the servants came to him to ask him questions or his men ventured upon matters of business, he answered them directly, decisively, and went on thinking. His wife had come to take coffee with him at the usual hour of the afternoon. There was no special strain of manner or of speech. The voices were a little lower, the tones a little more decided, their eyes did not meet; that was all. When coffee-drinking was over the wife retired to her room. Still Houghton smoked on. At length he saw the horseman entering into the grove of palms before the door. He rose deliberately from his seat and walked down the pathway.
“Good day to you, Houghton,” the horseman said; “we meet again, you see.”
“I see.”
“You are not overjoyed.”
“There’s no reason why I should be glad. Why have you come?”
“You remember our last meeting five years ago. You were on your way to be married. Marriage is a beautiful thing, Houghton, when everything is right and square, and there’s love both sides. Well, everything was right and square with you and the woman you were going to marry; but there was not love both sides.”
While they had been talking thus, Houghton had, of purpose, led his companion far into the shade of the palms. He now wheeled upon Cayley, and said sternly: “I warn you to speak with less insolence; we had better talk simply.”
Cayley was perfectly cool. “We will talk simply. As I said, you had marriage without love. The woman loved another man. That other man loved the woman—that good woman. In youthful days at college he had married, neither wisely nor well, a beggar-maid without those virtues usually credited to beggar-maidens who marry gentlemen. Well, Houghton, the beggar-maid was supposed to have died. She hadn’t died; she had shammed. Meanwhile, between her death and her resurrection, the man came to love that good woman. And so, lines got crossed; things went wrong. Houghton, I loved Alice before she was your wife. I should have married her but for the beggar-maid.”
“You left her without telling her why.”
“I told her that things must end, and I went away.”
“Like a coward,” rejoined Houghton. “You should have told her all.”
“What difference has it made?” asked Cayley gloomily.
“My happiness and hers. If you had told her all, there had been an end of mystery. Mystery is dear to a woman’s heart. She was not different in that respect from others. You took the surest way to be remembered.”
Cayley’s fingers played with his horse’s mane; his eyes ran over the ground debatingly; then he lifted them suddenly, and said: “Houghton, you are remarkably frank with me; what do you mean by it?”
“I’ll tell you if you will answer me this question: Why have you come here?”
The eyes of both men crossed like swords, played with each other for a moment, and then fixed to absolute determination. Cayley answered doggedly: “I came to see your wife, because I’m not likely ever to see her or you again. I wanted one look of her before I went away. There, I’m open with you.”
“It is well to be open with me,” Houghton replied. He drew Cayley aside to an opening in the trees, where the mountain and the White Bluff road could be seen, and pointed. “That would make a wonderful leap,” he said, “from the top of the hill down to the cliff edge—and over!”
“A dreadful steeplechase,” said Cayley.
Houghton lowered his voice. “Two people have agreed to take that fence.”
Cayley frowned. “What two people?”
“My wife and I.”
“Why?”
“Because there has been a mistake, and to live is misery.”
“Has it come to that?” Cayley asked huskily. “Is there no way—no better way? Are you sure that Death mends things?” Presently he put his hand upon Houghton’s arm, as if with a sudden, keen resolve. “Houghton,” he said, “you are a man—I have become a villain. A woman sent me once on the high road to the devil; then an angel came in and made a man of me again; but I lost the angel, and another man found her, and I took the highway with the devil again. I was born a gentleman—that you know. Now I am...” He hesitated. A sardonic smile crept across his face.
“Yes, you are—?” interposed Houghton.
“I am—a man who will give you your wife’s love.”
“I do not understand,” Houghton responded. Cayley drew Houghton back from where they stood and away from the horse.
“Look at that horse,” he said. “Did you ever see a better?”
“Never,” answered Houghton, running him over with his eye, “never.”
“You notice the two white feet and the star on the forehead. Now, listen. Firefoot, here!”
“My God!” said Houghton, turning upon him with staring eyes, “you are—”
“Whose horse is that?” interjected Cayley. Firefoot laid his head upon Cayley’s shoulder.
Houghton looked at them both for a moment. “It is the horse of Hyland the bushranger,” he said. “All Queensland knows Firefoot.” Then he dazedly added: “Are you Hyland?”
“A price is set on my head,” the bushranger answered with a grim smile.
Houghton stood silent for a moment, breathing hard. Then he rejoined: “You are bold to come here openly.”
“If I couldn’t come here openly I would not come at all,” answered the other. “After what I have told you,” he added, “will you take me in and let me speak with your wife?”
Houghton’s face turned black, and he was about to answer angrily, but Cayley said: “On my honour—I will play a fair game,” he said.
For an instant their eyes were fixed on each other; then, with a gesture for Cayley to follow, Houghton went towards the house.
Five, minutes later Houghton said to his wife: “Alice, a stranger has come.”
“Who is it?” she asked breathlessly, for she read importance in his tone.
“It is the horseman we saw on the hillside.” His eyes passed over her face pityingly. “I will go and bring him.”
She caught his arm. “Who is it? Is it any one I know?”
“It is some one you know,” he answered, and left the room. Bewildered, anticipating, yet dreading to recognise her thoughts, she sat down and waited in a painful stillness.
Presently the door opened, and Cayley entered. She started to her feet with a stifled, bitter cry: “Oh, Harry!”
He hurried to her with arms outstretched, for she swayed; but she straightway recovered herself, and, leaning against a chair, steadied to his look.
“Why have you come here?” she whispered. “To say good-bye for always,” was his reply.
“And why—for always?” She was very white and quiet.
“Because we are not likely ever to meet again.”
“Where are you going?” she anxiously asked. “God knows!”
Strange sensations were working in her. What would be the end of this? Her husband, knowing all, had permitted this man to come to her alone. She had loved him for years; though he had deserted her years ago, she loved him still—did she love him still?
“Will you not sit down?” she said with mechanical courtesy.
A stranger would not have thought from their manner that there were lives at stake. They both sat, he playing with the leaves of an orchid, she opening and shutting her fan absently. But she was so cold she could hardly speak. Her heart seemed to stand still.
“How has the world used you since we met last?” she tried to say neutrally.
“Better, I fear, than I have used it,” he answered quietly.
“I do not quite see. How could you ill-use the world?” There was faint irony in her voice now. A change seemed to have come upon her.
“By ill-using any one person we ill-use society—the world”—he meaningly replied.
“Whom have you ill-used?” She did not look at him.
“Many—you chiefly.”
“How have you—most-ill-used me?”
“By letting you think well of me—you have done so, have you not?”
She did not speak, but lowered her head, and caught her breath slightly. There was a silence. Then she said: “There was no reason why I should—But you must not say these things to me. My husband—”
“Your husband knows all.”
“But that does not alter it,” she urged firmly. “Though he may be willing you should speak of these things, I am not.”
“Your husband is a good fellow,” he rejoined. “I am not.”
“You are not?” she asked wearily.
“No. What do you think was the reason that, years ago, I said we could never be married, and that we must forget each other?”
“I cannot tell. I supposed it was some duty of which I could not know. There are secret and sacred duties which we sometimes do not tell, even to our nearest and dearest... but I said we should not speak of these things, and we must not.” She rose to her feet. “My husband is somewhere near. I will call him. There are so many things that men can talk of-pleasant and agreeable things—”
He had risen with her, and as her hand was stretched out to ring, stayed it. “No, never mind your husband just now. I think he knows what I am going to say to you.”
“But, oh, you must not—must not!” she urged.
“Pardon me, but I must,” was his reply.
“As I said, you thought I was a good fellow. Well, I am not; not at all. I will tell you why I left you. I was—already married.”
He let the bare unrelieved fact face her, and shock her.
“You were—already married—when—you loved me,” she said, her face showing misery and shame.
He smiled a little bitterly when he saw the effect of his words, but said clearly: “Yes. You see I was a villain.”
She shuddered a little, and then said simply: “Your face was not the face of a bad man. Are you telling me the truth?”
He nodded.
“Then you were wicked with me,” she said at last, with a great sigh, looking him straight in the eyes. “But you—you loved me?” she said with injured pride and a piteous appeal in her voice. “Ah, I know you loved me!”
“I will tell you when you know all,” he answered evenly.
“Is there more to tell?” she asked heavily, and shrinking from him now.
“Much more. Please, come here.” He went towards the open window of the room, and she followed. He pointed out to where his horse stood in the palms.
“That is my horse,” he said. He whistled to the horse, which pricked up its ears and trotted over to the window. “The name of my horse,” he said, “maybe familiar to you. He is called Firefoot.”
“Firefoot!” she answered dazedly, “that is the name of Hyland’s horse—Hyland the bushranger.”
“This is Hyland’s horse,” he said, and he patted the animal’s neck gently as it thrust its head within the window.
“But you said it was your horse,” she rejoined slowly, as though the thing perplexed her sorely.
“It is Hyland’s horse; it is my horse,” he urged without looking at her. His courage well-nigh failed him. Villain as he was, he loved her, and he saw the foundations of her love for him crumbling away before him. In all his criminal adventures he had cherished this one thing.
She suddenly gave a cry of shame and agony, a low trembling cry, as though her heart-strings were being dragged out. She drew back from him—back to the middle of the room.
He came towards her, reaching out his arms. “Forgive me,” he said.
“Oh, no, never!” she cried with horror.
The cry had been heard outside, and Houghton entered the room, to find his wife, all her strength gone, turning a face of horror upon Cayley. She stretched out her arms to her husband with a pitiful cry. “Tom,” she said, “Tom, take me away.”
He took her gently in his arms.
Cayley stood with his hand upon his horse’s neck. “Houghton,” he said in a low voice, “I have been telling your wife what I was, and who I am. She is shocked. I had better go.”
The woman’s head had dropped on her husband’s shoulder. Houghton waited to see if she would look up. But she did not.
“Well, good-bye to you both,” Cayley said, stepped through the window, and vaulted on his horse’s back. “I’m going to see if the devil’s as black as he’s painted.” Then, setting spurs to his horse, he galloped away through the palms to the gate.