Alice continued in a voice that was firm for all its faintness:
"I suppose I looked surprised, and taken aback, and indignant, but he held my hand as if his was a vice, and still we walked on. Then I looked at him, and he was pale. Then he stared down upon me, closely and long, as if he meant to read my soul, and a great shudder seemed to pass through him. He almost flung my hand away from him, and faced me in the road. We were then on that little bridge between two hills, not far from the shooting-box: you will remember it. 'Miss Alice,' he said, 'I am a villain! a scoundrel! an impostor. I have never been fit to speak to you, and I have dared to take your hand. But I find I am a shade less black than I thought myself a minute ago; for what I meant to say to you I would not say now to save my soul, if I had one! Good-bye; you will see no more of me. Whatever you may one day hear of me—and you must believe it all, for it is every word true—remember this: that, bad as I still am, I am less bad than I was before I knew you, and I have found it out this instant. Go, leave me, run home; you shall never see me again. I shall go at once from this place, and I leave England in two days. Do you hear? Go, leave me alone—go! And God go with you!' His voice was breaking, his wild looks frightened me, but I answered him. I had my suspicions, as I told him, but I did not tell him that you put them into my head. What I did say to him was this: 'Whatever you have done, whatever you may do, you did one thing once that can never, never grow less in my eyes!' I meant his saving of my father's life; and with that I ran away from him and never looked round. That is every word that passed. I can never forget them. As to what happened afterwards, you know more than I."
Alice's own voice shook; it was hollow, and hoarse, and scarcely audible at the end. As for Dick, he stood looking out of the window at the whirling leaves, with not a word to say, until an involuntary murmur escaped him.
"Poor Miles!"
The girl's answer was a low sob.
Then here was the truth at last. The innocence and purity of the young English girl had awed and appalled that bold, desperate, unscrupulous man at the last moment. On the brink of the worst of all his crimes his nerve had failed him, or, to do him better justice, his heart had smitten him. Yes, it must have been this, for the poor fellow loved her well. His last thought was of her, his last, dying effort was for her, his life's blood ran out of him in her service!
But Alice! Had she not loved him when he spoke? Had she not given her heart to him in the beginning? Had she not tacitly admitted as much in this very room? Then her heart must be his still; her heart must be his for ever—dead or living, false or true, villain or hero. Poor Alice! What a terrible thing for a girl to have so misplaced her love. Dick felt his heart bleeding for her, but what could he do? He could do nothing but go back to Australia, and pray that some day she might get over it and be consoled. Now that he thought of it, he had not told her about Australia. He had tried twice, and each time been interrupted. It must be done now.
"By-the-bye," he began (it was after a long silence, and the room was filled with dusk, and the fire burning low), "I didn't tell you, after all, how it is that I shall be aboard the Rome this time to-morrow. It is not to see off Compton and his sister, because until you told me I didn't know they were going. Can't you guess the reason?"
"No!"
What could be the meaning of that quick gasp from the other side of the room that preceded the faint monosyllable?
"I will tell you: it is because I sail for Australia myself to-morrow! I am going back to the bush."
There was a slight shiver of the basketwork chair. Then all was still; and Dick watched evening gather over the flat Ham fields across the river. The next tones from near the fireplace had a steely ring about them.
"Why are you going back?"
"Because I have found England intolerable."
"I thought you were going to get on so well in England?"
"So did I."
Another silence. Dick drummed idly upon the pane with his fingers. There was certainly a degree of regret in Alice's tone—enough to afford him a vague sense of gratitude to her.
"Is it not a terrible disappointment to your family?"
"I suppose it is," said Dick uneasily.
"And can you lightly grieve those who love you?"
She spoke as earnestly as though she belonged to that number herself; but, thought Dick, that must be from the force of her woman's sympathy for women. There was a slight catch in her voice, doubtless from the same cause. Could it be from any other cause? Dick trembled in the dusk by the window at the thought. No; it could not be. No; he did not wish it. He would not have her relent now. It was too late. He had set his mind on going; his passage was booked, his luggage was on board; nothing could unsettle him now. Was it not admitted in the beginning that he was an obstinate fellow? Besides, hope had been out of the range of his vision these many weeks. When a faint spark of hope burned on the horizon, was it natural that he should detect it at once? Yet her tones made him tremble.
As for Alice, her heart was beating with wild, sickening thuds. She felt that she was receiving her just deserts. Dick was as cold to her now as she had been cold to Dick before; only far colder, for she had but been trying him. Ah! but Nemesis was cruel in her justice! And she, Alice, so faint, so weary, so heartsick, so loveless, so full of remorse, so ready to love! And this the last chance of all!
"Is there nothing that could stop you from going now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing at all?"
"No consideration upon earth!"
"Ah, you have taken your passage!"
"That's not it!"
He was indignant. A paltry seventy guineas!
"Then what is? It must be that you've made up your mind, and would not unmake it—no matter who asked you."
The slightest stress imaginable was laid upon the relative.
Dick was leaning against the window-ledge for support. His brain was whirling. He could scarcely believe his ears. There was a tearful tenderness in her voice which he could not, which he dared not understand.
"What do you mean?" he asked hoarsely.
"I mean that—that you—that I——"
The words ended in inarticulate sobs.
"Do you mean that you ask me to stay in England?"
Dick put this question in a voice that was absolutely stern, though it quivered with suppressed agitation. There was no answer: sobs were no answer. He crossed the room unsteadily, fell on his knees at her side, and took both her hands in his. Then he repeated the same question—in the same words, in the same tones.
The answer came in a trembling whisper, with a fresh torrent of tears:
"What if I did?"
"The Rome might sail without me."
A tearful incredulous smile from Alice.
"Do you tell me to stay? I stay or go at your bidding. Darling! you know what that means to us two?"
No answer.
"Speak! Speak, Alice, for I cannot bear this! The Rome would sail without me!"
Alice did speak. The Rome did sail without him.
Transcriber's Notes:
Inconsistencies in hyphenation were not corrected.In the original book, sometimes the first words of each chapter were in small caps and sometimes they were not. That inconsistency was preserved in this version.On page 8, the quotation mark was deleted after "on this side of the road."On page 68, the word "looee" was replaced with "cooee".On page 92, a quotation mark was placed after "deducted from your allowance this evening."On page 158, "not this young follow" was replaced with "not this young fellow".On page 168, "bunshrangers" was replaced with "bushrangers".On page 184, a quotation mark was added after "and the older suitor."