The Lust of Hate, Guy Newell Boothby [essential books to read .txt] 📗

it would not be wise for me to

accept your offer. I have told you repeatedly, Miss Maybourne, that I

am not like other men. God knows how heartily I repent my foolish

past. But repentance, however sincere, will not take away the stain.

I want to get away from civilization as far and as quickly as

possible. For this reason immediately we arrive I shall start for the

Transvaal, and once there shall endeavour to carve out a new name and

a new life for myself. This time, Providence helping me, it shall be

a life of honour.”

 

“God grant you may succeed!” she said, but so softly that I could

scarcely hear it.

 

“May I tell myself that I have your good wishes, Miss Maybourne?”

I asked, with, I believe, a little tremor in my voice.

 

“Every good wish I have is yours,” she replied. “I should be worse

than ungrateful, after all you have done for me, if I did not take an

interest in your future.”

 

Then I did a thing for which it was long before’ I could forgive

myself. Heaven alone knows what induced me to do it; but if my life

had depended on it I could not have acted otherwise. I took her hand

in mine and drew her a little closer to me.

 

“Agnes,” I said, very softly, as she turned her beautiful face

towards me, “tomorrow we shall be separated, perhaps never to meet

again. After tonight it is possible, if not probable, that we shall

not have another opportunity of being alone together. You don’t know

what your companionship has been to me. Before I met you, I was

desperate. My life was not worth living; but you have changed it

all—you have made me a better man. You have taught me to love you,

and in that love I have found my belief in all that is good—even, I

believe, a faith in God. Oh, Agnes, Agnes! I am not worthy to touch

the ground you have walked on, but I love you as I shall never love

woman again!”

 

She was trembling violently, but she did not speak. Her silence

had the effect, however, of bringing me to myself, and it showed me

my conduct in all its naked baseness.

 

“Forgive me,” I whispered; “it was vile of me to have insulted you

with this avowal. Forget—and forgive, if you can—that I ever spoke

the words. Remember me only as a man, the most miserable in the whole

world, who would count it heaven to be allowed to lay down his life

for you or those you love. Oh, Agnes! is it possible that you can

forgive me?”

 

This time she answered without hesitation.

 

“I have nothing to forgive,” she said, looking up into my face

with those proud, fearless eyes that seemed to hold all the truth in

the world; “I am proud beyond measure to think you love me.”

 

When I heard these precious words, I could have fallen at her feet

and kissed the hem of her dress; but I dared not speak, lest I should

forget myself in my joy, and say something for which I should never

be able to atone. Agnes, however, was braver than I.

 

“Mr. Wrexford,” she said, “you have told me that you love me, and

now you are reproaching yourself for having done so. Is it because,

as you say, you are poor? Do you think so badly of me as to imagine

that that could make any difference to me?”

 

“I could not think so badly of you if I tried,” I answered.

 

“You have said that you love me?”

 

“And I mean it. I love you as I believe man never loved woman

before—certainly as I shall never love again.”

 

Then, lowering her head so that I could not see her face, she

whispered—

 

“Will it make you happier if I say that I love you?”

 

Her voice was soft as the breath of the evening rustling some tiny

leaf, but it made my heart leap with a delight I had never known

before, and then sink deeper and deeper down with a greater

shame.

 

“God forbid!” I cried, almost fiercely. “You must not love me. You

shall not do so. I am not worthy even that you should think of

me.”

 

“You are worthy of a great deal more,” she answered. “Oh, why will

you so continually reproach yourself?”

 

“Because, Agnes, my conscience will not let me be silent,” I

cried. “Because, Agnes, you do not know the shame of my life.”

 

“I will not let you say ‘shame,’” she replied. “Have I not grown

to know you better than you know yourself?”

 

How little she knew of me! How little she guessed what I was! We

were both silent again, and for nearly five minutes. I was the first

to speak. And it took all the pluck of which I was master to say what

was in my mind.

 

“Agnes,” I began, “this must be the end of such talk between us.

God knows, if I were able in honour to do so, I would take your love,

and hold you against the world. But, as things are, to do that would

be to proclaim myself the most despicable villain in existence. You

must not ask me why. I could not tell you. But some day, if by chance

you should hear the world’s verdict, try to remember that, whatever I

may have been, I did my best to behave like a man of honour to

you.”

 

She did not answer, but dropped her head on to her hands and

sobbed as if her heart would break. Then, regaining her composure a

little, she stood up again and faced me. Holding out her hand, she

said:

 

“You have told me that you love me. I have said that I love you.

You say that we must part. Let it be so. You know best. May God have

mercy on us both!”

 

I tried to say “Amen,” but my voice refused to serve me, and as I

turned and looked across the sea I felt the hot salt tears rolling

down my cheeks. By the time I recovered my self-possession she had

left me and had gone below.

 

CHAPTER IX. SOUTH AFRICA.

 

EVEN o’clock next morning found us entering Table Bay, our

eventful journey accomplished. Overhead towered the famous mountain

from which the Bay derives its name, its top shrouded in its cloth.

At its foot reposed the town with which my destiny seemed so vitally

connected, and which I was approaching with so much trepidation. As I

stood on the promenade deck and watched the land open out before me,

my sensations would have formed a good problem for a student of

character. With a perception rendered abnormally acute by my fear, I

could discern the boat of the port authorities putting off to us long

before I should, at any other time, have been able to see it. It had

yet to be discovered whether or not it contained a police official in

search of me. As I watched her dipping her nose into the seas, and

then tossing the spray off from either bow, in her haste to get to

us, she seemed to me to be like a bloodhound on my track. The closer

she came the more violently my heart began to beat, until it was as

much as I could do to breathe. If only I could be certain that she

was conveying an officer to arrest me, I felt I might find pluck

enough to drop overboard and so end the pursuit for good and all. But

I did not know, and the doubt upon the point decided me to remain

where I was and brave the upshot.

 

As I watched her, I heard a footstep upon the deck behind me. I

turned my head to find that it was Miss Maybourne. She came up beside

me, and having glanced ashore at the city nestling at the foot of the

great mountain, and then at the launch coming out to meet us, turned

to address me.

 

“Mr. Wrexford,” she began, “I am going to ask you to do me a great

favour, and I want you to promise me to grant it before I tell you

what it is.”

 

“I’m afraid I can hardly do that,” I answered. “But if you will

tell me what it is, I will promise to do it for you if it is in any

way possible.”

 

“It is this,” she said: “I want you, in the event of my father not

meeting me, to take me home. Oh don’t say no, Mr. Wrexford, I want

you so much to do it. Surely you will not deny me the last request I

make to you?”

 

She looked so pleadingly into my face that, as usual, it required

all my courage not to give way to her. But the risk was too great for

me even to contemplate such a thing for a moment. My rescue of the

daughter of Cornelius Maybourne, and my presence in Cape Town, would

soon leak out, and then it would be only a matter of hours before I

should be arrested. Whatever my own inclinations may have been, I

felt there was nothing for it but for me to refuse.

 

“I am not my own master in this matter,” I replied, with a

bitterness which must have shown her how much in earnest I was. “It

is impossible that I can remain so long in the place. There are the

most vital reasons in the world against it. I can only ask you to

believe that.”

 

I saw large tears rise in her eyes, though she turned hurriedly

away in the hope that I should not see them. To see her weep,

however, was more than I could bear, and under the influence of her

trouble my resolutions began to give way. After all, if I was

destined to be arrested, I might just as well be taken at Mr.

Maybourne’s house as elsewhere—perhaps better. Besides, it was more

than likely, in the event of no warrant having been issued, Mr.

Maybourne, whose influence, I had been told, was enormous in the

colony, might prove just the very friend of all others I wanted. At

any rate, if I were not taken before the time came for going ashore,

I would do as she wished. I told her this, and she immediately

thanked me and went down below again.

 

Just as I announced my decision the launch came alongside, and a

moment later her passengers were ascending the accommodation ladder,

which had been lowered to receive them. They were three in number,

and included—so I was told by a gentleman who stood beside me—the

harbour master, the officer of health, and another individual, about

whose identity my informant was not quite assured. I looked at the

last-named with no little apprehension; my nervousness endowed him

with all the attributes of a police official, and my mind’s eye could

almost discover the manacles reposing in his coat pocket. I trust I

may never pass through such another agonizing few minutes as I

experienced then. I saw the party step on to the spar deck, where

they shook hands with the purser and the chief officer, and watched

them as they ascended to the promenade deck and made their way

towards the bridge. Here they were received by the skipper. I leaned

against the rails, sick with fear and trembling in every limb,

expecting every moment to feel a heavy hand upon my shoulder, and to

hear a stern voice saying in my