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

much the same

manner as a hungry trout jumps at a fly. If I could only manage to

get up there without being caught the appointment would suit me in

every way. Mr. Maybourne seemed as pleased at my acceptance of it as

I was at his offer; and when, after a little further conversation—in

which I received many useful hints and no small amount of advice—it

was revealed to his daughter, she struck me as being even more

delighted than either her father or myself. I noticed that Mr.

Maybourne looked at her rather anxiously for a moment as if he

suspected there might be some sort of understanding between us, but

whatever he may have thought he kept it to himself. He need, however,

have had no fear on that score. Circumstances had placed an

insurmountable barrier between myself and any thought of marriage

with his daughter.

 

As the result of our conversation, and at my special desire, it

was arranged that I should start for my post on the following day.

Nobody could have been more eager than I was to be out in the wilds.

But, with it all, my heart felt sad when I thought that after

tomorrow I might never see the woman I so ardently loved again. Since

the previous night, when on the promenade-deck of the steamer I had

told her of my love, neither of us had referred in any way to the

subject. So remote was the chance that I should ever be able to make

her my wife that I determined, so far as possible, to prevent myself

from giving any thought to the idea. But I was not destined after all

to leave without referring to the matter.

 

That evening after dinner we were sitting in the verandah outside

the drawing-room, when the butler came to inform Mr. Maybourne that a

neighbour had called to see him. Asking us to excuse him for a few

moments he left us and went into the house. When we were alone

together I spoke to my companion of her father’s kindness, and told

her how much I appreciated it. She uttered a little sigh, and as this

seemed such an extraordinary answer to my speech, I enquired the

reason of it.

 

“You say you are going away tomorrow,” she answered, “and yet you

ask me why I sigh! Cannot you guess?”

 

“Agnes,” I said, “you know I have no option but to go. Do not let

us go over the ground we covered last night. It would be best not for

both our sakes; you must see that yourself.”

 

“You know that I love you, and I know that you love me—and yet

you can go away so calmly. What can your love be worth?”

 

“You know what it is worth,” I answered vehemently, roused out of

myself by this accusation. “And if ever the chance occurs again of

proving it you will be afforded another example. I cannot say

more.”

 

“And is it always to be like this, Gilbert,” she asked, for the

first time calling me by my Christian name. “Are we to be separated

all our lives?”

 

“God knows—I fear so,” I murmured, though it cut me to the heart

to have to say the words.

 

She bowed her head on her hands with a little moan, while I,

feeling that I should not be able to control myself much longer,

sprang to my feet and went across to the verandah rails. For

something like five minutes I stood looking into the dark garden,

then I pulled myself together as well as I was able and went back to

my chair.

 

“Agnes,” I said, as I took possession of her little hand, “you

cannot guess what it costs me to tell you how impossible it is for me

ever to link my lot with yours. The reason why I cannot tell you. My

secret is the bitterest one a man can have to keep, and it must

remain locked in my own breast for all time. Had I met you earlier it

might have been very different—but now our ways must be separate for

ever. Don’t think more hardly of me than you can help, dear. Remember

only that as long as I live I shall call no other woman wife.

Henceforward I will try to be worthy of the interest you have felt in

me. No one shall ever have the right to say ought against me; and, if

by any chance you hear good of me in the dark days to come, you will

know that it is for love of you I rule my life. May God bless and

keep you always.”

 

She held up her sweet face to me, and I kissed her on the lips.

Then Mr. Maybourne returned to the verandah; and, half-an-hour later,

feeling that father and daughter would like a little time alone

together before they retired to rest, I begged them to excuse me, and

on a pretence of feeling tired went to my room.

 

Next morning after breakfast I drove with Mr. Maybourne into Cape

Town, where I made the few purchases necessary for my journey. In

extension of the kindness he had so far shown me, he insisted on

advancing me half my first year’s salary—a piece of generosity for

which you may be sure I was not ungrateful, seeing that I had not a

halfpenny in the world to call my own. Out of this sum I paid the

steamship company for my passage—much against their wish—obtained a

ready-made rig out suitable for the rough life I should henceforth

live, also a revolver, a rifle, and among other things a small gold

locket which I wished to give to Agnes as a keepsake and remembrance

of myself.

 

At twelve o’clock I returned to the house, and, after lunch,

prepared to bid the woman I loved “good-bye.” Of that scene I cannot

attempt to give you any description—the pain is too keen even now.

Suffice it that when I left the house I carried with me, in addition

to a sorrow that I thought would last me all my life, a little square

parcel which, on opening, I found to contain a photo of herself in a

Russia leather case. How I prized that little present I will leave

you to guess.

 

Two hours later I was in the train bound for Johannesburg.

 

CHAPTER X. I TELL MY STORY.

 

SIX months had elapsed since I had left Cape Town, and on looking

back on them now I have to confess that they constituted the happiest

period of my life up to that time. I had an excellent appointment, an

interesting, if not all-absorbing, occupation, comfortable quarters,

and the most agreeable of companions any man could desire to be

associated with. I was as far removed from civilization as the most

misanthropic of men, living by civilized employment, could hope to

get. Our nearest town, if by such a name a few scattered huts could

be dignified, was nearly fifty miles distant, our mails only reached

us once a week, and our stores once every three months. As I had

never left the mine for half a day during the whole of the time I had

been on it, I had seen no strange faces, and by reason of the

distance and the unsettled nature of the country, scarcely

half-a-dozen had seen mine.

 

“The Pride of the South,” as the mine had been somewhat

grandiloquently christened by its discoverer, was proving a better

property than had even been expected, and to my astonishment, for I

had made haste to purchase shares in it, my luck had turned, and I

found myself standing an excellent chance of becoming a rich man.

 

One thing surprised me more and more every day, and that was my

freedom from arrest; how it had come about that I was permitted to

remain at large so long I could not understand. When I had first come

up to Rhodesia I had found a danger in everything about me. In the

rustling of the coarse veldt grass at night, the sighing of the wind

through the trees, and even the shadows of the mine buildings and

machinery. But when week after week and month after month went by and

still no notice was taken of me by the police, my fears began to

abate until, at the time of which I am about to speak, I hardly

thought of the matter at all. When I did I hastened to put it away

from me in much the same way as I would have done the remembrance of

some unpleasant dream of the previous week. One consolation, almost

cruel in its uncertainty, was always with me. If suspicion had not so

far fallen on me in England, it would be unlikely, I argued, ever to

do so; and in the joy of this thought I began to dream dreams of the

happiness that might possibly be mine in the future. Was it to be

wondered at therefore that my work was pleasant to me and that the

wording of Mr. Maybourne’s letters of praise seemed sweeter in my

ears than the strains of the loveliest music could have been. It was

evident that my star was in the ascendant, but, though I could not

guess it then, my troubles were by no means over; and, as I was soon

to find out, I was on the edge of the bitterest period of all my

life.

 

Almost on the day that celebrated my seventh mouth in Mr.

Maybourne’s employ, I received a letter from him announcing his

intention of starting for Rhodesia in a week’s time, and stating that

while in our neighbourhood he would embrace the opportunity of

visiting “The Pride of the South.” In the postscript he informed me

that his daughter had decided to accompany him, and for this reason

he would be glad if I would do my best to make my quarters as

comfortable as possible in preparation for her. He, himself, he

continued, was far too old a traveller to be worth considering.

 

I was standing at the engine-room door, talking to one of the men,

when the storekeeper brought me my mail. After I had read my chief’s

letter, I felt a thrill go through me that I could hardly have

diagnosed for pleasure or pain. I felt it difficult to believe that

in a few weeks’ time I should see Agnes again, be able to look into

her face, and hear the gentle accents of her voice. The portrait she

had given me of herself I carried continually about with me; and, as

a proof of the inspection it received, I may say that it was already

beginning to show decided signs of wear. Mr. Maybourne had done well

in asking me to see to her comfort. I told myself I would begin my

preparations at once, and it should go hard with me if she were not

pleased with my arrangements when she arrived.

 

“While I was mentally running my eye over what I should do,

Mackinnon, my big Scotch overseer, came up from the shaft’s mouth to

where I stood, and reported that some timbering which I had been

hurrying forward was ready for inspection. After we had visited it

and I had signified my approval, I informed him of our employer’s

contemplated visit, and wound up by saying that his daughter would

accompany him. He shook his head solemnly when he heard this.

 

“A foolish thing,” he said, in his slow, matter-of fact way, “a

very foolish thing. This country’s nae fit for a lady at present, as

Mr. Maybourne kens well eno’. An’ what’s more, there’ll be trouble

among the boys (natives) before