George Allerton had changed since he left England. The flesh had fallen away from his bones, and his face was sallow. He had not stood the climate well. His expression had changed too, for there was a singular querulousness about his mouth, and his eyes were shifty and cunning. He had lost his good looks.
'Can I come in?' he said.
'Yes,' answered Alec, and then turning to the doctor: 'You might stay a moment, will you?'
'Certainly.'
Adamson stood where he was, with his back to the flap that closed the tent. Alec looked up quickly.
'Didn't Selim tell you I wanted to speak to you?'
'That's why I've come,' answered George.
'You've taken your time about it.'
'I say, could you give me a drink of brandy? I'm awfully done up.'
'There's no brandy left,' answered Alec.
'Hasn't the doctor got some?'
'No.'
There was a long pause. Adamson and Walker did not know what was the matter; but they saw that there was something serious. They had never seen Alec so cold, and the doctor, who knew him well, saw that he was very angry. Alec lifted his eyes again and looked at George slowly.
'Do you know anything about the death of that Turkana woman?' he asked abruptly.
George did not answer immediately.
'No. How should I?' he said presently.
'Come now, you must know something about it. Last Tuesday you came into camp and said the Turkana were very much excited.'
'Oh, yes, I remember,' answered George, unwillingly
'Well?'
'I'm not very clear about it. The woman had been shot, hadn't she? One of the station boys had been playing the fool with her, and he seems to have shot her.'
'Have you made no attempt to find out which of the station boys it was?'
'I haven't had time,' said George, in a surly way. 'We've all been worked off our legs during the last three days.'
'Do you suspect no one?'
'I don't think so.'
'Think a moment.'
'The only man who might have done it is that big scoundrel we got on the coast, the Swahili beggar with one ear.'
'What makes you think that?'
'He's been making an awful nuisance of himself, and I know he's been running after the women.'
Alec did not take his eyes off George. Walker saw what was coming and looked down at the ground.
'You'll be surprised to hear that when the woman was found she wasn't dead.'
George did not move, but his cheeks became if possible more haggard. He was horribly frightened.
'She didn't die for nearly an hour.'
There was a very short silence. It seemed to George that they must hear the furious beating of his heart.
'Was she able to say anything?'
'She said you'd shot her,'
'What a damned lie!'
'It appears that you were—playing the fool with her. I don't know why you quarrelled. You took out your revolver and fired point blank.'
George laughed.
'It's just like these beastly niggers to tell a stupid lie like that. You wouldn't believe them rather than me, would you? After all, my word's worth more than theirs.'
Alec quietly took from his pocket the case of an exploded cartridge. It could only have fitted a revolver.
'This was found about two yards from the body and was brought to me this evening.'
'I don't know what that proves.'
'You know just as well as I do that none of the natives has a revolver. Beside ourselves only one or two of the servants have them.'
George took his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. His throat was horribly dry, and he could hardly breathe.
'Will you give me your revolver,' said Alec, quietly.
'I haven't got it. I lost it this afternoon when we made that sortie. I didn't tell you as I thought you'd get in a wax about it.'
'I saw you cleaning it less than an hour ago,' said Alec, gravely.
George shrugged his shoulders pettishly.
'Perhaps it's in my tent. I'll go and see.'
'Stop here,' said Alec sharply.
'Look here, I'm not going to be ordered about like a dog. You've got no right to talk to me like that. I came out here of my own free will, and I won't let you treat me like a damned nigger.'
'If you put your hand to your hip-pocket I think you'll find your revolver there.'
'I'm not going to give it you,' said George, his lips white with fear.
'Do you want me to come and take if from you myself?'
The two men stared at one another for a moment. Then George slowly put his hand to his pocket and took out the revolver. But a sudden impulse seized him. He raised it, quickly aimed at Alec, and fired. Walker was standing near him, and seeing the movement, instinctively beat up the boy's hand as pulled the trigger. In a moment the doctor had sprung forward and seizing him round the waist, thrown him backwards. The revolver fell from his hand. Alec had not moved.
'Let me go, damn you!' cried George, his voice shrill with rage.
'You need not hold him,' said Alec.
It was second nature with them all to perform Alec's commands, and without thinking twice they dropped their hands. George sank cowering into a chair. Walker, bending down, picked up the revolver and gave it to Alec, who silently fitted into an empty chamber the cartridge that had been brought to him.
'You see that it fits,' he said. 'Hadn't you better make a clean breast of it?'
George was utterly cowed. A sob broke from him.
'Yes, I shot her,' he said brokenly. 'She made a row and the devil got into me. I didn't know what I'd done till she screamed and I saw the blood.'
He cursed himself for being such a fool as to throw the cartridge away. His first thought had been to have all the chambers filled.
'Do you remember that two months ago I hanged a man to the nearest tree because he'd murdered one of the natives?'
George sprang up in terror, and he began to tremble.
'You wouldn't do that to me.'
A wild prayer went up in his heart that mercy might be shown him, and then bitter anger seized him because he had ever come out to that country.
'You need not be afraid,' answered Alec coldly. 'In any case I must preserve the native respect for the white man.'
'I was half drunk when I saw the woman. I wasn't responsible for my actions.'
'In any case the result is that the whole tribe has turned against us.'
The chief was Alec's friend, and it was he who had sent him the exploded cartridge. The news came to Alec like a thunderclap, for the Turkana were the best part of his fighting force, and he had always placed the utmost reliance on their fidelity. The chief said that he could not hold in his young men, and not only must Alec cease to count upon them, but they would probably insist on attacking him openly. They had stirred up the neighbouring tribes against him and entered into communication with the Arabs. He had been just at the turning point and on the verge of a great success, but now all that had been done during three years was frustrated. The Arabs had seized the opportunity and suddenly assumed the offensive. The unexpectedness of their attack had nearly proved fatal to Alec's party, and since then they had all had to fight for bare life.
George watched Alec as he stared at the ground.
'I suppose the whole damned thing's my fault,' he muttered.
Alec did not answer directly.
'I think we may take it for certain that the natives will go over to the slavers to-morrow, and then we shall be attacked on all sides. We can't hold out against God knows how many thousands. I've sent Rogers and Deacon to bring in all the Latukas, but heaven knows if they can arrive in time.'
'And if they don't?'
Alec shrugged his shoulders, but did not speak. George's breathing came hurriedly, and a sob rose to his throat.
'What are you going to do to me, Alec?'
MacKenzie walked up and down, thinking of the gravity of their position. In a moment he stopped and looked at Walker.
'I daresay you have some preparations to make,' he said.
Walker got up.
'I'll be off,' he answered, with a slight smile.
He was glad to go, for it made him ashamed to watch the boy's humiliation. His own nature was so honest, his loyalty so unbending, that the sight of viciousness affected him with a physical repulsion, and he turned away from it as he would have done from the sight of some hideous ulcer. The doctor surmised that his presence too was undesired. Murmuring that he had no time to lose if he wanted to get his patients ready for a night march, he followed Walker out of the tent. George breathed more freely when he was alone with Alec.
'I'm sorry I did that silly thing just now,' he said. 'I'm glad I didn't hit you.'
'It doesn't matter at all,' smiled Alec. 'I'd forgotten all about it.'
'I lost my head. I didn't know what I was doing.'
'You need not trouble about that. In Africa even the strongest of us are apt to lose our balance.'
Alec filled his pipe again, and lighting it, blew heavy clouds of smoke into the damp air. His voice was softer when he spoke.
'Did you ever know that before we came away I asked Lucy to marry me?'
George did not answer. He stifled a sob, for the recollection of Lucy, the centre of his love and the mainspring of all that was decent in him, transfixed his heart with pain.
'She asked me to bring you here in the hope that you'd,'—Alec had some difficulty in expressing himself—'do something that would make people forget what happened to your father. She's very proud of her family. She feels that your good name is—besmirched, and she wanted you to give it a new lustre. I think that is the object she has most at heart in the world. It is as great as her love for you. The plan hasn't been much of a success, has it?'
'She ought to have known that I wasn't suited for this sort of life,' answered George, bitterly.
'I saw very soon that you were weak and irresolute, but I thought I could put some backbone into you. I hoped for her sake to make something of you after all. Your intentions seemed good enough, but you never had the strength to carry them out.' Alec had been watching the smoke that rose from his pipe, but now he looked at George. 'I'm sorry if I seem to be preaching at you.'
'Oh, do you think I care what anyone says to me now?'
Alec went on very gravely, but not unkindly.
'Then I found you were drinking. I told you that no man could stand liquor in this country, and you gave me your word of honour that you wouldn't touch it again.'
'Yes, I broke it. I couldn't help myself. The temptation was too strong.'
'When we came to the station at Munias, and I was laid up with fever, you and Macinnery took the opportunity to get into an ugly scrape with some native women. You knew that that was the one thing I would not stand. I have nothing to do with morality—everyone is free in these things to do as he chooses—but I do know that nothing causes more trouble with the natives, and I've made definite rules on the subject. If the culprits are Swahilis I flog them, and if they're whites I send them back to the coast. That's what I ought to have done with you, but it would have broken Lucy's heart.'
'It was Macinnery's fault.'
'It's because I thought Macinnery was chiefly to blame that I sent him back alone. I determined to give you another chance. It struck me that the feeling of authority might have some influence on you, and so, when I had to build a boma to guard the road down to the coast, I put the chief part of the stores in your care and left you in command. I need not remind you what happened there.'
George looked down at the floor sulkily, and in default of excuses, kept silent. He felt a sullen resentment as he remembered Alec's anger. He had never seen him give way before or since to such a furious wrath, and he had seen Alec hold himself with all his strength so that he might not thrash him. Alec remembered too, and his voice once more grew hard and cold.
'I came to the conclusion that it was hopeless. You seemed to me rotten through and through.'
'Like my father before me,' sneered George, with a little laugh.
'I couldn't believe a word you said. You were idle and selfish. Above all you were loathsomely, wantonly cruel. I was aghast when I heard of the fiendish cruelty with which you'd used the wretched men whom I left with you. If I hadn't returned in the nick of time, they'd have killed you and looted all the stores.'
'It would have upset you to lose the stores, wouldn't it?'
'Is that all you've got to say?'
'You always believed their stories rather than mine.'
'It was difficult not to believe when a man showed me his back all torn and bleeding, and said you'd had him flogged because he didn't cook your food to your satisfaction.'
'I did it in a moment of temper. A man's not responsible for what he does when he's got fever.'
'It was too late to send you to the coast then, and I was obliged to take you on. And now the end has come. Your murder of that woman has put us all in deadly peril. Already to your charge lie the deaths of Richardson and Thompson and about twenty natives. We're as near destruction as we can possibly be; and if we're killed, to-morrow the one tribe that has remained friendly will be attacked and their villages burnt. Men, women and children, will be put to the sword or sold into slavery.'
George seemed at last to see the abyss into which he was plunged, and his resentment gave way to despair.
'What are you going to do?'
'We're far away from the coast, and I must take the law into my own hands.'
'You're not going to kill me?' gasped George.
'No,' said Alec scornfully.
Alec sat on the little camp table so that he might be quite near George.
'Are you fond of Lucy?' he asked gently.
George broke into a sob.
'O God, you know I am,' he cried piteously. 'Why do you remind me of her? I've made a rotten mess of everything, and I'm better out of the way. But think of the disgrace of it. It'll kill Lucy. And she was hoping I'd do so much.'
He hid his face in his hands and sobbed broken-heartedly. Alec, strangely touched, put his hand on his shoulder.
'Listen to me,' he said. 'I've sent Deacon and Rogers to bring up as many Latukas as they can. If we can tide over to-morrow we may be able to inflict a crushing blow on the Arabs; but we must seize the ford over the river. The Arabs are holding it and our only chance is to make a sudden attack on them to-night before the natives join them. We shall be enormously outnumbered, but we may do some damage if we take them by surprise, and if we can capture the ford, Rogers and Deacon will be able to get across to us. We've lost Richardson and Thompson. Perkins is down with fever. That reduces the whites to Walker, and the doctor, Condamine, Mason, you and myself. I can trust the Swahilis, but they're the only natives I can trust. Now, I'm going to start marching straight for the ford. The Arabs will come out of their stockade in order to cut us off. In the darkness I mean to slip away with the rest of the white men and the Swahilis, I've found a short cut by which I can take them in the rear. They'll attack just as the ford is reached, and I shall fall upon them. Do you see?'
George nodded, but he did not understand at what Alec was driving. The words reached his ears vaguely, as though they came from a long way off.
'I want one white man to lead the Turkana, and that man will run the greatest possible danger. I'd go myself only the Swahilis won't fight unless I lead them.... Will you take that post?'
The blood rushed to George's head, and he felt his ears singing.
'I?'
'I could order you to go, but the job's too dangerous for me to force it on anyone. If you refuse I shall call the others together and ask someone to volunteer.'
George did not answer.
'I won't hide from you that it means almost certain death. But there's no other way of saving ourselves. On the other hand, if you show perfect courage at the moment the Arabs attack and the Turkana find we've given them the slip, you may escape. If you do, I promise you that nothing shall be said of all that has happened here.'
George sprang to his feet, and once more on his lips flashed the old, frank smile.
'All right! I'll do that. And I thank you with all my heart for giving me the chance.'
Alec held out his hand, and he gave a sigh of relief.
'I'm glad you've accepted. Whatever happens you'll have done one brave action in your life.'
George flushed. He wanted to speak, but hesitated.
'I should like to ask you a great favour,' he said at last.
Alec waited for him to go on.
'You won't let Lucy know the mess I've made of things, will you? Let her think I've done all she wanted me to do.'
'Very well,' answered Alec gently.
'Will you give me your word of honour that if I'm killed you won't say anything that will lead anyone to suspect how I came by my death.'
Alec looked at him silently. It flashed across his mind that it might be necessary under certain circumstances to tell the whole truth. George was greatly moved. He seemed to divine the reason of Alec's hesitation.
'I have no right to ask anything of you. Already you've done far more for me than I deserved. But it's for Lucy's sake that I implore you not to give me away.'
Alec, standing entirely still, uttered the words slowly.
'I give you my word of honour that whatever happens and in whatever circumstances I find myself placed, not a word shall escape me that could lead Lucy to suppose that you hadn't been always and in every way upright, brave, and honourable. I will take all the responsibility of your present action.'
'I'm awfully grateful to you.'
Alec moved at last. The strain of their conversation was become almost intolerable. Alec's voice became cheerful and brisk.
'I think there's nothing more to be said. You must be ready to start in half an hour. Here's your revolver.' There was a twinkle in his eyes as he continued: 'Remember that you've discharged one chamber. You'd better put in another cartridge.'
'Yes, I'll do that.'
George nodded and went out. Alec's face at once lost the lightness which it had assumed a moment before. He knew that he had just done something which might separate him from Lucy for ever. His love for her was now the only thing in the world to him, and he had jeopardised it for that worthless boy. He saw that all sorts of interpretations might be put upon his action, and he should have been free to speak the truth. But even if George had not exacted from him the promise of silence, he could never have spoken a word. He loved Lucy far too deeply to cause her such bitter pain. Whatever happened, she must think that George was a brave man, and had died in the performance of his duty. He knew her well enough to be sure that if death were dreadful, it was more tolerable than dishonour. He knew how keenly she had felt her disgrace, how it affected her like a personal uncleanness, and he knew that she had placed all her hopes in George. Her brother was rotten to the core, as rotten as her father. How could he tell her that? He was willing to make any sacrifice rather than allow her to have such knowledge. But if ever she knew that he had sent George to his death she would hate him. And if he lost her love he lost everything. He had thought of that before he answered: Lucy could do without love better than without self-respect.
But he had told George that if he had pluck he might get through. Would he show that last virtue of a blackguard—courage?
It was not till six months later that news of Alec MacKenzie's expedition reached the outer world, and at the same time Lucy received a letter from him in which he told her that her brother was dead. That stormy night had been fatal to the light-hearted Walker and to George Allerton, but success had rewarded Alec's desperate boldness, and a blow had been inflicted on the slavers which subsequent events proved to be crushing. Alec's letter was grave and tender. He knew the extreme grief he must inflict upon Lucy, and he knew that words could not assuage it. It seemed to him that the only consolation he could offer was that the life which was so precious to her had been given for a worthy cause. Now that George had made up in the only way possible for the misfortune his criminal folly had brought upon them, Alec was determined to put out of his mind all that had gone before. It was right that the weakness which had ruined him should be forgotten, and Alec could dwell honestly on the boy's charm of manner, and on his passionate love for his sister.
The months followed one another, the dry season gave place to the wet, and at length Alec was able to say that the result he had striven for was achieved. Success rewarded his long efforts, and it was worth the time, the money, and the lives that it had cost. The slavers were driven out of a territory larger than the United Kingdom, treaties were signed with chiefs who had hitherto been independent, by which they accepted the suzerainty of Great Britain; and only one step remained, that the government should take over the rights of the company which had been given powers to open up the country, and annex the conquered district to the empire. It was to this that MacKenzie now set himself; and he entered into communication with the directors of the company and with the commissioner at Nairobi.
But it seemed as if the fates would snatch from him all enjoyment of the laurels he had won, for on their way towards Nairobi, Alec and Dr. Adamson were attacked by blackwater fever. For weeks Alec lay at the point of death. His fine constitution seemed to break at last, and he himself thought that the end was come. Condamine, one of the company's agents, took command of the party and received Alec's final instructions. Alec lay in his camp bed, with his faithful Swahili boy by his side to brush away the flies, waiting for the end. He would have given much to live till all his designs were accomplished, but that apparently was not to be. There was only one thing that troubled him. Would the government let the splendid gift he offered slip through their fingers? Now was the time to take formal possession of the territories which he had pacified: the prestige of the whites was at its height, and there were no difficulties to be surmounted. He impressed upon Condamine, whom he wished to be appointed sub-commissioner under a chief at Nairobi, the importance of making all this clear to the authorities. The post he suggested would have been pressed upon himself, but he had no taste for official restrictions, and his part of the work was done. So far as this went, his death was of little consequence.
And then he thought of Lucy. He wondered if she would understand what he had done. He could acknowledge now that she had cause to be proud of him. She would be sorry for his death. He did not think that she loved him, he did not expect it; but he was glad to have loved her, and he wished he could have told her how much the thought of her had been to him during these years of difficulty. It was very hard that he might not see her once more in order to thank her for all she had been to him. She had given his life a beauty it could never have had, and for this he was very grateful. But the secret of George's death would die with him; for Walker was dead, and Adamson, the only man left who could throw light upon it, might be relied on to hold his tongue. And Alec, losing strength each day, thought that perhaps it were well if he died.
But Condamine could not bear to see his chief thus perish. For four years that man had led them, and only his companions knew his worth. To his acquaintance he might seem hard and unsympathetic, he might repel by his taciturnity and anger by his sternness; but his comrades knew how eminent were his qualities. It was impossible for anyone to live with him continually without being conquered by his greatness. If his power with the natives was unparalleled, it was because they had taken his measure and found him sterling. And he had bound the whites to him by ties from which they could not escape. He asked no one to do anything which he was not willing to do himself. If any plan of his failed he took the failure upon himself; if it succeeded he attributed the success to those who had carried out his orders. If he demanded courage and endurance from others it was easy, since he showed them the way by his own example to be strong and brave. His honesty, justice, and forbearance made all who came in contact with him ashamed of their own weakness. They knew the unselfishness which considered the comfort of the meanest porter before his own; and his tenderness to those who were ill knew no bounds.
The Swahilis assumed an unaccustomed silence, and the busy, noisy camp was like a death chamber. When Alec's boy told them that his master grew each day weaker, they went about with tears running down their cheeks, and they would have wailed aloud, but that they knew he must not be disturbed. It seemed to Condamine that there was but one chance, and that was to hurry down, with forced marches, to the nearest station. There they would find a medical missionary to look after him and the comforts of civilisation which in the forest they so woefully lacked.
Alec was delirious when they moved him. It was fortunate that he could not be told of Adamson's death, which had taken place three days before. The good, strong Scotchman had succumbed at last to the African climate; and on this, his third journey, having surmounted all the perils that had surrounded him for so long, almost on the threshold of home, he had sunk and died. He was buried at the foot of a great tree, far down so that the jackals might not find him, and Condamine with a shaking voice read over him the burial service from an English prayerbook.
It seemed a miracle that Alec survived the exhaustion of the long tramp. He was jolted along elephant paths that led through dense bush, up stony hills and down again to the beds of dried-up rivers. Each time Condamine looked at the pale, wan man who lay in the litter, it was with a horrible fear that he would be dead. They began marching before sunrise, swiftly, to cover as much distance as was possible before the sun grew hot; they marched again towards sunset when a grateful coolness refreshed the weary patient. They passed through interminable forests, where the majestic trees sheltered under their foliage a wealth of graceful, tender plants: from trunk and branch swung all manner of creepers, which bound the forest giants in fantastic bonds. They forded broad streams, with exquisite care lest the sick man should come to hurt; they tramped through desolate marshes where the ground sunk under their feet. And at last they reached the station. Alec was still alive.
For weeks the tender skill of the medical missionary and the loving kindness of his wife wrestled with death, and at length Alec was out of danger. His convalescence was very slow, and it looked often as though he would never entirely get back his health. But as soon as his mind regained its old activity, he resumed direction of the affairs which were so near his heart; and no sooner was his strength equal to it than he insisted on being moved to Nairobi, where he was in touch with civilisation, and, through the commissioner, could influence a supine government to accept the precious gift he offered. All this took many months, months of anxious waiting, months of bitter disappointment; but at length everything was done: the worthy Condamine was given the appointment that Alec had desired and set out once more for the interior; Great Britain took possession of the broad lands which Alec, by his skill, tact, perseverance and strength, had wrested from barbarism. His work was finished, and he could return to England.
Public attention had been called at last to the greatness of his achievement, to the dangers he had run and the difficulties he had encountered; and before he sailed, he learned that the papers were ringing with his praise. A batch of cablegrams reached him, including one from Dick Lomas and one from Robert Boulger, congratulating him on his success. Two foreign potentates, through their consuls at Mombassa, bestowed decorations upon him; scientific bodies of all countries conferred on him the distinctions which were in their power to give; chambers of commerce passed resolutions expressing their appreciation of his services; publishers telegraphed offers for the book which they surmised he would write; newspaper correspondents came to him for a preliminary account of his travels. Alec smiled grimly when he read that an Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs had referred to him in a debate with honeyed words. No such enthusiasm had been aroused in England since Stanley returned from the journey which he afterwards described in Darkest Africa. When he left Mombassa the residents gave a dinner in his honour, and everyone who had the chance jumped up on his legs and made a speech. In short, after many years during which Alec's endeavours had been coldly regarded, when the government had been inclined to look upon him as a busybody, the tide turned; and he was in process of being made a national hero.
Alec made up his mind to come home the whole way by sea, thinking that the rest of the voyage would give his constitution a chance to get the better of the ills which still troubled him; and at Gibraltar he received a letter from Dick. One had reached him at Suez; but that was mainly occupied with congratulations, and there was a tenderness due to the fear that Alec had hardly yet recovered from his dangerous illness, which made it, though touching to Alec, not so characteristic as the second.
My Dear Alec:
I am delighted that you will return in the nick of time for the London season. You will put the noses of the Christian Scientists out of joint, and the New Theologians will argue no more in the columns of the halfpenny papers. For you are going to be the lion of the season. Comb your mane and have it neatly curled and scented, for we do not like our lions unkempt; and learn how to flap your tail; be sure you cultivate a proper roar because we expect to shiver delightfully in our shoes at the sight of you, and young ladies are already practising how to swoon with awe in your presence. We have come to the conclusion that you are a hero, and I, your humble servant, shine already with reflected glory because for twenty years I have had the privilege of your acquaintance. Duchesses, my dear boy, duchesses with strawberry leaves around their snowy brows, (like the French grocer, I make a point of never believing a duchess is more than thirty,) ask me to tea so that they may hear me prattle of your childhood's happy days, and I have promised to bring you to lunch with them, Tompkinson, whom you once kicked at Eton, has written an article in Blackwood on the beauty of your character; by which I take it that the hardness of your boot has been a lasting, memory to him. All your friends are proud of you, and we go about giving the uninitiated to understand that nothing of all this would have happened except for our encouragement. You will be surprised to learn how many people are anxious to reward you for your services to the empire by asking you to dinner. So far as I am concerned, I am smiling in my sleeve; for I alone know what an exceedingly disagreeable person you are. You are not a hero in the least, but a pig-headed beast who conquers kingdoms to annoy quiet, self-respecting persons like myself who make a point of minding their own business.
Yours ever affectionately,
Richard Lomas.
Alec smiled when he read the letter. It had struck him that there would be some attempt on his return to make a figure of him, and he much feared that his arrival in Southampton would be followed by an attack of interviewers. He was coming in a slow German ship, and at that moment a P. and O., homeward bound, put in at Gibraltar. By taking it he could reach England one day earlier and give everyone who came to meet him the slip. Leaving his heavy luggage, he got a steward to pack up the things he used on the journey, and in a couple of hours, after an excursion on shore to the offices of the company, found himself installed on the English boat.
But when the great ship entered the English Channel, Alec could scarcely bear his impatience. It would have astonished those who thought him unhuman if they had known the tumultuous emotions that rent his soul. His fellow-passengers never suspected that the bronzed, silent man who sought to make no acquaintance, was the explorer with whose name all Europe was ringing; and it never occurred to them that as he stood in the bow of the ship, straining his eyes for the first sight of England, his heart was so full that he would not have dared to speak. Each absence had intensified his love for that sea-girt land, and his eyes filled with tears of longing as he thought that soon now he would see it once more. He loved the murky waters of the English Channel because they bathed its shores, and he loved the strong west wind. The west wind seemed to him the English wind; it was the trusty wind of seafaring men, and he lifted his face to taste its salt buoyancy. He could not think of the white cliffs of England without a deep emotion; and when they passed the English ships, tramps outward bound or stout brigantines driving before the wind with their spreading sails, he saw the three-deckers of Trafalgar and the proud galleons of the Elizabethans. He felt a personal pride in those dead adventurers who were spiritual ancestors of his, and he was proud to be an Englishman because Frobisher and Effingham were English, and Drake and Raleigh and the glorious Nelson.
And then his pride in the great empire which had sprung from that small island, a greater Rome in a greater world, dissolved into love as his wandering thoughts took him to green meadows and rippling streams. Now at last he need no longer keep so tight a rein upon his fancy, but could allow it to wander at will; and he thought of the green hedgerows and the pompous elm trees; he thought of the lovely wayside cottages with their simple flowers and of the winding roads that were so good to walk on. He was breathing the English air now, and his spirit was uplifted. He loved the grey soft mists of low-lying country, and he loved the smell of the heather as he stalked across the moorland. There was no river he knew that equalled the kindly Thames, with the fair trees of its banks and its quiet backwaters, where white swans gently moved amid the waterlilies. His thoughts went to Oxford, with its spires, bathed in a violet haze, and in imagination he sat in the old garden of his college, so carefully tended, so great with memories of the past. And he thought of London. There was a subtle beauty in its hurrying crowds, and there was beauty in the thronged traffic of its river: the streets had that indefinable hue which is the colour of London, and the sky had the gold and the purple of an Italian brocade. Now in Piccadilly Circus, around the fountain sat the women who sold flowers; and the gaiety of their baskets, rich with roses and daffodils and tulips, yellow and red, mingled with the sombre tones of the houses, the dingy gaudiness of 'buses and the sunny greyness of the sky.
At last his thoughts went back to the outward voyage. George Allerton was with him then, and now he was alone. He had received no letter from Lucy since he wrote to tell her that George was dead. He understood her silence. But when he thought of George, his heart was bitter against fate because that young life had been so pitifully wasted. He remembered so well the eagerness with which he had sought to bind George to him, his desire to gain the boy's affection; and he remembered the dismay with which he learned that he was worthless. The frank smile, the open countenance, the engaging eyes, meant nothing; the boy was truthless, crooked of nature, weak. Alec remembered how, refusing to acknowledge the faults that were so plain, he blamed the difficulty of his own nature; and, when it was impossible to overlook them, his earnest efforts to get the better of them. But the effect of Africa was too strong. Alec had seen many men lose their heads under the influence of that climate. The feeling of an authority that seemed so little limited, over a race that was manifestly inferior, the subtle magic of the hot sunshine, the vastness, the remoteness from civilisation, were very apt to throw a man off his balance. The French had coined a name for the distemper and called it folie d'Afrique. Men seemed to go mad from a sense of power, to lose all the restraints which had kept them in the way of righteousness. It needed a strong head or a strong morality to avoid the danger, and George had neither. He succumbed. He lost all sense of shame, and there was no power to hold him. And it was more hopeless because nothing could keep him from drinking. When Macinnery had been dismissed for breaking Alec's most stringent law, things, notwithstanding George's promise of amendment, had only gone from bad to worse. Alec remembered how he had come back to the camp in which he had left George, to find the men mutinous, most of them on the point of deserting, and George drunk. He had flown then into such a rage that he could not control himself. He was ashamed to think of it. He had seized George by the shoulders and shaken him, shaken him as though he were a rat; and it was with difficulty that he prevented himself from thrashing him with his own hands.
And at last had come the final madness and the brutal murder. Alec set his mind to consider once more those hazardous days during which by George's folly they had been on the brink of destruction. George had met his death on that desperate march to the ford, and lacking courage, had died miserably. Alec threw back his head with a curious movement.
'I was right in all I did,' he muttered.
George deserved to die, and he was unworthy to be lamented. And yet, at that moment, when he was approaching the shores which George, too, perhaps, had loved, Alec's heart was softened. He sighed deeply. It was fate. If George had inherited the wealth which he might have counted on, if his father had escaped that cruel end, he might have gone through life happily enough. He would have done no differently from his fellows. With the safeguards about him of a civilised state, his irresolution would have prevented him from going astray; and he would have been a decent country gentleman—selfish, weak, and insignificant perhaps, but not remarkably worse than his fellows—and when he died he might have been mourned by a loving wife and fond children.
Now he lay on the borders of an African swamp, unsepulchred, unwept; and Alec had to face Lucy, with the story in his heart that he had sworn on his honour not to tell.
Alec's first visit was to Lucy. No one knew that he had arrived, and after changing his clothes at the rooms in Pall Mall that he had taken for the summer, he walked to Charles Street. His heart leaped as he strolled up the hill of St. James Street, bright by a fortunate chance with the sunshine of a summer day; and he rejoiced in the gaiety of the well-dressed youths who sauntered down, bound for one or other of the clubs, taking off their hats with a rapid smile of recognition to charming women who sat in victorias or in electric cars. There was an air of opulence in the broad street, of a civilisation refined without brutality, which was very grateful to his eyes accustomed for so long to the wilderness of Africa.
The gods were favourable to his wishes that day, for Lucy was at home; she sat in the drawing-room, by the window, reading a novel. At her side were masses of flowers, and his first glimpse of her was against a great bowl of roses. The servant announced his name, and she sprang up with a cry. She flushed with excitement, and then the blood fled from her cheeks, and she became extraordinarily pale. Alec noticed that she was whiter and thinner than when last he had seen her; but she was more beautiful.
'I didn't expect you so soon,' she faltered.
And then unaccountably tears came to her eyes. Falling back into her chair, she hid her face. Her heart began to beat painfully.
'You must forgive me,' she said, trying to smile. 'I can't help being very silly.'
For days Lucy had lived in an agony of terror, fearing this meeting, and now it had come upon her unexpectedly. More than four years had passed since last they had seen one another, and they had been years of anxiety and distress. She was certain that she had changed, and looking with pitiful dread in the glass, she told herself that she was pale and dull. She was nearly thirty. There were lines about her eyes, and her mouth had a bitter droop. She had no mercy on herself. She would not minimise the ravages of time, and with a brutal frankness insisted on seeing herself as she might be in ten years, when an increasing leanness, emphasising the lines and increasing the prominence of her features, made her still more haggard. She was seized with utter dismay. He might have ceased to love her. His life had been so full, occupied with strenuous adventures, while hers had been used up in waiting, only in waiting. It was natural enough that the strength of her passion should only have increased, but it was natural too that his should have vanished before a more urgent preoccupation. And what had she to offer him now? She turned away from the glass because her tears blurred the image it presented; and if she looked forward to the first meeting with vehement eagerness, it was also with sickening dread.
And now she was so troubled that she could not adopt the attitude of civil friendliness which she had intended in order to show him that she made no claim upon him. She wanted to seem quite collected so that her behaviour should not lead him to think her heart at all affected, but she could only watch his eyes hungrily. She braced herself to restrain a wail of sorrow if she saw his disillusionment. He talked in order to give time for her to master her agitation.
'I was afraid there would be interviewers and boring people generally to meet me if I came by the boat by which I was expected, so I got into another, and I've arrived a day before my time.'
She was calmer now, and though she did not speak, she looked at him with strained attention, hanging on his words.
He was very bronzed, thin after his recent illness, but he looked well and strong. His manner had the noble self-confidence which had delighted her of old, and he spoke with the quiet deliberation she loved. Now and then a faint inflection betrayed his Scottish birth.
'I felt that I owed my first visit to you. Can you ever forgive me that I have not brought George home to you?'
Lucy gave a sudden gasp. And with bitter self-reproach she realised that in the cruel joy of seeing Alec once more she had forgotten her brother. She was ashamed. It was but eighteen months since he had died, but twelve since the cruel news had reached her, and now, at this moment of all others, she was so absorbed in her love that no other feeling could enter her heart.
She looked down at her dress. Its half-mourning still betokened that she had lost one who was very dear to her, but the black and white was a mockery. She remembered in a flash the stunning grief which Alec's letter had brought her. It seemed at first that there must be a mistake and that her tears were but part of a hateful dream. It was too monstrously unjust that the fates should have hit upon George. She had already suffered too much. And George was so young. It was very hard that a mere boy should be robbed of the precious jewel which is life. And when she realised that it was really true, her grief knew no bounds. All that she had hoped was come to nought, and now she could only despair. She bitterly regretted that she had ever allowed the boy to go on that fatal expedition, and she blamed herself because it was she who had arranged it. He must have died accusing her of his death. Her father was dead, and George was dead, and she was alone. Now she had only Alec; and then, like some poor stricken beast, her heart went out to him, crying for love, crying for protection. All her strength, the strength on which she had prided herself, was gone; and she felt utterly weak and utterly helpless. And her heart yearned for Alec, and the love which had hitherto been like a strong enduring light, now was a consuming fire.
But Alec's words brought the recollection of George back to her reproachful heart, and she saw the boy as she was always pleased to remember him, in his flannels, the open shirt displaying his fine white neck, with the Panama hat that suited him so well; and she saw again his pleasant blue eyes and his engaging smile. He was a picture of honest English manhood. There was a sob in her throat, and her voice trembled when she spoke.
'I told you that if he died a brave man's death I could ask no more.'
She spoke in so low a tone that Alec could scarcely hear, but his pulse throbbed with pride at her courage. She went on, almost in a whisper.
'I suppose it was predestined that our family should come to an end in this way. I'm thankful that George so died that his ancestors need have felt no shame for him.'
'You are very brave.'
She shook her head slowly.
'No, it's not courage; it's despair. Sometimes, when I think what his father was, I'm thankful that George is dead. For at least his end was heroic. He died in a noble cause, in the performance of his duty. Life would have been too hard for him to allow me to regret his end.'
Alec watched her. He foresaw the words that she would say, and he waited for them.
'I want to thank you for all you did for him,' she said, steadying her voice.
'You need not do that,' he answered, gravely.
She was silent for a moment. Then she raised her eyes and looked at him steadily. Her voice now had regained its usual calmness.
'I want you to tell me that he did all I could have wished him to do.'
To Alec it seemed that she must notice the delay of his answer. He had not expected that the question would be put to him so abruptly. He had no moral scruples about telling a deliberate lie, but it affected him with a physical distaste. It sickened him like nauseous water.
'Yes, I think he did.'
'It's my only consolation that in the short time there was given to him, he did nothing that was small or mean, and that in everything he was honourable, upright, and just dealing.'
'Yes, he was all that.'
'And in his death?'
It seemed to Alec that something caught at his throat. The ordeal was more terrible than he expected.
'In his death he was without fear.'
Lucy drew a deep breath of relief.
'Oh, thank God! Thank God! You don't know how much it means to me to hear all that from your own lips. I feel that in a manner his courage, above all his death, have redeemed my father's fault. It shows that we're not rotten to the core, and it gives me back my self-respect. I feel I can look the world in the face once more. I'm infinitely grateful to George. He's repaid me ten thousand times for all my love, and my care, and my anxiety.'
'I'm very glad that it is not only grief I have brought you. I was afraid you would hate me.'
Lucy blushed, and there was a new light in her eyes. It seemed that on a sudden she had cast away the load of her unhappiness.
'No, I could never do that.'
At that moment they heard the sound of a carriage stopping at the door.
'There's Aunt Alice,' said Lucy. 'She's been lunching out.'
'Then let me go,' said Alec. 'You must forgive me, but I feel that I want to see no one else to-day.'
He rose, and she gave him her hand. He held it firmly.
'You haven't changed?'
'Don't,' she cried.
She looked away, for once more the tears were coming to her eyes. She tried to laugh.
'I'm frightfully weak and emotional now. You'll utterly despise me.'
'I want to see you again very soon,' he said.
The words of Ruth came to her mind: Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldst take knowledge of me, and her heart was very full. She smiled in her old charming way.
When he was gone she drew a long breath. It seemed that a new joy was come into her life, and on a sudden she felt a keen pleasure in all the beauty of the world. She turned to the great bowl of flowers which stood on a table by the chair in which she had been sitting, and burying her face in them, voluptuously inhaled their fragrance. She knew that he loved her still.
The fickle English weather for once belied its reputation, and the whole month of May was warm and fine. It seemed that the springtime brought back Lucy's youth to her; and, surrendering herself with all her heart to her new happiness, she took a girlish pleasure in the gaieties of the season. Alec had said nothing yet, but she was assured of his love, and she gave herself up to him with all the tender strength of her nature. She was a little overwhelmed at the importance which he seemed to have acquired, but she was very proud as well. The great ones of the earth were eager to do him honour. Papers were full of his praise. And it delighted her because he came to her for protection from lionising friends. She began to go out much more; and with Alec, Dick Lomas, and Mrs. Crowley, went much to the opera and often to the play. They had charming little dinner parties at the Carlton and amusing suppers at the Savoy. Alec did not speak much on these occasions. It pleased him to sit by and listen, with a placid face but smiling eyes, to the nonsense that Dick Lomas and the pretty American talked incessantly. And Lucy watched him. Every day she found something new to interest her in the strong, sunburned face; and sometimes their eyes met: then they smiled quietly. They were very happy.
One evening Dick asked the others to sup with him; and since Alec had a public dinner to attend, and Lucy was going to the play with Lady Kelsey, he took Julia Crowley to the opera. To make an even number he invited Robert Boulger to join them at the Savoy. After brushing his hair with the scrupulous thought his thinning locks compelled, Dick waited in the vestibule for Mrs. Crowley. Presently she came, looking very pretty in a gown of flowered brocade which made her vaguely resemble a shepherdess in an old French picture. With her diamond necklace and a tiara in her dark hair, she looked like a dainty princess playing fantastically at the simple life.
'I think people are too stupid,' she broke out, as she joined Dick. 'I've just met a woman who said to me: "Oh, I hear you're going to America. Do go and call on my sister. She'll be so glad to see you." "I shall be delighted," I said, "but where does your sister live?" "Jonesville, Ohio," "Good heavens," I said, "I live in New York, and what should I be doing in Jonesville, Ohio?"'
'Keep perfectly calm,' said Dick.
'I shall not keep calm,' she answered. 'I hate to be obviously thought next door to a red Indian by a woman who's slab-sided and round-shouldered. And I'm sure she has dirty petticoats.'
'Why?'
'English women do.'
'What a monstrous libel!' cried Dick.
At that moment they saw Lady Kelsey come in with Lucy, and a moment later Alec and Robert Boulger joined them. They went in to supper and sat down.
'I hate Amelia,' said Mrs. Crowley emphatically, as she laid her long white gloves by the side of her.
'I deplore the prejudice with which you regard a very jolly sort of a girl,' answered Dick.
'Amelia has everything that I thoroughly object to in a woman. She has no figure, and her legs are much too long, and she doesn't wear corsets. In the daytime she has a weakness for picture hats, and she can't say boo to a goose.'
'Who is Amelia?' asked Boulger.
'Amelia is Mr. Lomas' affianced wife,' answered the lady, with a provoking glance at him.
'I didn't know you were going to be married, Dick,' said Lady Kelsey, inclined to be a little hurt because nothing had been said to her of this.
'I'm not,' he answered. 'And I've never set eyes on Amelia yet. She is an imaginary character that Mrs. Crowley has invented as the sort of woman whom I would marry.'
'I know Amelia,' Mrs. Crowley went on. 'She wears quantities of false hair, and she'll adore you. She's so meek and so quiet, and she thinks you such a marvel. But don't ask me to be nice to Amelia.'
'My dear lady, Amelia wouldn't approve of you. She'd think you much too outspoken, and she wouldn't like your American accent. You must never forget that Amelia is the granddaughter of a baronet.'
'I shall hold her up to Fleming as an awful warning of the woman whom I won't let him marry at any price. "If you marry a woman like that, Fleming," I shall say to him, "I shan't leave you a penny. It shall all go the University of Pennsylvania."'
'If ever it is my good fortune to meet Fleming, I shall have great pleasure in kicking him hard,' said Dick. 'I think he's a most objectionable little beast.'
'How can you be so absurd? Why, my dear Mr. Lomas, Fleming could take you up in one hand and throw you over a ten-foot wall.'
'Fleming must be a sportsman,' said Bobbie, who did not in the least know whom they were talking about.
'He is,' answered Mrs. Crowley. 'He's been used to the saddle since he was three years old, and I've never seen the fence that would make him lift a hair. And he's the best swimmer at Harvard, and he's a wonderful shot—I wish you could see him shoot, Mr. MacKenzie—and he's a dear.'
'Fleming's a prig,' said Dick.
'I'm afraid you're too old for Fleming,' said Mrs. Crowley, looking at Lucy. 'If it weren't for that, I'd make him marry you.'
'Is Fleming your brother, Mrs. Crowley?' asked Lady Kelsey.
'No, Fleming's my son.'
'But you haven't got a son,' retorted the elder lady, much mystified.
'No, I know I haven't; but Fleming would have been my son if I'd had one.'
'You mustn't mind them, Aunt Alice,' smiled Lucy gaily. 'They argue by the hour about Amelia and Fleming, and neither of them exists; but sometimes they go into such details and grow so excited that I really begin to believe in them myself.'
But Mrs. Crowley, though she appeared a light-hearted and thoughtless little person, had much common sense; and when their party was ended and she was giving Dick a lift in her carriage, she showed that, notwithstanding her incessant chatter, her eyes throughout the evening had been well occupied.
'Did you owe Bobbie a grudge that you asked him to supper?' she asked suddenly.
'Good heavens, no. Why?'
'I hope Fleming won't be such a donkey as you are when he's your age.'
'I'm sure Amelia will be much more polite than you to the amiable, middle-aged gentleman who has the good fortune to be her husband.'
'You might have noticed that the poor boy was eating his heart out with jealousy and mortification, and Lucy was too much absorbed in Alec to pay the very smallest attention to him.'
'What are you talking about?'
Mrs. Crowley gave him a glance of amused disdain.
'Haven't you noticed that Lucy is desperately in love with Mr. MacKenzie, and it doesn't move her in the least that poor Bobbie has fetched and carried for her for ten years, done everything she deigned to ask, and been generally nice and devoted and charming?'
'You amaze me,' said Dick. 'It never struck me that Lucy was the kind of girl to fall in love with anyone. Poor thing. I'm so sorry.'
'Why?'
'Because Alec wouldn't dream of marrying. He's not that sort of man.'
'Nonsense. Every man is a marrying man if a woman really makes up her mind to it.'
'Don't say that. You terrify me.'
'You need not be in the least alarmed,' answered Mrs. Crowley, coolly, 'because I shall refuse you.'
'It's very kind of you to reassure me,' he answered, smiling. 'But all the same I don't think I'll risk a proposal.'
'My dear friend, your only safety is in immediate flight.'
'Why?'
'It must be obvious to the meanest intelligence that you've been on the verge of proposing to me for the last four years.'
'Nothing will induce me to be false to Amelia.'
'I don't believe that Amelia really loves you.'
'I never said she did; but I'm sure she's quite willing to marry me.'
'I think that's detestably vain.'
'Not at all. However old, ugly, and generally undesirable a man is, he'll find a heap of charming girls who are willing to marry him. Marriage is still the only decent means of livelihood for a really nice woman.'
'Don't let's talk about Amelia; let's talk about me,' said Mrs. Crowley.
'I don't think you're half so interesting.'
'Then you'd better take Amelia to the play to-morrow night instead of me.'
'I'm afraid she's already engaged.'
'Nothing will induce me to play second fiddle to Amelia.'
'I've taken the seats and ordered an exquisite dinner at the Carlton.'
'What have you ordered?'
'Potage bisque.'
Mrs. Crowley made a little face.
'Sole Normande.'
She shrugged her shoulders.
'Wild duck.'
'With an orange salad?'
'Yes.'
'I don't positively dislike that.'
'And I've ordered a souffle with an ice in the middle of it.'
'I shan't come.'
'Why?'
'You're not being really nice to me.'
'I shouldn't have thought you kept very well abreast of dramatic art if you insist on marrying everyone who takes you to a theatre,' he said.
'I was very nicely brought up,' she answered demurely, as the carriage stopped at Dick's door.
She gave him a ravishing smile as he took leave of her. She knew that he was quite prepared to marry her, and she had come to the conclusion that she was willing to have him. Neither much wished to hurry the affair, and each was determined that he would only yield to save the other from a fancied desperation. Their love-making was pursued with a light heart.
At Whitsuntide the friends separated. Alec went up to Scotland to see his house and proposed afterwards to spend a week in Lancashire. He had always taken a keen interest in the colliery which brought him so large an income, and he wanted to examine into certain matters that required his attention. Mrs. Crowley went to Blackstable, where she still had Court Leys, and Dick, in order to satisfy himself that he was not really a day older, set out for Paris. But they all arranged to meet again on the day, immediately after the holidays, which Lady Kelsey, having persuaded Lucy definitely to renounce her life of comparative retirement, had fixed for a dance. It was the first ball she had given for many years, and she meant it to be brilliant. Lady Kelsey had an amiable weakness for good society, and Alec's presence would add lustre to the occasion. Meanwhile she went with Lucy to her little place on the river, and did not return till two days before the party. They were spent in a turmoil of agitation. Lady Kelsey passed sleepless nights, fearing at one moment that not a soul would appear, and at another that people would come in such numbers that there would not be enough for them to eat. The day arrived.
But then happened an event which none but Alec could in the least have expected; and he, since his return from Africa, had been so taken up with his love for Lucy, that the possibility of it had slipped his memory.
Fergus Macinnery, the man whom three years before he had dismissed ignominiously from his service, found a way to pay off an old score.
Of the people most nearly concerned in the matter, it was Lady Kelsey who had first news of it. The morning papers were brought into her boudoir with her breakfast, and as she poured out her coffee, she ran her eyes lazily down the paragraphs of the Morning Post in which are announced the comings and goings of society. Then she turned to the Daily Mail. Her attention was suddenly arrested. Staring at her, in the most prominent part of the page, was a column of printed matter headed: The Death of Mr. George Allerton. It was a letter, a column long, signed by Fergus Macinnery. Lady Kelsey read it with amazement and dismay. At first she could not follow it, and she read it again; now its sense was clear to her, and she was overcome with horror. In set words, mincing no terms, it accused Alec MacKenzie of sending George Allerton to his death in order to save himself. The words treachery and cowardice were used boldly. The dates were given, and the testimony of natives was adduced.
The letter adverted with scathing sarcasm to the rewards and congratulations which had fallen to MacKenzie as a result of his labours; and ended with a challenge to him to bring an action for criminal libel against the writer. At first the whole thing seemed monstrous to Lady Kelsey, it was shameful, shameful; but in a moment she found there was a leading article on the subject, and then she did not know what to believe. It referred to the letter in no measured terms: the writer observed that prima facie the case was very strong and called upon Alec to reply without delay. Big words were used, and there was much talk of a national scandal. An instant refutation was demanded. Lady Kelsey did not know what on earth to do, and her thoughts flew to the dance, the success of which would certainly be imperilled by these revelations. She must have help at once. This business, if it concerned the world in general, certainly concerned Lucy more than anyone. Ringing for her maid, she told her to get Dick Lomas on the telephone and ask him to come at once. While she was waiting, she heard Lucy come downstairs and knew that she meant to wish her good-morning. She hid the paper hurriedly.
When Lucy came in and kissed her, she said:
'What is the news this morning?'
'I don't think there is any,' said Lady Kelsey, uneasily. 'Only the Post has come; we shall really have to change our newsagent.'
She waited with beating heart for Lucy to pursue the subject, but naturally enough the younger woman did not trouble herself. She talked to her aunt of the preparations for the party that evening, and then, saying that she had much to do, left her. She had no sooner gone than Lady Kelsey's maid came back to say that Lomas was out of town and not expected back till the evening. Distractedly Lady Kelsey sent messages to her nephew and to Mrs. Crowley. She still looked upon Bobbie as Lucy's future husband, and the little American was Lucy's greatest friend. They were both found. Boulger had gone down as usual to the city, but in consideration of Lady Kelsey's urgent request, set out at once to see her.
He had changed little during the last four years, and had still a boyish look on his round, honest face. To Mrs. Crowley he seemed always an embodiment of British philistinism; and if she liked him for his devotion to Lucy, she laughed at him for his stolidity. When he arrived, Mrs. Crowley was already with Lady Kelsey. She had known nothing of the terrible letter, and Lady Kelsey, thinking that perhaps it had escaped him too, went up to him with the Daily Mail in her hand.
'Have you seen the paper, Bobbie?' she asked excitedly. 'What on earth are we to do?'
He nodded.
'What does Lucy say?' he asked.
'Oh, I've not let her see it. I told a horrid fib and said the newsagent had forgotten to leave it.'
'But she must know,' he answered gravely.
'Not to-day,' protested Lady Kelsey. 'Oh, it's too dreadful that this should happen to-day of all days. Why couldn't they wait till to-morrow? After all Lucy's troubles it seemed as if a little happiness was coming back into her life, and now this dreadful thing happens.'
'What are you going to do?' asked Bobbie.
'What can I do?' said Lady Kelsey desperately. 'I can't put the dance off. I wish I had the courage to write and ask Mr. MacKenzie not to come.'
Bobbie made a slight gesture of impatience. It irritated him that his aunt should harp continually on the subject of this wretched dance. But for all that he tried to reassure her.
'I don't think you need be afraid of MacKenzie. He'll never venture to show his face.'
'You don't mean to say you think there's any truth in the letter?' exclaimed Mrs. Crowley.
He turned and faced her.
'I've never read anything more convincing in my life.'
Mrs. Crowley looked at him, and he returned her glance steadily.
Of those three it was only Lady Kelsey who did not know that Lucy was deeply in love with Alec MacKenzie.
'Perhaps you're inclined to be unjust to him,' said Mrs. Crowley.
'We shall see if he has any answer to make,' he answered coldly. 'The evening papers are sure to get something out of him. The city is ringing with the story, and he must say something at once.'
'It's quite impossible that there should be anything in it,' said Mrs. Crowley. 'We all know the circumstances under which George went out with him. It's inconceivable that he should have sacrificed him as callously as this man's letter makes out.'
'We shall see.'
'You never liked him, Bobbie,' said Lady Kelsey.
'I didn't,' he answered briefly.
'I wish I'd never thought of giving this horrid dance,' she moaned.
Presently, however, they succeeded in calming Lady Kelsey. Though both thought it unwise, they deferred to her wish that everything should be hidden from Lucy till the morrow. Dick Lomas was arriving from Paris that evening, and it would be possible then to take his advice. When at last Mrs. Crowley left the elder woman to her own devices, her thoughts went to Alec. She wondered where he was, and if he already knew that his name was more prominently than ever before the public.
MacKenzie was travelling down from Lancashire. He was not a man who habitually read papers, and it was in fact only by chance that he saw a copy of the Daily Mail. A fellow traveller had with him a number of papers, and offered one of them to Alec. He took it out of mere politeness. His thoughts were otherwise occupied, and he scanned it carelessly. Suddenly he saw the heading which had attracted Lady Kelsey's attention. He read the letter, and he read the leading article. No one who watched him could have guessed that what he read concerned him so nearly. His face remained impassive. Then, letting the paper fall to the ground, he began to think. Presently he turned to the amiable stranger who had given him the paper, and asked him if he had seen the letter.
'Awful thing, isn't it?' the man said.
Alec fixed upon him his dark, firm eyes. The man seemed an average sort of person, not without intelligence.
'What do you think of it?'
'Pity,' he said. 'I thought MacKenzie was a great man. I don't know what he can do now but shoot himself.'
'Do you think there's any truth in it?'
'The letter's perfectly damning.'
Alec did not answer. In order to break off the conversation he got up and walked into the corridor. He lit a cigar and watched the green fields that fled past them. For two hours he stood motionless. At last he took his seat again, with a shrug of the shoulders, and a scornful smile on his lips.
The stranger was asleep, with his head thrown back and his mouth slightly open. Alec wondered whether his opinion of the affair would be that of the majority. He thought Alec should shoot himself?
'I can see myself doing it,' Alec muttered.
A few hours later Lady Kelsey's dance was in full swing, and to all appearances it was a great success. Many people were there, and everyone seemed to enjoy himself. On the surface, at all events, there was nothing to show that anything had occurred to disturb the evening's pleasure, and for most of the party the letter in the Daily Mail was no more than a welcome topic of conversation.
Presently Canon Spratte went into the smoking-room. He had on his arm, as was his amiable habit, the prettiest girl at the dance, Grace Vizard, a niece of that Lady Vizard who was a pattern of all the proprieties and a devout member of the Church of Rome. He found that Mrs. Crowley and Robert Boulger were already sitting there, and he greeted them courteously.
'I really must have a cigarette,' he said, going up to the table on which were all the necessary things for refreshment.
'If you press me dreadfully I'll have one, too,' said Mrs. Crowley, with a flash of her beautiful teeth.
'Don't press her,' said Bobbie. 'She's had six already, and in a moment she'll be seriously unwell.'
'Well, I'll forego the pressing, but not the cigarette.'
Canon Spratte gallantly handed her the box, and gave her a light.
'It's against all my principles, you know,' he smiled.
'What is the use of principles except to give one an agreeable sensation of wickedness when one doesn't act up to them?'
The words were hardly out of her mouth when Dick and Lady Kelsey appeared.
'Dear Mrs. Crowley, you're as epigrammatic as a dramatist,' he exclaimed. 'Do you say such things from choice or necessity?'
He had arrived late, and this was the first time she had seen him since they had all gone their ways before Whitsun. He mixed himself a whisky and soda.
'After all, is there anything you know so thoroughly insufferable as a ball?' he said, reflectively, as he sipped it with great content.
'Nothing, if you ask me pointblank,' said Lady Kelsey, smiling with relief because he took so flippantly the news she had lately poured into his ear. 'But it's excessively rude of you to say so.'
'I don't mind yours, Lady Kelsey, because I can smoke as much as I please, and keep away from the sex which is technically known as fair.'
Mrs. Crowley felt the remark was directed to her.
'I'm sure you think us a vastly overrated institution, Mr. Lomas,' she murmured.
'I venture to think the world was not created merely to give women an opportunity to wear Paris frocks.'
'I'm rather pleased to hear you say that.'
'Why?' asked Dick, on his guard.
'We're all so dreadfully tired of being goddesses. For centuries foolish men have set us up on a pedestal and vowed they were unworthy to touch the hem of our garments. And it is so dull.'
'What a clever woman you are, Mrs. Crowley. You always say what you don't mean.'
'You're really very rude.'
'Now that impropriety is out of fashion, rudeness is the only short cut to a reputation for wit.'
Canon Spratte did not like Dick. He thought he talked too much. It was fortunately easy to change the conversation.
'Unlike Mr. Lomas, I thoroughly enjoy a dance,' he said, turning to Lady Kelsey. 'My tastes are ingenuous, and I can only hope you've enjoyed your evening as much as your guests.'
'I?' cried Lady Kelsey. 'I've been suffering agonies.' They all knew to what she referred, and the remark gave Boulger an opportunity to speak to Dick Lomas.
'I suppose you saw the Mail this morning?' he asked.
'I never read the papers except in August,' answered Dick drily.
'When there's nothing in them?' asked Mrs. Crowley.
'Pardon me, I am an eager student of the sea-serpent and of the giant gooseberry.'
'I should like to kick that man,' said Bobbie, indignantly.
Dick smiled.
'My dear chap, Alec is a hardy Scot and bigger than you; I really shouldn't advise you to try.'
'Of course you've heard all about this business?' said Canon Spratte.
'I've only just arrived from Paris. I knew nothing of it till Lady Kelsey told me.'
'What do you think?'
'I don't think at all; I know there's not a word of truth in it. Since Alec arrived at Mombassa, he's been acclaimed by everyone, private and public, who had any right to an opinion. Of course it couldn't last. There was bound to be a reaction.'
'Do you know anything of this man Macinnery?' asked Boulger.
'It so happens that I do. Alec found him half starving at Mombassa, and took him solely out of charity. But he was a worthless rascal and had to be sent back.'
'He seems to me to give ample proof for every word he says,' retorted Bobbie.
Dick shrugged his shoulders scornfully.
'As I've already explained to Lady Kelsey, whenever an explorer comes home there's someone to tell nasty stories about him. People forget that kid gloves are not much use in a tropical forest, and they grow very indignant when they hear that a man has used a little brute force to make himself respected.'
'All that's beside the point,' said Boulger, impatiently. 'MacKenzie sent poor George into a confounded trap to save his own dirty skin.'
'Poor Lucy!' moaned Lady Kelsey. 'First her father died....'
'You're not going to count that as an overwhelming misfortune?' Dick interrupted. 'We were unanimous in describing that gentleman's demise as an uncommon happy release.'
'I was engaged to dine with him this evening,' said Bobbie, pursuing his own bitter reflections. 'I wired to say I had a headache and couldn't come.'
'What will he think if he sees you here?' cried Lady Kelsey.
'He can think what he likes.'
Canon Spratte felt that it was needful now to put in the decisive word which he always expected from himself. He rubbed his hands blandly.
'In this matter I must say I agree entirely with our friend Bobbie. I read the letter with the utmost care, and I could see no loophole of escape. Until Mr. MacKenzie gives a definite answer I can hardly help looking upon him as nothing less than a murderer. In these things I feel that one should have the courage of one's opinions. I saw him in Piccadilly this evening, and I cut him dead. Nothing will induce me to shake hands with a man on whom rests so serious an accusation.'
'I hope to goodness he doesn't come,' said Lady Kelsey.
Canon Spratte looked at his watch and gave her a reassuring smile.
'I think you may feel quite safe. It's really growing very late.'
'You say that Lucy doesn't know anything about this?' asked Dick.
'No,' said Lady Kelsey. 'I wanted to give her this evening's enjoyment unalloyed.'
Dick shrugged his shoulders again. He did not understand how Lady Kelsey expected no suggestion to reach Lucy of a matter which seemed a common topic of conversation. The pause which followed Lady Kelsey's words was not broken when Lucy herself appeared. She was accompanied by a spruce young man, to whom she turned with a smile.
'I thought we should find your partner here.'
He went to Grace Vizard, and claiming her for the dance that was about to begin, took her away. Lucy went up to Lady Kelsey and leaned over the chair in which she sat.
'Are you growing very tired, my aunt?' she asked kindly.
'I can rest myself till supper time. I don't think anyone else will come now.'
'Have you forgotten Mr. MacKenzie?'
Lady Kelsey looked up quickly, but did not reply. Lucy put her hand gently on her aunt's shoulder.
'My dear, it was charming of you to hide the paper from me this morning. But it wasn't very wise.'
'Did you see that letter?' cried Lady Kelsey. 'I so wanted you not to till to-morrow.'
'Mr. MacKenzie very rightly thought I should know at once what was said about him and my brother. He sent me the paper himself this evening.'
'Did he write to you?' asked Dick.
'No, he merely scribbled on a card: I think you should read this.'
No one answered. Lucy turned and faced them; her cheeks were pale, but she was very calm. She looked gravely at Robert Boulger, waiting for him to say what she knew was in his mind, so that she might express at once her utter disbelief in the charges that were brought against Alec. But he did not speak, and she was obliged to utter her defiant words without provocation.
'He thought it unnecessary to assure me that he hadn't betrayed the trust I put in him.'
'Do you mean to say the letter left any doubt in your mind?' said Boulger.
'Why on earth should I believe the unsupported words of a subordinate who was dismissed for misbehaviour?'
'For my part, I can only say that I never read anything more convincing in my life.'
'I could hardly believe him guilty of such a crime if he confessed it with his own lips.'
Bobbie shrugged his shoulders. It was only with difficulty that he held back the cruel words that were on his lips. But as if Lucy read his thoughts, her cheeks flushed.
'I think it's infamous that you should all be ready to believe the worst,' she said hotly, in a low voice that trembled with indignant anger. 'You're all of you so petty, so mean, that you welcome the chance of spattering with mud a man who is so infinitely above you. You've not given him a chance to defend himself.'
Bobbie turned very pale. Lucy had never spoken to him in such a way before, and wrath flamed up in his heart, wrath mixed with hopeless love. He paused for a moment to command himself.
'You don't know apparently that interviewers went to him from the evening papers, and he refused to speak.'
'He has never consented to be interviewed. Why should you expect him now to break his rule?'
Bobbie was about to answer, when a sudden look of dismay on Lady Kelsey's face stopped him. He turned round and saw MacKenzie standing at the door. He came forward with a smile, holding out his hand, and addressed himself to Lady Kelsey.
'I thought I should find you here,' he said.
He was perfectly collected. He glanced around the room with a smile of quiet amusement. A certain embarrassment seized the little party, and Lady Kelsey, as she shook hands with him, was at a loss for words.
'How do you do?' she faltered. 'We've just been talking of you.'
'Really?'
The twinkle in his eyes caused her to lose the remainder of her self-possession, and she turned scarlet.
'It's so late, we were afraid you wouldn't come. I should have been dreadfully disappointed.'
'It's very kind of you to say so. I've been at the Travellers, reading various appreciations of my character.'
A hurried look of alarm crossed Lady Kelsey's good-tempered face.
'Oh, I heard there was something about you in the papers,' she answered.
'There's a good deal. I really had no idea the world was so interested in me.'
'It's charming of you to come here to-night,' the good lady smiled, beginning to feel more at ease. 'I'm sure you hate dances.'
'Oh, no, they interest me enormously. I remember, an African king once gave a dance in my honour. Four thousand warriors in war-paint. I assure you it was a most impressive sight.'
'My dear fellow,' Dick chuckled, 'if paint is the attraction, you really need not go much further than Mayfair.'
The scene amused him. He was deeply interested in Alec's attitude, for he knew him well enough to be convinced that his discreet gaiety was entirely assumed. It was impossible to tell by it what course he meant to adopt; and at the same time there was about him a greater unapproachableness, which warned all and sundry that it would be wiser to attempt no advance. But for his own part he did not care; he meant to have a word with Alec at the first opportunity.
Alec's quiet eyes now rested on Robert Boulger.
'Ah, there's my little friend Bobbikins. I thought you had a headache?'
Lady Kelsey remembered her nephew's broken engagement and interposed quickly.
'I'm afraid Bobbie is dreadfully dissipated. He's not looking at all well.'
'You shouldn't keep such late hours,' said Alec, good-humouredly. 'At your age one needs one's beauty sleep.'
'It's very kind of you to take an interest in me,' said Boulger, flushing with annoyance. 'My headache has passed off.'
'I'm very glad. What do you use—phenacetin?'
'It went away of its own accord after dinner,' returned Bobbie frigidly, conscious that he was being laughed at, but unable to extricate himself.
'So you resolved to give the girls a treat by coming to Lady Kelsey's dance? How nice of you not to disappoint them!'
Alec turned to Lucy, and they looked into one another's eyes.
'I sent you a paper this evening,' he said gravely.
'It was very good of you.'
There was a silence. All who were present felt that the moment was impressive, and it needed Canon Spratte's determination to allow none but himself to monopolise attention, to bring to an end a situation which might have proved awkward. He came forward and offered his arm to Lucy.
'I think this is my dance. May I take you in?'
He was trying to repeat the direct cut which he had given Alec earlier in the day. Alec looked at him.
'I saw you in Piccadilly this evening. You were dashing about like a young gazelle.'
'I didn't see you,' said the Canon, frigidly.
'I observed that you were deeply engrossed in the shop windows as I passed. How are you?'
He held out his hand. For a moment the Canon hesitated to take it, but Alec's gaze compelled him.
'How do you do?' he said.
He felt, rather than heard, Dick's chuckle, and reddening, offered his arm to Lucy.
'Won't you come, Mr. MacKenzie?' said Lady Kelsey, making the best of her difficulty.
'If you don't mind, I'll stay and smoke a cigarette with Dick Lomas. You know, I'm not a dancing man.'
It seemed that Alec was giving Dick the opportunity he sought, and as soon as they found themselves alone, the sprightly little man attacked him.
'I suppose you know we were all beseeching Providence you'd have the grace to stay away to-night?' he said.
'I confess that I suspected it,' smiled Alec. 'I shouldn't have come, only I wanted to see Miss Allerton.'
'This fellow Macinnery proposes to make things rather uncomfortable, I imagine.'
'I made a mistake, didn't I?' said Alec, with a thin smile. 'I should have dropped him in the river when I had no further use for him.'
'What are you going to do?'
'Nothing.'
Dick stared at him.
'Do you mean to say you're going to sit still and let them throw mud at you?'
'If they want to.'
'But look here, Alec, what the deuce is the meaning of the whole thing?'
Alec looked at him quietly.
'If I had intended to take the world in general into my confidence, I wouldn't have refused to see the interviewers who came to me this evening.'
'We've known one another for twenty years, Alec,' said Dick.
'Then you may be quite sure that if I refuse to discuss this matter with you, it must be for excellent reasons.'
Dick sprang up excitedly.
'But, good God! you must explain. You can't let a charge like this rest on you. After all, it's not Tom, Dick, or Harry that's concerned; it's Lucy's brother. You must speak.'
'I've never yet discovered that I must do anything that I don't choose,' answered Alec.
Dick flung himself into a chair. He knew that when Alec spoke in that fashion no power on earth could move him. The whole thing was entirely unexpected, and he was at a loss for words. He had not read the letter which was causing all the bother, and knew only what Lady Kelsey had told him. He had some hope that on a close examination various things would appear which must explain Alec's attitude; but at present it was incomprehensible.
'Has it occurred to you that Lucy is very much in love with you, Alec?' he said at last.
Alec did not answer. He made no movement.
'What will you do if this loses you her love?'
'I have counted the cost,' said Alec, coldly.
He got up from his chair, and Dick saw that he did not wish to continue the discussion. There was a moment of silence, and then Lucy came in.
'I've given my partner away to a wall-flower,' she said, with a faint smile. 'I felt I must have a few words alone with you.'
'I will make myself scarce,' said Dick.
They waited till he was gone. Then Lucy turned feverishly to Alec.
'Oh, I'm so glad you've come. I wanted so much to see you.'
'I'm afraid people have been telling you horrible things about me.'
'They wanted to hide it from me.'
'It never occurred to me that people could say such shameful things,' he said gravely.
It tormented him a little because it had been so easy to care nothing for the world's adulation, and it was so hard to care as little for its censure. He felt very bitter.
He took Lucy's hand and made her sit on the sofa by his side.
'There's something I must tell you at once.'
She looked at him without answering.
'I've made up my mind to give no answer to the charges that are brought against me.'
Lucy looked up quickly, and their eyes met.
'I give you my word of honour that I've done nothing which I regret. I swear to you that what I did was right with regard to George, and if it were all to come again I would do exactly as I did before.'
She did not answer for a long time.
'I never doubted you for a single moment,' she said at last.
'That is all I care about.' He looked down, and there was a certain shyness in his voice when he spoke again. 'To-day is the first time I've wanted to be assured that I was trusted; and yet I'm ashamed to want it.'
'Don't be too hard upon yourself,' she said gently. 'You're so afraid of letting your tenderness appear.'
He seemed to give earnest thought to what she said. Lucy had never seen him more grave.
'The only way to be strong is never to surrender to one's weakness. Strength is merely a habit. I want you to be strong, too. I want you never to doubt me whatever you hear said.'
'I gave my brother into your hands, and I said that if he died a brave man's death, I could ask for no more. You told me that such a death was his.'
'I thought of you always, and everything I did was for your sake. Every single act of mine during these four years in Africa has been done because I loved you.'
It was the first time since his return that he had spoken of love. Lucy bent her head still lower.
'Do you remember, I asked you a question before I went away? You refused to marry me then, but you told me that if I asked again when I came back, the answer might be different.'
'Yes.'
'The hope bore me up in every difficulty and in every danger. And when I came back I dared not ask you at once; I was so afraid that you would refuse once more. And I didn't wish you to think yourself bound by a vague promise. But each day I loved you more passionately.'
'I knew, and I was very grateful for your love.'
'Yesterday I could have offered you a certain name. I only cared for the honours they gave me so that I might put them at your feet. But what can I offer you now?'
'You must love me always, Alec, for now I have only you.'
'Are you sure that you will never believe that I am guilty of this crime?'
'Why can you say nothing in self-defence?'
'That I can't tell you either.'
There was a silence between them. At last Alec spoke again.
'But perhaps it will be easier for you to believe in me than for others, because you know that I loved you, and I can't have done the odious thing of which that man accuses me.'
'I will never believe it. I do not know what your reasons are for keeping all this to yourself, but I trust you, and I know that they are good. If you cannot speak, it is because greater interests hold you back. I love you, Alec, with all my heart, and if you wish me to be your wife I shall be proud and honoured.'
He took her in his arms, and as he kissed her, she wept tears of happiness. She did not want to think. She wanted merely to surrender herself to his strength.