CHAPTER XXXVII.
BROKEN OFF.
Frank Hallett and Elsie met later in the morning. Lady Waveryng had prepared him for the meeting, and had told him the story which Ina had related to her of the misadventure of Elsie and Trant. This was how Lady Waveryng had put the affair. She affected to treat it as the most natural thing in the world, that the two should have lost themselves in the mountains. The only marvel was, she declared, that they had ever been found again. Trant had fallen against a rock, and had hurt himself. No doubt he had been making heroic efforts to carry Elsie back again. This accounted for their having been found quite near the Falls. They had taken refuge in a sort of cave. Elsie was very well, only terribly shaken in nerves, which could not be wondered at. Nor was it surprising that she shuddered at the thought of the whole affair, and could not bear to be asked about it, and Lady Waveryng concluded by begging Frank not to worry her at present with questions.
Lady Waveryng knew perfectly well that there was something behind, and Frank knew that she knew, and attributed her reserve to the fact of some disclosure of Elsie's feelings in regard to Blake. When he heard that Blake had found her, and that the two had ridden together through the night, he could well imagine that the pent-up emotion of both had found vent. He did not suspect Trant of having played a treacherous part. Lady Waveryng did, though it is fair to say that her suspicion was not based upon any revelations of either Elsie or of Ina, who indeed did not know, but upon her own notion of probabilities. Lady Waveryng had a faint regret that she did not know the exact details of what might have furnished a sensational episode for a chapter on Australian mountain scenery; and then she shuddered at the mere thought of describing in cold blood, for the delectation of a curious public, any scene that was connected with the tragedy of her brother's death. She broke down, and had a fit of unrestrained weeping, which did her good, and enabled her to throw herself more sympathetically into poor Elsie's difficulties.
"My dear," she said, "I see that there is a good deal you don't want to talk about, and it must be horrid for you to think of having been three days out in the bush with that odious man. But there's one mercy about the bush: it seems to me that nothing matters and nobody minds anything; and you see, if you had been cast on a desert island with a man, it wouldn't have been your fault, and this is much the same thing; now don't trouble to make any explanations. I've told Waveryng not to bother you, and I shall tell Mr. Hallett the same thing. Ina told me that Mr. Trant had an accident, and, of course, poor man, if he sprained his ankle, he could not be expected to cleave a way for you through the precipices."
"It was not his ankle—it was his forehead," said Elsie, blushing deeply, but accepting the pious fraud.
"Well, that is worse," said Lady Waveryng. "I daresay he was unconscious."
"No—he—it was not serious; but he was unconscious," Elsie said incoherently. "Oh, Lady Waveryng, if you would explain a little to Frank. He is so good: he will understand how I hate talking about Mr. Trant."
"Don't fret," said Lady Waveryng, kindly. "I understand. I will make things as easy as they can be for you. Elsie," she added, kissing the girl in a motherly fashion, "take my advice. If you are going to marry Frank Hallett, tell him everything, everything. But ask him for breathing space. And if you are not going to marry him, don't be in a hurry about marrying anybody else. Give yourself and other people a chance to prove themselves. And I want to say something to you: Ina is going home with us, for a year, or for always, just as she pleases. She is my sister, you know, as well as yours. If you want breathing time, my dear, come with us, too, and be another sister. You will be very welcome at Waveryng, and I will take care of you."
Elsie sobbed her thanks and became a little hysterical again, and Lady Waveryng made her lie down and drink some coffee, and went away to talk to Frank.
Lady Waveryng managed it all with the most kindly tact. She took Elsie into the little room which had been poor Lord Horace's office, and sent Frank to her. There they were undisturbed.
If Frank found Elsie changed into something sadder, sweeter, and paler than she had been, she on her side was shocked at the ravages anxiety had made in him. He looked oppressed, worn out, with the reddened eyelids of one who has not slept for several nights.
"I was anxious, you know, and I suppose it has told upon me a little," he said clumsily, in answer to her remorseful exclamation. "It has been a horrible week one way and another. And then we have been out a good deal, the black boys and I. I don't know how it is that we did not find you, and that Blake did. We scoured the country about the Falls, and the scrub too, as well as we could; but I knew that Trant was too good a bushman to take you there. But never mind," he added, seeing the look of trouble and perplexity on her face. "I know the whole thing must be painful to you. Lady Waveryng told me so, and I am not going to bother you now about the details. It doesn't matter; nothing matters except that you are here safe and well."
"Oh yes, Frank, everything matters. There is something I must tell you—the sooner the better—which matters very much to you and to me. I've been a wicked girl, Frank. I have acted cruelly to you. I can never forgive myself, never, never."
She leaned over to him as he sat in the office chair by Lord Horace's writing table, his chin resting on his hand, his other hand clenched on the table, the starting veins showing an agitation which his set features concealed. Elsie timidly touched this hand.
"Oh, Frank," she said brokenly, "there is no use in going on. It breaks my heart, but I must tell you."
He opened his hand and took hers in it. "Elsie," he said hoarsely, "I think I can guess. I haven't forgotten the time of the corroboree. If it's anything that happened last night, anything to do with Blake, and that you think you ought to make a clean breast of, don't let it weigh upon you as far as I am concerned. I trust you wholly, dear; and I forgive you wholly if there's anything to forgive. I don't want to know. Keep it till—till after we are married—if you still wish to marry me."
"Frank, that is just it. There's no one so noble as you. You deserve to have a good wife; you deserve to be loved with a woman's whole heart, and I can't love you like that. I never have. It was wicked of me to let you engage yourself to me. It was wicked of me to accept your love."
"We settled all that, Elsie, remember. It was my doing. I took the risk. I am content with what you give me. I am content to wait till you have got over this infatuation, for that's what it is. It's not your fault."
"No, it is not infatuation. It is much more, Frank. When I said I would marry you, I didn't quite know myself. I did know that night after the corroboree. I ought to have stopped it all then. I can't marry you, Frank. I should be the vilest woman on earth if I married you now."
"Why, Elsie?"
"Because I love another man, so that I would die for him; yes, I would die for him, if need were. I love him so that I would follow him to the world's end, if he wanted me."
"Does he want you, Elsie?" Frank's voice was very grim.
"No, I cannot tell. I know nothing, except that he loves me."
"And you are sure of that now?"
"As sure as that I live."
"Then," he said quietly, releasing her hand, "there is nothing more to be said. I don't blame you, Elsie; I took the risk, and I abide by it."
He turned his head away, and then he got up abruptly. She felt that it was to hide the sob that for a moment convulsed his frame. She got up too, and stood helpless, agonized, her eyes following him with a dumb yearning. He turned to her at last.
"I don't blame you," he repeated. "I shall never think one bitter thought of you; you will always be to me the sweetest, truest, finest of women. But for him," he added fiercely; "why did he not know his own mind sooner? Why did he keep you on a string, and wait to declare himself till your wedding day was fixed? I think he has behaved damnably."
"Frank, Frank, don't say that!" She came to him and again touched him pleadingly. "You don't know all he has suffered, you don't know."
"I know that he has treated you ill. And why? When are you to be married?" he added coldly.
"We shall not be married. Oh, Frank, I don't know, I can't tell you. He is not to blame. It was out of love for me that he held back. It is his secret, his and mine."
"If you are not going to marry him, I will wait. Ten years hence you will find me the same."
"It would be of no use. My mind is clear. Last night, in my heart, I gave myself to him for ever and ever; in death or in life, in honour or in dishonour, whether he lives or dies, or marries me or leaves me, I am his; and I can never be any other man's. I never had much religion, Frank, but it seems to me that I have learned at least the religion of love. That's why I never could bear the idea of marrying, why I hated anybody to come near me in that way—yes, even you, Frank, truly as I cared for you. I was meant for him, and for him only."
There was a look of exaltation on Elsie's face which Frank had never seen there before. It convinced him more than her words that she meant what she said.
"Frank," she went on, "if you will forgive me—and I know you will—be my brother, and let me be your sister. Let us always love each other in that way. Some day, perhaps, you may be" She stopped herself. It seemed desecration to hint at the secret of the new-made widow. But at that moment an intuition came to her that Frank would many Ina, and that he would love Ina more truly than even he had loved herself. "Frank," she said, "is it to be so?"
"Yes, if you wish it, Elsie," he answered, in a choked voice.
She took his hand and kissed it. He gave up his dream silently, struggling to hide from her what it cost him. Presently he knew that her tears were falling upon his hand.
"Don't cry, Elsie," he said huskily. "I shall get over it. If I take it badly just at first, remember that I have loved you very much, and that I have wanted you for long. I am not going to make it harder for you. I shall ride back to Tunimba now, and when you see me again we shall be as you say, brother and sister. Good-bye, my dear; and Heaven bless your choice."
He left her without another word. Elsie flung herself upon the chair where he had sat and wept long and bitterly. She was not the only one who wept over Frank's disappointment. Ina Gage was crying too, in the solitude of her widowed chamber; and not for the dead Horace. She knew what was Lady Waveryng's errand, when Em came to her door, and asked to speak to her.
Em's eyes, she fancied, were red, too. "He wants to see you, to say good-bye. He is going away; he tells me that his engagement is broken off."
"Broken off!" Ina repeated in a dazed sort of way. "And I tried so hard to bring it about! But oh! Em, it's best like this."
"I suppose it is," said Lady Waveryng, a little dryly. "But it's hard not to feel for Frank Hallett. She would be safer with him than with Morres Blake."
Ina went into the parlour, where Frank, booted and spurred, was waiting.
"Ina, you know how it is," he said, without any preamble. "She will marry Blake, I suppose, and I can't be surprised since she loves him; but keep her from doing it too soon, for her own sake; not for mine," he added, hastily. "That's all over now."
"Oh, Frank, it has spoiled your life."
"No," he answered—"only wrong-doing can do that. There has been no wrong-doing here, either on her side or mine. I shall always love her, but I see now that she could never have loved me, and that I couldn't have made her happy. I have felt it lately in a way that has been intensifying every day. I've had the sort of feeling that it couldn't be. It took a great deal to make Elsie love; but now that she does love, it will be for ever."
"Yes," said Ina; "when one loves like that, it must be for ever."
"Ina," he said, suddenly startled by something spiritualized in her face, "you are suffering, too; and I have been so selfishly absorbed in my own anxiety that I have thought little of your grief."
"Yes, I am suffering," she said quietly, "but not quite in the way you think. I am glad that Horace died before he had done what all his life would have weighted him with sorrow and remorse. The wrong was that I did not love him as I ought." She stopped, and a burning blush overspread her face.
He saw it, and a strange look came into his own face. She went on hurriedly.
"Elsie is right. There is no worse crime, when one knows; and Elsie knows now. I wanted her to marry you, but I am glad now that she will not."
"Ina," Frank said again, "you won't let this make any difference between us? We have always been like brother and sister, haven't we? and we'll be brother and sister still."
"Yes," said Ina; "brother and sister." She gave him her hand, and he pressed it in his and went away.
That night Elsie wrote to Blake a long letter, of which only a few lines may be given here.
"My love, you won't misjudge me, and I have no shame in what I say to you. Love knows no shame, and after last night there can be only truth between us. I am yours, and yours only, to take or to leave as you shall please. It is for you to decide what the future shall be, but whatever it may be—even if it were to be disgrace—I am ready to share it with you. I am ready to come to you when and where you wish, or never to see you again, if that seems better to you. I am ready to wait, as you said: a year, or many years, and then to come to you and be taken—as you said too—in your arms and bidden never to leave you more."
His answer came by special black boy two days later. It was Jack Nutty who brought it, and Elsie herself, being at the Crossing, took the letter, and asked him the Barólin news.
Jack Nutty grinned. "You no tell, me no tell about that fellow cave," he said. "Me understand all right. Massa Blake been tell me. Ba'al me see Mr. Trant. Mine think it that fellow go off like it Sydney and ba'al come back."
Elsie drew a breath of relief. "Then he has not been at the Gorge?"
"Ba'al mine see him. Mr. Blake he manage all about muster by himself. In one week Barólin Gorge belong to other fellow—no more Blake and Trant—no more Moonlight."
"Are you sorry, Jack?" asked Elsie.
"Me sorry; cobbon sorry," said the black, "but mine think it police very soon find out Moonlight, best stop in time. No hanging now, suppose that fellow find out: but suppose policeman shot, then hang; ba'al mine like that. ... You been see Pompo?" he asked suddenly.
"No," answered Elsie.
"Mine frightened about Pompo. That fellow do everything Trant tell him. Suppose Trant tell him, you go show policeman where Moonlight sit down. Pompo no care; he go. Trant out of the country, all safe. Policeman catch all the rest."
"Oh, no, Jack," said Elsie. "What for Mr. Trant do that? No fear!"
"Ba'al mine know," said the black, shaking his head. "Trant he got plenty money; he go big steamer to America; he quite safe, and Trant he no like Mr. Blake; he want to be revenged."
Elsie, remembering Blake's assurance, again told him that there was no fear.
But she herself had a qualm of terror. Fate was always like that—fate would step in and spoil everything, now that they were going to be happy. She had read Blake's letter. She was happy. It was a very long letter, to be read and re-read; it told her of his plans for a new life, and the burden of it was this: "Be it as you will, love. I am yours and you are mine."
She wrote a few lines on a leaf torn from her pocket-book, and bade Jack Nutty ride back with it to his master. It was a wild entreaty to him to hasten and wind up everything, to sell Baròlin, resign his appointment, and go and make a home where she could join him as soon as might be. She told him that she would write further by post, that he must come and see her, and that then they would settle everything.
When she got back to the Humpey she found Lord and Lady Waveryng surrounded with letters and newspapers. Braile the postman had arrived, and it was English mail day.
Lord Waveryng looked excited. "They've got a clue to the diamonds," he said; "a fellow in Sydney has been disposing of the cross. What fools they were to risk that piece, which could be identified anywhere! However, I hope it means that we shall get the lot, or part anyhow, back again."
Elsie's heart stopped beating. "Is anything known," she asked, "of the person who first sold the cross?"
"It seems not," said Lord Waveryng; "there the thread breaks. But it's something to have got the clue as far as it goes. One can only hope that the New South Wales police department may prove itself a little more effectual than that which is presided over by our friend the Colonial Secretary here. I understand that Blake is at Baròlin, and I think that I shall ride over and see him about this. I have something else to tell him." Lord Waveryng added solemnly, "A piece of news the mail has brought, which he ought to know without delay."
"What is that?" asked Elsie.
"I don't know whether I ought to tell you," said Lord Waveryng, hesitatingly. "It is Blake's own business."
"I think you may tell her," put in Lady Waveryng. "I fancy that Mr. Blake's business is Elsie's business, too."
"I am going to marry Mr. Blake, some time," said Elsie calmly, with a curious pride.
"So I imagined."
"Well, it's this," said Lord Waveryng. "Lord Coola is dead, and Morres Blake is now Baron Coola."
Oh, the Fates! Why should the threads be knotted to make it easier work for her of the shears! This was Elsie's first thought. A superstitious terror seized her. She could not speak; she could only listen tremblingly while they discussed the old blight that had fallen on his youth. Ina came in, and a horse was ordered for Lord Waveryng, and one of the black boys to accompany him to Baròlin Gorge.
She waited anxiously for Lord Waveryng's return. He came back late, and reported of Blake as being deeply engaged in the transfer of Baròlin Gorge to its new purchaser. Blake's manner appeared to have impressed Lord Waveryng curiously. "He was quite unemotional," Lord Waveryng said; "seemed taken aback, shocked, and sorry at the news of his brother's death, but wasn't in the least excited as to its bearing upon his own fortunes. He wouldn't tell me what he thought of doing; said he should probably leave Australia, but said he had as yet given no hint of his intention to his colleagues. I can't make him out. Somehow he gave me the idea of a man who is contemplating some great change in his life, and is quite indifferent to all other concerns. Or perhaps he is so tremendously in love that he has no thought for anything else."