Part 18 (2/2)

Impetuously he exclaimed, striking the table with the palm of his hand: ”Run away! If you do I shall follow you. Follow you? Yes, to the end of the world, for Hilda you have made me love you.”

”Hus.h.!.+ don't talk like that, Raife. In America boys and girls, men and women, can be friends--just friends.”

In spite of these brave words, her breast was heaving and her pulses throbbed. ”Let us go back now,” she added. ”This has troubled me and I must think.”

Mr Muirhead was waiting for them when they arrived at Shepherd's Hotel, and greeted them with his customary cordiality. As they ascended the stairway together he said: ”Remington, I want you to dine with us to-night. Don't refuse. I have arranged for a special American dish, which I am going to prepare myself.”

”Oh! What is that? If it's as good as the c.o.c.ktails you make, I can't refuse,” said Raife, laughingly.

”It's better, much better, my boy. It's `lobster newburgh,' and, if you don't like it I shall count you an enemy of my country.”

”My dear Mr Muirhead, I could not be an enemy of the country that produced your genial self and your gracious daughter,” was Raife's flattering retort.

The dinner that night was served with rather more ceremony than usual, and Mr Muirhead's dish was a great success. Hilda did not partic.i.p.ate so much as usual in the conversation, and her father rallied her on her quietude. At the close of dinner an attendant brought a telegram for Mr Muirhead. He opened it and having read it exclaimed, ”Pshaw! that's a nuisance. Remington, will you excuse me? This calls for attention.

I must cable to the bank. I don't suppose I shall be more than half an hour. Hilda will entertain you.”

When her father had gone, and they were alone, they sat, as was their wont, for some time in silence. Hilda poured out some coffee and handed it to Raife. In doing so she touched his hand. The momentary contact thrilled him and he broke the silence. ”Hilda, perhaps I was wrong in speaking as I did this afternoon. Yet it is true. Let me tell you more of the buried incident, and of another tragedy in my life.”

Raife told of his father's murder and those fateful dying words which warned his son to beware. He told some portion of his a.s.sociation with the mysterious Gilda Tempest. Then he added: ”There must be a kink in my own character somewhere, which I have inherited from some of my filibustering ancestors. Or perhaps there is gipsy blood in me. Things seem to happen differently to me--than to other men. But everything appears to be in my favour. I am rich, and I am the head of a distinguished family. Yet I have a wandering spirit, and an uncontrollable desire for the unconventional. I am rudderless and cannot steer a straight course.”

He had looked straight at the carpet during his narration, and his tones had been agitated. He paused and, raising his head, met her eyes gazing at him with a pained, sympathetic look. When their eyes met neither flinched, nor did they speak for some seconds.

At length Hilda placed her hand on his arm saying, ”Raife, I'm so sorry.

How I wish I could help you.”

Raife sprang to his feet and, holding her hands apart, each in one of his, exclaimed pa.s.sionately, ”Hilda, dear, sweet Hilda! You can help me. I love you madly! Let me love you! Will you be my wife? Will you steer me to a better, a more useful life?”

She dropped her head and fell forward into his arms. He seized her and showered kisses, she yielding. When at length they spoke again she said, ”Raife, I loved you from the moment you told us the story of your wound. I had not met such modesty and courage combined before. Raife, dear, I will strive to help you to a happy--yes, and, as you ask me, to a useful life.”

When Mr Muirhead returned, Hilda was at the piano, singing Elizabeth Barrett Browning's tender song, ”Love me sweet with all thou art.”

Raife did not wait for a chance meeting. On the following morning he wrote a note and sent it to Mr Muirhead:

”Dear Mr Muirhead,--I have a matter of vital importance that I would like to discuss with you. Can I see you at once?--Yours very truly,--

”Raife Remington.”

When the two men met and Raife had made a statement of his affairs and position, and had asked for Hilda's hand, the old gentleman was visibly affected, and, taking Raife's hand, said ”Remington, I like you very much. I love my daughter with all the love of a father for his only daughter. She is more precious to me than my own life. I only had one other love. It was for her mother. She is dead. The man who breaks Hilda's heart kills me and commits a double murder. Remington, I trust you--take her.”

Raife's happiness was now complete, and, if his complex temperament would allow him, a great future was before him. In addition to t.i.tle and wealth, he had inherited marked ability, allied to a wayward disposition. The future was fraught with possibilities for good or evil. In the battle of his life would the good or evil genius win?

On the night following his betrothal to Hilda, he was strolling among the bazaars seeking to purchase something worthy of his beloved. As is the custom among those picturesque, swarthy traders, who ensconce themselves in dark corners awaiting custom as a spider awaits a fly, Raife was haggling over the price of a trinket, when he became conscious of the presence of a figure watching him. Hastily dropping the trinket, he wheeled round. He was just in time to see a familiar figure slide rather than dart around a corner a few yards away. He was determined at all hazards to capture this uncanny person and demand of him his intentions. Raife chased him around the corner and searched every nook and cranny where he could possibly have hidden. He was too late, his quarry had escaped.

Raife muttered to himself: ”Curse that infernal Apache fellow! He dogged me at Nice. He was `killed' in a motor smash at Cuneo. He was `drowned' in the Thames at Hammersmith, and now the brute haunts me in the Bazaar at Cairo. What does he want? Why does he shadow me?”

As he sauntered back to renew his haggling for the trinket, the white-bearded and turbaned old Arab was saying to himself, ”He must be Ingleesi. All the Ingleesi are mad.” It had served a useful financial purpose for Raife, however; for, fearing he might dart off again, this time not to return, he sold the trinket to Raife at his own price, which was just one-tenth of what the old man had asked. That is the way of the Oriental trader. On his way back to the hotel with his purchases, his father's dying words recurred to him, and he was more than ever puzzled by their mystic warning. These were the halcyon days of Raife's short life, and they had been disturbed by this hateful phantom Apache.

Raife Remington might be wayward and impressionable, but he was brave and fearless, so he chased the incident from his mind, as he had chased the elusive phantom in the Bazaar.

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