Part 26 (2/2)
You know what I mean?”
”Not likely, knowing what I know now.”
”Then you'd better go and get it over at once. I'll say good-bye to the Bayfields for you. You turn round right here. Good-bye now--and one of these days you'll bless your stars for this lucky escape.”
”Then you'll let me hear soon, Hilary?”
”In a couple of days at the outside. Good-bye.”
A staunch handgrip, and the older man sat there, looking after the receding form of the younger.
”It strikes me,” he said to himself as he turned his horse's head along the track again. ”It strikes me that I've been only just in time to get that young fool out of a most deadly mess. Heavens! what a ghastly complication it would have been. Moreover, I believe he was sent out here to find out about me, and what I was doing. Well, instead of him reclaiming me, it has befallen that I have been the one marked out to reclaim him.”
Then as he sent his horse along at a brisk canter to make up the time lost during their talk, his mind reverted to himself and his own affairs. What a series of surprises had been contained within the last twenty-four hours. Could it have been only yesterday that he came along this road, serene, content, with no forewarning of what lay in store?
Why, it seemed that half a lifetime's drama had been played out within that brief s.p.a.ce--and now, as he pressed on to overtake Bayfield's conveyance, the tilt of which was visible some distance ahead moving through the bushes, it seemed that with every stride of his horse he was advancing into a purer atmosphere. He felt as one, who, having struck upon strange and unwelcome surprises in the foul nauseous air of some long, underground cavern, was drawing nearer and nearer again to the free, wholesome, open light of day.
Well, he had saved his young kinsman, and now he was called upon to face the payment of the price. The time he had spent here, the bright, beautiful, purifying time, was at an end. The past, of which, looking back upon, he sickened, was not to be so easily buried after all. Had it not risen up when least expected, to haunt him, to exact its retribution? Hermia would certainly keep her word; caring nothing in her vindictive spite, to what extent she blackened herself so long as she could sufficiently besmirch him. Still he would do all he could, if not to defeat her intentions, at any rate to draw half their sting.
One, at all events, should remain unsullied by the mire which he well knew she would relentlessly spatter in all directions. That he resolved.
Then a faint, vague, straw of a hope, beset him. What if she had been playing a game of bluff? What if she was by no means so ready to give herself away as she had affected to be? What if--when she found there was nothing to be gained by it--she were to adopt the more prudent course, and maintain silence? It was just a chance, but knowing so well, her narrow, soulless nature, he knew it to be a slender one.
Even then, what? Even did it hold--it would not affect the main fact.
In the consummate purifying of this man's nature which the past few weeks had effected, he looked backward thence with unutterable abas.e.m.e.nt and loathing. As he had sown, so must he reap. The re-appearance of the past personified had but emphasised that--had not altered it. He would be the one to suffer, and he only, he thought, with a dull, anguished kind of feeling which he strove hard to think was that of consolation.
”Oh, it is good to be at home again,” said Lyn. ”I don't care much for going over to the Earles' at any time, but this time somehow or other, I detested it. But--oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Blachland. And you found your cousin there! How awkward and tactless you must think me!”
”You could never be either awkward or tactless, Lyn,” he answered.
”Only thoroughly natural. Always be that, child. It is such a charm.”
The girl smiled softly, half shyly. ”Really, you are flattering me.
You spoil me as much as father does, and that's saying a great deal, you know,” gaily.
The two were standing on the stoep together, about an hour after their return. Bayfield was down at the kraals, counting in, and looking after things in general, and, helping him, small Fred, who, however, was cracking his long whip in such wise as to be rather less of a help than a hindrance with the flocks. The unearthly beauty of the sunset glow was already merging into the shade of the twilightless evening.
”I wish you were going to stay with us always, Mr Blachland,” she went on. ”It would be so nice. If you and father were partners, for instance, like Mr Barter and Mr Smith--only they squabble--why, then you'd always be here.”
He looked at her--mentally with a great start--but only for a second.
The frank, ingenuous, friendly affection of a child! That was what the words, the tone, the straight glance of the sweet blue eyes expressed!
There was a tinge of melancholy in his voice as he replied:
”Now you flatter me, little Lyn. You would soon find a battered old fogey like me can be a desperate bore.” Then he proceeded to the prosaic and homely occupation of filling and lighting his pipe, smiling to himself sadly over her indignant disclaimer.
CHAPTER TEN.
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