CHAPTER XXXIX.

Look you lay home to him:

Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with.

What to ourselves in passion we propose,

The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

I must leave thee, love...

And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,

Honour'd, belov'd, and haply one as kind

For husband shalt thou—

Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife.—Hamlet.

OSWIN Markham lay awake nearly all that night after he had reached the hotel. His thoughts were not of that even nature whose proper sequence is sleep. He thought of all that had passed since he had left the room he was lying in now. What had been on his mind on leaving this room—what had his determination been?

“For her,” he said; “for her. It would have been for her. God keep me—God pity me!”

The morning came with the sound of marching soldiers in the street below; with the cry of bullock-wagon-drivers and the rattle of the rude carts; with the morning and the sounds of life—the breaking of the deadly silence of the night—sleep came to the man.

It was almost midday before he awoke, and for some time after opening his eyes he was powerless to recollect anything that had happened during the night; his awakening now was as his return to consciousness on board the Cardwell Castle,—a great blank seemed to have taken place in his life—the time of unconsciousness was a gulf that all his efforts of memory could not at first bridge.

He looked around the room, and his first consciousness was the recollection of what his thoughts of the previous evening had been when he had slept in the chair before the window and had awakened to see Despard ride away. He failed at once to remember anything of the interval of night; only with that one recollection burning on his brain he looked at his right hand.

In a short time he remembered everything. He knew that Despard was in the hotel. He dressed himself and went downstairs, and found Harwood in the coffee-room, reading sundry documents with as anxious an expression of countenance as a special correspondent ever allows himself to assume.

“What is the news?” Markham asked, feeling certain that something unusual had either taken place or was seen by the prophetical vision of Harwood to be looming in the future.

“War,” said Harwood, looking up. “War, Markham. I should never have left Natal. They have been working up to the point for the last few months, as I saw; but now there is no hope for a peaceful settlement.”

“The Zulu chief is not likely to come to terms now?” said Markham.

“Impossible,” replied the other. “Quite impossible. In a few days there will, no doubt, be a call for volunteers.”

“For volunteers?” Markham repeated. “You will go up country at once, I suppose?” he added.

“Not quite as a volunteer, but as soon as I receive my letters by the mail that arrives in a few days, I shall be off to Durban, at any rate.”

“And you will be glad of it, no doubt. You told me you liked doing war-correspondence.”

“Did I?” said Harwood; and after a little pause he added slowly: “It's a tiring life this I have been leading for the past fifteen years, Markham. I seem to have cut myself off from the sympathies of life. I seem to have been only a looker-on in the great struggles—the great pleasures—of life. I am supposed to have no more sympathies than Babbage's calculator that records certain facts without emotion, and I fancied I had schooled myself into this cold apathy in looking at things; but I don't think I have succeeded in cutting myself off from all sympathies. No, I shall not be glad of this war. Never mind. By the way, are you going out to Dr. Glaston's to-night?”

“I have got a card for his dinner, but I cannot tell what I may do. I am not feeling myself, just now.”

“You certainly don't look yourself, Markham. You are haggard, and as pale as if you had not got any sleep for nights. You want the constitution of your friend Mr. Despard, who is breakfasting in the bar.”

“What, is it possible he is out of his room?” cried Markham, in surprise.

“Why, he was waiting here an hour ago when I came down, and in the meantime he had been buying a suit of garments, he said, that gallant check of his having come to grief through the night.”

Harwood spoke the words at the door and then he left the room.

Oswin was not for long left in solitary occupation, however, for in a few moments the door was flung open, and Despard entered with a half-empty tumbler in his hand. He came forward with a little chuckling laugh and stood in front of Oswin without speaking. He looked with his blood-shot eyes into Oswin's cold pale face, and then burst into a laugh so hearty that he was compelled to leave the tumbler upon the table, not having sufficient confidence in his ability to grasp it under the influence of his excitement. Then he tapped Markham on the shoulder, crying:

“Well, old boy, have you got over that lark of last night? Like the old times, wasn't it? You did the fatherly by me, I believe, though hang me if I remember what happened after I had drunk the last glass of old Irish with our friend the king. How the deuce did I get in with the teetotal colonel who, the boots has been telling me, lent me his cart? That's what I should like to know. And where were you, my boy, all the night?”

“Despard,” said Markham, “I have borne with your brutal insults long enough. I will not bear them any longer. When you have so disgraced both yourself and me as you did last night, it is time to bring matters to a climax. I cannot submit to have you thrust yourself upon my friends as you have done. You behaved like a brute.”

Despard seated himself and wiped his eyes. “I did behave like a brute,” he said. “I always do, I know—and you know too, Oswin. Never mind. Tell me what you want—what am I to do?”

“You must leave the colony,” said Oswin quickly, almost eagerly. “I will give you money, and a ticket to England to-day. You must leave this place at once.”

“And so I will—so I will,” said the man from behind his handkerchief. “Yes, yes, Oswin, I'll leave the colony—I will—when I become a teetotaller.” He took down his handkerchief, and put it into his pocket with a hoarse laugh. “Come, my boy,” he said in his usual voice, “come; we've had quite enough of that sort of bullying. Don't think you're talking to a boy, Master Oswin. Who looks on a man as anything the worse for getting drunk now and again? You don't; you can't afford to. How often have I not helped you as you helped me? Tell me that.”

“In the past—the accursed past,” said Oswin, “I may have made myself a fool—yes, I did, but God knows that I have suffered for it. Now all is changed. I was willing to tolerate you near me since we met this time, hoping that you would think fit, when you were in a new place and amongst new people, to change your way of life. But last night showed me that I was mistaken. You can never be received at Colonel Gerald's again.”

“Indeed?” said the man. “You should break the news gently to a fellow. You might have thrown me into a fit by coming down like that. Hark you here, Mr. Markham. I know jolly well that I will be received there and welcomed too. I'll be received everywhere as well as you, and hang me, if I don't go everywhere. These people are my friends as well as yours. I've done more for them than ever you did, and they know that.”

“Fool, fool!” said Oswin bitterly.

“We'll see who's the fool, my boy. I know my advantage, don't you be afraid. The Irish king has a son, hasn't he? well, I was welcome with him last night. The Lord Bishop of Calapash has another blooming male offspring, and though he hasn't given me an invite to his dinner this evening, yet, hang me, if he wouldn't hug me if I went with the rest of you swells. Hang me, if I don't try it at any rate—it will be a lark at least. Dine with a bishop—by heaven, sir, it would be a joke—I'll go, oh, Lord, Lord!” Oswin stood motionless looking at him. “Yes,” continued Despard, “I'll have a jolly hour with his lordship the bishop. I'll fill up my glass as I did last night, and we'll drink the same toast together—we'll drink to the health of the Snowdrop of Glenmara, as the king called her when he was very drunk; we'll drink to the fair Daireen. Hallo, keep your hands off!—Curse you, you're choking me! There!” Oswin, before the girl's name had more than passed the man's lips, had sprung forward and clutched him by the throat; only by a violent effort was he cast off, and now both men stood trembling with passion face to face.

“What the deuce do you mean by this sort of treatment?” cried Despard.

“Despard,” said Oswin slowly, “you know me a little, I think. I tell you if you ever speak that name again in my presence you will repent it. You know me from past experience, and I have not utterly changed.”

The man looked at him with an expression that amounted to wonderment upon his face. Then he threw himself back in his chair, and an uncontrollable fit of laughter seized him. He lay back and almost yelled with his insane laughter. When he had recovered himself and had wiped the tears from his eyes, he saw Oswin was gone. And this fact threw him into another convulsive fit. It was a long time before he was able to straighten his collar and go to the bar for a glass of French brandy.

The last half-hour had made Oswin Markham very pale. He had eaten no breakfast, and he was reminded of this by the servant to whom he had given directions to have his horse brought to the door.

“No,” he said, “I have not eaten anything. Get the horse brought round quickly, like a good fellow.”

He stood erect in the doorway until he heard the sound of hoofs. Then he went down the steps and mounted, turning his horse's head towards Wynberg. He galloped along the red road at the base of the hill, and only once he looked up, saying, “For the last time—the last.”

He reached the avenue at Mowbray and dismounted, throwing the bridle over his arm as he walked slowly between the rows of giant aloes. In another moment he came in sight of the Dutch cottage. He paused under one of the Australian oaks, and looked towards the house. “Oh, God, God, pity me!” he cried in agony so intense that it could not relieve itself by any movement or the least motion.

He threw the bridle over a low branch and walked up to the house. His step was heard. She stood before him in the hall—white and flushed in turn as he went towards her. He was not flushed; he was still deadly white. He had startled her, he knew, for the hand she gave him was trembling like a dove's bosom.

“Papa is gone part of the way back to Simon's Town with the commodore who was with us this morning,” she said. “But you will come in and wait, will you not?”

“I cannot,” he said. “I cannot trust myself to go in—even to look at you, Daireen.”

“Oh, God!” she said, “you are ill—your face—your voice——”

“I am not ill, Daireen. I have an hour of strength—such strength as is given to men when they look at Death in the face and are not moved at all. I kissed you last night——”

“And you will now,” she said, clasping his arm tenderly. “Dearest, do not speak so terribly—do not look so terrible—so like—ah, that night when you looked up to me from the water.”

“Daireen, why did I do that? Why did you pluck me from that death to give me this agony of life—to give yourself all the bitterness that can come to any soul? Daireen, I kissed you only once, and I can never kiss you again. I cannot be false to you any longer after having touched your pure spirit. I have been false to you—false, not by my will—but because to me God denied what He gave to others—others to whom His gift was an agony—that divine power to begin life anew. My past still clings to me, Daireen—it is not past—it is about and around me still—it is the gulf that separates us, Daireen.”

“Separates us?” she said blankly, looking at him.

“Separates us,” he repeated, “as heaven and hell are separated. We have been the toys—the playthings, of Fate. If you had not looked out of your cabin that night, we should both be happy now. And then how was it we came to love each other and to know it to be love? I struggled against it, but I was as a feather upon the wind. Ah, God has given us this agony of love, for I am here to look on you for the last time—to beseech of you to hate me, and to go away knowing that you love me.”

“No, no, not to go away—anything but that. Tell me all—I can forgive all.”

“I cannot bring my lips to frame my curse,” he said after a little pause. “But you shall hear it, and, Daireen, pity me as you pitied me when I looked to God for hope and found none. Child—give me your eyes for the last time.”

She held him clasped with her white hands, and he saw that her passion made her incapable of understanding his words. She looked up to him whispering, “The last time—no, no—not the last time—not the last.”

She was in his arms. He looked down upon her face, but he did not kiss it. He clenched his teeth as he unwound her arms from him.

“One word may undo the curse that I have bound about your life,” he said. “Take the word, Daireen—the blessed word for you and me—Forget. Take it—it is my last blessing.”

She was standing before him. She saw his face there, and she gave a cry, covering her own face with her hands, for the face she saw was that which had looked up to her from the black waters.

Was he gone?

From the river bank came the sounds of the native women, from the garden the hum of insects, and from the road the echo of a horse's hoofs passing gradually away.

Was it a dream—not only this scene of broad motionless leaves, and these sounds she heard, but all the past months of her life?

Hours went by leaving her motionless in that seat, and then came the sound of a horse—she sprang up. He was returning—it was a dream that had given her this agony of parting.

“Daireen, child, what is the matter?” asked her father, whose horse it was she had heard.

She looked up to his face.

“Papa,” she said very gently, “it is over—all—all over—for ever—I have only you now.”

“My dear little Dolly, tell me all that troubles you.”

“Nothing troubles me now, papa. I have you near me, and I do not mind anything else.”

“Tell me all, Daireen.”

“I thought I loved some one else, papa—Oswin—Oswin Markham. But he is gone now, and I know you are with me. You will always be with me.”

“My poor little Dolly,” said Colonel Gerald, “did he tell you that he loved you?”

“He did, papa; but you must ask me no more. I shall never see him again!”

“Perfectly charming!” said Mrs. Crawford, standing at the door. “The prettiest picture I have seen for a long time—father and daughter in each other's arms. But, my dear George, are you not yet dressed for the bishop's dinner? Daireen, my child, did you not say you would be ready when I would call for you? I am quite disappointed, and I would be angry only you look perfectly lovely this evening—like a beautiful lily. The dear bishop will be so charmed, for you are one of his favourites. Now do make haste, and I entreat of you to be particular with your shades of gray.”