CHAPTER X.

Cyril Mowbray did not seem to feel quite as jubilant as he might have done, when it was proved beyond the possibility of doubt, that Claude was alive. The income that would be his when he reached the age of twenty-five was a small one, and quite insufficient to allow of his keeping three hunters and driving a coach, to say nothing of that two-hundred-ton yacht upon which he had set his heart.

He considered that he was, on the whole, very hardly dealt with by Fate, for he felt convinced that he was meant by Nature to be a country gentleman in affluent circumstances and without need to take thought for all the unlet farms that might be on his property. He considered it especially hard that he should be cheated out of his money—that was how he put it—by the reappearance of Claude. He had great confidence in his own ability to persuade his sister to part with her money. To whom should she give her money if not to her own brother, he inquired of such persons as he took into his confidence on the subject of his grievances.

His confidence in his capacity to get his sister's money into his possession was but too well-founded. During the year of idleness that followed his being sent down from the University, he had been a terrible burden to Agnes, for it was in vain that she pleaded with him to seek to qualify himself for some employment in which a University degree was not necessary; he refused to listen to her, saying that he was fit for nothing but the life of a country gentleman.

That was certainly the life which he had led for a year, at his sister's expense. He was a great burden to her, but she was extremely fond of him, and she was a woman.

Lizzie Dangan had left the neighbourhood without revealing to any one the fact that she had had a secret interview with Mr. Westwood within twenty yards of where his body had been found in the morning, and also without being reconciled to her father, the gamekeeper, though Agnes made an attempt to get the man to forgive his daughter for her lapse. The man had always been a strict father, giving his children an excellent education, and insisting on their going to church with praiseworthy regularity. It was therefore mortifying for him to find that his two sons had enlisted in a cavalry regiment and that his one daughter had neglected the excellent precepts of life which he had taught her by the aid of a birch rod.

It was probably the sense of his own failure in regard to his children that made him refuse to be reconciled to Lizzie. He had shown himself all his life to be a hard and morose man, discharging his duties with rigid exactness, and being quite intolerant of the lapses of the people about him. After the death of Mr. Westwood and the departure of his daughter, he became more morose than ever, scarcely speaking to any one on the estate, and rarely leaving the precincts of the park. Some of the servants said that, after all, he had been attached to Mr. Westwood, but others said that he was grieving because Lizzie had not been allowed to starve to death in expiation of her fault. He had more than once said that he hoped he would see her in her coffin for bringing shame upon his house, but until she was lying in her coffin he would not have her brought before him.

It was after her departure that Cyril began to feel a trifle lonely. He missed his stolen interviews with the girl, and above all he missed the sense of being engaged in an intrigue that was attended with the greatest risk, and which he flattered himself had been carried on without awaking the suspicions of any one, except his too considerate friend, Dick Westwood. Even the excitement of the trial and the consciousness of being a person of the greatest importance in connection with the case for the Crown, failed to compensate him for the absence of Lizzie, especially as, within a week after the conviction of Standish, the Crown no longer regarded him as a person of distinction. To be the chief witness for the Crown had seemed in his eyes pretty much the same thing as to be on speaking terms with Royalty; and when he found himself, after he had served the purposes of the prosecution, cast aside in favour of a farm labourer, who became the hero of the moment because he had detected a man loitering in the neighbourhood of certain hay ricks that had been burnt down, he was ready to indulge in many philosophical reflections upon the fickleness of Royalty. He felt like the discarded favourite of a Prince.

Thus it was that he became an intolerable burden to his sister, and the subject of unfavourable predictions uttered by the most far-seeing people of the neighbourhood, although his worst enemies could not say that he was not improving at billiards. It was universally admitted that he was making satisfactory progress in the study of this fascinating game; a fact which shows that if one only practises for six hours a day at anything, one will, eventually, become proficient at it.

To say, however, that he was satisfied with his life and its prospects at this period would be impossible. As a matter of fact, he was as much dissatisfied with himself as his friends were. He had been heard once or twice to say something about enlisting.

It was just when he was actually considering if, in view of his failure to realise the simplest aspirations of a country gentleman, it might not be well for him to take the Queen's shilling, that he met Sir Percival Hope on the road to Brackenhurst.

It seemed to him that Sir Percival had a lecturereading expression on his face, and he quickened his pace with a view of passing him with a nod. But he was mistaken; first, in fancying that Sir Percival had so narrow a knowledge of the world as to think that lecture-reading was ever known to act as a brake upon any youth who had made up his mind to go to the bad; and secondly, in fancying that if such a man as Sir Percival Hope had made up his mind to speak to him, either with the intention of reading him a lecture or with any other aim, he would be able to pass him with only a nod of recognition.

Sir Percival stopped him.

“Look here, Mowbray,” he said, “you're a man of the world, and you know all the people about here far better than I do. You see they freeze up when I want them to talk freely to me. I haven't the way of drawing them out that you have.”

Cyril fairly blushed at these compliments; they were delivered in so casual a tone as to seem everyday truths that no one would dream of contradicting.

Cyril did not dream of contradicting them, though he did blush. He merely murmured that he supposed chaps would sooner give themselves away to him than to Sir Percival.

“Of course they would,” acquiesced the elder man. “That is why I am glad to have met you. The fact is, that my chief overseer at Tarragonda Creek—that's one of my sheep stations in New South Wales—has written to me to send him out a young chap who would act as his assistant for a while—a chap whom he could eventually place in charge of one of the farms. Now why on earth he should bother me with this business I don't know, only that O'Gorman—that's the overseer—has a mortal hatred of the native-born Australian: he fancies that he knows too much. I was about to write to him to say that he must manage without me, when it occurred to me that you might be able to help me. What O'Gorman wants is a young fellow who is first and foremost a gentleman—a fellow who knows what a horse is and does not object to be in the saddle all day. If you hear of any one who you think would suit such a billet, I wish you would let me know—only remember, Mr. O'Gorman is a great believer in gentlemen for such posts: he won't have anything to do with stable hands who think to better themselves in a colony.”

“Look here, Sir Percival,” cried Cyril, after only a short pause, “I'm dead tired of life in this neighbourhood. I can hear people say, the moment my back is turned, that I'm going straight to the devil, and I can't contradict them. I am going to the devil simply because I thought I was good for nothing but loafing about billiard-rooms. You don't know, Sir Percival, how far I have gone in that direction. Only one person knows what I am guilty of. But I haven't had a chance; and if you only give me one, you'll see if I don't take it.”

“Do you mean to say that you'd take the situation yourself?” asked Sir Percival, as if the idea had been sprung upon him.

“I see by the way you ask me that you think I'm a conceited cub,” said Cyril. “But I'm not conceited, and—look here, Sir Percival, give me this chance and it will mean the saving of me. You'll not regret it. I was just thinking as I came along here this evening, that there's nothing left for me except to enlist, and by the Lord Harry, if you won't take me I will enlist if only to get away from this place.”

“My dear boy, you needn't hold that pistol to my head,” said Sir Percival.

“A pistol—what pistol?” said Cyril, in a low tone, taking a step or two back and staring at Sir Percival.

“Why, that threat of enlisting. Why need you threaten me with that? I'll give you the chance you ask for without any intimidation. Heavens! If you only knew the relief that it is to me to be able to tell O'Gorman that I have got a man for him. Oh, you and he will get on all right. Of course you'll do just what he tells you, or you'll get your passage paid home by the next steamer.”

“Sir Percival,” faltered Cyril, “you've saved me.”

And then, man of the world though he was, he burst into tears, and hurried away, leaving Sir Per-cival standing alone on the roadside extremely gratified by the reflection that once more he had been right in the estimate he had formed of a man's character, though all the people whom he had met had differed from him. It was this capacity to judge of men's characters without being guided by the opinions formed—and expressed—by others, that had made him a rich man while others had remained poor. He had come to the conclusion that Cyril was not in reality a mauvais sujet, or what is known in England as a bad egg. The philosophy of Sir Percival's life was comprised within these lines:

“Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do.”

He rather guessed that he could outwit Satan if he only set about trying to do it.

Thus it was that Agnes had to express her gratitude once again to Sir Percival Hope, and thus their friendship became consolidated.

Not once did Cyril put in an appearance at a billiard-room at Brackenhurst during the week that followed his interval with Sir Percival. He had no time for billiards, the fact being that he was made to understand that he must be on his way to Australia by the steamer leaving England in ten days. For the first time in his life he felt it incumbent on him to rouse himself. He went up with Sir Per-cival to London to procure himself an outfit; and though it was something of a disappointment to him to learn that he was not to appear in top boots and a “picture hat,” after a model made by a milliner in Bond Street, and worn by a South African trooper—he should have dearly liked to walk for the last time through the streets of Brackenhurst in this picturesque attire—still he bore his disappointment with resignation, and packed up his flannel shirts with a light heart. He wrote a letter to Lizzie Dangan on the eve of his departure, and only posted it at Liverpool half an hour before he embarked for his new home.

It was when he was beginning to feel, as the waves of the Channel were causing the big steamer some uneasiness, that, after all, he would not look on the acquisition of a yacht as an essential to his scheme of enjoying life when he had become a millionaire, that his sister Agnes was waited on by Dick Westwood's solicitor.

She had scarcely dried the tears which she had shed on thinking that her brother would be by this time at sea, for the reflection that even a reprobate brother is at sea will make a kind-hearted sister weep; and she did not feel much inclined to have an interview which she feared would be a business one.

She soon found, however, that the solicitor had not come strictly on a matter of business.

“I bring you a letter which is addressed to my late client, Mr. Westwood,” said he. “In the ordinary way of business, I have, of course, opened the few letters that have been addressed to him by persons whom the news of his death had not time to reach, but in this particular case I have brought the letter to you.”

He handed her an envelope which was in such a condition as to suggest that it had been lying for a wet day or two in the roadway at Charing Cross or some thoroughfare equally well frequented, and that afterwards some one had dropped it by mistake into one of the iron dust-bins instead of a pillar-box. It was soiled and dilapidated to such an extent as made Agnes uncertain on which side the address was written. But she was able to read on a corner that had been scraped, the one postmark “Zanzibar.”

The letter dropped from her hand.

“The pity of it—ah, the pity of it!” she cried.

“I will leave it with you, Miss Mowbray,” said the lawyer, rising. “I think that it is into your hands it should be put. You will read it at your leisure, and if it contains any matter upon which you think I should be informed, you will be good enough to communicate with me.”