An I.D.B. in South Africa Part 10

"It is easy enough. You could do it yourself," said he.

Dainty felt a childish desire to try. She had none of that horror of mutilation that most delicate women have, for her life had made her familiar with the sight of physical afflictions. The doctor, though he secretly wondered at her curiosity, was willing to indulge it, and Dainty soon found that she could actually adjust a gla.s.s eye herself.

Bela was dismissed, and her look of interest gave place to one of weariness. "Well, Mrs Laure, what is the reason I have not seen you riding of late?"

The blood flew to her cheeks, for she felt that the doctor was reading her heart. With the desire that every woman has to guard her dearest secret, she said:

"Donald imagines I am threatened with fever. It is nothing but a feeling of homesickness. To be sure my heart beats so at times that it nearly chokes me, but I think it will soon pa.s.s away. I have been coaxing Mr Laure to take me away from the Fields. I think if I were near the old ocean once more my health would return."

The doctor listened to her voice, but he only heard her mental words.

The words she framed with her lips did not conceal the cause of her distress. We think to deceive the world when we talk to cover our feelings, but how rarely do we succeed with the good and true. The soul sits in the silence. Its influences are silent influences, and its voice soft and gentle. So, as it is attuned to stillness, it hears other soul voices when in harmony with it, and it discerns the truth with unerring judgment.

Dr Fox had diagnosed mental struggles until it had become second nature to him to read the thoughts of his patients. He had also been keenly alive to the infatuation of Herr Schwatka for Mrs Laure, and when she alluded to a weakness of the heart, he asked:

"Have you anything on your mind that worries you?" She caught her breath for a second, and the doctor read in her hesitancy the true answer, though she replied:

"Oh, no."

"I will leave you a few powders, though a change of scene would do you more good than any medicine I might prescribe. You need to get out and away from accustomed places. You are stagnating. Your mind is travelling in a circle, and your thoughts dwell too much on yourself, which always produces an unsatisfactory mental, as well as physical condition. I sometimes advise my lady patients, when they are the subject of their own thoughts, to think of me. A crusty old bachelor is so radical a change, and so hard a subject that it has succeeded admirably in curing some of them, who only needed variety." This last remark brought a smile to Dainty's face.

"Yet I advise them not to overdo the remedy lest they think too much of me. I am extremely cautious, Mrs Laure."

Dainty smiled again. Sentiment and the doctor seemed so absurd a combination to her. He was kind-hearted, but to think of him as an awakener of love--Ah! love brought to her mind another. She blushed, stopped, and _thought of the doctor_. It was a good remedy. He was looking at her. She felt a mixture of discomfort and a desire to tell him how great was her heartache. Had he asked her her secret, she would have told him. He divined her confidential mood, but asked nothing. It is sometimes wise to be ignorant. If the family physician should divulge the secrets of the inner life of the social sphere in which he moves, what a shattered world would we live in! The life of a hermit would at once hold irresistible charms for many.

What an innocent and ignorant violator of social and marital laws was Dainty! But ignorance and innocence are not as beautiful qualities as knowledge and purity. With the former, life is but drifting; with the latter, it is anch.o.r.ed to a rock.

The doctor realised that Dainty was drifting. He had seen many another woman drift, only to be broken against the rocks on bleak unknown sh.o.r.es; later he had seen the wreck washed up lying on the sands of life, exposed to the gaze of the gaping curiosity-seeker, and to his careless comments. Would this beautiful creature, wounded almost to death, be another wreck noted by pitying angels, and filling a sorrowful page in the book of Time? Not if he could help guide her. Ah! if our impulses are in the direction of the good, we know not how soon we may be given the opportunity to guide a frail bark clear of some threatening rock, into smiling waters, and under summer skies! The doctor's opportunity came sooner than he antic.i.p.ated.

"I will call in again, Mrs Laure," said he, rising. "I have to see a patient a few hours' ride from here, and on my return, will tell Mr Laure that he must take you to England. I am expecting to go home for a short trip this summer, I need a change, too. One gets rusty living in Africa without a sight of other lands."

He took her little hand in his, gave it a quick, firm, friendly grasp, that seemed to say: "I know all about your trouble. Everything will come out all right." Aloud he said: "You must stop thinking about yourself," and left the house.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

"YOU HAVE MADE ME YOUR PRISONER."

Dainty, left alone, smiled in mockery. "Stop thinking!" As if she could!

She was innocent of any intentional wrong toward her husband, but oh!

that world, that real world of hers--her thoughts.

Even in the midst of her self-upbraiding, her rebel thoughts would break loose, and reach out toward the man she loved. It was the ecstasy of a Heaven, blended with the agony of a h.e.l.l.

The shuttle of love that winds and weaves an unseen thread, had bound her heart in bond so firm, that to break it seemed like breaking the thread of life. Would that she could see how near the fate stood that would cut that thread! She felt that the new love which had sprung to a giant's strength within her heart, was doing cruel injustice to the loyal heart of her husband. She wished to be true to herself, and that meant true to Donald. Was he not truth itself to her? But she had no strength to fight against the power which Schwatka exerted over her, and thoughts of him held her prisoner as she lay on her divan moaning like a helpless wounded doe.

At this moment Herr Schwatka entered the room. As he approached, their eyes met in one long look, and as if mesmerised, their lips met in a kiss that annihilated time and s.p.a.ce, and that for Dainty rent asunder all other bonds. Centuries of time were lived in that one kiss. She had been long married, but not until now was she mated.

At last time began again to beat out to the lovers those seconds and moments of which they had been too oblivious.

"Dainty," said he, "I can no longer endure to see you bear toward another the relation of--wife. I came to-day to tell you that I leave Kimberley within twenty-four hours. I know that I have been a coward to remain here and see you suffer for my sake, but the strength of love has been my weakness, and has chained me to your side. My beloved, life without you is worth to me not a puff of smoke; if I remain here longer I shall become a dangerous enemy to your husband. He stands between you and me; therefore I go away. Absence sometimes brings forgetfulness.

The memory of your dearly beautiful face, of your soulful eyes--ah!

What shall I do!--I cannot, I cannot tear myself from you!"

He sank on his knees by her side, and laid his head on her shoulder, a man given over to the longings of a great love, without hope therein.

She was now the stronger of the two. How often do we see the dumb animal side, in the strongest nature, a.s.sert itself when it lays its head on the heart of a frail woman for comfort.

What is that power which enchains men and women for a season when death itself would be preferable to the bitter sweetness which fills the soul.

The heart never entirely recovers, though by and by the pain is a dull heavy sorrow as for a loved one buried long ago? We pity ourselves then, to think that it is possible for us to so change.

Dainty could not move hand or foot, her eyes looked as if tears lay behind in the veiled depths, in sacred sympathy with the soul, in the throes of an agony which few are capable of understanding.

Great beads of perspiration stood on her brow; she tried to speak, but ended in an incoherent whisper. Her lover recognised the suffering of her soul, akin to his own, and wiped the cold dews away with a holy touch. There was no flaming consuming pa.s.sion in his touch. How strange was this in a nature like Herr Schwatka's! It was one of the marvels of love that it could purify the impulses and purposes of such a man, not used to live above the moral plane of the careless man of the world. He might easily have wrought ruin in the life of this unsophisticated woman, who could not, in one remove from savage ancestry, grow away from the tendency of love to follow its own, regardless of consequences. So had her mother done. Raising herself, and looking him steadfastly in the eyes, she slowly said, in an earnest whisper: "If you go, I go with you."

"No, no, Dainty, I love you too truly to let you live to repent anything for my sake. Donald will not return to you until evening. I must go while I have any manliness left, or we will both live to repent it."

There was silence for a few moments, and then he hesitatingly said:

"I want to make a confession, sweetheart, that will help to ease my pain." He stopped and his bosom heaved with emotion. "It is that--I was fascinated by you, and your untamed ways, so different from what I had ever known, and I thought you would be a pastime to me. See what misery my wrong has wrought to both. You are the one woman in the world stronger than I, who thought myself invincible. You have made me your prisoner."

Anger against her fate began to rise within her heart, and strange thoughts surged and swelled through her throbbing brain. She spoke with wild determination:

"Listen. Donald is keeping some great secret from me, and although he has no suspicion of the love existing between you and me, his life is as separated from mine as if we were living in different continents. My life is my own, and if you leave me, I follow."

"No, no, my beloved," cried Schwatka.

Dainty continued in the same voice:

"You cannot change me now. Bela," calling to her servant, "have the horses harnessed to the cart at once, I am going for a drive. Now,"

turning to Schwatka, "leave me. I have not the strength to bear your presence longer. I shall be at the meeting of the roads," naming a spot about five hours distant, "and will meet you there."

"No, no," said he, mournfully but firmly. "Here I bid you farewell."

He laid his hand on her shoulder. "When you cease to think of me as a lover, hold my memory kindly as your saviour."

His hand fell from her shoulder slowly down her beautiful arm, till it reached the little firmly-knit hand, which he held a prisoner for a few seconds, then tenderly raised to his lips. In another moment he had gone.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A FRIEND IN DEED.

Not for a moment was Dainty's determination shaken by the action of Schwatka. So full of magnetic fire she had never been disciplined to control; had love been sooner enkindled, she would but sooner have leaped into its flame, whether it meant warmth or destruction. Many women of her nature, live and die ignorant of love. Are they more blest for the ignorance?

Turning to her dressing-case, in which were her diamonds and costly jewels, she looked at them, and in another moment she replaced the casket. She rapidly dressed for the journey, and ordered Bela to pack a small trunk with necessary and sufficient apparel, and take it to the Cape cart waiting at the door. These things were quickly done by the silent, swiftly-moving Bushman.

Trembling with excitement she followed the Bushman, and got into the cart. As they drove away, she gave one backward glance at the home where she had lived so peacefully with Donald. Nerving herself, she bade Bela hasten. When they had reached the edge of the town, she seized the reins, and with a strength born of excitement, urged the horses on with a frenzy that caused Bela to give his mistress a look of wonder.

Her thoughts had been too long busy with her work to think of anything further, until now, with the motion of the revolving wheels, and the speeding horses, a sense of liberty took possession of her.

She was free! Away over the veldt she flew, the horses seeming to become imbued with the spirit of their mistress, which gave impulse to their fast-flying feet. This sense of freedom was a reaction from the sense of captivity, of late so strongly upon her.