The Marriage Of Esther Part 10

The other was hardly prepared for this treatment of his trouble.

"Why, what on earth's wrong with you this morning?" Ellison asked irritably. "Has the whole world gone dismal mad?"

"I'm very worried about something. Don't ask me what, old man. I'm trying to fight it down, and if you leave me alone I shall be all right directly."

"I'm afraid I shan't be here to see it, then. I'm leaving in an hour's time--for good and all."

Murkard sprang to his feet with a new face.

"Then that puts me right at once. G.o.d bless you, Ellison, you could not have given me better news! I knew you'd do what was right!"

"Have you been fretting about me, then?"

"A little. But more about that girl over yonder. Of course, whatever happened, I should stand by you--you know that, don't you? But--well, the long and the short of it is, I couldn't bear to see the poor child getting to care for you more and more every day, when I knew that your affection was not the kind to satisfy her craving. Poor little thing, it will be hard on her, devilish hard, but all the same I believe you're doing what is best and happiest for both of you."

"Do you think so, honour bright?"

"I don't think, I'm sure of it!"

"Then I'll go. But you don't know, old man, what a bitter fight it has been. Since you laughed at me a week ago I've been arguing it over, and the result is, I'm beginning to think I _do_ care for her, after all."

"If you only _think_, you're still on the wrong side of the stream. No, no; we must go. There is no question about that. I'll put our few traps together after breakfast, and then we'll say farewell and adieu to respectability once more."

"But you are not coming too. I could never allow that!"

"You'll have no option. Of course I must come! Didn't I tell you the other day that we're bound up together? My destiny is in your hands. I must never leave you. I had an idea the end would have come here, but it seems I'm mistaken."

"I wish you'd be a little more explicit sometimes."

"It would probably amuse you if I were, and though I'm not the sort of man who fears ridicule, as a general rule, I could not bear to have you laugh at this."

"I should not laugh; it seems to me I shall never laugh again. Tell me, Murkard, what you mean."

"I will tell you."

He rose and walked up and down the little room for some minutes. Then he stopped, and leaning against the smoke-coloured mantelpiece, spoke.

"In the first place, I suppose you will admit that there are some men in this extraordinary world of ours more delicately constructed than others. You agree to that. Very good. Well, that being so, I am perhaps more sensitive than you--possibly, though I don't say absolutely, accounted for by my deformity. I look at commonplace things in a different way; my brain receives different impressions from pa.s.sing events. I don't say whether my impressions are right or wrong. At any rate, they are there. Directly I set eyes on you, that first night of our meeting, I knew you were my fate. Don't ask me how I knew it. It is sufficient that I _did_ know it. Something inside here seemed to tell me that our lives were bound up together; in fact, that you were the man for whose sake I was sent into the world. You remember we were starving at the time, and that we slept under a Moreton Bay fig in the Domain.

Well, perhaps as the result of that hunger, I dreamed a dream. Something came to me and bade me to go with you, bade me be by your side continually because I was necessary to your life, and because my death would be by your hands."

"Good gracious, Murkard, think what you're saying!"

"I have thought, and I know. I don't mean that you will murder me, but I _do_ mean that it will be in connection with you that I shall meet my death. The same dream told me that a chance would be given us. That chance has come. Also the dream told me that my only hope of heaven lay in saving you by laying down my own life. That time has not come yet--but it will come as surely as we are now located in this hut. In the meantime there is another life between us. That life we have not met yet; what or whose it is I have no notion, but I dread it night and day."

"You don't mean to tell me you believe all that you're telling me?"

"As implicitly as I believe that I am standing before you now. And so will you when it is too late--not before."

"But think, man, think! How can such a thing be contemplated for a moment? Your life by my hands! No, no!"

"Let it drop. Forget that I ever told you. We shall see whether it turns out as I say. Moreover, something tells me that although we are preparing to leave this place, we shall not go!"

Without further argument he opened the door and went out. Ellison in his turn began to pace the room.

"He is mad, the man is undoubtedly mad. And yet G.o.d knows why he should be. If vileness has anything to do with it, I am despicable enough to do anything he might dream! Surely there never was so miserable a wretch as I! But we will go from here. Of that I am determined."

He began feverishly to put together the few little odds and ends he had collected during the past month. It was not a lengthy business, but it cut him to the heart to have to do it. If he left this place, where for a month he had been so happy, what would his future be? Turned out to seek employment again, would he drift back into the old vagabond life or not? And if he did, he asked himself, what would it matter? Who was there in the world to care? He tied up his bundle, threw it on the bed, and then in his turn left the hut. Esther was on the veranda of her own house. He crossed the path to speak to her.

"Miss McCartney," he said, "have you been able to find it in your heart to forgive me for my rudeness last night?"

Her hand shook and her voice trembled as she answered, with downcast eyes, "There is nothing to forgive, my lord."

"No, no; you must not call me that!"

He raised his hand as if to ward off a blow. She noticed the look of pain that leaped into his eyes.

"Forgive me in your turn. I am sorry I hurt you."

"Do you think it matters? My life will be all one long pain now. I am going away; I have come to say good-bye to you."

"You are--really--going--away?"

"Yes; I cannot live here after what I told you last night. It is impossible for both of us. I must go out into the world again and try to win back the self-respect I have lost. But before I go I want to thank you for all you have done for me; for a month you have enabled me to shake hands with happiness. I can never be sufficiently grateful to you."

"Where--where shall you go when you leave here?"

"I haven't the remotest notion. On to the mainland most probably; out to some station in the far West, where I can forget and be forgotten. What does it matter where I go?"

"Does--does it never strike you that in thus dooming yourself to hopeless misery you are being very cruel to me?"

"It is only to be kind. G.o.d knows I have thought of you before myself, and the only conclusion I can come to is that it would be worse for you if I stayed."

"Then good-bye, and may G.o.d bless you and protect you always!"

He looked into her face; it was pale as death. She held out her hand, and he raised it to his lips. The knowledge that had come to him the previous night was confirmed now. In that second he learned how much he loved her.

"Good-bye--good-bye!"

He watched her pa.s.s into the house, and was in the act of leaving the spot himself when he heard a heavy fall within. In an instant he had divined its meaning, and was inside the room, to find Esther upon the floor in a dead faint. Raising her in his arms he carried her to a sofa and laid her on it; then, procuring water, he bathed her forehead and chafed her hands till she returned to consciousness. When her eyes opened she looked at him with a frightened stare.

"Oh, what has happened?"

"The sun was too much for you out there. You fainted; fortunately I heard you fall and carried you here. Are you better?"

"Yes, thank you. I am almost all right again."

"You are quite sure?"

"Quite."