The Odds Part 24

His grave face did not alter. His eyes looked directly into hers and it seemed to Nan for the first time that they held something of a domineering expression.

She turned her head away with a quick frown. She also made a slight, ineffectual effort to free her hand. But he did not appear to notice either gesture.

"Yes," he said, in his slow way, "it is out of the question, and so I have asked your father to take care of you for me until my return--for, unfortunately, I cannot postpone my own departure."

Nan's lips quivered. She was beginning to feel hysterical. With an effort she controlled herself.

"How long shall you be away?" she asked.

"It is impossible for me to say. Everything depends upon the state of affairs at the mines. But you may be quite sure, Anne"--a deeper note crept into his voice--"that my absence will be as short as I can possibly make it."

She turned her head towards him again.

"You needn't hurry for my sake," she said abruptly. "I shall be perfectly happy here."

"I am glad to hear it," he answered gravely. "I have made full provision for you. The interest upon the settlement I have made upon you will be paid to you monthly. Should you find it insufficient, you will, of course, let me know. I could cable you some more if necessary."

A great blush rose in Nan's face at his words, spreading upwards to her hair.

"Oh," she stammered, "I--I--indeed, I shan't want any money! Please don't--"

"It is your own," he interposed quietly, "and as such I beg that you will regard it, and spend it exactly as you like. Should you require more, as I have said, I shall be pleased to send it to you."

He uttered the last sentence as if it ended the matter, and Nan found herself unable to say more. To have expressed any grat.i.tude would have been an absolute impossibility at that moment.

She lay, therefore, in quivering silence until he spoke again.

"It is time for me to be going. I hope the injury to your arm will progress quite satisfactorily. You will not be able to write to me yourself at present, but your sister Mona has promised to let me hear of you by every mail. Dr. Barnard will also write."

He paused. But Nan said nothing whatever. She was wondering, with a fiery embarra.s.sment, what form his farewell would take.

After a brief silence he rose.

"Good-bye, then!" he said.

He bent low over her, looking closely into her unwilling face. And then--it was the merest touch--for the fraction of a second his lips were on her forehead.

"Good-bye!" he said again, under his breath, and in another moment she heard his soft tread as he went away.

Her heart was throbbing madly; she felt as if it were leaping up and down within her. For a s.p.a.ce she lay listening, every nerve upon the stretch.

Then at last there came to her the sound of voices raised in farewell, the crunch of wheels below her window, the loud banging of a door. And with a gasp she turned her face into her pillow, and wept for sheer relief.

He had come and gone like an evil dream, and she was left safe in her father's house.

CHAPTER III

Three weeks after her wedding, Nan Cradock awoke to the amazing discovery that she was a rich woman; how rich it took her some time to realise, and when it did dawn upon her she was startled, almost dismayed.

Her recovery from the only illness she had ever known was marvellously rapid, and with her return to health her spirits rose to their accustomed giddy height. There was little in her surroundings to remind her of the fact that she was married, always excepting the unwonted presence of these same riches which she speedily began to scatter with a lavish hand.

Her life slipped very easily back into its accustomed groove, save that the pinch of poverty was conspicuously absent. The first day of every month brought her a full purse, and for a long time the charm of this novelty went far towards quieting the undeniable sense of uneasiness that accompanied it.

It was only when the novelty began to wear away that the burdened feeling began to oppress her unduly. No one suspected it, not even Mona, who adhered rigorously to her promise, and wrote her weekly report of her sister's health to her absent brother-in-law long after Nan was fully capable of performing this duty for herself. Mona had always been considered the least feather-brained of the family, and she certainly fulfilled her trust with absolute integrity.

Piet Cradock's epistles were not quite so frequent, and invariably of the briefest. They were exceedingly formal at all times, and Nan's heart never warmed at the sight of his handwriting. It was thick and strong, like himself, and she always regarded it with a little secret sense of aversion.

Nevertheless, as time pa.s.sed, and he made no mention of return, her dread of the future subsided gradually into the back of her mind. It had never been her habit to look forward very far, and she was still little more than a child. Gradually the fact of her marriage began to grow shadowy and unreal, till at length she almost managed to shut it out of her consideration altogether. She had accepted the man upon impulse, dazzled by the glitter of his wealth. To find that he had drifted out of her life, and that the wealth remained, was the most blissful state of affairs that she could have desired.

Slowly spring merged into summer, and more and more did it seem to Nan that the past was nothing but a dream. She returned to her customary pursuits with all her old zest, rising early in the mornings to follow the otter-hounds, tramping for miles, and returning ravenous to breakfast; or, again, spending hours in the saddle, and only returning at her own sweet will. Colonel Everard's household was one of absolute freedom. No one ever questioned the doings of anyone else. From the earliest they had one and all been accustomed to go their own way. And Nan was the freest and most independent of them all.

It was on a splendid morning in July that as she splashed along the marshy edge of a stream in hot pursuit of one of the biggest otters she had ever seen, a well-known voice accosted her by name.

"Hullo, Nan! I wondered if you would turn up when they told me you were still at home."

Nan whisked round, up to her ankles in mud.

"Hullo, Jerry, it's you, is it?" was her unceremonious reply. "Pleased to see you, my boy. But don't talk to me now. I can't think of anything but business."

She was off with the words, not waiting to shake hands. But Jerry Lister was not in the least discouraged by this treatment. He was accustomed to Nan and all her ways.

He pounded after her along the bank and joined her as a matter of course.

A straight, good-looking youth was Jerry, as wild and headstrong as Nan herself. He was the grand-nephew of old Squire Grimshaw, Colonel Everard's special crony, and he and Nan had been chums from their childhood. He was only a year older than she, and in many respects he was her junior. "I say, you are all right again?" was his first question, when the otter allowed them a little breathing-s.p.a.ce. "I was awfully sorry to hear about your accident, you know, but awfully glad, too, in a way. By Jove, I don't think I could have spent the Long here, with you in South Africa! What ever possessed you to go and marry a Boer, Nan?"

"Don't be an idiot!" said Nan sharply. "He isn't anything of the sort."

Jerry accepted the correction with a boyish grimace.

"I'm coming to call on you to-morrow, Mrs. Cradock," he announced.

Nan coloured angrily.

"You needn't trouble yourself," she returned. "I don't receive callers."

But Jerry was not to be shaken off. He linked an affectionate arm in hers.

"All right, Nan old girl, don't be waxy," he pleaded. "Come on the lake with me this afternoon instead. I'll bring some prog if you will, and we'll have one of our old red-letter days. Is it a promise?"

She hesitated, still half inclined to be ungracious.

"Well," she said at length, moved in spite of herself by his persuasive att.i.tude, "I will come to please you, on one condition."

"Good!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jerry. "It's done, whatever it is."

"Don't be absurd!" she protested, trying to be stern and failing somewhat ignominiously. "I will come only if you will promise not to talk about anything that you see I don't like."