"We were at Billy's."
Wilkins abruptly changed the subject, and soon after he left us. We
rushed to the Harrow register. Yes, in Tommy's house, some seven years
before our time, there had been a certain Theodore Vane Wilkins. Ajax,
whose imagination runs riot, began to prattle about a Dinah, a Delilah
of a Dinah, who had wrecked our schoolfellow's life. And, during the
ensuing week, Dinah was continually in his mouth. Wilkins had moved
camp, and we saw nothing of him. What we heard, however, must be set
down. Silas Upham asked us to spend Sunday at his house. At dinner I
sat next pretty little Hetty, and at once she spoke of Wilkins. To my
annoyance, Ajax introduced the ridiculous Dinah, the perfidious
creature of his fancy. Ajax was in his salad days, but he ought to
have known, even then, that if you want to interest a maid in a man,
tell her that the man has suffered at the hands of another maid.
Hetty's blue eyes sparkled, her dimpled cheeks glowed with sympathy
and indignation.
"Schoolfellow o' yours, was he? Well--I may make that feller foreman
one o' these days," said Silas, with a fond, foolish glance at his
daughter. Hetty could do what she pleased with her sire--and knew it.
"Poppa," said Miss Hetty, "you're all sorts of a darling, and I must
kiss you."
Then she and Ajax strolled on to the verandah, and I found myself
alone with my host. He said meaningly: "Wilkins has had a tough row to
hoe--eh? But he's a perfect gentleman, straight, sober, and a worker.
I've been looking for a man that is a man to run things here, now that
I'm getting a bit stiff in the joints. Hetty likes him first-rate
too."
All this in an interrogatory tone. Of course, it was easy to fill the
_lacunae_ in the text. Silas Upham adored his daughter and his
ranch. If Hetty married Wilkins, the artful Silas would gain an able-
bodied, capable major-domo, and he would not lose his pet lamb. I
said, rather tartly--
"Look here, Upham, you know nothing of Wilkins, and I advise you and--
er--Miss Hetty to go slow."
"I do go slow," said my host, "but Hetty likes to buzz along. She's a
mover, she is."
As we rode home I told Ajax that Opportunity had thrust into Wilkins'
hand a very tempting morsel. Was he going to swallow it? And ought we
to ask some questions?
I think it was on the following Wednesday that Wilkins walked over to
the ranch-house, and asked for a job.
"I've left Upham," he said curtly.
We had not much to offer; such as it was, Wilkins accepted it. Ajax
drove to Upham's to fetch Wilkins' blankets and belongings. When he
came back, he drew me aside.
"Silas offered him the billet of foreman. Wilkins _refused it_."
* * * * *
A month passed. Wilkins worked hard at first, and his ability, his
shrewdness, confounded us, as it had confounded Silas Upham. Then, he
began to slack, as boys put it. Small duties were ill done or not done
at all. But we liked him, were, indeed, charmed by him. As Ajax
remarked, Fascination does not trot in the same class with Respect.
Twice I caught that shameless little witch, Hetty, in our back
pasture, where Wilkins was splitting rails. Thrice a week she called
at the ranch-house on her way to the post office.
"She means to marry Wilkins," said Ajax to me. "And why not? If one
woman has made him--er--invertebrate, let Hetty Upham put backbone
into him."
That evening we asked Wilkins to witness a legal paper, some agreement
or other. He signed his name Henry Wilkins. Ajax stared at me; then he
walked to the bookcase. His voice was very hard, as he turned, Harrow
register in hand, and said: "The only Wilkins at Tommy's was Theodore
Vane Wilkins."
Wilkins rose, shrugged his shoulders, and laughed. Ajax scowled.
"We told Silas Upham that you were an old Harrovian," began my
brother.
"So I am; but my name is not Wilkins." He lit a cigarette, before he
continued quietly: "I'm a fraud. I'm not even an Englishman. My father
was a Southerner. He settled in England after the war. He used to say
bitterly that he had been born the wrong side of the Atlantic. He died
soon after I left Harrow. With what money he left me I travelled all
over the world: shooting, fishing, and playing the fool.
"When I found myself stony-broke, I hunted up my Baltimore relations.
Some of them told me it was easier to marry money than to make it. My
name--I'll keep that to myself, if you don't mind--had a certain value
in the eyes of a rich girl I knew. At the same time there was another
girl----"
"Ah--Dinah," Ajax murmured.
"We'll call her Dinah. Dinah," his voice shook for a moment, "Dinah
cared for me, and I--I cared for her. But the girl with money had a
blaring, knock-me-down sort of beauty that appeals to men. Lots of
fellows were after her. Dinah had only me. Dinah was mine, if I chose
to claim her; the other had to be won. The competition, plus the coin,
ensnared me. I became engaged to the rich girl. I don't think I knew
then what I was doing to--Dinah. Within a fortnight I was struck down
with scarlet fever. The rich girl--she was game as a pebble--nursed
me. I became delirious. My nurse listened to my ravings for two days
and nights; then she went away. I came to my senses to find Dinah at
my bedside. The other wrote later, releasing me from the engagement
and bidding me marry the girl whose name had been on my lips a
thousand times. I laughed, and showed the letter to Dinah. A friend
promised me work. Dinah and I were going to live in a cottage, and be
happy for ever and ever....
"And then she--sickened!"
In the dreary silence that followed, neither Ajax nor I were able to
speak.
"And--and she died."
* * * * *
The poor fellow left us next day, and we never saw him again. It is to
be remembered that he never encouraged Hetty Upham, whose infatuation
was doubtless fanned by his indifference. She offered him bread, nay,
cakes and ale, but he took instead a stone, because cakes and ale had
lost their savour. We heard, afterwards, that he died on the Skagway
Pass in an attempt to reach the Klondyke too early in the spring. He
was seeking the gold of the Yukon placers; perhaps he found, beyond
the Great White Silence, his Dinah.