Impetuously he exclaimed, striking the table with the palm of his hand:
"Run away! If you do I shall follow you. Follow you? Yes, to the end
of the world, for Hilda you have made me love you."
"Hush! don't talk like that, Raife. In America boys and girls, men and
women, can be friends--just friends."
In spite of these brave words, her breast was heaving and her pulses
throbbed. "Let us go back now," she added. "This has troubled me and I
must think."
Mr Muirhead was waiting for them when they arrived at Shepherd's Hotel,
and greeted them with his customary cordiality. As they ascended the
stairway together he said: "Remington, I want you to dine with us
to-night. Don't refuse. I have arranged for a special American dish,
which I am going to prepare myself."
"Oh! What is that? If it's as good as the cocktails you make, I can't
refuse," said Raife, laughingly.
"It's better, much better, my boy. It's `lobster newburgh,' and, if you
don't like it I shall count you an enemy of my country."
"My dear Mr Muirhead, I could not be an enemy of the country that
produced your genial self and your gracious daughter," was Raife's
flattering retort.
The dinner that night was served with rather more ceremony than usual,
and Mr Muirhead's dish was a great success. Hilda did not participate
so much as usual in the conversation, and her father rallied her on her
quietude. At the close of dinner an attendant brought a telegram for
Mr Muirhead. He opened it and having read it exclaimed, "Pshaw! that's
a nuisance. Remington, will you excuse me? This calls for attention.
I must cable to the bank. I don't suppose I shall be more than half an
hour. Hilda will entertain you."
When her father had gone, and they were alone, they sat, as was their
wont, for some time in silence. Hilda poured out some coffee and handed
it to Raife. In doing so she touched his hand. The momentary contact
thrilled him and he broke the silence. "Hilda, perhaps I was wrong in
speaking as I did this afternoon. Yet it is true. Let me tell you more
of the buried incident, and of another tragedy in my life."
Raife told of his father's murder and those fateful dying words which
warned his son to beware. He told some portion of his association with
the mysterious Gilda Tempest. Then he added: "There must be a kink in
my own character somewhere, which I have inherited from some of my
filibustering ancestors. Or perhaps there is gipsy blood in me. Things
seem to happen differently to me--than to other men. But everything
appears to be in my favour. I am rich, and I am the head of a
distinguished family. Yet I have a wandering spirit, and an
uncontrollable desire for the unconventional. I am rudderless and
cannot steer a straight course."
He had looked straight at the carpet during his narration, and his tones
had been agitated. He paused and, raising his head, met her eyes gazing
at him with a pained, sympathetic look. When their eyes met neither
flinched, nor did they speak for some seconds.
At length Hilda placed her hand on his arm saying, "Raife, I'm so sorry.
How I wish I could help you."
Raife sprang to his feet and, holding her hands apart, each in one of
his, exclaimed passionately, "Hilda, dear, sweet Hilda! You can help
me. I love you madly! Let me love you! Will you be my wife? Will you
steer me to a better, a more useful life?"
She dropped her head and fell forward into his arms. He seized her and
showered kisses, she yielding. When at length they spoke again she
said, "Raife, I loved you from the moment you told us the story of your
wound. I had not met such modesty and courage combined before. Raife,
dear, I will strive to help you to a happy--yes, and, as you ask me, to
a useful life."
When Mr Muirhead returned, Hilda was at the piano, singing Elizabeth
Barrett Browning's tender song, "Love me sweet with all thou art."
Raife did not wait for a chance meeting. On the following morning he
wrote a note and sent it to Mr Muirhead:
"Dear Mr Muirhead,--I have a matter of vital importance that I would
like to discuss with you. Can I see you at once?--Yours very truly,--
"Raife Remington."
When the two men met and Raife had made a statement of his affairs and
position, and had asked for Hilda's hand, the old gentleman was visibly
affected, and, taking Raife's hand, said "Remington, I like you very
much. I love my daughter with all the love of a father for his only
daughter. She is more precious to me than my own life. I only had one
other love. It was for her mother. She is dead. The man who breaks
Hilda's heart kills me and commits a double murder. Remington, I trust
you--take her."
Raife's happiness was now complete, and, if his complex temperament
would allow him, a great future was before him. In addition to title
and wealth, he had inherited marked ability, allied to a wayward
disposition. The future was fraught with possibilities for good or
evil. In the battle of his life would the good or evil genius win?
On the night following his betrothal to Hilda, he was strolling among
the bazaars seeking to purchase something worthy of his beloved. As is
the custom among those picturesque, swarthy traders, who ensconce
themselves in dark corners awaiting custom as a spider awaits a fly,
Raife was haggling over the price of a trinket, when he became conscious
of the presence of a figure watching him. Hastily dropping the trinket,
he wheeled round. He was just in time to see a familiar figure slide
rather than dart around a corner a few yards away. He was determined at
all hazards to capture this uncanny person and demand of him his
intentions. Raife chased him around the corner and searched every nook
and cranny where he could possibly have hidden. He was too late, his
quarry had escaped.
Raife muttered to himself: "Curse that infernal Apache fellow! He
dogged me at Nice. He was `killed' in a motor smash at Cuneo. He was
`drowned' in the Thames at Hammersmith, and now the brute haunts me in
the Bazaar at Cairo. What does he want? Why does he shadow me?"
As he sauntered back to renew his haggling for the trinket, the
white-bearded and turbaned old Arab was saying to himself, "He must be
Ingleesi. All the Ingleesi are mad." It had served a useful financial
purpose for Raife, however; for, fearing he might dart off again, this
time not to return, he sold the trinket to Raife at his own price, which
was just one-tenth of what the old man had asked. That is the way of
the Oriental trader. On his way back to the hotel with his purchases,
his father's dying words recurred to him, and he was more than ever
puzzled by their mystic warning. These were the halcyon days of Raife's
short life, and they had been disturbed by this hateful phantom Apache.
Raife Remington might be wayward and impressionable, but he was brave
and fearless, so he chased the incident from his mind, as he had chased
the elusive phantom in the Bazaar.
The sight of Hilda, and the warmth of her affectionate greeting,
entirely dispelled this ill-omened cloud. He had quite recovered from
the dagger wound now, and the weeks passed by with joyous rapidity. He
and Hilda had made excursions together of many varieties. Into the
desert, mounted on big white donkeys. To Memphis, the Pyramids of
Sakkarah and the Serapeum, the tomb of Beni Hassan. By the
luxuriously-appointed steamer, with its double decks and cool verandas,
to Luxor, with its palatial modern hotels, contrasting strangely with
the ancient ruins, temples, and monuments of a long-forgotten
civilisation. Here was ideal ground for love-making among the
whispering palm groves, with a turquoise sky above. Each scene so
different from the Western ideal, yet so picturesque. The long lines or
files of pelicans fishing on the sandy shore, with the flights of pink
flamingoes hovering overhead. The line of native women gracefully
swaying to and from the water's edge with their pitchers balanced on
their heads. These and a thousand strange sights and scenes, and, over
all, the wondrous sky of the East, with its gorgeous sunrises and
sunsets, and its weird depths of night. In such an Elysium did Hilda
and Raife run the first course of their love, and it ran smoothly.
Could such happiness last?
Hilda's life until she met Raife had been happy, a life of sunshine
untouched by shadow, save the loss of her mother. She had given her
heart to this handsome young Englishman. She had no knowledge of
Englishmen, except that gained by brief and flitting visits to London.
The wise and practical side of her character prompted her to reflect
often in the seclusion of her chamber. Were English husbands like
American husbands? Would an ideal lover make an ideal husband? Raife
had told her that he had loved another woman. Would that woman enter
into his life again and destroy their happiness? Yes, there was
misgiving in her mind at times. When Raife appeared and paid her
gallant court, all doubts were dispelled, and she abandoned herself to
his caresses.
In his spare moments Raife haunted the bazaars hunting for "that Apache
fellow." He was determined, if possible, to probe the mystery to its
depths, no matter how foul the consequences. Once, on a trip up the
Nile, among a group of lascars, he had fancied he saw a man who was not
of them, and his mind at the time being slightly distrait, he conceived
the idea it might be his enemy. He made straightway for the group, but
by the time he got there the fellow was gone.
It had become a frequent practice for Raife to dine with Mr Muirhead
lately, and at the dinner-table he announced one night: "Oh, say!
Remington, I've had news from the bank and I'm afraid I must cut short
my vacation. I mustn't grumble; I think I've done rather well. But
I've worked hard for it."
"No doubt," replied Raife reflectively, and with a deprecatory smile.
"You've worked hard for your holiday. My life's been all holiday and my
work's to come. You are going to help me, aren't you, Hilda?"
Hilda laughed and retorted: "Surely, Raife, I'll help, but you must
promise to obey."
Mr Muirhead joined in. "Ha! ha! I thought that was your part of the
marriage contract, Hilda? Never mind, as long as you both obey perhaps
it will be better all round. That brings me to what I was going to say.
For the second time I have to apologise for being unfamiliar with
English etiquette. I don't know quite what is the method of procedure
in the matter of English marriages, especially when the bridegroom is an
exalted person."
Raife said laughingly, "Pardon me, Mr Muirhead, but you mean I'm an
`exulting' person. I've captured the prize of the world, and I mean to
preserve it. If you will accompany me to England, I will take you to
Aldborough Park, and introduce you to my mother."
Hilda intervened: "That's just what I'm dreading. She'll hate me, and I
feel, I know it. Then I shan't cry, I shall just stamp, and, for the
first time in my life I'll shake my fist and say `I told you so.'"
This assumed outburst produced the merriment that was intended. Raife
proceeded. "You'll like my mother, Hilda, and she'll like you. If
Hilda consents," he added, looking first at one and then the other,
"we'll be married from our town house in Mayfair. We will have a `real'
proper marriage, ceremony, and it shall take place at St George's,
Hanover Square."
"Well! We'll leave all that until we get to Aldborough Park," intimated
the prospective father-in-law. "I'm very anxious to meet your mother,
and I trust we shall be friends. I believe you, my dear Raife, when you
describe your mother's amiable disposition and charms, but I expect,
with that modesty of yours, you have under-estimated the grandeur of
that Tudor mansion which is also yours. Ah well, then! It's agreed we
start for England as soon as we can."