Then she indicted a letter to her father. This was an important epistle,

for she calculated upon its being shown to a large number of persons in

Kingston. She informed her father that “When these few lines come to

hand, hoping it will reach you in the same good health it leave me, your

affectionate daughter will be Mrs. John Mackenzie, for I am going to

married to a nice gentleman working with the American people up at

Culebra. Jones is too bad. He meet Tom the other night at a dance, and

make a row and I have to fret too much. But I wouldn’t leave him all the

same if I wasn’t a girl that like religion as you brought me up, and

beside it is an honourable life to get married. Tell Kate and Eliza them

must follow my example, for God bless me and smile on me, and I have

everything I want and Mackenzie care for me, otherwise him wouldn’t want

to put a ring on me finger. If it wasn’t that I always fear the Lord

this good luck wouldn’t happen to me, and I going to pray for all of

you. Tell Kate and Eliza them mustn’t keep any bad company in Kingston,

and make Maria and her old obeah mother know that I married, for it will

hurt them. Tell mammee and Aunt Deborah that I will rite them.—Yours

truly loving daughter,

“SUSAN.”

Then an idea occurred to her, and she added a postscript.

“I send some money for all of you out of what I save. It is a wedding

present.”

This wedding present consisted of five pounds. Only once before had she

written to her people, and then she had enclosed three pounds. She

thought, and rightly, that she was acting generously by them.

She regarded this composition with no little pride, then, though

fatigued by such unwonted mental exertion, she proceeded to compose

another letter. It was brief and to the point.

“DEAR SAM,—When I ask you Thursday evening after you leave the

jail if you was going to keep your promise on board ship and

marry me you say no. Alright then. I am obliged to leave you for

I am going to marry another gentleman who you know. Mr. Mac has

been good to me, and when you get this letter I will be Mrs.

Mackenzie, but if you did behave yourself I wouldn’t go away

from you but it is all your own fault.—Yours affectionate,

“SUSAN PROUDLEIGH.”

She folded these letters, enclosed them in envelopes, and carefully

addressed them. She would post Mackenzie’s that evening. To-morrow she

would buy postal orders for five pounds and then register the letter to

Jamaica; in the meantime the letters that were to be posted the next day

were carefully locked away by her in a little box which she kept at the

bottom of her trunk. Susan had carefully observed how absconding wives

acted in moving-picture dramas. These wrote their last farewells in the

space of five seconds, read them over with frowning brows, sealed them,

and placed them in a most conspicuous position in order that they should

not by any possibility be overlooked. A wife of this type would scarcely

have left the house before the husband would return, and there, on the

table, would be the letter waiting for him, as large as life. But he

never saw it at once. Some occult influence, apparently, kept his eyes

away from it. He would look round the room, search the ceiling for the

missing one, scrutinize the floor, survey the atmosphere, and would be

on the point of leaving the room when his eye would fall upon the table

and the letter would be seen. This procedure would probably give him

just sufficient time to rush into the street, summon the motor-car that

always attends upon the movements of repentant husbands, and dash off to

the railway station or the ship’s dock, or the house to which his wife

had fled. A second more and he would have been too late. In the

moving-picture world, however, time itself is subordinate to the

imperious demands of domestic felicity, and the reconciliation takes

place dramatically with a public embrace.

That Jones might rush to the railway station, she knew. But instead of a

reconciliation there might be a quarrel. There might be an arrest. She

concluded that she would post Sam’s letter at one of the stations at

which the train would stop while on the way to Culebra; by the time he

received it she would have been already married. She went out and posted

Mackenzie’s letter, called on a friend to discuss the scene of the

preceding night, and returned home to find Samuel waiting for her.

He was much earlier than usual. The truth is, he was still very much

frightened and wished to run no further risks with vigilant policemen.

He had opinions to express, and he sought the security of his own

dwelling to give utterance to them; Susan gathered from his remarks that

he would very much like to hoist the standard of revolution in the

Republic of Panama, summoning thereto all the West Indians who suffered

under the tyranny of the laws. A Jamaican named Preston had many years

before been prominently identified with a revolutionary movement in this

same country. All Jamaica had rung with his name. Jones’s idea was

annexation; Panama should be taken by West Indians for the British

Crown, the Protestant religion should be firmly established, the

natives, and especially that portion of them attached to the Police

Force, should be put in their proper places. Sir Henry Morgan had once

burnt the old city of Panama. And Sir Henry had done it with men from

Jamaica. “If that could be done in the old days,” said Jones, “we could

do more now that we are stronger. A couple of English man-o’-war would

soon show them a thing or two!”

But presently he was assailed by doubts as to the part the British

Government would consent to play in such a laudable enterprise. He was

not sure that England was alive to her opportunities in this part of the

world. He confided his misgivings to Susan, who saw in his ambitions

clear evidence of a desire for further trouble. But she quietly agreed

with everything he said, which pleased him immensely. He noticed too

that she did not even remotely approach again the perilous question of

marriage. She seemed to accept the existing situation as permanent. In

an outburst of confidence he passed from Imperialistic aspirations to

her own affairs, and told her how he had been accosted by an old woman

on the night before leaving Kingston, who had warned him about her and

Tom Wooley.

“That was Mother Smith,” said Susan. “She wanted to injure me.”

“But she has not accomplished her purpose,” he graciously replied; “an’

between you and I an’ the door, I sorry I make a fool of myself last

night over a little fellow like Tom Wooley. The fact is, I was drunk. I

know you wouldn’t leave Samuel Josiah for anybody here: love me too

much! An’ nothing anybody say will make me leave you.”

That closed the conversation. He did not notice that Susan said nothing

in answer to these remarks.

* * * * *

Friday night came, the last she was to pass under that roof. Something

unusual happened. After dinner, Jones announced that he was not going

out, and for an instant she wondered, startled, if he had any inkling of

her plans. But her mind was soon at ease. Samuel had not recovered from

the effects of those few hours in gaol. He had received a lesson; he did

not wish for a repetition. He drank nothing: drinking was largely a

matter of show and bravado with him. He had purchased some Jamaica

newspapers that day, and diligently read the news while she sat idle,

thinking of the plan she would carry out in the morning. Even his views

on the annexation of Panama were not mentioned.

Saturday morning came. Had Jones been an observant man he might have

noticed that Susan was unusually nervous, and that she bade him

“good-bye” when he was going out to work. She watched him go, then

hastily made her final preparations. She packed all the things she

needed into a trunk and a straw “grip,” ran downstairs, summoned a cab,

had her trunk brought down, and gave the key of her apartment to a

neighbour, whom she asked to hand it to Samuel when he should come home

that afternoon. Then she drove to the railway station at Christobal,

half-fearing, half-wishing that Jones might see her. In a few minutes

she had passed through the iron gates of the station and had taken her

seat in a second-class carriage of the train.

She was conscious now of a strange sensation somewhere about her heart.

There was a tightening there; there was a lump in her throat; the

inclination was strong upon her to quit the train, to turn back, to

leave marriage and Mackenzie alone. She was nervous, excited, but she

did not feel happy. In a vague kind of way she realized that she was

cutting herself off from the past, entering a new life. . . .

The train moved out of the station. It gathered speed and flew towards

Culebra. She looked out of the window, seeing the long low range of

buildings in which lived the coloured employees of the railway; she saw

the verandas on which the clothes were hung out to dry, where the food

was cooked, where fruit of all kinds was exposed for sale and

healthy-looking children played to their hearts’ content. Soon the train

was running through the swamp outside of Colon and on the mainland of

Panama. Long grass grew in the black water, a thick jungle where fever

lurked, and deadly tarantulas and all sorts of evil things; but the

swamp was passed and now green pastures appeared, and in the distance

she could catch a glimpse of green low-lying hills.

The train stopped every now and then at the Labour Towns along the

route. Masses of wooden buildings clung to hill-sides, the forest grew

beyond them, defiant, the riotous vegetation of this strip of tropical

America striving ceaselessly with man for the mastery. These towns

seemed alive with workers, there was activity everywhere, an eternal

movement. And every now and then an almost interminable train of cars;

laden with rocks and earth dug out of the great Cut at Culebra, would

rush at full speed by her train with a thunderous deafening roar.

On and on, through the forest. Monteliro was reached, and here she asked

a fellow-passenger who had arrived at his destination to post Sam’s

letter for her. Frijoles, and now she saw the turbulent Chagres, the

problem of the Canal Administration’s engineers, rolling peacefully, a

broad and shining river, between its verdant banks. It stretched away

into the distance, travelling through a luxuriant country to the sea,

its surface lighted up by the sun and breaking into iridescent flashes

of silver light.

She saw it all, but half unconsciously. The nature of the ground began

to change. The soil was red; low, rounded hills went rising one after

another to the far-off horizon; the towns were becoming more numerous

too, each one of them a cluster of slate-roofed buildings with

well-constructed streets and paths winding in and out amongst them.

San Pablo, Gorgona, Matachin; the land was rising now. Black earth and

huge black rocks proclaimed the volcanic nature of the soil. The country

became more open, the forests had disappeared. She was nearing Empire.

The next station after that would be Culebra. There Mackenzie would be

waiting for her; there, in at the latest a couple of hours hence, she

would become Mrs. Mackenzie. That thought had never left her mind; it

now obsessed her to the exclusion of every other thought. So she was

actually going to be married! It was not the sort of wedding she would

have preferred, not the sort of ceremony she would have had in Jamaica.

In that country the bridegroom would have hired three carriages at

least; and six bridesmaids, all dressed in white, would have waited upon

her in the church. And all the guests would have been gaily attired; the

women unaffectedly excited, the men striving to show how imperturbably

serene they could be even in the face of such a crisis. She pictured the

scene; her triumphal parade in a carriage to the church, with the

black-coated man beside her who was to give her away—her father, of

course, though she did not think he became the position well. She was

beautifully dressed; a long veil flowed over her head and shoulders; in

her right hand she carried a huge bunch of lilies and white roses. The

ceremony over, she returned with her husband to the house where the

wedding feast was prepared. As she appeared at the door a choir of

female voices, led by her friend, Cordelia Sampson, burst into

song—“Let us open the Door to the Children, the Door of the Kingdom of

Heaven.” Then would come the congratulations, and inquiries would be

made of the spinsters as to when they would follow her good example and

make a few men supremely happy; something which, as Susan knew, they

were quite ready to do at any moment, the only obstacle being the

reluctance of the men to be made happy.

And then the wedding feast. She saw the long decorated table covered

with cakes and sweets and glasses, and at the head of it all, towering

above everything else, the bridal cake. Behind this cake stood herself

and her husband, but he did not resemble Mackenzie. His face, his form,

his voice, his language, his gestures, were those of Jones; it was Jones

who had met her at the church door, Jones who had said, “I will,” Jones

who was with her now, ready to respond to the toast to the bride and

bridegroom. The speeches were stereotyped: she already knew them by

heart. She and her husband were likened first to a pair of turtle-doves,

then afterwards to a pair of white pigeons, the winged creation figuring

prominently as types of matrimonial constancy and bliss. Then Isaac and

Rebecca would be mentioned, and some ambitious speaker, anxious to excel

in oratory, but rather weak in scriptural knowledge, might compare them

to Ananias and Sapphira. Eventually she and her husband would leave

while the dancing was going on, first taking care to make such desperate

efforts to escape unobserved that the departure would become as public

as a well-advertised show. There would be a shower of rose petals, a

chorus of cries——

“Culebra!”

The train stopped. Looking down upon the station and the railway line

was a large building the veranda of which was adorned with a flowering

vine. And other buildings beside and behind this one, and steps cut,

into the high sloping bank which led up to them. Scores of people were

hastily descending from the train at this station, she amongst them. She

looked round. “The train arrive in time to-day,” said Mackenzie

pleasantly.

That afternoon she became Mrs. Mackenzie.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

THE FAMILY ARRIVES

“This hill really hard to climb, an’ de cramps is troubling me feet so

much that it make me feel funny,” said Mr. Proudleigh dolorously.

“The longest journey must hend at last,” his sister consolingly

observed, as Mr. Proudleigh halted in the middle of the steep path and

gazed upwards at the height which yet remained to be climbed.

“If you did know you couldn’t walk it, pupa, you shouldn’t come,” said

Catherine irreverently. “Old people shouldn’t try and do what them know

them can’t do.”

“Y’u don’t have no feelings for you’ poor ole father, Kate,” replied Mr.

Proudleigh sternly. “If I was a young gal, I would treat the old folkses

respectably. There is a commandment in de Bible which say that forty she

bear destroy the children that mock at Elijah, and——”

“You are misquoting de Scripture, Jim,” cried his sister; “an’ though

Kate should treat you respectfully, which is your own daughter, yet I

really thinks you should make an endeavour to reach Susan house before

night come down.”

Mr. Proudleigh groaned, but struggled manfully forward. After the party

had toiled slowly upwards for another couple of minutes they saw coming

towards them two young Americans busily engaged in conversation. When

these drew near enough Mr. Proudleigh accosted them, giving them his

favourite military salute.

“Gentlemen,” he panted, “can you direct de old man to where Mrs. Susan

Mackenzie live? De Lord will bless y’u ef you can render——” But the

young men had passed on without even looking at him.

“Well, what manners!” exclaimed Mr. Proudleigh. “Nobody ever treat me

like dat before!” With this remark he made a movement as if he would sit

down by the roadside, perhaps for the purpose of reflecting on the

discourteous treatment just received.

But Catherine was obdurate. “You can’t sit down, pupa,” she insisted,

with something of Susan’s severity. “You got to try an’ walk it, even if

you tired. An’ don’t ask any more American the way to Susan’s house, for

them not going to answer you, an’ it is not to be supposed that them can

know where everybody live. If we see a man from Jamaica we can ask him;

but we not goin’ to meet anybody if we loiter here.”

Again Mr. Proudleigh groaned, and again he feebly tottered forward, too

exhausted now to indulge in any further observation.

Presently they came to more level ground; as they reached this they saw

yawning, to their left, a tremendous chasm, into the depths of which

they plunged their eyes affrighted, for they had had no idea of what

they would come upon. The three of them halted simultaneously, Mr.

Proudleigh delighted with any excuse to pause for a moment. They were

accustomed to the steep precipices of Jamaica, declivities of a thousand

feet and more, with almost sheer perpendicular walls, vast openings in

the earth, to peer down into which might make one sick and dizzy. But

this was different.

On either side of the great Cut had been carved gigantic terraces, a

sort of giant’s stairway, and along the whole length of these terraces,

as far as their eyes could reach, were railway lines, and along these

lines long trains were passing continuously, and men were everywhere

below, moving up and down, and looking like pygmies in the distance.

It was but a small section of the Culebra Cut, and not the busiest, that

Mr. Proudleigh and his womenfolk saw that afternoon. Little given as

they were to speculation or to thinking, about things that did not

directly concern them, they perceived that a great mountain had been

cleft in twain by the hand of man, and the wonderful signs of intense

energy that the busy scene below presented could not fail to impress

them. But not for long. Mr. Proudleigh was weary, and so was more intent

just then upon finding out where Susan lived than upon admiring the work

that was being carried on before his eyes. Miss Proudleigh, on the other

hand, perceived a comparison between the dividing of Culebra Hill and

the parting of the waters of the Red Sea for the safe passage of the

escaping Israelites. The latter she naturally approved of. But this work

on the hill afflicted her mind with misgivings.

“If the Lord did intend the hill to cut in two,” she said, as they

resumed their walk, “He would have cut it Himself. But now man think he

can improve God’s handiwork, an’ p’rhaps he is only provoking the Lord

to wrath.”

“That is so,” her brother agreed; “dis Canal may bring a judgment. If

them offer me a job on it, I won’t teck it! What them want to dig out

all dis dirt for? I remember that when the Car Company was layin’ de

electric car line in Kingston, I dream one night——”

“You will have to both sleep an’ dream out here to-night, sah, if you go

on talkin’ foolishness an’ don’t hurry up!” exclaimed Catherine, now

thoroughly impatient. “If them didn’t commence diggin’ the Canal, Susan

wouldn’t married, an’ you would now be in Jamaica instead of here.”

Viewed as a contributory cause of Susan’s good fortune, Mr. Proudleigh

instantly agreed that there was a great deal to be said for the Canal.

He would have explained its good points at length, but Catherine

absolutely refused to listen. In silence, therefore, they continued upon

their way.

They could already see before them a number of wooden buildings, one,

two, and three storeys high; it was obvious to them that they were now

approaching a town of no inconsiderable size.

They saw people too, and they gladly observed that some of these were

coloured men. Catherine undertook to question one of them. Did he know

Mrs. Mackenzie? He did not, but thought that Catherine would easily find

the person she was seeking if she inquired at the quarters where the

coloured people lived. These were a little farther away, and there was

nothing for it but that they should proceed thither, without delay.

Mr. Proudleigh would have protested, but even he realized that protests

would be of no avail. Happily, they had not a long distance to go. And

when the old man caught sight of the neat verandaed wire-screened

cottages provided for the skilled coloured employees of the Canal

Commission, his spirits revived wonderfully. Catherine soon found some

one who knew where Susan lived. This man was kind enough to guide them

to the place.

It was a four-roomed single-storey house, built upon high foundations

and provided with a comfortable little veranda. Though Susan’s relatives

had been expecting to find her comfortably situated, this house was

distinctly superior to anything they had imagined she would have. Mr.

Proudleigh immediately calculated that in Jamaica its rental value would

be at least two pounds a month, and the class of persons who could

afford to live in such residences were, from his point of view, very

well off indeed. As the front door and windows were closed, Catherine

timidly knocked at the door. “Come in,” said a voice, which, they at

once recognized.

They opened the door and entered.

Susan was sitting in a rocking-chair, sewing something that looked like

a waist. As she caught sight of her visitors she started up with an

exclamation.

“Kate! Papee! What’s the matter? Why you come?”

The persons thus addressed faced her a little confusedly. Miss

Proudleigh remained in the rear, thus discreetly leaving it to the

others to bear the brunt of Susan’s questioning.

“Me dearest daughter!” exclaimed Mr. Proudleigh, evading any direct

reply just then by a magnificent display of paternal solicitude, “I

can’t tell you how you’ poor ole father is glad to see you! From you

leave me in Jamaica I been fretting after you, an’ now to think dat I

see you wid me own eye in your own mansion!”

He seated himself as he spoke, somewhat disconcerted to observe that

Susan showed no inclination to kiss him, but still continued looking at

him and at the others with a puzzled stare.

“What’s the matter?” she asked again. “Where is mammee an’ Eliza? Why

y’u come here?”

“Mammee an’ Eliza quite well, Sue,” said Catherine. “Them both remain

behind in Jamaica.” She paused, leaving it to the others to explain why

they had come to Panama. She had followed her father’s example and sat

down. So had Miss Proudleigh.

“The sea voyage was very rough, Susan,” remarked the latter lady, as

though a recital of her sufferings would sufficiently explain her reason

for coming to Panama, as well as relieve the obvious embarrassment of

the situation. “I never was so sea-sick before. I couldn’t move for a

whole day.”

“Nor me,” asseverated Mr. Proudleigh promptly. “I never sick like dat

before. I thought I would vomit me heart out, an’ de more I sick, the

more de vessel roll. But I comfort meself wid the reflections that I

would soon see me own daurter again, who was married to a noble

gentleman; an’ when I dwelted upon that, it sort of seem to me that I

didn’t sick so much.”

He glanced at Susan’s face to see how this authentic account of the

effect of fatherly affection on sea-sickness had appealed to her. Not

very much encouraged by her look, he hurried on.

“I nearly died; nevertheless, thanks be to God, I survive me agonies,

an’ now that I see you once more, I can die in peace. You remember dat

old man in the Scriptures, Sue, who say, ‘Lord, now let Thy servant

depart in peace’?——”

“You mean to tell me, pupa, that you only come here to see me, and then

die afterwards?” demanded Susan.

“Well, not exactly, Sue, for I are not prepared fo’ death.”

“Then what y’u come for?”

Driven to his last ditch, Mr. Proudleigh determined to offer no defence,

but to cast himself upon the enemy’s clemency.

“Sue,” said he pathetically, “you don’t appears to be glad to see me.

But if it was you who did come to Jamaica, I would have killed the

fatted calf for you.” This reference to the fatted calf was not only

intended to convince Susan that she would have been welcomed by him, but

also to indicate that bodily refreshment would be most acceptable at

that moment.

Susan would not immediately take the hint. But she had by now recovered

from her first feeling of astonishment and was beginning to be glad to

see some of her people once more. She knew her father and her aunt,

however; she was well aware that they would have written to tell her of

their coming had they thought she would have approved of the reason for

it. She was still suspicious; they had as yet explained nothing. She

turned to Catherine with a view of getting at the bottom of the mystery

at once, when her father, as if suddenly inspired, started out without

further circumlocution on the perilous path of truth.

“The fact of de matter, Sue,” he said, “is that I did always want to

come to Colon. An’ when I got you’ letter that say you was going to

married, an’ receive the five pounds, for which God is goin’ to bless

you, if Him don’t bless you already, I say to you’ mother: ‘I am goin’

to follow me daurter to Colon an’ keep her company, for she must be

lonely.’ An’ I tell them to sell the things in the little shops, which

was not doin’ too well since you lefted us, an’ I advise them all to

come wid me. But you’ mother misjudge you, an’ say you wouldn’t like it;

but I know you wouldn’t mind, for it is me that bring you up since you

was born, an’ look after you, an’ train you in the way you should go,

an’ I persuaded meself that you was not goin’ to be ungrateful. But you’

mother wouldn’t come, an’ Eliza had to stay wid her; but your aunt and

Kate come with me, an’ they are sensible, for you always hear me say I

would like to come to Colon, an’ if you didn’t want me to come you

wouldn’t send five pounds for me in you’ letter.”

“Then you mean to tell me, pupa,” cried Susan, “that—that y’u come here

to live in this house, an’ didn’t even write to tell me?”

“We wanted to give you a pleasant surprise, Sue,” said Miss Proudleigh,

to whom prevarication did not appear as a heinous offence.

“You mean you know that I wouldn’t want you to come, so you keep it

secret!” exclaimed Susan. “I never hear of such a madness before. What

y’u going to do now? You can’t stay here: Mackenzie wouldn’t like it.”

Catherine had been fearing some such announcement. Now, in self-defence,

she said, “I didn’t want to come, Sue.”

“But you are more all right than pupa an’ Aunt Deborah,” said Susan.

“You are young an’ can work; an’ I don’t think Mackenzie would mind if

you stay with me. But Aunt Deborah an’ papee shouldn’t come here at all,

for them don’t have much use for old people in this country.”

“Hexcuse me, Susan,” said Miss Proudleigh with impressive dignity, “but

I objects to being called old. I am only forty.”

“I thought you was fifty,” said Susan rudely.

“You right, Sue!” exclaimed Mr. Proudleigh. “I am sixty year of age, an’

I remember the very day you’ aunt was born. I don’t see why she want to

hide ’er age; age is no disgrace, an’ if a ooman keeps herself

respectfully she should have no concealment from her fambily. Now, when

you’ aunt was born——”

Shocked by the desertion of Mr. Proudleigh at a moment when it was vital

that the invading forces should present a solid front to the enemy, Miss

Proudleigh deemed it advisable to leave the age question severely alone

and adopt a pacific attitude before her brother should adduce the

damaging testimony of days and dates against her. She cut him short with

a diplomatic remark.

“I am not young an’ strong like you, Sue,” she said, with a propitiatory

smile, “an’ the Lord have not blessed me like you, though I am not

ungrateful for His manifold kindness. But I didn’t come here to live on

you. Things is very hard in Jamaica, an’ as I know that you married an’

have influence over here, I thought as you might help me to get a little

dressmakin’ or washing so as to keep me independent. I don’t want

anything but work.”

“Nor me,” said Catherine sturdily. “Nobody can tell me that I can’t make

a good living in Panama, though I couldn’t be a servant.”

Mr. Proudleigh said nothing. Now that the talk was of work, and he was

actually in Panama, he did not care to remind anyone that while in

Jamaica he had never lost an opportunity of proclaiming his readiness to

earn his own living whenever the chance of so doing should present

itself to him.

But Susan wasn’t thinking of his capabilities just then. In her aunt’s

suggestion she saw a way out of the difficulty. “You can get plenty of

washin’ if you want it,” she said quickly, “either up here or in Colon.

You an’ pupa will ’ave to live together by you’self, but Kate can stop

with me.”

“I prefer to go back to Colon,” said Kate. “I like what I see of it, an’

this place look dull.”

“It dull for true!” agreed Susan, “an’ though I would like you to stay

with me, I know Colon livelier than up here.”

Mr. Proudleigh, who had been secretly hoping to spend at least some

months in the comparative calm of Culebra, did not approve of the

suggestion that he should live with his sister or that he should return

to Colon. Nor did he like Susan’s reference to the dullness of the

labour town in which she lived. It did not argue a contented mind. The

house she was mistress of, the furniture she possessed, the leisure she

evidently enjoyed seemed to him enough to make any woman happy for the

rest of her life, especially if to all these things could be added the

blessing of a father’s presence and words of cheer.

“You should be very comfortable, Sue,” he suggested. “A young married

ooman like you shouldn’t have a thing to fret her.”

“Don’t you are now a member of society, Sue?” asked her aunt.

“Yes; I belong to de Baptist church up here, an’ I going to join the

choir.”

“And don’t you’ husband treat you good?” inquired her father.

“Of course! I didn’t say him didn’t!”

This sharp answer, given in the form of a threatening question, checked

at once the impending flow of Mr. Proudleigh’s interrogatory. But

further to prevent any more personal inquiries, and remembering that her

relatives must be hungry, Susan invited them into the dining-room, where

they found a table covered with a clean cloth, a meat-safe, and a few

chairs. She took some cold food out of the meat-safe and placed it

before them, offering the older folk, in addition, a little Jamaica rum,

which Mackenzie always kept in the house. This they drank at once, Mr.

Proudleigh secretly hoping for a further supply of the same liquor. He

expressed his astonishment at the thirst created by the Panamanian

climate, then prepared himself to dine.

CHAPTER II

CATHERINE LEARNS SOMETHING

Susan was no longer annoyed with her people for their unexpected

appearance. Now that it had been decided that they were to live by

themselves and do something to earn their living, she felt glad that

they had come to Panama. They would not be very far from her; she could

go to see them fairly often; the old associations, severed when she left

Jamaica, were renewed once more. With her elbows on the table and her

entwined fingers supporting her chin, she watched them eat with a

pleasant glow of hospitality. “Tell me all about home,” she said. “You

ever see Maria?”

“No,” said Catherine; “but I meet Hezekiah one day, an’ him tell me that

Maria hear that you married: somebody write from Colon to tell her. She

will never get a man to put a ring on _her_ finger. You ever see Tom an’

Jones since you married, Sue?”

“No; I don’t think them ever come up this way; an’ since I married,

going eight weeks now, I never leave Culebra once.”

“Jones never write you?” asked her aunt.

“No! Him couldn’t do that. I have nothing more to do wid him.”

“I never did like dat young man,” said Mr. Proudleigh with grave

deliberation. “He talk too much, an’ him always using big words dat I

couldn’t understand. I never thoughted that you would be happy with him,

Sue.”

“Did Jones ever do you anything, pupa?” asked Susan sharply.

“Me? No. Him couldn’t do me anyt’ing. I wouldn’t make him take a liberty

wid me!”

“An’ when you used to borrow a shillin’ from him every now an’ then,

behind my back, though you know you couldn’t pay him back, he ever

refused you?”

This little matter of the loans Mr. Proudleigh had hitherto regarded as

an entirely private business arrangement between Samuel Josiah and

himself; indeed, he had always prefaced his request for a loan with a

speech on the wisdom of not letting one’s left hand know what one’s

right hand did. He had never failed to intimate clearly that Susan was

one of those symbolical left hands that had always better be kept in

ignorance of all important financial transactions between man and man.

But now that, to his intense surprise, Susan mentioned his past

obligations to Jones, he asserted with assurance, “I goin’ to pay him

back every farden. I will write an’ send de money.” An excellent

resolution, though he did not trouble to mention when he would write or

where the money was to come from.

“Well, seeing that Jones was kind to you in Jamaica, I don’t see why y’u

should say you don’t like him,” Susan continued. “We didn’t get on too

well sometimes in Colon, for him was a little wild an’ he got into bad

company. That is why I leave him an’ married Mackenzie. But I don’t ’ave

anything to say against him, for him didn’t stint me in anything, an’

him never ill-treat me.”

“I always liked Mr. Jones, though I never borrow any money from him,”

said Miss Proudleigh untruthfully, pleased at being able to get even

with her brother for his recent attempt to establish her age at fifty.

“He was always polite an’ gentlemanly.”

Mr. Proudleigh had in the meantime filled his mouth to its utmost

capacity, with a view of showing that he could not without grave

inconvenience take any further part in a conversation which was becoming

unpleasantly personal. Catherine had finished eating. Seeing this, Susan

invited her into the kitchen, on the excuse that she wished to prepare

something for Mackenzie.

“You have it dull, Sue?” asked Catherine, as soon as the two found

themselves alone.

“Lord, yes! Every day it is one thing over an’ over. I know some of de

people here, but you can’t make a dance when you like, or ’ave much

merriment.”

“But you have you’ husband.”

Susan twisted her mouth slightly, a facial contortion which Catherine

interpreted as meaning that Mackenzie’s existence did not contribute

materially to making life bright at Culebra.

“Mac is all right enough,” Susan explained, “but him is very quiet an’

serious.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she added:

“Jones was livelier.”

“Then why you leave Jones?”

Susan let the question pass.

“Marriage is dull,” she said: “you are not you’ own mistress. It is true

you ’ave a honourable position, but what is the good of that if it don’t

make you any happier?”

With unconscious inconsistency she continued. “Sam promised to marry me

when we was at sea, but he wouldn’t do it afterwards. It would have been

better for him if he did keep his word.”

Catherine was looking at her narrowly as she spoke. She saw quite

clearly that Susan was not satisfied with her present situation. And yet

she was in a position that hundreds would have envied.

“Perhaps if you did wait, Jones would have married you,” Catherine

suggested.

“I don’t think so. Him was wild an’ foolish, an’ thought that I care for

him so much that I wouldn’t leave him. If he was different I would be

with him now, even if him didn’t married me.”

Catherine looked wise. “I always say it is better not to married too

quick,” she observed; “for you may find you make a mistake, an’ then you

can’t do nothing.”

But here Susan thought that perhaps she had said too much, even to her

sister. So she remarked, with emphasis, that, after all, she was very

comfortable, and that Mackenzie was kind to her and never quarrelled

with her. “I don’t ’ave a word to say against him,” she asserted

truthfully.

Then she and Catherine rejoined the others, for she was now expecting

her husband at any moment.

He came in presently, glanced inquiringly at Susan, who was about to say

who the strangers were, when Mr. Proudleigh, who for a week had been

rehearsing a little speech he had prepared to greet Mackenzie with,

stood up in haste and unceremoniously interrupted his daughter. The old

man had been an Odd Fellow in his younger days, and had frequently

figured as “chaplain” in the lodge. He now chose to regard Mackenzie as

an embodied Odd Fellows Society, and forthwith addressed him as such:

“My noble king! When first I hear that you married Miss Susan, who is

the best daurter I have, an’ when I hear about you from all de people

who come back to Jamaica from here—for I can tell you you are well

beknown—I say to meself: I will arise an’ never be happy till I see me

son-in-law. An’ here I come, though sea-sickness nearly kill me, to

welcome you into de fambily; an’ I can tell you at once that I are going

to do everything to make you comfortable. We don’t acquainted well yet,

but when we are acquaint——”

What would happen when the further acquaintanceship hinted at by Mr.

Proudleigh should have developed, will never be known. For just then

Mackenzie quietly put a stop to his oratory by remarking:

“So you are Sue’s father? I am glad to see you, sir,” and then shook

hands with him.

He greeted Miss Proudleigh and Catherine with similar cordiality,

assuring them that he was happy to see them. Then they all sat down.

“Come on a trip, or to do business?” he inquired of Miss Proudleigh, who

somehow he took to be the leader of the party.

“Things being bad in Jamaica,” that lady replied, “I took a thought an’

came with me brother an’ niece to see if I could get a little work in

Colon. I am a hard-working woman, an’ so long as I can make an honest

living, I are satisfied.”

“Quite right,” said Mackenzie; “nothing like independence, ma’am. You

goin’ to stop too, sir?” he asked Mr. Proudleigh.

“Well, yes,” said his father-in-law; “I thinks I will. I like up here

well; it’s a nice climate.”

“Well, you can stop here a few days; glad if y’u would,” said Mackenzie

hospitably, but this limited invitation finally put an end to Mr.

Proudleigh’s lingering hope of being invited to stay for good. “I hope

Sue been treating you good?” Mackenzie went on, “and that we have

something nice fo’ supper. Sue, we must get some beer an’ spend a nice

evening. It’s not all times we have friends from home.”

He asked to be excused while he went out to get the beer. Both Catherine

and Miss Proudleigh concluded that he was a kind man, easily satisfied,

and generous in a thoughtful, cautious sort of way. But Mr. Proudleigh

felt that Mackenzie’s invitation to him implied a narrow and

unappreciative spirit. Mr. Proudleigh already voted Mackenzie a failure

as a son-in-law.

That night they sat up until late discussing the condition of Jamaica.

From Mr. Proudleigh’s remarks, a stranger would have gathered that a

perfectly peaceful island was just then on the eve of revolution. He did

most of the talking, Mackenzie agreeing with what he said with all the

politeness of a host.

For four days did the visitors remain at Culebra. Susan tried to prevail

upon Catherine to stay with her for good, but that her sister would not

do; she was bored at Culebra. She noticed that Susan and Mackenzie

seemed to get on very well with one another, and that Mackenzie was

apparently quite satisfied with his marriage. But she was convinced that

Susan was not. “She don’t love him,” thought Catherine; “she don’t

happy. Better she didn’t married.”

But though she felt sorry for Susan, she would not share her loneliness.

She went with her father and her aunt to Colon.

CHAPTER III

THE MEETING

It had been arranged that Susan should go to see her people as soon as

they had settled down in Colon: two weeks later she set out on the

journey to the little town she knew so well and missed so much. She

started in the forenoon, her plan being to spend the night in Colon and

return to Culebra the next day. In less than two hours she arrived, and,

taking a cab, drove to the house where her relatives now lived, they

having written to give her the address.

She was effusively welcomed by them. They had two small apartments in

one of the numerous tenement buildings of Colon. Miss Proudleigh,

although preferring dressmaking as a more genteel occupation, had become

a private laundress, as more money could be made that way. She had hired

a girl to help her; particularly, to go for and to take home the

clothes, for that neither she nor Catherine would consent to do.

Catherine assisted with the ironing. They were pleased to find that they

earned four or five times as much at this work as they would have done

in Jamaica. This almost compensated for the menial character of the

work. Mr. Proudleigh discovered elements of dignity in it. His only

contribution was gratuitous advice.

Catherine had news for Susan.

“Guess who I meet in Colon, Sue?” was her first remark, after Susan had

taken off her hat.

“Jones!” said Susan instantly.

“He an’ Tom. Them tell me all about the row, an’ Jones come here

sometimes during the day an’ in the evening. Him may come here to-day,”

she concluded, with a glance at her sister to see how she took the news.

Susan felt her heart leap as Catherine mentioned the possibility of

Jones’s calling at the house while she was there. But she affected

indifference.

“I don’t want to see him,” she said; “but it won’t matter.”

“Of course not,” observed her aunt, “for you are a lawfully married

woman now.”

“An’ nobody can take dat from you,” Mr. Proudleigh insisted, as though

some attempt to rob Susan of her married state was not at all unlikely.

“Nobody need try,” laughed Susan, pluming herself upon being Mrs.

Mackenzie; “I have me marriage certificate.”

“That is a very good thing to have,” Mr. Proudleigh agreed. “But y’u

needn’t fret that Jones won’t treat you respectful in dis house: he have

to! But I must tell you, Sue, that him is a very decent young man. He

confine to me all his troubles; an’ I must really tell you that I thinks

y’u treat him hard, for he is a noble young man.”

From these remarks Susan gathered that Jones was once more advancing to

her father small loans, to be repaid at a hypothetical future date. The

old financial relations had been re-established between the two men. But

she was not displeased to hear her father speak highly of Samuel. She

did not even resent the old man’s mild reproach.

When twelve o’clock came, she found herself anxiously wondering whether

Jones would call that day. From twelve to two o’clock he would not be

working; he would have ample time for a visit. Her aunt and Catherine

were ironing on that part of the veranda upon which their rooms opened.

She sat on the veranda talking to them, and every now and then she would

glance down into the street to see if anyone she knew was passing. She

saw some acquaintances, but always with a feeling of disappointment; as

two o’clock drew near she grew silent, a change which Catherine was not

slow to notice. When the hour struck and she had to recognize that there

was no possibility of Samuel’s coming that afternoon, she made no effort

to conceal from herself that she was bitterly disappointed: in her

inmost heart, also, she confessed to herself that during all the journey

from Culebra to Colon her great hope had been that she should see him,

meet him. For what? She had her reason ready. She told herself that she

wanted to know how he had taken her sudden departure, how he had fared

in the intervening ten weeks, how he would greet her, and whether he had

been captured by some other woman. When she reflected on the possibility

of his having been captured—just as though his personal responsibility

in that matter must be almost nil—she became fiercely antagonistic

towards the unknown woman. She resented her existence, hated her

bitterly.

During the rest of the afternoon she was rather moody; but when six

o’clock came she grew cheerful and talkative once more. An hour passed,

and then Catherine suggested that they should go for a walk about the

town. She agreed.

As they went along, Susan peeped into all the cafés that they passed.

She well knew the old favourite haunt of Samuel, and she led her sister

past it; but, though the doors were wide open as usual, she saw no sign

of Samuel. They called on one or two of Susan’s friends, and to these

the story of her marriage was related; her hearers had no doubt whatever

that she had acted wisely in leaving Jones; there was but one opinion on

her excellent good fortune. The congratulations she received heartened

her greatly; it was much to be a married woman; now she knew she had

done a sensible and proper thing. It was half-past nine when she and

Catherine went back to the house.

“A stranger is upstairs,” said Catherine, as they ascended the steps;

“that is not papee’s voice.”

Susan paused for a moment, her heart beating violently. “It is Jones,”

she whispered.

Catherine listened. “Yes,” she said; “him must have been here a long

time, for it is late already. Y’u not coming up?” she asked, for Susan

was standing still.

Slowly Susan followed her sister. The latter entered the room first.

Susan stepped in after her with a well-assumed air of indifference.

Some one rose. She heard his voice addressing her.

“Good evening, Mrs. Mackenzie. I hope I see you well? Your husband’s

health is propitious, I presume?”

She was equal to the occasion. “Good evening, Mr. Jones. Yes, thank y’u,

Mr. Mackenzie is quite well. He would ’ave sent you his compliments if

he did know I would meet you.”

She sat down. Their eyes met.

“That don’t matter,” said Jones, most loftily. “Compliments are only

words, an’ nobody don’t mean them. I am not sending anybody any

compliments. I have no friends, Mrs. Mackenzie, an’ I compliment nobody.

A man don’t know who to trust in this world.”

“Quite true, Mr. Jones, quite true,” observed Miss Proudleigh, who had

never forgotten Susan’s reception of her at Culebra. “There is but one

Friend who we can trust, an’ to Him we can take all our troubles. When

man desert us an’ play us false, we can take them to the Lord in

pr’yer.” In this way the good lady endeavoured to convey to Jones her

opinion of Susan’s general behaviour.

Jones enjoyed Miss Proudleigh’s sympathy. He felt that he was amongst

friends. He had helped them with his advice since they had been in

Colon, and Mr. Proudleigh had confessed to him that in Mr. Proudleigh’s

opinion Mackenzie was not fit to unloose the latchet of Samuel Josiah’s

shoe. At that moment Susan was at a disadvantage.

He was looking at her narrowly. Her sojourn at Culebra had improved her:

he did not think he had ever seen her look so well before. She was

singularly attractive. Dressed in cool white, she faced him

self-possessed, while on the third finger of her left hand gleamed a

broad band of gold, the symbol of her new condition. Ever and again his

eyes lingered on that ring. He hated it. But he determined to show he

was indifferent, as indifferent as she appeared to be; in his most

bombastic manner he resumed the conversation.

“I am thinkin’ of returning to me native land. The temperature of Panama

is deleterious to my constitution, an’ they have no decent

administration in the country. Some people, of course, are contented

with it. If you kick some people it will please them. But Samuel Josiah

Jones is of a different characteristic; besides, I am one of those men

who can make a living in me own country, an’ I didn’t come here to pass

all me life digging dirt for American people.”

“I don’t suppose anybody else come here fo’ good, either, Mr. Jones,”

replied Susan sharply, feeling it incumbent upon her to defend her

absent husband against all covert attacks. “I expect meself to go home

before long.”

“Is Mac gwine to Jamaica, Sue?” asked her father quickly. “For, ef so, I

wouldn’t mind takin’ a trip meself, an’ I could come back wid you.”

“I don’t know what Mackenzie is goin’ to do, papee,” answered Susan

severely. “But perhaps, as you an’ Mr. Jones is so friendly, you can go

wid him.”

“Oh, that’s all right!” exclaimed Jones. “I can take the old man. I have

the cash, an’ no one ever say yet that Samuel Josiah was mean. When I am

goin’, old massa, you can come along.”

“Thank y’u, me son!” Mr. Proudleigh burst out.

“You is the sort of young man I did want for me son-in-law.”

He had no sooner spoken the words than he regretted them. They expressed

his true sentiments, but how would Susan take them? Catherine laughed.

“Wishes don’t alter facts,” said Miss Proudleigh sourly, “though some

people, in spite of all they may pretends, would be glad if facts could

be altered.”

Susan understood this remark and hated her aunt very thoroughly at that

moment. “I suppose you been wishin’ for a lot of things you never

get—eh, Aunt Deborah?” she said. “You must ’ave wished to get married

for a long time before you got old, but I hear you never even had an

intended.”

“What!” cried Mr. Proudleigh, before his sister could hurl the full

force of her scorn at the offending Susan, “my dear daurter, you don’t

know you’ aunt. You grow up an’ find ’er in religion, but she was a

little devil when she was young. I remember one night me father

half-murder her because she used to stay out late, an’ a young man beat

her one day because she was carryin’ on wid another young man, while she

was engage to de first one. But when she come near forty, of cou’se, an’

she see she was getting old, she teck to religion an’ becomes an example

to you young people.”

“You are an infernal liar!” cried Miss Proudleigh fiercely, roused now

to bitterest anger by this gratuitous detailing of her early history,

and entirely forgetful of the virtue of Christian forbearance and godly

conversation in her desire to maintain her claim to having always led a

pure and spotless life. “Since you come to Colon I don’t know what come

over you! All you seem to want to do is to make fun of me, an’ abuse me

character; but as you remember so many things that never happen, you

might as well remember dat it is me who is helping you to live in Colon,

an’ not Susan.”

“This don’t need any quarrel,” observed Jones hastily. “If I did want to

quarrel I could find plenty of reason, but I bear all the ill-treatment

I receive in silence, being disposed thereto by an equanimitous attitude

of mind.”

“That is the same like my attitude of mind,” peacefully remarked Mr.

Proudleigh, “for if there is a man that don’t like confusion it is me. I

didn’t mean to vex Deborah at all, an’ I beg to ask her pardon as she

get offended by what I say. In fact, I don’t see how she should think I

could want to insult me own sister before a perfec’ stranger like Mister

Jones, an’ she is very wrong to think so. But it is because I am old an’

poor. Ef I was a young man, an’ earning me two pounds a week, all de

sort of words dat everybody give me now I wouldn’t hear at all. But when

a man is poor, dog can bark at him an’ him can’t say a word; so

everybody take an advantage of me an’ tell me what them do for me,

though them never remember what I do for them. However, I apologize to

Deborah, an’ I excuse her, for she was always very ignorant.”

“When you thinkin’ of goin’ home, Mr. Jones?” asked Susan with a view to

putting an end to the dispute between her aunt and father. She knew how

spiteful Miss Proudleigh could be, and was well aware that if her

usually mild parent was once thoroughly annoyed, the recital of his

grievances and wrongs would form the main topic of all conversations for

the next three or four days.

“I haven’t determined on a date hitherto, Mrs. Mackenzie,” Jones

replied, “but I contemplate a speedy departure from these regions. If I

wasn’t a man of strong mentality, all the sufferings I have had to put

up with in Colon would drive me mad. But I have a solid brain, an’ what

would kill some people passes by me like ‘the idle wind which I regard

not.’ That is Shakespeare,” he explained.

“Well, it’s a good thing to be able to go home when y’u like, Mr. Jones,

an’ you are an independent man with no responsibility. My ’usband have

to work hard to keep his wife in comforts, so he can’t travel about like

you, an’ go out to see his friends an’ enjoy himself every night. Some

people like to ’ave everything, you know, without any responsibility,

but Mackenzie is different.”

“I don’t know anything about your husband, Mrs. Mackenzie,” Jones

answered superciliously. “He and I was never friends in Jamaica: we

didn’t walk in the same street at all. Of course, when a man come to a

place like Colon, he get to know a lot of people he would never know at

home. I moved in good society in Jamaica. The very night before I leave

for Colon I was entertained by a few high-toned educated friends of

mine, an’ if I had paid attention to what one of them say to me, I

wouldn’t have been made a fool of here. But I was always of a confiding

an’ trustful disposition, an’ put a lot of faith in females.”

A sarcastic laugh from Miss Proudleigh, directed at Susan, welcomed this

remark. But Susan took no notice of it.

It was now past ten o’clock, and Catherine was repeatedly yawning. Jones

rose to leave.

“This has been an unexpected pleasure, Mrs. Mackenzie,” he said, as he

bade Susan good night. “If we do not meet again, you may say to Mr.

Mackenzie that y’u saw me here in excellent spirits.” He flourished his

hat and bowed as he spoke, then marched with stately step out of the

room.

“Dat is a perfec’ gen’leman,” said Mr. Proudleigh.

Susan thought so too.

* * * * *

After that visit to Colon, Culebra became more distasteful than ever to

Susan. In spite of her possession of “comforts,” her life seemed to her

to be singularly uninteresting; she felt that she had nothing new to

expect, she experienced no pleasant thrill of anticipated adventures;

she loved excitement, and at Culebra, except for the accidents, there

was nothing like excitement to look forward to. She might have children.

But though she possessed the instinct of motherhood as fully as any

other normally developed woman, the coming of children seemed to her to

be a mere matter of course, something too that would bind her down more

tightly to her humdrum existence as Mackenzie’s wife. She began to

regret even the days in Jamaica when she had the shop—days that now

seemed so very far away, though only a few months had passed since she

had come to Panama.

She had no doubt now, she no longer strove to conceal from herself, that

she had made a mistake in marrying Mackenzie. He was a good husband, a

steady man; but he was over forty and very uninteresting. She could not

even quarrel with him: he did nothing to provoke a quarrel. If she was

petulant, he was patient; if she became a little unreasonable, he

yielded with a good humour which she instinctively felt was not the

result of weakness. She stood in some awe of him; as a friend he had

been altogether desirable, but now as her husband she discovered that

his disposition was alien to hers; she respected but could not care for

him.

She could not even complain that he restricted her liberty, for he did

not. She was free in reason to go where she liked; if she had not left

Culebra but once since her marriage, that was not because she could not

have done so had she wished. The situation, clearly, was hopelessly

annoying. As some one had to be blamed for it, she blamed Jones.

It was all his fault. He should have acted differently. It was not

because he had refused to marry her that she had left him. It was

because he had taken to drinking, gambling, and bad habits generally;

because he had made himself objectionable and might at any moment have

found himself within the four walls of a prison. She had chosen the best

way of escape open to her, and everybody agreed that she had acted

wisely. She was in no way at fault.

But this self-vindication did not tend to console her, for, by an

apparently perverse arrangement of things, she was the sufferer while

Jones was as free as air. Susan was too intelligent not to feel that,

however tragically Jones might conduct himself just now, he was likely

to find consolation as time went on. She believed profoundly in her

lasting influence over every man who had fallen in love with her; there

was Tom’s case as an illustration. But she doubted whether that

influence would keep anyone like Jones, from falling into the clutches

of other women, especially as she was married and separated from him for

ever. “The same way he could do without me before I know him, he will do

without me now,” she thought ruefully; and this was the more certain if

he should return to Jamaica. And if he did return, what chance would

there be of his coming back, in a hurry at any rate?

Besides, even if he did come back, how would that help her? They now met

as acquaintances merely. She addressed him as Mr. Jones. He spoke to her

as Mrs. Mackenzie. Everything was as it should be from the point of view

of propriety: he treated her as a married woman ought to be treated. Yet

she would have much preferred a bitter quarrel with him, an open

flinging of reproaches from one to the other, passionate upbraiding.

Why, she did not exactly know, save that the sarcastic politeness of

both, and the thinly veiled innuendoes they had indulged in at her

relatives’ house on the night of their meeting, seemed to her a mere

sham: they had not spoken to one another as they would have liked to

speak. They had merely acted a part.

She wondered if all married women felt, as she did, that marriage was an

awful bore. And she wondered if her endurance could stand the strain of

that boredom for years.

CHAPTER IV

THE NIGHT OF THE FIRE

“Mackenzie,” said Susan one evening, some four days after she had been

to Colon, “you ever see Jones?”

“No,” he replied, “I don’t think him ever come this way. An’ I never

hear anything of him; perhaps he gone back home.”

“I don’t think so,” Susan said, “for Kate tell me when I was in Colon

this week that Jones go to see them sometimes. I was thinking that maybe

him will get married himself.”

“Cho!” laughed Mackenzie, “Jones is never goin’ to do anything. Some

girl may marry him if she really want to get married, and can take him

to a church, but it will be she who will do it. You take my word for it,

some day Jones is going to go back to Jamaica widout a cent in his

pocket. He will have nothing to show for all the time him spend here.”

“I think so meself,” agreed Susan; “he don’t steady at all like you,

Mac.”

This direct compliment, at the expense of Jones too, pleased Mackenzie

not the less because he felt it was deserved. He smiled complacently.

“I always thought from the first time I see you in Colon, Sue,” he said,

“that you was too good for a fellow like Jones. He has his good points,

for he can work hard an’ he know his work. But him like to show off too

much, an’ he never know his own mind.”

“You think I should speak to him if I ever meet him? You see, he may go

to see me family when I am there, an’ I wouldn’t like to speak to him if

you didn’t like it.”

“Why, of course you can speak to him; I don’t see why you shouldn’t. He

don’t do you nothing, an’ I don’t see why he should vex because you

leave him to get married. If I see him meself I will speak to him: an’

if him don’t choose to answer it will be all the same to me.”

“You right, Mac. If you hold out the hand of friendship an’ Jones don’t

choose to take it, that’s ‘up to him’ as the American people here say.

An’ I will follow your advice and speak to him if I ever see him, for I

don’t bear anybody malice.”

“Malice is foolishness,” said Mackenzie emphatically. “If I was to meet

Jones up here I would invite him to come an’ spend a evening in me

house. I don’t know if him would come, but that would show him that I

have no bad feelings towards him.”

She said nothing to her husband of her having already met Samuel Josiah.

But now she felt that she could with a clear conscience be polite to

Jones when next she should see him; and perhaps, after that meeting, she

might tell Mackenzie of it . . . that would be wise. She was going to

see her people again, but she must not seem in any hurry to do so; she

must force herself to wait. She allowed two weeks to elapse before she

went, taking care to let Catherine know by letter beforehand the day on

which to expect her.

She arrived in Colon in the afternoon, and that evening Jones came round

to the house. He expected to meet her.

For a little while they discussed indifferent topics; then suddenly

Susan gave a sharp turn to the conversation and surprised everybody by

saying:

“I hear that I have to congratulate you, Mr. Jones.”

“Me? What for?” he asked.

“I hear you goin’ to get married.”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed Mr. Proudleigh, immediately becoming

interested. Jones had been coming so often to see them, and had been so

obliging in the matter of the loans, that the old gentleman had begun to

think that a match might be arranged between the young man and

Catherine.

“I never hear of it before,” said Jones, “but people always know a man’s

business better than he know it himself.” (Mr. Proudleigh’s face lighted

up with pleasure.) “I have nothing more to do with any woman, Mrs.

Mackenzie, an’ don’t intend to.” (Here Mr. Proudleigh’s hopes fell to

zero—a common enough occurrence.) “Women do me enough already in this

world. I have been fooled once, but that was not my fault. If I allow

anybody to fool me again, however, I would be more than stupid.”

Susan’s question had been deliberately put for the purpose of finding

out if Samuel’s affections were still unengaged. She was therefore

delighted with his reply. But she answered to the point. “I didn’t know

you ever was married before, Mr. Jones, so you couldn’t have been

fooled.”

“P’rhaps it is a very good thing him was never married,” observed Miss

Proudleigh caustically, leaving her meaning to be understood by Susan.

“Perhaps so,” replied Susan promptly, “for if Mr. Jones was married him

might have all his wife’s old relations wanting to live on him.”

“It’s not a matter of relations,” said Jones, “for when I put me hand

into me pocket, I can always find money there to help anybody. But

females are not to be trusted; and as I don’t take away anybody’s wife,

I wouldn’t like anybody to take away mine.”

“I agree wid you, Mister Jones,” said Mr. Proudleigh; “but you don’t

have no occasion to worry you’self, for as you not married, nobody can

teck away you’ wife.” He laughed as he ceased, being proud of his logic.

“Well, marriage is not everything,” said Susan; “but as I hear that Mr.

Jones was goin’ to get married—I forget who tell me—I thought I would

mention it so as to congratulate him. But since it isn’t true, I

congratulate him all de same.”

“I thank you kindly,” said Jones with a sweeping bow, “and without

indulging in any process of vituperation, I venture to submit that some

people would have a better life with Samuel Josiah Jones than with other

men I could mention. Some married people have it dull, you know. Now I

am a sport, an’ anybody who is along with me must enjoy themself.”

Susan immediately credited her aunt with having been talking about her

to Jones. Her suspicions were just. Yet Jones had said enough to

indicate that he was still regretting her desertion of him, and this

established a sympathetic understanding between them: they were both

partners in misfortune.

“What that word, ‘vituperation,’ mean, Mister Jones?” inquired Mr.

Proudleigh, who was interested in polysyllables but sometimes found that

Jones’s terms left him bewildered in a maze of hopeless conjecture.

“It means,” said Jones, beginning an explanation which might have left

the old man no wiser than before, when a shout in the street attracted

their attention, and they heard a babble of voices and the sound of

hurrying feet.

“Fire!” cried Mr. Proudleigh, moving quickly towards the veranda. “What

a place Colon is for fire! Almost every week dere is one.”

“They say the American doctors burn down the houses when they can’t cure

the fever any other way,” said Jones, hurriedly following Mr. Proudleigh

to the veranda.

“The people burn it down themself when them want to rob,” was Miss

Proudleigh’s hypothesis, which probably did account for many of the

fires which afflicted Colon.

From the veranda they could see a red glare against the north-western

sky, and a great volume of smoke surging upwards. The glare grew

brighter every moment; denser became the smoke.

“It’s a big fire!” cried Susan excitedly, “an’ nearly all the house in

Colon is of wood. It may burn down de whole town!”

“I gwine to see it!” Mr. Proudleigh exclaimed. “I never miss a fire

yet.” He hurried into the room for his hat, spurred to unusual activity

by the prospect of enjoying one of his favourite amusements.

“But suppose it come this way, pupa?” cried Catherine in a frightened

tone of voice. “What about we clothes and other things?”

But Mr. Proudleigh was already half-way down the stairs, and calling out

loudly to ask if they were not going with him. Miss Proudleigh refused

to move, not being willing to leave her room to the mercy of wandering

thieves. Catherine, after a moment’s hesitation, ran after her father.

Jones and Susan went out together.

The street below was crowded. Half the people in Colon were running

towards the scene of the conflagration, shouting “Fire!” with all the

power of their lungs. Cabs tore through the narrow thoroughfare, mounted

men appeared from nowhere and began to urge their horses through the

hurrying throng with a fine disregard of other people’s safety. The

excitement was contagious; it infected Susan and Jones, who, hand in

hand, began to run also, immediately losing sight of Catherine and Mr.

Proudleigh and thinking only of themselves. Soon they came to the spot

where a huge crowd was collected near a block of wooden buildings, some

of which were now blazing furiously. Fortunately there was no wind, so

the sparks were not carried to any considerable distance. But they rose

to a tremendous height in the heated air, and at that moment thousands

of anxious people were wondering whether a single house would be left

standing in Colon when morning dawned.

The fire brigades were on the spot, the town brigade as well as that

from Christobal. The men worked like demons. Long silver streams poured

upon the blazing buildings; uniformed men in shining helmets swarmed up

the sides of the doomed structures, splintering and smashing the

woodwork with their axes, giving fierce battle to the yellow monster

which leaped from roof to roof, roaring dully as if glorying in

destruction. The Panamanian police were everywhere, the little fellows

running about and clubbing out of the way whoever ventured too near the

burning houses. Soon it was seen that the flames were threatening to

leap across a narrow street, the houses in which were already warping

and blistering under the terrible heat. If those houses should once

ignite, it would be with the greatest difficulty that they could be

saved.

A sudden scattering of the crowd indicated that the police were

impressing men to help them fight the fire. They seized every

able-bodied man they could lay their hands upon, tolerating no show of

resistance; people on the outskirts of the crowd, knowing that an

unpleasant time would be in store for them if once they were impressed,

were hastily making off, and Jones, who was among them, thought it

eminently wise to follow their example as quickly as possible. Pulling

Susan by the hand, he hurried away. When he thought that he had put

sufficient ground between himself and the police he halted. From where

they now stood they could still see the flames fighting their way

upwards, and the huge masses of heavy black smoke spreading like a pall

over the town.

“I hope them won’t hold pupa,” panted Susan, staring with wide-open eyes

at the curling smoke and lurid sky.

“They wouldn’t bother with him,” Jones assured her; “he is too feeble;

in fact, he shouldn’t be in that crowd at all. It is the strong men they

looking for to-night. They will try to hold people like me an’

Mackenzie.”

Mackenzie’s name slipped out almost without Jones knowing that he had

pronounced it. It showed that Mackenzie occupied a large portion of his

thoughts in these days. The mention of the name also led to a question

which seemed strangely out of place at a time when Colon appeared to be

threatened with wholesale destruction.

“You an’ you’ husband ever talk about me?” he asked Susan.

She was surprised at this question, so out of keeping it was with her

thoughts just then. Still staring towards the fire, she said, “Why you

ask that now?”

“Because I would like to know what you say about me, an’ this is the

only time I can ask you. I suppose Mackenzie laugh at me an’ think I am

a fool to let him take you away from me so easy?”

“Why you always like to talk disagreeable things, Sam?” she answered,

unconsciously dropping back into her old familiar way of addressing him.

There was no pretence now; there was a touch of regret in her voice as

she went on:

“Mackenzie is quite up at Culebra, an’ you is down here. I going back

to-morrow. What’s de good of talkin’ about him?”

“But can you tell me now that you don’t sorry you leave me, Sue; that

you are as happy as you used to be? I don’t make any pretence like you.

I miss you, an’ I tell you so plain.”

“It was your fault, Sam. Before I went away I ask you if you was going

to keep you’ promise to marry me, an’ you say I was talking foolishness.

I knew Mackenzie was going to act differently, and, after all, him do

for me what you would never do.”

“That is the way you put it. But you didn’t tell me Mackenzie offered to

marry you. You stole away from me like a thief in the night. If you had

told me you were going, and why you were going, I wouldn’t have made you

go, an’ we would have been married to-day. But you didn’t give me a

chance to know. Why? I could have done you nothing if you had told me.”

There was so much in what he said, that for the space of a few seconds

Susan remained silent. Then she answered.

“You talk like that now, Sam, but you would have talked different if I

had told you. I was afraid.”

“Afraid,” he repeated bitterly, “though I never lift me hand to you in

me life! An’ suppose it had come to a big quarrel or a fight. You was

living in the same house with a lot of people: what could I do you? An’

if I did make a fight, the wrong would have been on my side, an’ you

could have left me with a clear conscience. How is it now? You mean to

tell me that every day of you’ natural life you going to be content with

the same sort of life you living now? I know all about it. You can’t

prevent you’ people from talking. Besides, I know something about

Culebra; and I know Mackenzie. An’ if it is bad now, what is it goin’ to

be later on? You are going to be miserable, you going to fret, you going

to wish you were dead; an’ so, for all your name is Mrs. Mackenzie, an’

you have a ring on you’ finger, and all the comforts you want, I don’t

see that you are as well off as before you got married. So what is the

good of it?”

Out there, in the streets of Colon, in the town where, as she now so

keenly remembered, she had had so many hours of happiness, Susan felt

the full force of Samuel’s words. Both of them had forgotten the fire.

Their own affairs were of supremest importance in all the world.

“It is no use talkin’ now,” she said dismally. “What is done can’t be

undone.”

“That is true. You make your own bed an’ must lie on it.”

“We live an’ learn,” said Susan. “You can’t know if you don’t try.”

“What’s the sense of tryin’ once if you can never try again?”

She said nothing, and he continued, as if talking to himself:

“You can’t marry again, once you’re married; that’s the hard part of it.

You leave me, but you can’t leave Mackenzie. . . . You can’t. . . . But,

Sue, you can! Let us go away from here to Jamaica!”

No such proposition had definitely formed itself in his mind when he

first began to speak. The suddenness of it was a revelation to himself.

Yet the idea must have been lurking somewhere at the back of his mind,

for he had never entirely given up Susan. Now too he went on as though

the whole course of their future conduct had been carefully thought out

by him.

“We can go to Jamaica, Sue, an’ we’ll be all right there. I will arrange

all about the passage; you can come down here from Culebra the night

before the ship sail, and we can leave in the morning. You needn’t say a

word to anybody, not even your own people; you can write them when you

are in Jamaica. When we get there, Mackenzie can only divorce you, for

he can’t do you anything in Jamaica. But even if he divorce you, it

won’t matter, for I will marry you then. Mackenzie take you away from

me, so it is only fair if I take you away from him. What you say?”

“No, Sam! This is different. When I leave you I wasn’t married; I was me

own woman; now I am not. It would be a disgrace for me to go away wid

you an’ leave me lawful husband. Besides, it would be a sin. Don’t you

know that if a married woman ’ave anything to do with another man it is

seven years’ trouble for both of them?”

It came into Jones’s mind at that moment that, if such were the case,

there must be large numbers of persons in Central America and the West

Indies enduring long seven-year periods of tribulation just then; but he

only said, “That’s all foolishness, Sue.”

“It is not. Marriage is a different thing from every other thing; that

is what I learn, and that is what nobody can take out of me head. An’

suppose Mackenzie was to divorce me. You think I would like to have me

name disgrace like that?”

“Then what we going to do?”

For answer, Susan began to walk slowly in the direction of her people’s

house. There were many persons in the streets now. The fire was burning

still, but had been mastered; the fear that it might consume the whole

town had passed away. People were beginning to return to their homes,

all talking about the danger which they had escaped. The street in which

they were was filled with the murmur of excited voices.

They walked on, Jones at her side. “Pupa must be gone home,” she

remarked. “We better go back too.”

As she spoke she saw a man who was passing in the opposite direction

turn and look at her and her companion. She glanced over her shoulder to

look at him, Jones also turning to stare. The man had stopped and was

staring.

They both recognized who it was, and Susan nodded her head. The man

returned the bow, but Jones looked at him as if he were a post. “That is

the jackass,” he said, “who cause all this trouble;” and he spoke loudly

enough for Tom Wooley to hear.

They continued on their way, arriving at the house in a few minutes.

There they found Mr. Proudleigh relating his wonderful experiences at

the scene of the fire. He and Catherine had been separated in the crowd,

and he related how the police had tried to induce him to assist in

extinguishing the fire, and with what arguments he had effectually

prevented them from laying sacrilegious hands upon his venerable person.

A story which showed that the old man had in him the makings of an

ingenious newspaper reporter, and which was listened to by his sister

with every manifestation of profound disbelief.

CHAPTER V

THE ANONYMOUS LETTER

Mr. Thomas Wooley had never been credited with strong moral convictions

by anyone who knew him. Among his mild boasts, uttered in the company of

congenial companions, certain alleged breaches by him of the seventh

commandment had frequently flourished: to gain a reputation for

gallantry he had not scrupled to libel himself. But on that night when

he saw Susan and Jones together in the streets of Colon the sacredness

of the marriage tie appealed to him strongly; he felt that a great wrong

was being done to marriage as a civil and religious institution, and he

remembered that he himself had been badly treated by Susan and by Jones.

That, he decided in his mind, had been freely forgiven. He was

magnanimous. But Susan was now a wife, and it was clearly wrong that she

should have anything whatever to do with Jones, who was, in Tom’s

opinion, a desperate and malignant character who pretended to be

friendly with you at first for the purpose of ill-treating you

afterwards.

Tom argued that, shocked though he was, he had no right to interfere

personally with Jones. He would not remonstrate with him on the evil

tenor of his way. But he reflected with intense satisfaction that

Mackenzie was, if anything, Jones’s physical superior, as well as the

rightful lord and master of Susan. Mackenzie, then, could read to Jones

a much-needed moral lesson, could deal with Susan as an outraged husband

should, and, generally, could do all those things which Tom wanted to

see done, but could not do himself.

The problem was, how to acquaint Mackenzie with the atrocious actions of

Susan and her lover? Tom felt that he had been a martyr. He had suffered

much because of Susan. But martyrdom, he was convinced, should not be

allowed to go beyond reasonable limits, and should, as a general rule,

be carefully avoided whenever possible. He had lost his situation in

Kingston, he had been roughly handled and fined in Colon. These things

he had endured without murmuring. He was now prepared to become an

active agent in the work of Susan’s moral redemption, and, incidentally,

in the deserved punishment of Jones; he had no doubt whatever that in

endeavouring to call Mackenzie’s attention to the wrongs of which that

injured man was still ignorant, he would be performing a highly

meritorious act. But caution must be displayed. Jones was very likely to

take a singularly narrow-minded view of his action, if he should ever

think that he, Tom, had meddled with his affairs. There was only one way

in which to approach Mackenzie, and that was through the medium of an

anonymous letter—a letter so worded that suspicion could not possibly

fall on Tom Wooley. Tom had been removed to Christobal. Early the next

morning, with a fine feeling of noble endeavour, somewhat mingled with

apprehension lest, in spite of all his efforts, his identity should be

disclosed, he sat down and wrote to Mackenzie.

The morning after this, on calling at the Post Office on his way to

work, Mackenzie was handed a letter which he opened and read as he

slowly walked away.

“DEAR SIR,” it ran, “this is to inform you that things are not quite

straight. Everybody has a respect for you, and it would be a shame if a

friend of yours do not let you know that your wife is not behaving

towards you as she should.” Here Mackenzie stopped reading and glanced

at the end of the letter to see from whom it came. It was signed, “A

True Friend,” a signature that left him none the wiser. He continued

reading.

“Your wife is always in Colon with Jones, the young man she was with

when you married her. I see them together over and over, and this is not

right, for she is your wife and should think of your feelings. I

therefore take this opportunity of making you acquainted with the

facts.”

Mackenzie read the letter twice, then studied the handwriting: it told

him nothing. He folded the letter, carefully placed it in its envelope,

put it away in his pocket, and went thoughtfully to his work.

Susan had returned the day before. She had told him all about the fire,

of which he had already read a sensational account in that morning’s

papers. She had told him that she and her relatives had run out to see

the fire (which is what he knew they would have done), that they had met

Jones in the crowd, and that she had spoken to Jones. There was nothing

improbable whatever in her story. He remembered that he himself had

advised her to speak to Jones if she should ever meet him. This

anonymous letter said that she was often in Colon with Jones. But he,

Mackenzie, knew that Susan had only been twice to Colon since she had

been his wife. So that assertion was a lie. The person who had written

the letter, whoever it was, must have seen Susan speaking to Jones on

the night of the fire, but Susan had not kept that a secret. This man

too, who signed himself “A True Friend,” must surely bear Susan a

grudge, and perhaps was also an enemy of himself. For the fellow

evidently wanted to make mischief, and that no true friend would do.

Mackenzie did not like the letter; it worried him a little. He did not

care to have Susan’s name coupled with that of Jones: the association

was not pleasant. But he did not, for he could not, believe the story.

He decided he would show the letter to Susan later on.

He handed it to her when he went home for lunch.

“You have some enemy in Colon, Sue,” he said; “or it is my enemy. I get

this letter to-day, an’ it is no good person write it. I wonder if it is

a woman?”

Susan took the letter and glanced at the handwriting. She knew it at

once. Although Tom had tried to disguise his handwriting, and believed

he had succeeded, his endeavour had been at best a clumsy one; she gave

no sign, however, that she knew the author of the anonymous

communication; she did not wish Mackenzie to seek out Tom and demand an

explanation, which might be very inconvenient to her. She read the

letter slowly. She realized that the attempt to make it appear that she

was continually meeting Samuel had defeated its own end. She felt that

only a fool like Tom could have blundered so badly. He hadn’t even

mentioned the fire, so eager was he to conceal his identity. Her heart

was beating quickly, though she tried to appear unconcerned. She strove

to control her voice when she spoke.

“It’s a wonder the person who writes this letter didn’t say I was two

weeks wid Jones,” she said, as she handed the letter back to her

husband. “That’s the way that worthless people tell lies on other

people! They want to rob me of me character because them is envious of

me!”

“Well, it is what you have to expect,” said Mackenzie philosophically.

“I know you only go twice to Colon to see you’ family, an’ Jones have

his work to do during the day, so he couldn’t be with you.”

He said this more for the purpose of setting her mind at ease than

because he was any longer interested in the subject of the letter; but

Susan was inwardly too anxious to let the matter rest there. None of her

relatives, not even her aunt, would betray her; but suppose some other

person should follow Tom’s example? A bold idea suggested itself to her.

“I wonder if it is Jones himself write it?” she remarked. Mackenzie was

surprised at the suggestion.

“Why y’u think so?” he asked. “Jones wouldn’t tell a lie on himself?”

“I don’t know about that. P’rhaps him think you couldn’t say anything to

him, but might want to quarrel wid me. Men are bad, an’ Jones might want

to get me into trouble because I wouldn’t take much notice of him the

other night when I saw him at the fire, as I told you.”

Mackenzie looked at the letter he still held in his hand. He shook his

head; the handwriting was not like Jones’s.

“He may have begged one of his friend to write it,” urged Susan.

“Maybe,” admitted Mackenzie; “it may be Jones. But I wouldn’t like to

accuse him till I was sure: that would be foolishness.”

“Well, don’t notice it, then,” said Susan, pleased with Mackenzie’s

prudence. “I don’t care what anybody say about me, so long as me

conscience don’t trouble me an’ it don’t put you out. But I wouldn’t

like anybody else do me a thing like this again, for my character is all

dat I have, and what one person do another may do.”

But as Mackenzie preferred always to deal with facts and not with

possibilities, he let the subject drop, and by the time he returned to

his work that afternoon he had ceased to think about the letter.

Not for an instant, however, did Susan cease to think of it. She was

desperately frightened. As she had said to Mackenzie, what one person

had done another might do, and then Mackenzie would begin to grow

suspicious. She feared to meet Samuel again, yet she wanted to see him

at least once more: she wanted to warn him. How could she see him? . . .

If she risked a meeting some enemy of hers might learn about it, and

this time she might not be able to find a ready excuse. It is true that

Mackenzie had told her she should be polite to Jones if she should see

him, but at that time no anonymous letter had coupled her name with that

of her former lover. And to meet Jones the very next time she went to

Colon would of a surety have a suspicious look.

Should she write to him? Letters went astray sometimes, and Samuel was

careless.

Then what was she to do?

She worried herself all that afternoon, trying to think a way out of the

difficulty. Suppose Mackenzie should meet Jones and mention the letter

to him? Jones might say something about his meeting her at her people’s

house . . . and then!

She felt sick of the difficult position in which she found herself,

wearied to death; she had a sensation of being tied hand and foot, of

being a prisoner; she longed for release, and she knew that only one

avenue of escape was open to her. She could leave Culebra, leave Panama,

and go back to Jamaica with Jones. She would be happier there, free,

more like what she used to be before her marriage. What did the

hardships and discontents of that time now seem to her? They were as

nothing; she remembered only that she had been happier, and what was the

good of marriage if it brought but boredom and disgust? But there was

the divorce court to think of also, and her terrible fall from

respectability. Even if Mackenzie did not take the trouble to divorce

her, she would be a byword amongst those persons who should know her as

a woman who had left her husband for another man. She could not face

that shame.

She decided that she must wait. Nothing might happen in the next couple

of weeks. At the end of that time it would not seem at all strange if

she went to Colon to see her people; then, if she met Samuel, she would

tell him of the letter and put him on his guard.

She felt grateful to Mackenzie for his confidence in her. Such

confidence displayed by a man like Tom would merely have awakened her

contempt; but she saw that her husband was perfectly sincere, and

determined to take her part against her traducers. Had he doubted her he

would have shown it at once, he would have made inquiries, and the

sequel would have been terrible. That, she argued, would have been

unjust to her. She had done nothing deserving of blame. She had met

Jones twice; she had not told her husband the truth about those

meetings; but on the other hand she had refused to fly with Samuel, and

on that demonstration of virtuous feeling she greatly preened herself.

She had behaved splendidly; after such conduct it would have been most

unjust if Mackenzie had acted any differently from how he had acted. And

to think that it was Tom who had tried to injure her; to think too that

nothing painful could be done to him! She thirsted for revenge, yet she

knew that Tom must escape scot-free. The slightest attempt at reprisals

might but lead to exposure. The thought that she could not pay back Tom

with heavy interest was like wormwood to her soul.

When Mackenzie came home that evening she again brought up the subject

of the letter. She thought that if she dwelt upon it, showed no anxiety

that it should be forgotten, her husband’s mind would be cleared of any

shadow of suspicion that, unknown to himself, might be lingering in some

dark corner there. Mackenzie laughed as he listened to her extravagantly

expressed wonder that anyone should be base enough to lie against

another person anonymously.

“I remember,” he said, “about eight years ago, when I was workin’ at the

Jamaica railway, somebody write a letter about me to de manager. He

didn’t sign his name, but I knew all the time who it was, an’ the

manager knew it too. The man wanted me job, an’ he accuse me of robbin’

the railway’s goods an’ sellin’ them outside. But I was more than a

match for him. I could account for every screw that pass through me

hand. All that man ever get for his lie was to lose his job, an’ that

teach him not to write letters against other people in future.”

Mackenzie had never forgotten that incident. It had much to do with his

disbelief in anonymous letters.

“So it is not me alone that them try to injure,” said Susan, glad that

her husband had also been attacked by an anonymous scribe. “However, I

not going back to Colon.”

“That’s stupidness,” said Mackenzie. “You goin’ to make a lie trouble

y’u? You must go an’ see you’ people sometimes.”

This remark was just what she wanted to hear; her husband himself had

now advised her to go to Colon when she wanted! But she would not avail

herself of this advice to rush off to Colon. Although her inclination

was to do so, she fought against it, forcing herself to wait. Her

patience and prudence were rewarded when, five days after, her sister

Catherine appeared at Culebra.

CHAPTER VI

SAMUEL’S DETERMINATION

Catherine had come by one of the afternoon trains; as she had

calculated, she found Susan alone.

“I bet you you don’t tell me why I come here to-day?” she said to her

sister, dropping her voice as though she had an important secret to

impart.

Susan expressed her inability to guess, but, with the anonymous letter

always in her mind, became feverishly curious to know what had brought

Catherine up to Culebra. Was some scandal about her being circulated in

Colon?

Catherine produced a sealed, unaddressed envelope and placed it in her

sister’s hand; Susan broke the seal; the letter was from Jones.

Catherine observed Susan’s start of surprise and alarm. She hastened to

explain that Jones had not posted the letter because he would not take

the risk of its falling into any other hands except those of Susan. He

had not even addressed the envelope, lest, inadvertently, the

handwriting should be seen and recognized.

“Samuel pay my trainage from Colon to up here, an’ back again,” said

Catherine. “I didn’t want to come, but he beg me hard, an’ I thought it

was better I bring the letter than that him should ask anybody else.”

She looked inquiringly at Susan, anxious to learn what Jones had written

about.

Susan said nothing. She was reading and re-reading the letter. It was

written in Samuel’s most grandiloquent style, and opened with a

declaration of his intention to poison himself, throw himself on a

railway track to be run over by a train, drown himself, or commit

suicide in some other unpleasant manner if he were compelled to endure

much longer his present agony of mind. He wanted to see Susan to tell

her “something very important.” He had to see her, and he begged her to

go to Colon as early as she could. He ended by saying that he was

leaving for Jamaica in a week’s time, wishing as he did to die in his

own country, and that she would never cease to regret it if she let him

leave Panama without seeing her. She must tell Catherine if she would go

to Colon, and when.

There was a postscript: “And when I am departed hence, forlorn and

forsaken, you will eventually come to find that your desertation of me

was a catastrophe worse than ever you have known; but alas! it will be

too late.”

“You know what Sam write to me about?” said Susan, searching Catherine’s

face with her eyes.

Catherine shook her head negatively. “Him want you to leave Mackenzie?”

“Not exactly. Him want to see me, but I can’t go to Colon just now at

all.”

“Why? No harm can be done. Nobody will know why y’u go.”

“Wait till I tell you something,” said Susan, and she told Catherine of

her conversation with Jones on the night of the fire, of their

accidental meeting with Tom, and of how Tom had acted. She had intended

to keep all this secret, but now was glad to have some one to whom she

could confide her cares.

Catherine listened, breathless, but not surprised at what she heard

about Jones. She had never been deceived by the formal conversations he

had carried on with Susan on the two occasions they had met at the house

in Colon. But with Tom’s treachery she was disgusted. She had once

entertained a kindly feeling for him; now she felt contempt. All her

sympathies were with her sister, and she agreed that it might indeed be

a risk for Susan to go just then to Colon; she had better wait for some

time longer.

She proposed to return to Colon the next morning, and she promised to

explain to Samuel why Susan could not see him just then; she also

promised to warn him against Tom, at the same time impressing upon him

that any rash action on his part could do no good but might merely

create an unpleasant scandal. All this agreed upon, Susan professed

herself satisfied, then immediately added, “But suppose Sam go away

without I see him?”

That was possible. She did not take seriously his threats of suicide;

they were merely intended to frighten her. But that he was thinking of

returning to Jamaica she could well believe. His restlessness and

impatience might easily cause him to do that, and quickly, and . . . and

she wanted to see him again.

“Tell him,” she said to Catherine after a pause, “that he must ’ave

patience.”

“But patience for what?” asked Catherine, and Susan could give no

answer.

* * * * *

The following morning Catherine returned to Colon. That evening, when

Jones came round to the house as agreed, she quietly took him out on the

veranda and told him the result of her mission.

When they went back into Mr. Proudleigh’s room, Jones solemnly walked up

to Mr. Proudleigh and shook hands with him.

“Old massa, you have nothing to do with it,” he said—“nothing at all.”

Mr. Proudleigh immediately agreed that he hadn’t, and then anxiously

inquired what it was with which he was so entirely unconnected.

“You know that I loved your daughter, didn’t you?” asked Jones.

“In course!” agreed Mr. Proudleigh briskly. “Dat is what I always say. I

’ave seen many a young man all in love all times, but I never see one

like you. Your love is true love, Mister Jones, like mine when I was

young an’ good-lookin’. I remember I was in love wid three different

young lady at one time, an’ I couldn’t say which one I love de most. One

day——”

“Very well,” said Jones, who was more anxious to air his grievances than

to listen to the youthful idylls of Mr. Proudleigh. “Y’u know that I

take her away from Kingston, Jamaica, an’ bring her here?”

“Sartinly. I was down at de wharf de day you leave. Sun was hot that

day, me friend!”

“Very well. And y’u know that I bring her here an’ look after her

kindly, an’ nearly went to prison for her?”

“Yes, y’u tell me all about it. But she say it was your fault; but, as I

tell her, a young man——”

“Very well. Now tell me fair an’ square: do you think Susan acted right

to leave me in ruinate in the manner visible?”

“Well, to tell y’u de truth, Mister Jones, you is looking very well just

now. Ef I was you, I wouldn’t bodder me head about a young lady that act

so foolish as to leave me an’ go an’ married. De same thing happen to me

once, but it didn’t make a tooth in me head ache. An’ if you want

another han’some intended, there is Miss Catherine——”

“Please to leave me out of you’ conversation, pupa!” came peremptorily

from Catherine, and Mr. Proudleigh halted promptly in the midst of his

matchmaking endeavour.

“It don’t matter how I look,” said Jones angrily: “it’s how I feel. If

it wasn’t for one thing, I would throw meself in the sea this very

night.”

“That would not be Christianlike, Mister Jones,” said Miss Proudleigh,

who had been listening attentively to the conversation. “We must

patiently bear our crosses. Besides, I don’t see what you worrying

you’self about, for there is some things that is a good riddance. Y’u

don’t see it now, but you will see it later on.”

“That may be true, but I am speaking of now an’ not of later on,” said

Jones. “I want you all to understand that I have been driven like a lamb

to the slaughter by Susan Mackenzie. She get married without my

knowledge; she took away all the money I give her, an’ what she used to

take from me when she thought I didn’t know; an’ now she is living like

a king at Culebra. If it wasn’t for me she might have been in Jamaica

to-day keeping a little shop, without an extra five shillin’s. Yet when

I send her sister to ask her——”

“What y’u going to say now?” cried Catherine, seeing he was on the verge

of blurting out what he had agreed should be kept a secret.

“What I am going to say I am going to say,” replied Jones impetuously.

“I am goin’ away to Jamaica, an’ I send an’ ask Susan to come an’ tell

me good-bye and have a talk before I go. What she do? She say she can’t

come! Is that a decent way to treat a man, especially a man like me?

When she left me I bear it in silence, though I might have been very

disagreeable. Yet now she treat me like if I was a dog!”

This angry outburst was received in silence by those who heard it. They

had never seen Jones in a temper before.

“You know what I am going to do now?” he asked after a moment’s pause.

“I am going straight up to Culebra to tell Susan what I think of her!”

“Y’u can’t do that at all, Mr. Jones,” said Catherine firmly. “I told

you already why Sue can’t come now, an’ you must remember she is married

an’ dat her husband wouldn’t like y’u to bring no confusion into his

house.”

“Her husband can go to the devil!” exclaimed Jones. “Who is her

husband?”

“But suppose him meet you an’ have a fight?” said Mr. Proudleigh,

thinking that such a prospect might have a deterrent effect upon Jones.

“If Mackenzie can fight, I can fight too,” replied the young man. “If he

don’t interfere with me, I won’t interfere with him. But I am going to

Culebra.”

“Well, Mister Jones,” said Mr. Proudleigh, “if you determine to go, I

can’t stop y’u. But do, I beg you, don’t say dat we know anyt’ing at all

about it. You see, I don’t ’fraid of any man in de world, but quarrel is

a thing I keep out of. Mackenzie is me son-in-law, so I can’t say

nothing against him, but y’u know what I think; an’ if you take my

foolish advice you wouldn’t go to Culebra.”

“Don’t call my name, whatever you do,” said Catherine. “I sorry I have

anything to do wid your business, for I can see you going to act like a

fool. And after all, what can y’u expect Susan to do? If you go an’ make

any trouble now, her husband will believe what that liar, Tom, write an’

tell him.”

“What is dat?” asked Mr. Proudleigh quickly, but Catherine refused to

reply. Her reticence, coming after her allusion to Tom and Mackenzie,

caused the old man to feel that the situation was more perilous than he

had thought it was.

As for Miss Proudleigh, she loudly lifted up her voice in denunciation

of sin and its consequences, this time with a good deal of sincerity

born of fear.

“Susan have much to answer for,” she cried; “she bring all this trouble

on herself an’ her husband an’ Mr. Jones. Your sin will find you out,

an’ who shall flee from the wrath to come! I have nothing to do with it.

She is me niece, but she never treat me respectfully. She deserve all

she going to suffer, and she going to suffer for true! But I sympathize

wid her, for we are told not to bear any malice.”

As the old lady seemed to be trying to qualify for the position of a

modern Jeremiah, Catherine brusquely demanded if she wanted all the

people in the house to hear what she was saying.

“They will all hear soon enough,” replied Miss Proudleigh grimly. “There

is going to be war an’ rumours of war.”

“An’ I am going to make the war,” said Jones fiercely. “I make up my

mind to die.”

“Don’t do that, me son,” implored Mr. Proudleigh. “Death is not a thing

to meck fun with. Wait an’ have patience.”

“Patience for what?”

As Mr. Proudleigh could not say, he merely suggested that Jones had

better not act rashly, but Samuel would not allow his mind to be

affected by such advice.

He took his hat.

“When you goin’ to Culebra?” asked Catherine, wondering if she would

have time to warn Susan.

“Why you want to know?”

“Never mind, if y’u don’t want to tell me!” she snapped, “but take care

what you doin’.”

“I know what I am doing,” answered Jones, and left the room.

* * * * *

“You think him will really go?” Mr. Proudleigh inquired anxiously of

Catherine, after the door had closed behind Jones.

Catherine pondered a moment.

“If him could go to-night, him would go,” she said; “but he can’t go

to-night. To-morrow him may change his mind. Jones is a man that will do

a thing in a temper, but not otherwise.”

Catherine’s estimate of Samuel’s character was shrewd. But it is not

always possible to foresee the actions of any human being.

CHAPTER VII

WHAT HAPPENED AT CULEBRA

It was raining at Culebra—had been raining for days. For miles and

miles the sky was overcast, hour after hour the rain came down, now

swiftly and in showers, now in a light drizzle which gave to the

surrounding country an aspect of greyness, a cheerless, depressing hue.