"It is some one you know," he answered, and left the room. Bewildered,
anticipating, yet dreading to recognise her thoughts, she sat down and
waited in a painful stillness.
Presently the door opened, and Cayley entered. She started to her feet
with a stifled, bitter cry: "Oh, Harry!"
He hurried to her with arms outstretched, for she swayed; but she
straightway recovered herself, and, leaning against a chair, steadied
to his look.
"Why have you come here?" she whispered. "To say good-bye for always,"
was his reply.
"And why--for always?" She was very white and quiet.
"Because we are not likely ever to meet again."
"Where are you going?" she anxiously asked. "God knows!"
Strange sensations were working in her. What would be the end of this?
Her husband, knowing all, had permitted this man to come to her alone.
She had loved him for years; though he had deserted her years ago, she
loved him still--did she love him still?
"Will you not sit down?" she said with mechanical courtesy.
A stranger would not have thought from their manner that there were lives
at stake. They both sat, he playing with the leaves of an orchid, she
opening and shutting her fan absently. But she was so cold she could
hardly speak. Her heart seemed to stand still.
"How has the world used you since we met last?" she tried to say
neutrally.
"Better, I fear, than I have used it," he answered quietly.
"I do not quite see. How could you ill-use the world?" There was faint
irony in her voice now. A change seemed to have come upon her.
"By ill-using any one person we ill-use society--the world"--he meaningly
replied.
"Whom have you ill-used?" She did not look at him.
"Many--you chiefly."
"How have you--most-ill-used me?"
"By letting you think well of me--you have done so, have you not?"
She did not speak, but lowered her head, and caught her breath slightly.
There was a silence. Then she said: "There was no reason why I should--
But you must not say these things to me. My husband--"
"Your husband knows all."
"But that does not alter it," she urged firmly. "Though he may be
willing you should speak of these things, I am not."
"Your husband is a good fellow," he rejoined. "I am not."
"You are not?" she asked wearily.
"No. What do you think was the reason that, years ago, I said we could
never be married, and that we must forget each other?"
"I cannot tell. I supposed it was some duty of which I could not know.
There are secret and sacred duties which we sometimes do not tell, even
to our nearest and dearest . . . but I said we should not speak of
these things, and we must not." She rose to her feet. "My husband is
somewhere near. I will call him. There are so many things that men can
talk of-pleasant and agreeable things--"
He had risen with her, and as her hand was stretched out to ring, stayed
it. "No, never mind your husband just now. I think he knows what I am
going to say to you."
"But, oh, you must not--must not!" she urged.
"Pardon me, but I must," was his reply.
"As I said, you thought I was a good fellow. Well, I am not; not at all.
I will tell you why I left you. I was--already married."
He let the bare unrelieved fact face her, and shock her.
"You were--already married--when--you loved me," she said, her face
showing misery and shame.
He smiled a little bitterly when he saw the effect of his words, but said
clearly: "Yes. You see I was a villain."
She shuddered a little, and then said simply: "Your face was not the face
of a bad man. Are you telling me the truth?"
He nodded.
"Then you were wicked with me," she said at last, with a great sigh,
looking him straight in the eyes. "But you--you loved me?" she said
with injured pride and a piteous appeal in her voice. "Ah, I know you
loved me!"
"I will tell you when you know all," he answered evenly.
"Is there more to tell?" she asked heavily, and shrinking from him now.
"Much more. Please, come here." He went towards the open window of the
room, and she followed. He pointed out to where his horse stood in the
palms.
"That is my horse," he said. He whistled to the horse, which pricked up
its ears and trotted over to the window. "The name of my horse," he
said, "maybe familiar to you. He is called Firefoot."
"Firefoot!" she answered dazedly, "that is the name of Hyland's horse--
Hyland the bushranger."
"This is Hyland's horse," he said, and he patted the animal's neck gently
as it thrust its head within the window.
"But you said it was your horse," she rejoined slowly, as though the
thing perplexed her sorely.
"It is Hyland's horse; it is my horse," he urged without looking at her.
His courage well-nigh failed him. Villain as he was, he loved her, and
he saw the foundations of her love for him crumbling away before him. In
all his criminal adventures he had cherished this one thing.
She suddenly gave a cry of shame and agony, a low trembling cry, as
though her heart-strings were being dragged out. She drew back from him
--back to the middle of the room.
He came towards her, reaching out his arms. "Forgive me," he said.
"Oh, no, never!" she cried with horror.
The cry had been heard outside, and Houghton entered the room, to find
his wife, all her strength gone, turning a face of horror upon Cayley.
She stretched out her arms to her husband with a pitiful cry. "Tom," she
said, "Tom, take me away."
He took her gently in his arms.
Cayley stood with his hand upon his horse's neck. "Houghton," he said in
a low voice, "I have been telling your wife what I was, and who I am.
She is shocked. I had better go."
The woman's head had dropped on her husband's shoulder. Houghton waited
to see if she would look up. But she did not.
"Well, good-bye to you both," Cayley said, stepped through the window,
and vaulted on his horse's back. "I'm going to see if the devil's as
black as he's painted." Then, setting spurs to his horse, he galloped
away through the palms to the gate.
......................
A year later Hyland the bushranger was shot in a struggle with the
mounted police sent to capture him.
The planter's wife read of it in England, whither she had gone on a
visit.
"It is better so," she said to herself, calmly. "And he wished it, I am
sure."
For now she knew the whole truth, and she did not love her husband less
--but more.