She looked at him calmly, but in her set, white face he seemed to read
already his sentence!
“Do you think it worth while, Mr. Trent? There is so much, as you put
it, to be explained, that the task, even to a man of your versatility,
seems hopeless!”
“I shall not trouble you long,” he said. “At least one man's word should
be as good as another's--and you have listened to what my enemy”--he
motioned towards Francis--“has to say.”
Francis shrugged his shoulders.
“I can assure you,” he interrupted, “that I have no feeling of enmity
towards you in the slightest. My opinion you know. I have never troubled
to conceal it. But I deny that I am prejudiced by any personal feeling.”
Trent ignored his speech.
“What I have to say to you,” he continued addressing Ernestine, “I want
to say before you see your father. I won't take up your time. I won't
waste words. I take you back ten years to when I met him at Attra and we
became partners in a certain enterprise. Your father at that time was a
harmless wreck of a man who was fast killing himself with brandy. He
had some money, I had none. With it we bought the necessary outfit and
presents for my enterprise and started for Bekwando. The whole of the
work fell to my share, and with great trouble I succeeded in obtaining
the concessions we were working for. Your father spent all his time
drinking, and playing cards, when I would play with him. The agreement
as to the sharing of the profits was drawn up, it is true, by me, but at
that time he made no word of complaint. I had no relations, he described
himself as cut off wholly from his. It was here Francis first came
on the scene. He found your father half drunk, and when he read the
agreement it was plain what he thought. He thought that I was letting
your father kill himself that the whole thing might be mine. He has
probably told you so. I deny it. I did all I could to keep him sober!
“On our homeward way your father was ill and our bearers deserted us. We
were pursued by the natives, who repented their concession, and I had
to fight them more than once, half a dozen strong, with your father
unconscious at my feet. It is true that I left him in the bush, but it
was at his bidding and I believed him dying. It was my only chance and
I took it. I escaped and reached Attra. Then, to raise money to reach
England, I had to borrow from a man named Da Souza, and afterwards,
in London, to start the Company, I had to make him my partner in the
profits of the concession. One day I quarrelled with him--it was just
at the time I met you--and then, for the first time, I heard of your
father's being alive. I went out to Africa to bring him back and Da
Souza followed me in abject fear, for as my partner he lost half if your
father's claim was good. I found your father infirm and only half sane.
I did all I could for him whilst I worked in the interior, and meant
to bring him back to England with me when I came, unfortunately he
recovered a little and suddenly seized upon the idea of visiting
England. He left before me and fell into the hands of Da Souza, who
had the best possible reasons in the world for keeping him in the
background. I rescued him from them in time to save him from death and
brought him to my own house, sent for doctors and nurses, and, when
he was fit for you to see, I should have sent for you. I did not, I'll
admit, make any public declaration of his existence, for the simple
reason that it would have crippled our Company, and there are the
interests of the shareholders to be considered, but I executed and
signed a deed of partnership days ago which makes him an equal sharer in
every penny I possess. Now this is the truth, Miss Wendermott, and if
it is not a story I am particularly proud of, I don't very well see what
else I could have done. It is my story and it is a true one. Will you
believe it or will you take his word against mine?”
She would have spoken, but Francis held up his hand.
“My story,” he said coolly, “has been told behind your back. It is only
fair to repeat it to your face. I have told Miss Wendermott this--that I
met you first in the village of Bekwando with a concession in your hand
made out to you and her father jointly, with the curious proviso that in
the event of the death of one the other was his heir. I pointed out to
Miss Wendermott that you were in the prime of life and in magnificent
condition, while her father was already on the threshold of the grave
and drinking himself into a fever in a squalid hut in a village of
swamps. I told her that I suspected foul play, that I followed you both
and found her father left to the tender mercies of the savages,
deserted by you in the bush. I told her that many months afterwards he
disappeared, simultaneously with your arrival in the country, that a day
or two ago you swore to me you had no idea where he was. That has been
my story, Trent, let Miss Wendermott choose between them.”
“I am content,” Trent cried fiercely. “Your story is true enough, but it
is cunningly linked together. You have done your worst. Choose!”
For ever afterwards he was glad of that single look of reproach which
seemed to escape her unwittingly as her eyes met his. But she turned
away and his heart was like a stone.
“You have deceived me, Mr. Trent. I am very sorry, and very
disappointed.”
“And you,” he cried passionately, “are you yourself so blameless? Were
you altogether deceived by your relations, or had you never a suspicion
that your father might still be alive? You had my message through Mr.
Cuthbert; I met you day by day after you knew that I had been your
father's partner, and never once did you give yourself away! Were you
tarred with the same brush as those canting snobs who doomed a poor old
man to a living death? Doesn't it look like it? What am I to think of
you?”
“Your judgment, Mr. Trent,” she answered quietly, “is of no importance
to me! It does not interest me in any way. But I will tell you this. If
I did not disclose myself, it was because I distrusted you. I wanted to
know the truth, and I set myself to find it out.”
“Your friendship was a lie, then!” he cried, with flashing eyes. “To you
I was nothing but a suspected man to be spied upon and betrayed.”
She faltered and did not answer him. Outside the nurse was knocking at
the door. Trent waved them away with an imperious gesture.
“Be off,” he cried, “both of you! You can do your worst! I thank Heaven
that I am not of your class, whose men have flints for hearts and whose
women can lie like angels.”
They left him alone, and Trent, with a groan, plucked from his heart
the one strong, sweet hope which had changed his life so wonderfully.
Upstairs, Monty was sobbing, with his little girl's arms about him.