"I'm sorry, father, but I can't."
"Very well. Rather than see this shame brought on the family, I will
send you out to Australia. I have written to my friend Morris, at
Ballawag, New South Wales, three hundred miles from Sydney, and he is
ready to take you into his office. You have broken my heart and your
mother's, and you must go."
And Bob--this man of twenty-one or more--obeyed his father in this,
and went. I can almost forgive him, knowing how the filial habit
blinds a man. But I cannot forgive the letter he wrote to Miss
Ormiston--whom he wished to make his wife, please remember.
Nevertheless she forgave him. She had found another situation, and was
working on. Her parents were dead.
Five years passed, and Bob's mother died--twelve years, and his father
died also, leaving him the lion's share of the money. During this time
Bob had worked away at Ballawag and earned enough to set up as lawyer
on his own account. But because a man cannot play fast and loose with
the self-will that God gave him and afterwards expect to do much
in the world, he was a moderately unsuccessful man still when the
inheritance dropped in. It gave him a fair income for life. When the
letter containing the news reached him, he left the office, walked
back to his house, and began to think. Then he unlocked his safe and
took out Ethel Ormiston's letters. They made no great heap; for of
late their correspondence had dwindled to an annual exchange of
good wishes at Christmas. She was still earning her livelihood as a
governess.
Bob thought for a week, and then wrote. He asked Ethel Ormiston to
come out and be his wife. You will observe that the old curse still
lay on him. A man--even a poor one--that was worth kicking would have
gone and fetched her; and Bob had plenty of money. But he asked her to
come out and begged her to cable "Yes" or "No."
She cabled "Yes." She would start within the month from Plymouth, in
the sailing-ship _Grimaldi_. She chose a sailing-ship because it was
cheaper.
So Bob travelled down to Sydney to welcome his bride. He stepped on
the _Grimaldi's_ deck within five minutes of her arrival, and asked
if a Miss Ormiston were on board. There advanced a middle-aged woman,
gaunt, wrinkled and unlovely--not the woman he had chosen, but the
woman he had made.
"Ethel?" was all he found to say.
"Yes, Bob; I am Ethel. And God forgive you."
Of the change in him she said nothing; but held out her hand with a
smile.
"Marry me, Bob, or send me back: I give you leave to do either, and
advise you to send me back. Twelve years ago you might have been proud
of me, and so I might have helped you. As it is, I have travelled far,
and am tired. I can never help you now."
And though he married her, she never did.