A long morning in the mine, now thoroughly cleared of water, and where,
under the leadership of Dicky Pengelly, the picks were ringing merrily.
Geoffrey had little good news to report, for the lode of tin was
excessively poor; but all the same he felt that he could work on at a
profit, and at any time they might strike a good rich vein. There was
nothing, then, to mind.
He had reported every thing to Mr Penwynn exactly as it occurred, and
that gentleman seemed not only perfectly satisfied, but encouraged him
to go on.
"I have made the venture, Trethick," he said, "and I will not play with
it. I look to you to pull me up if it is going to be a losing affair;
but it seems to me that to withhold capital would be a miserable policy:
so go on. Do you think it can become worse?"
"No," said Geoffrey, firmly, "that I do not. The fact is, Mr Penwynn,
I am disappointed in the mine."
"Disappointed? You don't mean--"
"No, no, sir, I'm not beaten," said Geoffrey, laughing. "I mean I am
disappointed in the mine, and I have found out two or three things about
it."
"What sort of things?" said Mr Penwynn, uneasily.
"Trickeries--sharpings," said Geoffrey. "It is very evident that to
sell that mine, or may be to impress shareholders with its value, the
place has been more than once salted, as miners call it."
Mr Penwynn nodded.
"Tin ore from other mines has been thrown down, and, of course, I saw
through that directly; but in several places right at the end of drifts,
Pengelly and I have found great pieces of ore fitted into the solid rock
in the most artful manner, so that it needed no little care to find out
that it was a trick."
"But are you sure that it is a trick?" said Mr Penwynn.
"Certain, sir. It would have deceived an ordinary miner or owner."
"But did not deceive you?"
"Well, sir, I take no credit to myself for that. I went through a
course of mining study, and it is as simple as A B C."
"How so?"
"Why, look here, sir. Only yesterday Pengelly called me to show me a
rich place he had found."
"Yes. Well?"
"I had to crush the poor fellow's hopes at once. The thing was most
artistically done, a quantity of tin-bearing quartz, evidently _in
situ_."
"Yes."
"But I always carry this with me, Mr Penwynn," said Geoffrey, pulling
out a pocket-lens; "and that showed me at once that the quartz was
veined with a different mineral from that all around, and also that the
granulations of the stone were such as are found in the strata on the
other side of the county, and not here."
Mr Penwynn said nothing, but looked hard at his manager.
"They've spent a good deal of time and money to successfully swindle
people, and cleverly too, where the same energy and outlay would have
made a poor mine pay."
"Then you consider it a poor mine, Mr Trethick?"
"Very, sir."
"But the report I had said that it was rich."
"Then the reporter was either a fool or a knave," replied Geoffrey.
"Humph!" ejaculated Mr Penwynn, "and you think then that we had better
stop."
"Certainly not," said Geoffrey, flushing. "It cannot give a poorer
yield, for there are thousands of tons of such ore as we are now sending
to grass, and which I can make yield at least five per cent dividend,
while at any time we may `strike ile,' as our friends the Yankees call
it."
"Thank you, Trethick," said Mr Penwynn, quietly; and he drew a long
breath. "Go on, I leave myself in your hands."
Geoffrey did go on working most earnestly, and on this particular day he
had come up out of the mine, weary in body and mind, gone to the cottage
and changed, and then started off along the cliff for what he called a
blow.
"I'll go and see poor old Mrs Prawle," he said to himself; and in that
disposition he went on till he came to the nook where he had interposed
in Bess Prawle's defence; when, seeing an inviting place, he sat down,
and as he did so the whole scene came back.
He did not know how it was, but there was a curiously uneasy sensation
at his heart, and he found himself recalling Bess Prawle's looks, her
way of expressing her gratitude, and ended by taking himself to task.
"I can go there often enough and chat with the poor old woman--poor
soul, there's a very pathetic side to her patient, uncomplaining life;
but why should I go when it may cause uneasiness to others? Poor Bess!
she's a fine, handsome lass. I shall have her father making suggestions
like Uncle Paul about poor Madge. 'Pon my soul, I must be a very
fine-looking fellow," he cried merrily.
Then he laughed, took out a cigar, lit it, and sat smoking.
"The people here have too much time on their hands," he thought, "and it
makes them scandalous. I wonder they don't have the impudence to couple
my name with that of--"
"Bah! nonsense! what an idiot I am," he said, sharply; and the next
moment he was self-communing, and asking why he should be so uneasy at
such an idea.
For answer Rhoda's face seemed to rise before him, quiet, earnest, and
trustful. He seemed to hear her sweet, pleasant voice, not thrilling
him as whispering of love; but it seemed to him now that she had given
him encouragement, that her suggestions had been of endless value to
him, and that she was always so kind and sisterly to him, that--that--
was it sisterly this? Was his feeling brotherly?
His brow grew rugged, and then as he thought on he began to feel
startled at the new sensations that seemed to be springing up within his
breast. He looked inward, and he obtained a glimpse of that which he
had before ignored.
"Oh, it's absurd," he said, half aloud; "I should be mad. I should be a
scoundrel."
Then he stopped, for the face of Rhoda, with the large, searching eyes,
was gazing full into his, and this time it was no fancy. She was
returning from Gwennas Cove, and she had turned into the nook to see
once more the spot that had aroused such envious feelings in her breast.
"You here, Mr Trethick?" she said, quietly. "I did not expect to see
you."
"I did not expect to see you here," he said, as quietly; but his voice
sounded different, and Rhoda looked up at him for a moment, and then let
her eyelids fall.
She had not held out her hand to him, neither had he offered his, and
they stood there in that nook amidst the granite, surrounded by a solemn
silence which neither seemed disposed to break.
Nothing could have been more simple. They had met as they might have
met at any time, and they might have walked back quietly to the town.
It was the most everyday of occurrences, and yet it was the most
important moment of their lives.
They had both been blind, and now they were awakened, Rhoda to the fact
that her heart was at length stirred to its deepest depths, Geoffrey to
the knowledge that with all his strength of mind, his determination, his
will, he was a man with all a man's weaknesses, and, if weakness it
could be called, he loved the woman who stood with him, face to face.
He was dazzled, blinded at the revelation that had come like a
lightning's flash, and then a feeling of horror came upon him, for he
felt that he had been treacherous.
Then that horror seemed to be swept away by the stronger passion, and he
looked earnestly in her face till the blue-veined lids were raised, and
her eyes looked deeply and trustingly in his.
How long was it? Neither of them knew, before Geoffrey said quietly the
one word,--
"Rhoda!"
She looked up at him again, and then stood hesitating, for the thoughts
of the petty scandal she had heard flashed before her; but she shook
them off as if they had been venomous, and, looking him full in the
face, she placed her hand in his with an air of such implicit faith as
stirred him into speech.
"I did not know this--I did not think this," he said hoarsely; "and I
feel as if I were acting the part of a treacherous villain to the man
who has given me his confidence and trust."
"And why?" she said.
"Because I know that I love you," he said; "love you with all my heart.
Rhoda, I must leave here. I ought not to have spoken as I did."
She looked up at him timidly, with a half-flinching fear in her face as
she met his eyes, but it turned to a look of pride, and she laid another
hand upon his arm.
"No," she said, "you must stay. Geoffrey, I could not bear it if you
were to go."
He must have been more than man if he had not clasped her to his breast
at that, and in that embrace he felt her head rest upon his shoulder,
and knew that fate had been very kind to him, and that he had won the
love of a woman who would be part and parcel of his future life.
"And I had laughed at love," he said, little thinking that there were
witnesses of what was passing; "but now I know. Rhoda! Oh, my love!"
He clasped her in his arms again, and for a moment her lips met his.
Then with one consent they stood there hand in hand.
"I will tell him at once," said Geoffrey. "I know it will seem to him
like madness; but I dare not meet him if I could not look him in the
face. It is unfortunate, Rhoda, but yet I could not go back a moment of
my life now."
"Unfortunate?" she said gently.
"Yes. Have you thought what it may mean?"
She shook her head.
"The end of a dream of success. Mr Penwynn will say, what right have I
to think of you? He will call me adventurer, ask me how I dared to
presume, and bid me never enter his house again. I am his servant, and
it will be just."
"My father will be just," said Rhoda, gazing in his face; "and if he is
surprised and angry at first, he loves me too well to cause me pain.
Geoffrey: I am not ashamed of my choice."
He held her hands, looking down at her proudly, wondering that he had
not loved her from the first.
"You will succeed, Geoffrey," she continued, "and we can wait, for we
are young yet. My father, I know, already likes you for the same reason
that you first won my esteem."
"And why was that?" he said, smiling.
"You are so different to any one we ever knew before."
"Yes," he said at last, "we can wait."
And so they were pledged one to the other. Geoffrey never seemed to
know how it had happened; Rhoda could not have told when it was she
began to love; but they both knew, as by a sudden inspiration, that they
loved the deeper and stronger for the calmness upon the surface of their
lives.
There was no passionate wooing, there were no vows of constancy, all was
simplicity itself; but the foundation upon which their love had been
reared seemed firm as the granite around promised to be lasting; as the
sea whose ripples were now golden in the setting sun, whose warm glow
seemed to glorify the face of Rhoda, and intensify the love-light that
glanced from her eyes. It was a time of calm, and peace, and rest, and
as in the midst of this new joy, the quaint idea suggested itself that
their love seemed somehow associated with the scent of the wild thyme
they crushed beneath their feet, they stood there in silence, drinking
in deep mental draughts of the new sensation, and wondering at their
happiness the while.