CHAPTER XLI
She looked at him calmly, but in her set, white face he seemed to readalready his sentence!
"Do you think it worth while, Mr. Trent? There is so much, as you putit, 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 shouldbe as good as another's--and you have listened to what my enemy"--hemotioned towards Francis--"has to say."
Francis shrugged his shoulders.
"I can assure you," he interrupted, "that I have no feeling of enmitytowards you in the slightest. My opinion you know. I have never troubledto 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 wantto say before you see your father. I won't take up your time. I won'twaste words. I take you back ten years to when I met him at Attra and webecame partners in a certain enterprise. Your father at that time was aharmless wreck of a man who was fast killing himself with brandy. Hehad some money, I had none. With it we bought the necessary outfit andpresents for my enterprise and started for Bekwando. The whole of thework fell to my share, and with great trouble I succeeded in obtainingthe concessions we were working for. Your father spent all his timedrinking, and playing cards, when I would play with him. The agreementas to the sharing of the profits was drawn up, it is true, by me, but atthat time he made no word of complaint. I had no relations, he describedhimself as cut off wholly from his. It was here Francis first cameon the scene. He found your father half drunk, and when he read theagreement it was plain what he thought. He thought that I was lettingyour father kill himself that the whole thing might be mine. He hasprobably 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. Wewere pursued by the natives, who repented their concession, and I hadto fight them more than once, half a dozen strong, with your fatherunconscious at my feet. It is true that I left him in the bush, but itwas at his bidding and I believed him dying. It was my only chance andI took it. I escaped and reached Attra. Then, to raise money to reachEngland, 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 theprofits of the concession. One day I quarrelled with him--it was justat the time I met you--and then, for the first time, I heard of yourfather's being alive. I went out to Africa to bring him back and DaSouza followed me in abject fear, for as my partner he lost half if yourfather'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 meantto bring him back to England with me when I came, unfortunately herecovered a little and suddenly seized upon the idea of visitingEngland. He left before me and fell into the hands of Da Souza, whohad the best possible reasons in the world for keeping him in thebackground. I rescued him from them in time to save him from death andbrought him to my own house, sent for doctors and nurses, and, whenhe was fit for you to see, I should have sent for you. I did not, I'lladmit, make any public declaration of his existence, for the simplereason that it would have crippled our Company, and there are theinterests of the shareholders to be considered, but I executed andsigned a deed of partnership days ago which makes him an equal sharer inevery penny I possess. Now this is the truth, Miss Wendermott, and ifit is not a story I am particularly proud of, I don't very well see whatelse I could have done. It is my story and it is a true one. Will youbelieve 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 onlyfair to repeat it to your face. I have told Miss Wendermott this--that Imet you first in the village of Bekwando with a concession in your handmade out to you and her father jointly, with the curious proviso that inthe event of the death of one the other was his heir. I pointed out toMiss Wendermott that you were in the prime of life and in magnificentcondition, while her father was already on the threshold of the graveand drinking himself into a fever in a squalid hut in a village ofswamps. I told her that I suspected foul play, that I followed you bothand found her father left to the tender mercies of the savages,deserted by you in the bush. I told her that many months afterwards hedisappeared, simultaneously with your arrival in the country, that a dayor two ago you swore to me you had no idea where he was. That has beenmy story, Trent, let Miss Wendermott choose between them."
"I am content," Trent cried fiercely. "Your story is true enough, but itis cunningly linked together. You have done your worst. Choose!"
For ever afterwards he was glad of that single look of reproach whichseemed to escape her unwittingly as her eyes met his. But she turnedaway and his heart was like a stone.
"You have deceived me, Mr. Trent. I am very sorry, and verydisappointed."
"And you," he cried passionately, "are you yourself so blameless? Wereyou altogether deceived by your relations, or had you never a suspicionthat 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 yourfather's partner, and never once did you give yourself away! Were youtarred with the same brush as those canting snobs who doomed a poor oldman to a living death? Doesn't it look like it? What am I to think ofyou?"
"Your judgment, Mr. Trent," she answered quietly, "is of no importanceto me! It does not interest me in any way. But I will tell you this. IfI did not disclose myself, it was because I distrusted you. I wanted toknow the truth, and I set myself to find it out."
"Your friendship was a lie, then!" he cried, with flashing eyes. "To youI was nothing but a suspected man to be spied upon and betrayed."
She faltered and did not answer him. Outside the nurse was knocking atthe door. Trent waved them away with an imperious gesture.
"Be off," he cried, "both of you! You can do your worst! I thank Heaventhat I am not of your class, whose men have flints for hearts and whosewomen can lie like angels."
They left him alone, and Trent, with a groan, plucked from his heartthe one strong, sweet hope which had changed his life so wonderfully.Upstairs, Monty was sobbing, with his little girl's arms about him.
CHAPTER XLII
With the darkness had come a wind from the sea, and the boy creptoutside in his flannels and planter's hat and threw himself down in acane chair with a little murmur of relief. Below him burned the whitelights of the town, a little noisier than usual to-night, for out inthe bay a steamer was lying-to, and there had been a few passengers andcargo to land. The boy had had a hard day's work, or he would have beenin the town himself to watch for arrivals and wait for the mail. Heclosed his eyes, half asleep, for the sun had been hot and the murmursof the sea below was almost like a lullaby. As he lay there a man'svoice from the path reached him. He sprang up, listening intently. Itmust have been fancy--and yet! He leaned over the wooden balcony. Thefigure of a man loomed out through the darkness, came nearer, becamedistinct. Fred recognised him with a glad shout.
"Trent!" he cried. "Scarlett Trent, by all that's amazing!"
Trent held out his hand quickly. Somehow the glad young voice, quiveringwith excitement, touched his heart in an unexpected and unusual manner.It was pleasant to be welcomed like this--to feel that one person in theworld at least was glad of his coming. For Trent was a sorely strickenman and the flavour of life had gone from him. Many a time he had lookedover the steamer's side during that long, lonely voyage and gazed almostwishfully into the sea, in whose embrace was rest. It seemed to himthat he had been a gambler playing for great stakes, and the turn of thewheel had gone against him.
"Fred!"
They stood with hands locked together, the boy breathless with surprise.Then he saw that something was wrong.
"What is it, Trent?" he asked quickly. "Have we gone smash after all, orhave you been ill?"
Trent shook his head and smiled gravely.
 
; "Neither," he said. "The Company is booming, I believe. Civilised waysdidn't agree with me, I'm afraid. That's all! I've come back to have amonth or two's hard work--the best physic in the world."
"I am delighted to see you," Fred said heartily. "Everything's goingA1 here, and they've built me this little bungalow, only got in it lastweek--stunning, isn't it? But--just fancy your being here again so soon!Are your traps coming up?"
"I haven't many," Trent answered. "They're on the way. Have you got roomfor me?"
"Room for you!" the boy repeated scornfully. "Why, I'm all alone here.It's the only thing against the place, being a bit lonely. Room for you!I should think there is! Here, Dick! Dinner at once, and some wine!"
Trent was taken to see his room, the boy talking all the time, and lateron dinner was served and the boy did the honours, chaffing and talkinglightly. But later on when they sat outside, smoking furiously to keepoff the mosquitoes and watching the fireflies dart in and out amongstthe trees, the boy was silent. Then he leaned over and laid his hand onTrent's arm.
"Tell me all about it--do," he begged.
Trent was startled, touched, and suddenly filled with a desire forsympathy such as he had never before in his life experienced. Hehesitated, but it was only for a moment.
"I never thought to tell any one," he said slowly, "I think I'd liketo!"
And he did. He told his whole story. He did not spare himself. He spokeof the days of his earlier partnership with Monty, and he admitted theapparent brutality of his treatment of him on more than one occasion.He spoke of Ernestine too--of his strange fancy for the photographof Monty's little girl, a fancy which later on when he met her becamealmost immediately the dominant passion of his life. Then he spoke ofthe coming of Francis, of the awakening of Ernestine's suspicions,and of that desperate moment when he risked everything on her faith inhim--and lost. There was little else to tell and afterwards there wasa silence. But presently the boy's hand fell upon his arm almostcaressingly and he leaned over through the darkness.
"Women are such idiots," the boy declared, with all the vigour andcertainty of long experience. "If only Aunt Ernestine had known you halfas well as I do, she would have been quite content to have trusted youand to have believed that what you did was for the best. But I say,Trent, you ought to have waited for it. After she had seen her fatherand talked with him she must have understood you better. I shall writeto her."
But Trent shook his head.
"No," he said sternly, "it is too late now. That moment taught me all Iwanted to know. It was her love I wanted, Fred, and--that--no use hopingfor that, or she would have trusted me. After all I was half a madmanever to have expected it--a rough, coarse chap like me, with only asmattering of polite ways! It was madness! Some day I shall get over it!We'll chuck work for a bit, soon, Fred, and go for some lions. That'llgive us something to think about at any rate."
But the lions which Trent might have shot lived in peace, for on themorrow he was restless and ill, and within a week the deadly fever ofthe place had him in its clutches. The boy nursed him and the Germandoctor came up from Attra and, when he learnt who his patient was, tookup his quarters in the place. But for all his care and the boy's nursingthings went badly with Scarlett Trent.
To him ended for a while all measure of days--time became one longnight, full of strange, tormenting flashes of thought, passing like redfire before his burning eyes. Sometimes it was Monty crying to him fromthe bush, sometimes the yelling of those savages at Bekwando seemed tofill the air, sometimes Ernestine was there, listening to his passionatepleading with cold, set face. In the dead of night he saw her and thestill silence was broken by his hoarse, passionate cries, which theystrove in vain to check. And when at last he lay white and still withexhaustion, the doctor looked at the boy and softly shook his head. Hehad very little hope.
Trent grew worse. In those rare flashes of semi-consciousness whichsometimes come to the fever-stricken, he reckoned himself a dying manand contemplated the end of all things without enthusiasm and withoutregret. The one and only failure of his life had eaten like canker intohis heart. It was death he craved for in the hot, burning nights, anddeath came and sat, a grisly shadow, at his pillow. The doctor and theboy did their best, but it was not they who saved him.
There came a night when he raved, and the sound of a woman's name rangout from the open windows of the little bungalow, rang out through thedrawn mosquito netting amongst the palm-trees, across the surf-toppedsea to the great steamer which lay in the bay. Perhaps she heardit--perhaps after all it was a fancy. Only, in the midst of his fever,a hand as soft as velvet and as cool as the night sea-wind touched hisforehead, and a voice sounded in his ears so sweetly that the bloodburned no longer in his veins, so sweetly that he lay back upon hispillow like a man under the influence of a strong narcotic and slept.Then the doctor smiled and the boy sobbed.
"I came," she said softly, "because it was the only atonement I couldmake. I ought to have trusted you. Do you know, even my father told methat."
"I have made mistakes," he said, "and of course behaved badly to him."
"Now that everything has been explained," she said, "I scarcely see whatelse you could have done. At least you saved him from Da Souza when hisdeath would have made you a freer man. He is looking forward to seeingyou, you must make haste and get strong."
"For his sake," he murmured.
She leaned over and caressed him lightly. "For mine, dear."
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