"Well then, 'duty calls,'" I rejoined, forcing a laugh. "So long. We shall meet again in the vast length of an hour or so."

As I turned my horse and struck into the bush path I prided myself on my own acting powers. In point of fact, I had no intention of going to the vee-kraal--none whatever. There was no necessity to, seeing I had counted out there that same morning and had found the count correct.

But 'two's company, three's a crowd' if a threadbare, is eke a wholesome axiom, and I did not choose, under the circ.u.mstances, to const.i.tute the crowd. But it was time I broke off from them if I wanted to keep up my role; yet I could not help speculating as to what had transpired during that ride. Had anything? From their looks as I joined them, it might have. Or from Pentridge's look when I branched off, it might yet be to come. But then in that case, why did Beryl so genuinely wish me to accompany them the rest of the way? Well, well. Time would show.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

OPPORTUNITY?

"By the way, what have I done to you, Kenrick?"

We were walking together, Beryl and I, in the garden, just as we had walked on the evening of my arrival, only that now the shade had nearly vanished with the fall of leaves. We had not walked together thus alone since prior to the tragedy, but to-day it happened that Pentridge was out with Septimus Matterson, and as I had mentioned an intention of doing something to the garden, Beryl had joined me. We had walked on thus together, chatting about the piece of work I had in hand, when she suddenly faced round on me with the above query.

"Done to me?" I echoed rather blankly. "Done to me? What do you mean, Beryl?"

"Well, why have you avoided me so of late--rather markedly, too?"

Rather markedly? Great heaven! And here I had been priding myself all this while upon having played my part so well, above all so un.o.btrusively. And this was what it had amounted to--that I had avoided her "rather markedly." But there was no trace of resentment, of temper, in her tone. It was merely that of one desiring information, and her great eyes were bent straight and searchingly upon my face.

What was I to say? I became conscious that I was staring stupidly at her, but if only she could have read my mind! Yet I could hardly read it myself. All sorts of whirling confused thoughts were chasing each other through it, as I looked at her standing there, sweet, and cool, and graceful, and wholly alluring, but--not for me, ah no! not for me.

How could I tell her of the bitter upheaval of the last couple of weeks?

How could I tell her the truth without telling her the whole truth?

How could I tell her that I, a beggared pauper, had been striving to stifle and live down the love I had been on the point of declaring? It was too late for that, and, over and above, would not such a declaration now be simply a cheapening of myself; now that I had a.s.sured myself that, in any event, whatever love she had to give was not for me? What was I to say? I could not deny that I had avoided her. Her natural quick-wittedness and woman's instinct were not to be set aside in any so light a fashion, yet I shrank from laying my own wounds bare.

"Why, don't you see what a lot I've had to do, Beryl?" I said. "Rather more than usual of late. And you've had a visitor to entertain, too.

Pentridge is a good chap, isn't he?"

All this I rattled out airily, and in the most natural manner in the world, as I thought. But she was not taken in.

"You haven't been yourself at all for some time, Kenrick," she went on, "not since we came back, anyhow. I'm not the only one who has noticed it."

"So? Who else has?" I asked laughingly.

"Well, Dr Pentridge for one. We were talking about you the other day, and he said you gave him the idea of a man who had something on his mind. He's a doctor, you see."

"Ho-ho! Quite so; and now he's trying to capture a fee out of consulting hours," I laughed. "Never mind, Beryl. We won't call in Pentridge professionally just yet."

I had a spade in my hand, and with it I set to work to clear away a slight obstruction in the furrow beneath the quince hedge; and while I did so I realised that my laugh did not ring true, that it no more imposed upon Beryl than it did upon myself.

"By the way," I went on, "he's coming to practice in Fort Lamport, he tells me. That'll be handy if I want to put him in charge of my case."

"Kenrick, will you stop joking and be serious," she said. "First of all, answer my first question. Have I done or said anything to offend you?"

"Why, good heavens! of course not. How on earth could you?"

"That's a weight off my mind, at any rate," she answered with a little smile.

I stood and faced her.

"Look here, Beryl," I said. "To prevent any misunderstanding I'll tell you this much. I have something on my mind just now, but it relates to matters of business. I had some rather nasty news from England the day before you came back, and it has worried me a good bit. That's all."

But she shook her head.

"I doubt if that is all," she said, and my pulses were set a-hammering as I wondered whether she was going to get the rest of it out of me too.

"I believe it is worse than you are admitting. I don't want to pry into your affairs, Kenrick, but you are like one of ourselves now, and I can't bear to see you going about looking as you have been doing of late. And--and--you might do worse than consult father or Brian about it. They are both very shrewd in that line you know, and might be of use to you."

"Well, it may come to that," I answered. "But meanwhile, Beryl, what I have told you is between ourselves. You made me tell you, you know.

Heaven knows I never intended to whine to you about my sordid grievances."

"Kenrick, don't," she said, impulsively putting forth her hand to rest on mine. "'Whine,' indeed! That isn't you anyway. Why, I am proud of your confidence, and sorry--oh, so sorry--for its cause. But you must cheer up. I have an instinct that everything will come right. It sometimes does, you know."

Would it? I thought I knew better, but I had done enough grizzling already, so was not going to say so. And I thought with a certain bitterness that her sympathy, sweet as it was, was not of the nature I could have wished it to be. Even then the concern in her tone, the softening of her eyes, the touch of her hand as she stood facing me, scattered my resolution to the winds. She should know all, then and there--all--all.

"So you think that everything will come right, do you?" I said, pretending to do something with the spade so as not to be obliged to look at her.

"Yes. I have an instinct that way."

"But if it can't?"

"That is an 'if' in which my belief is somewhat feeble," she answered confidently.

"Supposing I--er, supposing a man had lost all he had in the world, and that beyond all possibility of recovery--what then?"

"He might remedy the loss. Energy, some resourcefulness, and a great deal of common sense, const.i.tute not a bad foundation for a fresh start--say in a country like this."

The cool, practical, matter-of-fact tone of this reply fairly startled me--and then--Great Scott! the remarks that Pentridge had let fall during our conversation a day or two back, gratifying to myself in that they reflected the estimation in which I seemed to be held, flashed across my mind. Beryl's words were spoken with a purpose--were meant to be taken home, and with the idea came another. Could I, without anything definite pa.s.sing between us, turn the key of her mind as regarded herself?

"Yes, he might remedy the loss--after a time," I said, still pretending to work with the spade--still not looking at her. "After a time. But what if that time were too late?"

"Could it ever be?"

"Why, yes. Because by that time what would have made success worth striving for might be no longer attainable; might have pa.s.sed out of reach irrevocably and for ever."

She did not answer. In the tensity of the silence the clink of my spade in the dry dusty furrow seemed to my wrought-up mind to sound as with a loud hammering. A network of sunlight, from the deep blue of an early winter sky, fell through the nearly denuded boughs upon the earth around, and the screech of crickets and the far-off melodious shout of a hoepoe hardly seemed to break the stillness. What would she answer? Or would she even understand? And as to this I almost hoped not, for here had I, under cover of this veiled talk, been saying to her in effect: "Beryl, I am a ruined man, a beggar, but--how would it be to throw away the best years of your life and wait for me on the off chance of my ever being able to rise substantially above that most unenviable position?"

"Of course I am only putting a case," I appended with conscious lameness.

"Oh, of course," she answered readily. "But, supposing--"

"Beryl! Beryl!" rang out a clear, child-voice, _crescendo_. "Oh, there you are. I thought she had gone to the garden, Dr Pentridge," this last back over a shoulder, and Iris came tearing along the path, tossing back the wealth of her gold-brown hair. After her, in more leisurely fashion, came Pentridge.

He started on seeing me, so plainly, so unmistakably, that, keenly observant, I at once set up the theory within my own mind that he had come to find Beryl alone, with a purpose of course. The child could easily have been got rid of, but I--well, that was a different matter.

"Ha, Holt! Hard at it as usual?" he said, with rather a forced geniality.

"Not particularly hard. Only filling up an odd moment."