They walked on for a s.p.a.ce in silence, till turning they began to ascend the winding path that led up to the hotel,--the path which Piers had watched Crowther ascend that morning.

Side by side they mounted, till half-way up Crowther checked their progress. "Piers," he said, "I'm grateful to you for enduring my interference in this matter."

"Pshaw!" said Piers, "I owe you that much anyhow."

"You owe me nothing," said Crowther emphatically. "What I did for you, I did for myself. I've rather a weakness--it's a very ordinary one too--for trying to manage other people's concerns. And there's something so fine about you that I can't bear to stand aside and see you mess up your own.

So, sonny,--for my satisfaction,--will you promise me not to take a wrong turning over this?"

He spoke very earnestly, with a pleading that could not give offence.

Piers' face softened almost in spite of him. "You're an awfully good chap," he said.

"Promise me, lad!" pleaded Crowther, still holding his arm in a friendly grasp; then as Piers hesitated: "You know, I'm an older man than you are. I can see further. You'll be making your own h.e.l.l if you don't."

"But why should I promise?" said Piers uneasily.

"Because I know you will keep a promise--even against your own judgment."

Simply, with absolute conviction, Crowther made reply. "I shan't feel happy about you--unless you promise."

Piers smiled a little, but the lines about his mouth were grim. "Oh, all right," he said, after a moment, "I promise;--for I think you are right, Crowther. I think too that I should probably have to tell her--whether I wanted to or not. She's that sort--the sort that none but a skunk could deceive. But--" his voice altered suddenly; he turned brooding eyes upon the sleeping sea--"I wonder if she will forgive me," he said.

"I--wonder."

"Does she love you?" said Crowther.

Piers' eyes flashed round at him. "I can make her love me," he said.

"You are sure?"

"I am sure."

"Then, my son, she'll forgive you. And if you want to play a straight game, tell her soon!" said Crowther.

And Piers, with all the light gone out of his eyes, answered soberly, "I will."

CHAPTER XXV

DROSS

In the morning they hired horses and went towards the mountains. The day was cloudless, but Sir Beverley would not be persuaded to accompany them.

"I'm not in the mood for exertion," he said to Piers. "Besides, I detest hired animals, always did. I shall spend an intellectual morning listening to the band."

"Hope you won't be bored, sir," said Piers.

"Your going or coming wouldn't affect that one way or another," responded Sir Beverley.

Whereat Piers laughed and went his way.

He was curiously light-hearted again that morning. The soft Southern air with its many perfumes exhilarated him like wine. The scent of the orange-groves rose as incense to the sun.

The animal he rode danced a skittish side-step from time to time. It was impossible to go with sober mien.

"It's a good land," said Crowther.

"Flowing with milk and honey," laughed Piers, with his eyes on the olive-clothed slopes. "But there's no country like one's own, what?"

"No country like England, you mean," said Crowther.

"Of course I do, but I was too polite to say so."

"You needn't be polite to me," said Crowther with his slow smile. "And England happens to be my country. I am as British--" he glanced at Piers'

dark face--"perhaps even a little more so--than you are."

"I plead guilty to an Italian grandmother," said Piers. "But you--I thought you were Colonial."

"I am British born and bred," said Crowther.

"You?" Piers looked at him in surprise. "You don't belong to Australia then?"

"Only by adoption. I was the son of an English parson. I was destined for the Church myself for the first twenty years of my life." Crowther was still smiling, but his eyes had left Piers; they scanned the horizon contemplatively.

"Great Scott!" said Piers. "Lucky escape for you, what?"

"I didn't think so at the time," Crowther spoke thoughtfully, sitting motionless in his saddle and gazing straight before him. "You see, I was keen on the religious life. I was narrow in my views--I was astonishingly narrow; but I was keen."

"Ye G.o.ds!" said Piers.

He looked at the square, strong figure incredulously. Somehow he could not a.s.sociate Crowther with any but a vigorous, outdoor existence.

"You would never have stuck to it," he said, after a moment. "You'd have loathed the life."

"I don't think so," said Crowther, in his deliberate way, "though I admit I probably shouldn't have expanded much. It wasn't easy to give it up at the time."

"What made you do it?" asked Piers.

"Necessity. When my father died, my mother was left with a large family and quite dest.i.tute. I was the eldest, and a sheep-farming uncle--a brother of hers--offered me a wage sufficient to keep her going if I would give up the Church and join him. I was already studying. I could have pushed through on my own; but I couldn't have supported her. So I had to go. That was the beginning of my Colonial life. It was five-and-twenty years ago, and I've never been Home since."

He turned his horse quietly round to continue the ascent. The road was steep. They went slowly side by side.

Crowther went on in a grave, detached way, as though he were telling the story of another man's life. "I kicked hard at going, but I've lived to be thankful that I went. I had to rough it, and it did me good. It was just that I wanted. There's never much fun for a stranger in a strange land, sonny, and it took me some time to shake down. In fact just for a while I thought I couldn't stand it. The loneliness out there on those acres and acres of gra.s.s-land was so awful; for I was city-bred. I'd never been in the desert, never been out of the sound of church-bells."

He began to smile again. "I'd even got a sort of feeling that G.o.d wasn't to be found outside civilization," he said. "I think we get ultra-civilized in our ideas sometimes. And the emptiness was almost overpowering. It was like being shut down behind bars of iron with occasional glimpses of h.e.l.l to enliven the monotony. That was when one went to the townships, and saw life. They didn't tempt me at first. I was too narrow even for that. But the loneliness went on eating and eating into me till I got so desperate in the end I was ready to s.n.a.t.c.h at any diversion." He paused a moment, and into his steady eyes there came a shadow that made them very human. "I went to h.e.l.l," he said. "I waded up to the neck in mire. I gave myself up to it body and soul. I wallowed. And all the while it revolted me, though it was so sickeningly easy and attractive. I loathed myself, but I went on with it. It seemed anyhow one degree better than that awful homesickness. And then one day, right in the middle of it all, I had a sort of dream. Or perhaps it wasn't any more a dream than Jacob had in the desert. But I felt as if I'd been called, and I just had to get up and go. I expect most people know the sensation, for after all the Kingdom of Heaven is within us; but it made a bigger impression on me at the time than anything in my experience. So I went back into the wilderness and waited. Old chap, I didn't wait in vain."

He suddenly turned his head, and his eyes rested upon Piers with the serenity of a man at peace with his own soul. "That's about all my story," he said with simplicity. "I got the strength for the job, and so carried it through. When my uncle died, I was left in command, and I've stuck to it ever since. But I took a partner a few years back, and now I've handed over the whole thing to him and I'm going Home at last to my old mother."

"Going to settle in England?" asked Piers.

Crowther shook his head. "Not now, lad. I couldn't. There's too much to be done. No; I'm going to fulfil my old ambitions if I can. I'm going to get myself ordained. After that--"