"Will it be kind or unkind, to tell you why I think he died as I tell you, and not at sea?"
"Kind, but impossible. You deceive yourself. Ah, I see. You found some poor sufferer, and were good to him; but it was not my poor Christie.
Oh, if it were, I should worship you. But I thank you as it is. It was very kind to want to give me this little, little crumb of comfort; for I know I did not behave well to you, sir: but you are generous, and have forgiven a poor heart-broken creature, that never was very wise."
He gave her time to cry, and then said to her, "I only wanted to be sure it WOULD be any comfort to you. Mrs. Staines, it is true I did not even know his name; nor yours. When I met, in this very room, the great disappointment that has saddened my own life, I left England directly. I collected funds, went to Natal, and turned land-owner and farmer. I have made a large fortune, but I need not tell you I am not happy. Well, I had a yacht, and sailing from Cape Town to Algoa Bay, I picked up a raft, with a dying man on it. He was perishing from exhaustion and exposure. I got a little brandy between his lips, and kept him alive. I landed with him at once: and we nursed him on sh.o.r.e. We had to be very cautious. He improved. We got him to take egg-flip. He smiled on us at first, and then he thanked us. I nursed him day and night for ten days.
He got much stronger. He spoke to me, thanked me again and again, and told me his name was Christopher Staines. He told me that he should never get well. I implored him to have courage. He said he did not want for courage; but nature had been tried too hard. We got so fond of each other. Oh!"--and the caitiff pretended to break down; and his feigned grief mingled with Rosa"s despairing sobs.
He made an apparent effort, and said, "He spoke to me of his wife, his darling Rosa. The name made me start, but I could not know it was you. At last he was strong enough to write a few lines, and he made me promise to take them to his wife."
"Ah!" said Rosa. "Show them me."
"I will."
"This moment." And her hands began to work convulsively.
"I cannot," said Falcon. "I have not brought them with me."
Rosa cast a keen eye of suspicion and terror on him. His not bringing the letter seemed monstrous; and so indeed it was. The fact is, the letter was not written.
Falcon affected not to notice her keen look. He flowed on, "The address he put on that letter astonished me. "Kent Villa." Of course I knew Kent Villa: and he called you "Rosa.""
"How could you come to me without that letter?" cried Rosa, wringing her hands. "How am I to know? It is all so strange, so incredible."
"Don"t you believe me?" said Falcon sadly. "Why should I deceive you?
The first time I came down to tell you all this, I did not KNOW who Mrs.
Staines was. I suspected; but no more. The second time I saw you in the church, and then I knew; and followed you to try and tell you all this; and you were not at home to me."
"Forgive me," said Rosa carelessly: then earnestly, "The letter! when can I see it?"
"I will send, or bring it."
"Bring it! I am in agony till I see it. Oh, my darling! my darling!
It can"t be true. It was not my Christie. He lies in the depths of the ocean. Lord Tadcaster was in the ship, and he says so; everybody says so."
"And I say he sleeps in hallowed ground, and these hands laid him there."
Rosa lifted her hands to heaven, and cried piteously, "I don"t know what to think. You would not willingly deceive me. But how can this be?
Oh, Uncle Philip, why are you away from me? Sir, you say he gave you a letter?"
"Yes."
"Oh, why, why did you not bring it?"
"Because he told me the contents; and I thought he prized my poor efforts too highly. It did not occur to me you would doubt my word."
"Oh, no: no more I do: but I fear it was not my Christie."
"I"ll go for the letter at once, Mrs. Staines."
"Oh, thank you! Bless you! Yes, this minute!"
The artful rogue did not go; never intended.
He rose TO GO; but had a sudden inspiration; very sudden, of course.
"Had he nothing about him you could recognize him by?"
"Yes, he had a ring I gave him."
Falcon took a black-edged envelope out of his pocket.
"A ruby ring," said she, beginning to tremble at his quiet action.
"Is that it?" and he handed her a ruby ring.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Mrs. Staines uttered a sharp cry and seized the ring. Her eyes dilated over it, and she began to tremble in every limb; and at last she sank slowly back, and her head fell on one side like a broken lily. The sudden sight of the ring overpowered her almost to fainting.
Falcon rose to call for a.s.sistance; but she made him a feeble motion not to do so.
She got the better of her faintness, and then she fell to kissing the ring, in an agony of love, and wept over it, and still held it, and gazed at it through her blinding tears.
Falcon eyed her uneasily.
But he soon found he had nothing to fear. For a long time she seemed scarcely aware of his presence; and when she noticed him, it was to thank him, almost pa.s.sionately.
"It was my Christie you were so good to: may Heaven bless you for it: and you will bring me his letter, will you not?"
"Of course I will."
"Oh, do not go yet. It is all so strange: so sad. I seem to have lost my poor Christie again, since he did not die at sea. But no, I am ungrateful to G.o.d, and ungrateful to the kind friend that nursed him to the last. Ah, I envy you that. Tell me all. Never mind my crying. I have seen the time I could not cry. It was worse then than now. I shall always cry when I speak of him, ay, to my dying day. Tell me, tell me all."
Her pa.s.sion frightened the egotist, but did not turn him. He had gone too far. He told her that, after raising all their hopes, Dr. Staines had suddenly changed for the worse, and sunk rapidly; that his last words had been about her, and he had said, "My poor Rosa, who will protect her?" That, to comfort him, he had said he would protect her.
Then the dying man had managed to write a line or two, and to address it. Almost his last words had been, "Be a father to my child."
"That is strange."
"You have no child? Then it must have been you he meant. He spoke of you as a child more than once."
"Mr. Falcon, I have a child; but born since I lost my poor child"s father."
"Then I think he knew it. They say that dying men can see all over the world: and I remember, when he said it, his eyes seemed fixed very strangely, as if on something distant. Oh, how wonderful all this is.
May I see his child, to whom I promised"--