"How?"
She paused. The calm smile lighted up her face once more. Then she drew out a pencil. "You think life must lack plot-interest for me," she began, slowly, "because, with certain natures, I can partially guess beforehand what is coming. But have you not observed that, in reading a novel, part of the pleasure you feel arises from your conscious antic.i.p.ation of the end, and your satisfaction in seeing that you antic.i.p.ated correctly? Or part, sometimes, from the occasional unexpectedness of the real denouement? Well, life is like that. I enjoy observing my successes, and, in a way, my failures. Let me show you what I mean. I think I know what you said to Sebastian--not the words, of course, but the purport; and I will write it down now for you. Set down YOUR version, too. And then we will compare them."
It was a crucial test. We both wrote for a minute or two. Somehow, in Hilda"s presence, I forgot at once the strangeness of the scene, the weird oddity of the moment. That sombre plain disappeared for me. I was only aware that I was with Hilda once more--and therefore in Paradise.
Pison and Gihon watered the desolate land. Whatever she did seemed to me supremely right. If she had proposed to me to begin a ponderous work on Medical Jurisprudence, under the shadow of the big rock, I should have begun it incontinently.
She handed me her slip of paper; I took it and read: "Sebastian told you I was Dr. Yorke-Bannerman"s daughter. And you answered, "If so, Yorke-Bannerman was innocent, and YOU are the poisoner." Is not that correct?"
I handed her in answer my own paper. She read it with a faint flush.
When she came to the words: "Either she is not Yorke-Bannerman"s daughter; or else, Yorke-Bannerman was not a poisoner, and someone else was--I might put a name to him," she rose to her feet with a great rush of long-suppressed feeling, and clasped me pa.s.sionately. "My Hubert!"
she cried, "I read you aright. I knew it! I was sure of you!"
I folded her in my arms, there, on the rusty-red South African desert.
"Then, Hilda dear," I murmured, "you will consent to marry me?"
The words brought her back to herself. She unfolded my arms with slow reluctance. "No, dearest," she said, earnestly, with a face where pride fought hard against love. "That is WHY, above all things, I did not want you to follow me. I love you; I trust you: you love me; you trust me.
But I never will marry anyone till I have succeeded in clearing my father"s memory. I KNOW he did not do it; I KNOW Sebastian did. But that is not enough. I must prove it, I must prove it!"
"I believe it already," I answered. "What need, then, to prove it?"
"To you, Hubert? Oh, no; not to you. There I am safe. But to the world that condemned him--condemned him untried. I must vindicate him; I must clear him!"
I bent my face close to hers. "But may I not marry you first?" I asked--"and after that, I can help you to clear him."
She gazed at me fearlessly. "No, no!" she cried, clasping her hands; "much as I love you, dear Hubert, I cannot consent to it. I am too proud!--too proud! I will not allow the world to say--not even to say falsely"--her face flushed crimson; her voice dropped low--"I will not allow them to say those hateful words, "He married a murderer"s daughter.""
I bowed my head. "As you will, my darling," I answered. "I am content to wait. I trust you in this, too. Some day, we will prove it."
And all this time, preoccupied as I was with these deeper concerns, I had not even asked where Hilda lived, or what she was doing!
CHAPTER VII
THE EPISODE OF THE STONE THAT LOOKED ABOUT IT
Hilda took me back with her to the embryo farm where she had pitched her tent for the moment; a rough, wild place. It lay close to the main road from Salisbury to Chimoio.
Setting aside the inevitable rawness and newness of all things Rhodesian, however, the situation itself was not wholly unpicturesque. A ramping rock or tor of granite, which I should judge at a rough guess to extend to an acre in size, sprang abruptly from the brown gra.s.s of the upland plain. It rose like a huge boulder. Its summit was crowned by the covered grave of some old Kaffir chief--a rude cairn of big stones under a thatched awning. At the foot of this jagged and cleft rock the farmhouse nestled--four square walls of wattle-and-daub, sheltered by its ma.s.s from the sweeping winds of the South African plateau. A stream brought water from a spring close by: in front of the house--rare sight in that thirsty land--spread a garden of flowers. It was an oasis in the desert. But the desert itself stretched grimly all round. I could never quite decide how far the oasis was caused by the water from the spring, and how far by Hilda"s presence.
"Then you live here?" I cried, gazing round--my voice, I suppose, betraying my latent sense of the unworthiness of the position.
"For the present," Hilda answered, smiling. "You know, Hubert, I have no abiding city anywhere, till my Purpose is fulfilled. I came here because Rhodesia seemed the farthest spot on earth where a white woman just now could safely penetrate--in order to get away from you and Sebastian."
"That is an unkind conjunction!" I exclaimed, reddening.
"But I mean it," she answered, with a wayward little nod. "I wanted breathing-s.p.a.ce to form fresh plans. I wanted to get clear away for a time from all who knew me. And this promised best.... But nowadays, really, one is never safe from intrusion anywhere."
"You are cruel, Hilda!"
"Oh, no. You deserve it. I asked you not to come--and you came in spite of me. I have treated you very nicely under the circ.u.mstances, I think.
I have behaved like an angel. The question is now, what ought I to do next? You have upset my plans so."
"Upset your plans? How?"
"Dear Hubert,"--she turned to me with an indulgent smile,--"for a clever man, you are really TOO foolish! Can"t you see that you have betrayed my whereabouts to Sebastian? _I_ crept away secretly, like a thief in the night, giving no name or place; and, having the world to ransack, he might have found it hard to track me; for HE had not YOUR clue of the Basingstoke letter--nor your reason for seeking me. But now that YOU have followed me openly, with your name blazoned forth in the company"s pa.s.senger-lists, and your traces left plain in hotels and stages across the map of South Africa--why, the spoor is easy. If Sebastian cares to find us, he can follow the scent all through without trouble."
"I never thought of that!" I cried, aghast.
She was forbearance itself. "No, I knew you would never think of it. You are a man, you see. I counted that in. I was afraid from the first you would wreck all by following me."
I was mutely penitent. "And yet, you forgive me, Hilda?"
Her eyes beamed tenderness. "To know all, is to forgive all," she answered. "I have to remind you of that so often! How can I help forgiving, when I know WHY you came--what spur it was that drove you?
But it is the future we have to think of now, not the past. And I must wait and reflect. I have NO plan just at present."
"What are you doing at this farm?" I gazed round at it, dissatisfied.
"I board here," Hilda answered, amused at my crestfallen face. "But, of course, I cannot be idle; so I have found work to do. I ride out on my bicycle to two or three isolated houses about, and give lessons to children in this desolate place, who would otherwise grow up ignorant.
It fills my time, and supplies me with something besides myself to think about."
"And what am _I_ to do?" I cried, oppressed with a sudden sense of helplessness.
She laughed at me outright. "And is this the first moment that that difficulty has occurred to you?" she asked, gaily. "You have hurried all the way from London to Rhodesia without the slightest idea of what you mean to do now you have got here?"
I laughed at myself in turn. "Upon my word, Hilda," I cried, "I set out to find you. Beyond the desire to find you, I had no plan in my head.
That was an end in itself. My thoughts went no farther."
She gazed at me half saucily. "Then don"t you think, sir, the best thing you can do, now you HAVE found me, is--to turn back and go home again?"
"I am a man," I said, promptly, taking a firm stand. "And you are a judge of character. If you really mean to tell me you think THAT likely--well, I shall have a lower opinion of your insight into men than I have been accustomed to harbour."
Her smile was not wholly without a touch of triumph.
"In that case," she went on, "I suppose the only alternative is for you to remain here."
"That would appear to be logic," I replied. "But what can I do? Set up in practice?"
"I don"t see much opening," she answered. "If you ask my advice, I should say there is only one thing to be done in Rhodesia just now--turn farmer."
"It IS done," I answered, with my usual impetuosity. "Since YOU say the word, I am a farmer already. I feel an interest in oats that is simply absorbing. What steps ought I to take first in my present condition?"
She looked at me, all brown with the dust of my long ride. "I would suggest," she said slowly, "a good wash, and some dinner."
"Hilda," I cried, surveying my boots, or what was visible of them, "that is REALLY clever of you. A wash and some dinner! So practical, so timely! The very thing! I will see to it."
Before night fell, I had arranged everything. I was to buy the next farm from the owner of the one where Hilda lodged; I was also to learn the rudiments of South African agriculture from him for a valuable consideration; and I was to lodge in his house while my own was building. He gave me his views on the cultivation of oats. He gave them at some length--more length than perspicuity. I knew nothing about oats, save that they were employed in the manufacture of porridge--which I detest; but I was to be near Hilda once more, and I was prepared to undertake the superintendence of the oat from its birth to its reaping if only I might be allowed to live so close to Hilda.