II
He did not leave the house that afternoon. He kept his post on the veranda, watching the valley. With an iron kind of calmness he was facing a strange event. It was full of the element of chance, and he had been taking chances all his life. With the chances of fortune he had won; with the chances of love and happiness he had lost. He knew that the horseman on the mountain-side was Cayley; he knew that Cayley would not be near his home without a purpose. Besides, Cayley had said he would come—he had said it in half banter, half threat. Houghton had had too many experiences backward and forward in the world, to be afflicted with littleness of mind. He had never looked to get an immense amount of happiness out of life, but he thought that love and marriage would give him a possible approach to content. He had chanced it, and he had lost. At first he had taken it with a dreadful bitterness; now he regarded it with a quiet, unimpassioned despair. He regarded his wife, himself, and Cayley, as an impartial judge would view the extraordinary claims of three desperate litigants. He thought it all over as he sat there smoking. When the servants came to him to ask him questions or his men ventured upon matters of business, he answered them directly, decisively, and went on thinking. His wife had come to take coffee with him at the usual hour of the afternoon. There was no special strain of manner or of speech. The voices were a little lower, the tones a little more decided, their eyes did not meet; that was all. When coffee-drinking was over the wife retired to her room. Still Houghton smoked on. At length he saw the horseman entering into the grove of palms before the door. He rose deliberately from his seat and walked down the pathway.
"Good day to you, Houghton," the horseman said; "we meet again, you see."
"I see."
"You are not overjoyed."
"There's no reason why I should be glad. Why have you come?"
"You remember our last meeting five years ago. You were on your way to be married. Marriage is a beautiful thing, Houghton, when everything is right and square, and there's love both sides. Well, everything was right and square with you and the woman you were going to marry; but there was not love both sides."
While they had been talking thus, Houghton had, of purpose, led his companion far into the shade of the palms. He now wheeled upon Cayley, and said sternly: "I warn you to speak with less insolence; we had better talk simply."
Cayley was perfectly cool. "We will talk simply. As I said, you had marriage without love. The woman loved another man. That other man loved the woman—that good woman. In youthful days at college he had married, neither wisely nor well, a beggar-maid without those virtues usually credited to beggar-maidens who marry gentlemen. Well, Houghton, the beggar-maid was supposed to have died. She hadn't died; she had shammed. Meanwhile, between her death and her resurrection, the man came to love that good woman. And so, lines got crossed; things went wrong. Houghton, I loved Alice before she was your wife. I should have married her but for the beggar-maid."
"You left her without telling her why."
"I told her that things must end, and I went away."
"Like a coward," rejoined Houghton. "You should have told her all."
"What difference has it made?" asked Cayley gloomily.
"My happiness and hers. If you had told her all, there had been an end of mystery. Mystery is dear to a woman's heart. She was not different in that respect from others. You took the surest way to be remembered."
Cayley's fingers played with his horse's mane; his eyes ran over the ground debatingly; then he lifted them suddenly, and said: "Houghton, you are remarkably frank with me; what do you mean by it?"
"I'll tell you if you will answer me this question: Why have you come here?"
The eyes of both men crossed like swords, played with each other for a moment, and then fixed to absolute determination. Cayley answered doggedly: "I came to see your wife, because I'm not likely ever to see her or you again. I wanted one look of her before I went away. There, I'm open with you."
"It is well to be open with me," Houghton replied. He drew Cayley aside to an opening in the trees, where the mountain and the White Bluff road could be seen, and pointed. "That would make a wonderful leap," he said, "from the top of the hill down to the cliff edge—and over!"
"A dreadful steeplechase," said Cayley.
Houghton lowered his voice. "Two people have agreed to take that fence."
Cayley frowned. "What two people?"
"My wife and I"
"Why?"
"Because there has been a mistake, and to live is misery."
"Has it come to that?" Cayley asked huskily. "Is there no way—no better way? Are you sure that Death mends things?" Presently he put his hand upon Houghton's arm, as if with a sudden, keen resolve. "Houghton," he said, "you are a man—I have become a villain. A woman sent me once on the high road to the devil; then an angel came in and made a man of me again; but I lost the angel, and another man found her, and I took the highway with the devil again. I was born a gentleman—that you know. Now I am . . ." He hesitated. A sardonic smile crept across his face.
"Yes, you are—?" interposed Houghton.
"I am—a man who will give you your wife's love."
"I do not understand," Houghton responded. Cayley drew Houghton back from where they stood and away from the horse.
"Look at that horse," he said. "Did you ever see a better?"
"Never," answered Houghton, running him over with his eye, "never."
"You notice the two white feet and the star on the forehead. Now, listen. Firefoot, here!"
"My God!" said Houghton, turning upon him with staring eyes, "you are—"
"Whose horse is that?" interjected Cayley. Firefoot laid his head upon
Cayley's shoulder.
Houghton looked at them both for a moment. "It is the horse of Hyland the bushranger," he said. "All Queensland knows Firefoot." Then he dazedly added: "Are you Hyland?"
"A price is set on my head," the bushranger answered with a grim smile.
Houghton stood silent for a moment, breathing hard. Then he rejoined:
"You are bold to come here openly."
"If I couldn't come here openly I would not come at all," answered the other. "After what I have told you," he added, "will you take me in and let me speak with your wife?"
Houghton's face turned black, and he was about to answer angrily, but
Cayley said: "On my honour—I will play a fair game," he said.
For an instant their eyes were fixed on each other; then, with a gesture for Cayley to follow, Houghton went towards the house.
Five, minutes later Houghton said to his wife: "Alice, a stranger has come."
"Who is it?" she asked breathlessly, for she read importance in his tone.
"It is the horseman we saw on the hillside." His eyes passed over her face pityingly. "I will go and bring him."
She caught his arm. "Who is it? Is it any one I know?"
"It is some one you know," he answered, and left the room. Bewildered, anticipating, yet dreading to recognise her thoughts, she sat down and waited in a painful stillness.
Presently the door opened, and Cayley entered. She started to her feet with a stifled, bitter cry: "Oh, Harry!"
He hurried to her with arms outstretched, for she swayed; but she straightway recovered herself, and, leaning against a chair, steadied to his look.
"Why have you come here?" she whispered. "To say good-bye for always," was his reply.
"And why—for always?" She was very white and quiet.
"Because we are not likely ever to meet again."
"Where are you going?" she anxiously asked. "God knows!"
Strange sensations were working in her. What would be the end of this?
Her husband, knowing all, had permitted this man to come to her alone.
She had loved him for years; though he had deserted her years ago, she
loved him still—did she love him still?
"Will you not sit down?" she said with mechanical courtesy.
A stranger would not have thought from their manner that there were lives at stake. They both sat, he playing with the leaves of an orchid, she opening and shutting her fan absently. But she was so cold she could hardly speak. Her heart seemed to stand still.
"How has the world used you since we met last?" she tried to say neutrally.
"Better, I fear, than I have used it," he answered quietly.
"I do not quite see. How could you ill-use the world?" There was faint irony in her voice now. A change seemed to have come upon her.
"By ill-using any one person we ill-use society—the world"—he meaningly replied.
"Whom have you ill-used?" She did not look at him.
"Many—you chiefly."
"How have you—most-ill-used me?"
"By letting you think well of me—you have done so, have you not?"
She did not speak, but lowered her head, and caught her breath slightly.
There was a silence. Then she said: "There was no reason why I should—
But you must not say these things to me. My husband—"
"Your husband knows all."
"But that does not alter it," she urged firmly. "Though he may be willing you should speak of these things, I am not."
"Your husband is a good fellow," he rejoined. "I am not."
"You are not?" she asked wearily.
"No. What do you think was the reason that, years ago, I said we could never be married, and that we must forget each other?"
"I cannot tell. I supposed it was some duty of which I could not know. There are secret and sacred duties which we sometimes do not tell, even to our nearest and dearest . . . but I said we should not speak of these things, and we must not." She rose to her feet. "My husband is somewhere near. I will call him. There are so many things that men can talk of-pleasant and agreeable things—"
He had risen with her, and as her hand was stretched out to ring, stayed it. "No, never mind your husband just now. I think he knows what I am going to say to you."
"But, oh, you must not—must not!" she urged.
"Pardon me, but I must," was his reply.
"As I said, you thought I was a good fellow. Well, I am not; not at all.
I will tell you why I left you. I was—already married."
He let the bare unrelieved fact face her, and shock her.
"You were—already married—when—you loved me," she said, her face showing misery and shame.
He smiled a little bitterly when he saw the effect of his words, but said clearly: "Yes. You see I was a villain."
She shuddered a little, and then said simply: "Your face was not the face of a bad man. Are you telling me the truth?"
He nodded.
"Then you were wicked with me," she said at last, with a great sigh, looking him straight in the eyes. "But you—you loved me?" she said with injured pride and a piteous appeal in her voice. "Ah, I know you loved me!"
"I will tell you when you know all," he answered evenly.
"Is there more to tell?" she asked heavily, and shrinking from him now.
"Much more. Please, come here." He went towards the open window of the room, and she followed. He pointed out to where his horse stood in the palms.
"That is my horse," he said. He whistled to the horse, which pricked up its ears and trotted over to the window. "The name of my horse," he said, "maybe familiar to you. He is called Firefoot."
"Firefoot!" she answered dazedly, "that is the name of Hyland's horse—
Hyland the bushranger."
"This is Hyland's horse," he said, and he patted the animal's neck gently as it thrust its head within the window.
"But you said it was your horse," she rejoined slowly, as though the thing perplexed her sorely.
"It is Hyland's horse; it is my horse," he urged without looking at her. His courage well-nigh failed him. Villain as he was, he loved her, and he saw the foundations of her love for him crumbling away before him. In all his criminal adventures he had cherished this one thing.
She suddenly gave a cry of shame and agony, a low trembling cry, as though her heart-strings were being dragged out. She drew back from him —back to the middle of the room.
He came towards her, reaching out his arms. "Forgive me," he said.
"Oh, no, never!" she cried with horror.
The cry had been heard outside, and Houghton entered the room, to find his wife, all her strength gone, turning a face of horror upon Cayley. She stretched out her arms to her husband with a pitiful cry. "Tom," she said, "Tom, take me away."
He took her gently in his arms.
Cayley stood with his hand upon his horse's neck. "Houghton," he said in a low voice, "I have been telling your wife what I was, and who I am. She is shocked. I had better go."
The woman's head had dropped on her husband's shoulder. Houghton waited to see if she would look up. But she did not.
"Well, good-bye to you both," Cayley said, stepped through the window, and vaulted on his horse's back. "I'm going to see if the devil's as black as he's painted." Then, setting spurs to his horse, he galloped away through the palms to the gate.
………………….
A year later Hyland the bushranger was shot in a struggle with the mounted police sent to capture him.
The planter's wife read of it in England, whither she had gone on a visit.
"It is better so," she said to herself, calmly. "And he wished it, I am sure."
For now she knew the whole truth, and she did not love her husband less —but more.