If Renshaw had succeeded in shaking off the effects of his fever attack, no such complete success had attended his efforts with regard to that other attack. There was not much healing for his wounds in the sight of the more than ordinarily good understanding existing between Violet and Sellon, and being, in common with the remainder of the household, ignorant of their former acquaintanceship, the thought that he himself had been instrumental in bringing them together, was indeed a bitter pill. And then his disciplined nature would seek for an antidote and find it—find it in the promise Violet had extracted from him to befriend her to the utmost of his power. Well, he was going to do this. He was going to be the means of enriching the man who had, though not unfairly, yet no less certainly, supplanted him. His sacrifice on her account would be complete. Through his instrumentality the pair would obtain the means of happiness. And in this reflection his mind found a degree of consolation.
“Cold consolation this—very much the reverse of consolation!” cries the ordinary mind. Yes, but Renshaw Fanning’s was not an ordinary mind.
Christmas had come and gone—bringing with it much festivity—the visits of friends and relatives, till the house was crammed to the extent of holding no more by any means short of “shaking down” the excess members in the verandah, even as many were already “shaken down” on the floors of the bedrooms. There had been dances and riding parties, and a buck-hunt or two, though the time of year was unfavourable to venatorial pursuits—the sweltering midsummer heat being ill-conducive to scent in the matter of rousing the quarry, though very much conducive to the same, after the slaying of the said quarry, which indeed would hardly keep two hours. There had been much fun and flirtation among the younger section and much jollity among all. Jovial Chris Selwood was never so much in his element as with a crowd of friends about him, and the more the merrier, he would say.
Then as the corner of the year turned, the party had broken up and gone its respective ways—one to his farm, another to his merchandise—the bulk of it, however, literally to the former. And Renshaw began to think a great deal about “The Valley of the Eye.”
“So your faith in this Sindbad valley is as strong as ever, is it, Renshaw?” said Selwood, in comment on a remark of the other’s as they were returning homeward together after a day of riding around the veldt, looking after the flocks and their keepers, and giving an eye to things in general.
“Well, yes, it is. I’m as convinced the place exists as I am that I exist myself. But it’s weariful work, hunting a will-o’-the-wisp.”
“Rather. Throw it up, old man. Now, why on earth don’t you make up your mind to come and settle near us? There are good enough farms around here to be had.”
“For those who have the means,” supplied the other, gaily. “And I’m not one of them. That last drought ‘busted’ me—lock, stock, and barrel. All the greater necessity to find the ‘Eye.’”
Selwood made no immediate reply. He flicked the heads of the grasses with his whip as he rode, in a meditative and embarrassed manner wholly foreign to his genial open nature.