“Oh, Miss Strange. I beg your pardon! What a blundering ass I am! Have I hurt you?” he cried, in abject, remorseful consternation. “How confoundedly careless of me! Do forgive me?”
“I’m not in the least hurt, really,” answered Lilian, leaning against the chair, which she had just seized in time to save herself from falling. “But I’ll forgive you, only upon one condition,” she added, with a smile. “That you tell me what you are looking so ridiculously happy about.”
Hicks told her, there and then.
“I’m so glad,” Lilian said. “I congratulate you most truly. You will be very happy, and from what I have heard of you, you will deserve to be.”
Again Hicks mumbled something as he pressed the hand she extended to him, and passed on. Lilian gazed after him, and the tears rose to her eyes; but they were grateful, healing tears. “Thank God!” she murmured, “there is happiness left in the world for some people, and that is a sight good to look upon.” A warm glow crept round her heart—so stricken and desolate—and she felt that life might be worth living after all, to take part in the joys and sorrows of others. It was a turning-point, and the crisis was past; but, oh! the road was to be an uphill one upon whose thorny way the toiler would oft-times sink crushed and heartbroken. Then she had kissed and congratulated Laura, who, though outwardly very demure and reticent, yet felt thoroughly satisfied with her bargain.
Mr Brathwaite was as good as his word, and with such a powerful advocate Hicks’ suit was bound to prosper. George Brathwaite, an easy-going man in any matter wholly dissociated with politics, listened, and was convinced, as his brother put the case before him. Hicks was a quiet, steady, hard-working fellow, in fact, bound to make his way. He had a little stock of his own, and lately some money had been left him, not much, but enough to help him on a bit when he should set up for himself, and with a little help from them, would do well enough. He was good-tempered, and by no means a fool, and, in fact, Laura might have done worse. And Laura’s father thought the same, and the result was notified to the pair concerned. They must wait, of course, but the great thing was to have the consent of the authorities, and to know that it was a settled thing. But a thorn in the rose lay in the fact that in a couple of days or so George Brathwaite would take both his daughters away with him—that being the errand upon which he had come to Seringa Vale. However, they could write. A new experience to Hicks, by the way, who, with the exception of a stereotyped and brief letter home at rare intervals, seldom used the weapon mightier than the sword. But he would find plenty to say now, never fear.
“How I wish Claverton was back again,” Hicks had said to Laura, the day before she left. “Poor old Arthur. I suppose he’s started off on some mad expedition. The place won’t seem the same without him.”
“Won’t it? It would have been a good deal better for the place if it had always remained without him,” she retorted, rather bitterly.
He looked at her with surprise. “Why, Laura, what has he done? I thought you all liked him no end?”
“Yes, rather too much,” she rejoined, to herself—thinking of Ethel—but she only said: “Well, I don’t know why I said that. Never mind, Alfred, perhaps I’ll tell you what I mean, some day; perhaps I won’t; probably I won’t. Try and forget it now, at any rate. You will, won’t you?”