The date of death was two years old.
Much that had been dark became clear to Christine. She understood at last. The woman whose sad fate was here recorded, cut off at twenty-seven—that fairest period in a happy woman's life—was Roddy's mother, the mother of all the little van Cannan children, living and dead. The woman who had ousted her memory from all hearts save loving, loyal Roddy's was the second wife and stepmother.
Much in the attitude of the big, blond, laughing woman who reigned now at Blue Aloes, false to her husband, careless of the fate of his children, was accounted for, too. The sorrows of the van Cannans had never touched her. How should they? Had not Christine heard from her own lips, the night before, the confession of her love for another, and her hatred of Bernard van Cannan's home. How, then, should she love Bernard van Cannan's children?
The cruel taunt of cowardice she had flung at Roddy was explained. The boy's sensitive, loyal nature was a book too deep for her reading, the memory of his loved ones too sweet and tenacious for her to tamper with. Nevertheless, she had understood him well enough to set a bond on his honour never to speak of the dead woman who slept in the unmarked grave while her tombstone lay in the rubble of an outhouse. The spell by which she had won the man to forgetfulness and neglect was not the same as that by which she had induced silence in the boy. A promise had been wrung from him—perhaps even under duress! Suddenly, terror swept over Christine Chaine. It was revealed to her, as in a vision, that the pink-and-white woman who laughed with such childlike innocence by day and whispered so passionately to her lover by night could be capable of many things not good for those who stood in the way of her wishes.
Why had two of the van Cannan sons died sudden deaths? Why was the lure of a pink palace at the bottom of the dam fostered in the third? How had the tarantula come into his bed, and why had someone said that it acted like a thing drugged or intoxicated, and that, when it woke up, it would have been a bad lookout for Roddy?
"God forgive me!" cried the distracted girl to herself. "Perhaps I am more wicked than she, to harbour such thoughts!"
Then, as if at a call that her heart heard rather than her ears, she found herself running out of the barn and across the veld in the hot, stormy sunshine, in the direction of the Saxbys' bungalow.
She had never been there before, though often, in their walks, she and the children had passed within a stone's throw of the little wood-and-iron building. The door was always shut, and the windows hidden by the heavy creeper that covered in the stoep. She had often thought what a drab and dreary life it must be for a woman to live hidden away there, and even the children never passed without a compassionate allusion to "poor Mrs. Saxby, always shut up there alone."
A dread of seeing the sad, disfigured creature seized her now, as she reached the darkened stoep, and held her back for a moment. She stood wondering why she had come and how she could expect to find Roddy there where the children had never been allowed to penetrate. But, in the very act of hesitation, she heard the boy's voice ring out.
"No, mamma; please don't make me do it!"