A wave of astonishment mingled with pity surged through him at her strange words, and all the tragedy they implied both for her and the mother who had borne her in suffering and sorrow.
And now he knew why this girl’s eyes were deep and full of dreams, why her hair framed her face like the spread wings of a raven, why her mouth was curved to the shape of a kiss incarnate.
She was the child of two eternal things: Love and Sorrow.
He sat very still thinking. The pity of it all took hold of his heart and an impulsive longing rose in him to do something to set things aright as they should be, for this beautiful child. Yet the sins of the fathers! Who can pay for them but the flesh and blood of those who made the debt? Who can set aright what has been wrong from the first? What place in the world was there for this love flower of the desert?
Supposing he, Wilberforce St. John Carden were to marry her! The tingle came into his veins again at the thought, and a song sang in his blood. But his brain knew that it was a fool’s idea. What place in his life for the simple untaught child?
It never occurred to him to doubt whether she would marry him. He was too trained a student in the school of women’s looks not to know what gift she had given him with her eyes whether consciously or unconsciously, at their first encounter. And every instinct urged him to lay hot impulsive hands on it, to take and keep it, as he had taken and kept her hand. But his brain remained cool and clear. He had his code to keep. The girl was impossible to marry. That fact put her out of his reach definitely.
He sighed deeply. He did not know that he sighed, but the girl heard him. It seemed to him that he had come a long way, and passed through some extraordinarily poignant ordeal. As a matter of fact it was only a minute or two since she had last spoken that the girl spoke again, continuing her narrative.
“My mother lived in this house with her Boer husband who was very cruel to her. The only pleasure she had was to sit here sometimes and watch the road. One day when her husband was away in the Transvaal an Irishman came along the road. He was a hunter and an adventurer, and my mother said there was a magic in him that no woman could resist—unless she were of his own country; for all others he was one of those who must be followed when they call, and I think he must have been, for one so sweet and good as my mother to have forgotten all for him. He took her away to his waggons, and they were going away together to the Interior but a lion killed him over there by the river.”
“What was his name?” asked Carden, though he already knew. He knew now whose musical voice had echoed up old memories when first he heard her speak.
“Francis Kavanagh. My mother told me when she was dying, but no one else has ever known, except Grietje—and now you.”