“Try and think, Monty,” he went on, drawing a step nearer to him. “Don't you remember what a beastly time we had up in the bush—how they kept us day after day in that villainous hut because it was a fetish week, and how after we had got the concessions those confounded niggers followed us! They meant our lives, Monty, and I don't know how you escaped! Come! make an effort and pull yourself together. We're rich men now, both of us. You must come back to England and help me spend a bit.”
Monty had recovered a little his power of speech. He leaned over his spade and smiled benignly at his visitor.
“There was a Trentham in the Guards,” he said slowly, “the Honourable George Trentham, you know, one of poor Abercrombie's sons, but I thought he was dead. You must dine with me one night at the Travellers'! I've given up eating myself, but I'm always thirsty.”
He looked anxiously away towards the town and began to mumble. Trent was in despair. Presently he began again.
“I used to belong to the Guards,—always dined there till Jacques left. Afterwards the cooking was beastly, and—I can't quite remember where I went then. You see—I think I must be getting old. I don't remember things. Between you and me,” he sidled a little closer to Trent, “I think I must have got into a bit of a scrape of some sort—I feel as though there was a blank somewhere....”
Again he became unintelligible. Trent was silent for several minutes. He could not understand that strained, anxious look which crept into Monty's face every time he faced the town. Then he made his last effort.
“Monty, do you remember this?”
Zealously guarded, yet a little worn at the edges and faded, he drew the picture from its case and held it before the old man's blinking eyes. There was a moment of suspense, then a sharp, breathless cry which ended in a wail.
“Take it away,” Monty moaned. “I lost it long ago. I don't want to see it! I don't want to think.”
“I have come,” Trent said, with an unaccustomed gentleness in his tone, “to make you think. I want you to remember that that is a picture of your daughter. You are rich now and there is no reason why you should not come back to her. Don't you understand, Monty?”