“Because,” he answered, “you told me that you had just been to see Scarlett Trent!”
“And what on earth had that to do with it?”
“Because Scarlett Trent was with your father when he died. They were on an excursion somewhere up in the bush—the very excursion that laid the foundation of Trent's fortune.”
“Go on,” she cried. “Tell me all that you know! this is wonderful!”
“Well, I am glad to tell you this at any rate,” he said. “I always liked your father and I saw him off when he left England, and have written to him often since. I believe I was his only correspondent in this country, except his solicitors. He had a very adventurous and, I am afraid, not a very happy time. He never wrote cheerfully, and he mortgaged the greater part of his income. I don't blame him for anything he did. A man needs some responsibility, or some one dependent upon him to keep straight. To be frank with you, I don't think he did.”
“Poor dad,” she murmured, “of course he didn't! I know I'd have gone to the devil as fast as I could if I'd been treated like it!”
“Well, he drifted about from place to place and at last he got to the Gold Coast. Here I half lost sight of him, and his few letters were more bitter and despairing than ever. The last I had told me that he was just off on an expedition into the interior with another Englishman. They were to visit a native King and try to obtain from him certain concessions, including the right to work a wonderful gold-mine somewhere near the village of Bekwando.”
“Why, the great Bekwando Land Company!” she cried. “It is the one Scarlett Trent has just formed a syndicate to work.”
Davenant nodded.
“Yes. It was a terrible risk they were running,” he said, “for the people were savage and the climate deadly. He wrote cheerfully for him, though. He had a partner, he said, who was strong and determined, and they had presents, to get which he had mortgaged the last penny of his income. It was a desperate enterprise perhaps, but it suited him, and he went on to tell me this, Ernestine. If he succeeded and he became wealthy, he was returning to England just for a sight of you. He was so changed, he said, that no one in the world would recognise him. Poor fellow! It was the last line I had from him.”