"And when I left—I did suddenly, one morning—she came out to find me in the garden. There was an east wind blowing, and she ... caught cold, I suppose, and she," the expression of his voice made Stara shrink back—"the nurse wrote to me, let her die without me; she asked for me, but she wouldn't send till it was too late. Oh, don't be a fool and snivel like that, who cares? I don't. She wouldn't have lived, in any case. Oh, it didn't take much to kill my child, Stara, she paid in her body for the rottenness of her father's soul. For I am rotten—rotten to the core."
"You're not, you're not, no man can be who can love a child like that. Dearest, I won't have you say it, for you're mine, Hector, mine. My love is all yours now, and so am—I."
"Yes, with reservations. Oh, I know the sort of love—pure, no vile, earthly thoughts—thus far and no farther."
"No. I am not like that. I make no reservations. I give you all."
Hector stared, and, passion once more reawakening, he caught her by the shoulders; but Stara held him off, her grey eyes looking up into his.
"Wait, there is something you must promise me first. It—it may be, Hector, that in time there might come—another—oh, don't shrink away from me, it hurts so much—and you'd love my—our child, wouldn't you, Hector? But if ... that should happen, you must take me away ... leave the army, forsake ambition for—for love. Could you do that? Think well before you answer, for it's a big thing, Hector."
Hector, however, was now in passion's grip, and reflection had become impossible. Had Stara at that moment asked for the Southern Cross to wear in her hair, he would have promised her that, or anything else; and without a second's hesitation, he swore, if called upon, to do her bidding.
CHAPTER XVIII
Thus Hector followed in the footsteps of those with whom he claimed kinship, and, like them, left the broad track of conventional duty to turn aside into the by-paths of illicit love. True, behind him, trampled in the dust of the highway, broken vows and the fragments of a woman's happiness were lying, and, ever vivid and distinct, a tiny grave. But what of that, since he had carried through his purpose, and proved himself above the human weaknesses by which other men's lives are cramped and fettered? Feverishly he drank of the cup held out to him by Stara, and, his thirst quenched but too soon, revived the dead craving with the salt of imagination, and demanded more, ever more.
A month passed, and he was no longer a stranger, but one of the household; the hand of fellowship was held out to him by all, and by no one more eagerly than his host, whose cordiality was adopted the better to hide the curious instinctive aversion of twelve months before, which had but increased with fuller acquaintance with his guest. In vain did Richard assure himself that the feeling was one of prejudice only; it grew in strength daily, till at last, at Graeme's approach, Dick would make off, feigning work on the farm, or any excuse to avoid being alone with a man in whose presence he became so unaccountably silent and embarrassed.