‘I thank you, Mr Courtney, for your consideration,’ replied De Courcelles, in the same hard dry voice, ‘but there is no need of it. I hope I know my duty and my position too well, to aspire to Miss Courtney’s hand. No one can help admiring her, nor being grateful for any kindness she may extend to them, but there it ends. You have nothing to fear for me, nor I for myself.’
‘I am glad to hear you say so,’ replied Mr Courtney, as he rose to go; ‘in a few days I expect that you will hear great news from the White House, and see preparations for a grand wedding, and then you will better understand my fears lest all should not prosper with my dear child, as I hope it may do. Meanwhile, do not forget what I said respecting Miss Fellows and yourself. If I can forward your happiness, you may count on my sympathy and assistance.’
And with these kindly offers of help upon his lips, Mr Courtney walked away, leaving Henri de Courcelles bewildered by what he had heard. Maraquita ill, and in the Doctor’s bungalow, with her secret, perhaps, made patent to the world! And yet her father evidently knew nothing, and some one must have stood her friend, and shielded her from discovery. But Maraquita about to make a high marriage, and be lost to him for ever. That was a still more wonderful revelation, and one which he found it impossible to believe. Maraquita, who had so often sat, during their moonlight trysts, with her arms twined about his neck, and assured him that no man but himself should ever call her his wife. Henri de Courcelles would never have presumed, without a large amount of encouragement, to lift his eyes to his employer’s daughter. He knew that his birth and his position would both preclude him as a suitor, in Mr Courtney’s mind, and that it would be considered the height of presumption on his part to make proposals of marriage for her. But he had trusted to Maraquita’s influence with her parents, eventually to gain their cause; he had trusted also to certain love passages which had taken place between them, to bind her effectually to himself. And now the announcement of these intended nuptials did not make him so unhappy on his own account as they alarmed him for their mutual safety. What might not Maraquita say or do, in her dismay at the prospect of being separated from him?
Henri de Courcelles secretly acknowledged his fickleness with regard to Liz Fellows, who had loved him well and constantly all along, and yet he could not believe that any one else could be unfaithful to him. The devil invents so many excuses for us wherewith to cover our own frailty, but they all disappear when we are called upon to judge our neighbour’s sin. As soon as Mr Courtney had left him, Henri de Courcelles, feeling very uncomfortable under the close examination to which he had been subjected, resumed his cigar, and his lounging attitude, and lay for a long time pondering over the morning’s interview. How much did the planter suspect, or know? Had his assumed warning been only a blind to entrap his overseer into an open confession, or surprise him into betraying himself? De Courcelles blessed his lucky stars that his self-control had not forsaken him, and that if Mr Courtney were on the lookout for a probable lover for his daughter, he had wrung no hint of the truth from him. But was the story of the fever true? That was a point on which he felt he must satisfy himself, and reaching down a wide Panama hat, he proceeded at once into the plantation. He looked handsome enough, as he strolled leisurely beneath the trees, towards the negro quarters, the fine plaited straw hat, which shaded his features, tipped jauntily to one side, and a red rose in the button-hole of his white drill jacket. But his face looked perplexed and anxious, and he gnawed his moustache as he went. The negroes’ huts were situated half a mile away from his bungalow, but they were close to that of Dr Fellows, and De Courcelles knew that in one place or the other he should find Lizzie, and hear the truth from her. But as he passed her cottage, he caught sight of her sitting at the window, sewing. Her face was pale, and her eyes red. She looked as if she had been both sitting up and weeping, though her print dress was fresh and dainty, and her glossy hair carefully arranged. A fear shot through the heart of Henri de Courcelles, as he drew near her, but the bright smile with which she welcomed his presence, drove it away.
‘Why, Henri, what brings you here so early?’ she asked, from the open casement.
‘Didn’t I say last night that you would see me again to-day?’ he answered, as he took her hand.
‘Yes, but it is hardly wise of you to walk about in the sun, unless there is a necessity for it.’
‘You are right, Lizzie; but I am a messenger from Mrs Courtney; she sent me down for the last bulletin of her daughter.’
Lizzie looked surprised.
‘How very strange! I sent up word by one of the servants half an hour ago!’