‘Because if you and Lizzie like each other, I should be pleased to see you married. I am fond of the girl, and consider her a sacred charge; and marriage would silence these cruel slanders against her, sooner than anything else. If you can make up your minds on the subject, De Courcelles, I will do for you what I promised before—raise your salary, furnish the Oleander Bungalow afresh, and settle it on you and your wife, and all these little disagreeables will be forgotten before three months are over our heads.’
‘And if not, sir?’ inquired the overseer hastily.
‘If not, De Courcelles, we must part. I am sorry to say it, but I shall consider your refusal (or Lizzie’s) as a proof that the less you are about the White House in the future the better. Not the slightest taint—not even the bare suspicion of one—must rest on the fair name of the future Lady Johnstone.’
‘I understand you, Mr Courtney, and I will consider your proposal. How soon do you expect to get my answer?’
‘Not until you are quite prepared to give it me. You have plenty of time before you. My wife and daughter will be away on the hills for a month, and I have no wish to part with an old friend in such a hurry. Think of it well, De Courcelles. I will look over any of the little derelictions of duty to which I have alluded, in consideration of the disappointment which you must have suffered; but my decision is final with regard to Miss Fellows. You must either marry her, or leave my service.’
De Courcelles left the planter’s presence grinding his teeth with rage. He had burned, while listening to his talk about his daughter’s marriage and future prospects, to tell him to his face that Maraquita was, to all intents and purposes, his wife, and the mother of the child at the bungalow. But he dared not! He was afraid not only of the planter but of the negro population, if such a story got wind in the plantation. Revenge is sometimes very swift and sure in the West Indies, especially when the natives are in a state of insubordination. Besides, he would gain nothing by such an admission. It would not give him back Maraquita—faithless, perjured Maraquita, who, having slipped from his grasp into the arms of the Governor of San Diego, had instigated her parents, by a tissue of falsehoods, to dismiss him summarily from Beauregard. And it would have robbed him of the hope of revenge—a hope sweeter to a Spanish Creole even than love. As Henri de Courcelles thought of it, his hand tightened over the stiletto he always carried in his belt. Banishment from Beauregard would mean to sit down for the remainder of his life under this bitter wrong, without the satisfaction of feeling he had avenged it. At all hazards he must remain near this false love of his. She should never feel secure from him. He would appear before her in her most triumphant moments, and make her tremble with the fear that he was about to accuse her openly of her secret crime. Maraquita Courtney should never know another peaceful moment, whilst he lived to terrify her. But the opportunity depended on his marrying Lizzie Fellows. Well, if it must be so, it must be so. Henri de Courcelles, strolling down the path between the rows of coffee trees, and caressing his handsome moustaches as he went, seemed to have no doubt that he had but to ask to obtain. The conceit of men, where women are concerned, knows no bounds. Every woman, according to their creed, is only too ready to fly into their arms. The good old days when knights were not considered worthy to ask for a lady’s hand until they had achieved some doughty deed to make her proud of them, are gone for ever. Yet, if a girl is particular, or indifferent, or hard to please, she is voted to be either a prude or a jilt. The rougher sex require a few hard raps occasionally, to keep them in order, and the woman who puts them in their place, confers a benefit on the whole of her kind. As Monsieur de Courcelles strolled along, his footsteps carried him in the direction of Lizzie’s bungalow, and thinking no time like the present, he halted on the threshold, and called her by her name. The recollection of how he had last left her presence made him hesitate to walk boldly into it, but he was quite confident that he had but to ask her forgiveness to obtain it. Lizzie was just about to visit her sick negroes. She was dressed in a white gown, covered with an apron and a high bib of brown holland, and on her head she wore a broad-brimmed hat, tied with a black ribbon. She looked pale and weary, but the look of perplexity was gone from her face, and her general expression was calm. She was filling her basket with such medicines as were necessary, when she heard her name called in the old familiar tones of De Courcelles. As the sound struck on her ear, she turned even whiter than before, but resentment prevented her losing her presence of mind.
‘What do you want with me?’ she demanded sharply.
‘Only a few words of explanation and apology. May I come in, Lizzie? I have been longing to do so ever since we parted.’
‘You can enter if you wish it, monsieur, but I cannot imagine what you can possibly have to say to me. I have looked upon our last meeting as a final one.’
‘But may you not change your opinion of it, and of me?’ replied the overseer, as he entered the room, and advanced to her side. ‘I know I sinned against you grossly, almost beyond forgiveness, but you must make allowance for the whirlwind of passion I was in,—for the awful doubt that had assailed me.’