‘On a four days’ journey! Ethel, my dear, be reasonable. If you go to Mandalinati, the most I can promise is to get a fortnight’s leave after a time, and run up to see how you and the dear child are getting on. But I don’t like your going, and I tell you so plainly. Suppose you are taken ill before your time, or Katie has another attack, how are you to get assistance up on those beastly hills? Think better of it, Ethel, and decide on England. If you go, Captain Lewis says he will send his wife at the same time, and you would be nice company for each other on the way home.’
‘Mrs Lewis, indeed! an empty-headed noodle! Why, she would drive me crazy before we were half-way there. No, Charlie; I am quite decided. If you cannot accompany me to England, I refuse to go. I shall get the loan of the castle, and try what four weeks there will do for the child.’
And thus it came to pass that Mrs Dunstan’s absurd jealousy of Mrs Lawless drives her to spend that fatal month at the lonely castle on the Mandalinati hills, instead of going in peace and safety to her native land. For a brief space Hope leads her to believe that she may induce Mrs Lawless to pass the time of exile with her. If her woman’s wit can only induce the fatal beauty to become her guest, she will bear the loss of Charlie’s society with equanimity. But though Cissy Lawless seems for a moment almost to yield, she suddenly draws back, to Mrs Dunstan’s intense annoyance.
‘The old castle on the hills!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you and Colonel Dunstan really going there? How delightfully romantic! I believe no end of murders have been committed there, and every room is haunted. Oh, I should like to go, too, of all things in the world! I long to see a real ghost, only you must promise never to leave us alone, colonel, for I should die of fright if I were left by myself.’
‘But I shall not be there, I am sorry to say,’ replies the colonel. ‘My wife and Katie are going for change of air, but I must simmer meanwhile at Mudlianah.’
Pretty Cissy Lawless looks decidedly dumfoundered, and begins to back out of her consent immediately. ‘I pity you,’ she answers, ‘and I pity myself too, for I expect we shall have to simmer together. I should like it of all things, as I said before, but Jack would never let me leave him. He is such a dear, useless body without me. Besides, as you know, colonel, I have business to keep me in Mudlianah.’
Business again! Ethel turns away in disgust; but it is with difficulty she can keep the tears from rushing to her eyes. However, there is no help for it, and she must go. Her child is very dear to her, and at all risks it requires mountain air. She must leave her colonel to take his chance in the plains below—only as he puts her and the child into the transit that is to convey them to the hills, and bids her farewell with a very honest falter in his voice he feels her hot tears upon his cheek.
‘Oh, Charlie, Charlie, be true to me! Think how I have loved you. I am so very miserable.’
‘Miserable, my love, and for this short parting? Come, Ethel, you must be braver than this. It will not be long before we meet again, remember.’
‘And, till then, you will be careful, won’t you, Charlie, for my sake, and think of me, and don’t go too much from home? and remember how treacherous women are; and I am not beautiful, I know, my darling; I never was, you know,’ with a deep sob, ‘like—like Mrs Lawless and others. But I love you, Charlie, I love you with all my heart, and I have always been faithful to you in thought as well as deed.’ And so, sobbing and incoherent, Ethel Dunstan drives away to the Mandalinati hills, whilst the good colonel stands where she left him, with a puzzled look upon his honest sunburnt face.