“No, no, it makes nothing impossible—if you will listen.”
Gaston was cool. He had begun playing for the stakes from one stand-point, and he would not turn back.
He continued:
“I lived with her happily: I never expect to have happiness like that again,—never,—and after two years at another post in Labrador, came word from the Company that I might go to Quebec, there to be given my choice of posts. I went. By this time I had again vague ideas that sometime I should come here, but how or why I couldn’t tell; I was drifting, and for her sake willing to drift. I was glad to take her to Quebec, for I guessed she would get ideas, and it didn’t strike me that she would be out of place. So we went. But she was out of place in many ways. It did not suit at all. We were asked to good houses, for I believe I have always had enough of the Belward in me to keep my end up anywhere. The thing went on pretty well, but at last she used to beg me to go without her to excursions and parties. There were always one or two quiet women whom she liked to sit with, and because she seemed happier for me to go, I did. I was popular, and got along with women well; but I tell you honestly I loved my wife all the time; so that when a Christian busy-body poured into her ears some self-made scandal, it was a brutal, awful lie—brutal and awful, for she had never known jealousy; it did not belong to her old social creed. But it was in the core of her somewhere, and an aboriginal passion at work naked is a thing to be remembered. I had to face it one night....
“I was quiet, and did what I could. After that I insisted on her going with me wherever I went, but she had changed, and I saw that, in spite of herself, the thing grew. One day we went on an excursion down the St. Lawrence. We were merry, and I was telling yarns. We were just nearing a landing-stage, when a pretty girl, with more gush than sense, caught me by the arm and begged some ridiculous thing of me—an autograph, or what not. A minute afterwards I saw my wife spring from the bulwarks down on the landing-stage, and rush up the shore into the woods.... We were two days finding her. That settled it. I was sick enough at heart, and I determined to go back to Labrador. We did so. Every thing had gone on the rocks. My wife was not, never would be, the same again. She taunted me and worried me, and because I would not quarrel, seemed to have a greater grievance—jealousy is a kind of madness. One night she was most galling, and I sat still and said nothing. My life seemed gone of a heap: I was sick—sick to the teeth; hopeless, looking forward to nothing. I imagine my hard quietness roused her. She said something hateful—something about having married her, and not a woman from Quebec. I smiled—I couldn’t help it; then I laughed, a bit wild, I suppose. I saw the flash of steel. ... I believe I laughed in her face as I fell. When I came to she was lying with her head on my breast—dead—stone dead.”
Lady Belward sat with closed eyes, her fingers clasping and unclasping on the top of her cane; but Sir William wore a look half-satisfied, half-excited.
He now hurried his story.
“I got well, and after that stayed in the North for a year. Then I passed down the continent to Mexico and South America. There I got a commission to go to New Zealand and Australia to sell a lot of horses. I did so, and spent some time in the South Sea Islands. Again I drifted back to the Rockies and over into the plains; found Jacques Brillon, my servant, had a couple of years’ work and play, gathered together some money, as good a horse and outfit as the North could give, and started with Brillon and his broncho—having got both sense and experience, I hope—for Ridley Court. And here I am. There’s a lot of my life that I haven’t told you of, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s adventure mostly, and it can be told at any time; but these are essential facts, and it is better that you should hear them. And that is all, grandfather and grandmother.”
After a minute Lady Belward rose, leaned on her crutch, and looked at him wistfully. Sir William said: “Are you sure that you will suit this life, or it you?”
“It is the only idea I have at present; and, anyhow, it is my rightful home, sir.”