As I have just said, I entered the drawing-room, prepared to bestow upon Maud the hungry embrace of a long-parted lover. My intentions, however, were dashed to the ground by the presence of a third party—a man. As he stood watching us there was nothing for it but to behave like commonplace mortals, but I promise you I was not grateful to him for his presence. To say that Maud looked prettier than when I had left her last would perhaps be hardly the truth (though to my eyes she was incomparably sweet), for her face had a worn and harrassed expression which had not been there when I bade her good-bye. Her welcome was as warm as I could expect under the circumstances, but nevertheless I was bitterly disappointed by it.
Her companion's name was Welbourne, Captain Horatio Welbourne, of one of the Household Regiments, I believe. We exchanged glances, and from that moment I became furiously jealous of him. I must, however, do him the justice to admit that he was a fine figure of a man, tall and soldierly, as befitted his calling. Our introduction effected, Maud proceeded to dispense the tea she was pouring out when I entered.
Inwardly chafing to have my sweetheart to myself, it was with the utmost difficulty I could engage myself in the insipid conversation, through the mazes of which the gallant captain led us. When he rose to depart another relay of fashionables arrived, and after standing it for nearly an hour I made my excuses, and raging against the whole world fled the house.
The next afternoon I called again. This time I was fortunate enough to find Maud alone. I think she was vexed with me for deserting her the previous day; at any rate, her manner was distinctly cold. As it happened, we had hardly been a quarter of an hour together before the self-same Captain Welbourne must needs put in an appearance, bringing with him the peculiar air of being the tame cat of the house I had noticed on the previous occasion. I fancy Maud must have had some idea of what was in my mind, for she became painfully embarrassed, and noticing this, my suspicions grew and grew. How unjust I was to her, I can now see, but at the time I could not help remembering that she was an heiress, and that the gallant captain was really a most attractive person. Yet I determined I would not allow myself to become jealous without good cause.
That was, however, soon forthcoming, and, I blush to relate it now, through the gossip of a female tittle-tattler. Unhappily I was in such a state that I had no option but to believe it true. And, being ever impetuous and hot-headed, nothing would suit me then but I must call upon Maud while under the influence of my anger. Naturally enough she resented the terms in which I couched my remarks, and I left the house in high dudgeon, more than ever convinced that she was false to me. A week went by without a word on either side, and at the end of it I put back to sea nearly broken-hearted. As if to accentuate the sting, that was my first voyage as chief officer.
From this point I date my downfall. Perhaps I was tired of the sea, or perhaps I was still piqued by what I could not help considering Maud's ill-treatment of me; at any rate, I got it into my poor addled brain that when we reached South Australia I would cry quits with the nautical profession, and if possible settle down out there to a life ashore. This scheme I put into practice, with the result that, after much jobbery, I obtained a situation in a ship-chandler's office in Port Adelaide, retaining it until my employer's fraudulent insolvency threw me on the world again. Then, a new gold-field breaking out inland, off I tramped to it, imbued with the intention of making my fortune, and returning to the mother-country a millionaire. This venture, however, was no more successful than the last, and after nearly three months' hard work, all I had to show for it were six dwts. of gold, and a bad attack of typhoid fever that nearly made an end of me. For nearly ten weeks I was confined to my bed in the tent-hospital, to leave it more like a skeleton than a human being.
What to do now I had no idea. I was bankrupt; my claim had been seized; I was too weak to tramp the bush in search of work; and indeed had I found any I doubt if I could have undertaken it. Added to all this, or perhaps I should say as the result of all this, I grew exceedingly despondent. Indeed the horrors of that period I am loth to dwell upon, save that it gave me an opportunity of experiencing one of those little touches of kindness which go to prove that after all humanity in the abstract is not quite so bad as it is usually made out to be.
From the gold-field where I had contracted my illness, I had wandered, partly by Government assistance and partly by my own exertions, as far as the famous silver-mining town of Broken Hill, just over the New South Wales border. Here, in the midst of barbaric waste and splendour, a relapse seized me, and for nigh upon three weeks I hovered, in the Town Hospital, on the border-land of Life and Death.
When I said farewell to that kindly institution, I was at my wits' end as to my future. I had no money, and I was without the means of earning any. Fortunately it was summer time, and sleeping in the open air was not only quite possible but very pleasant, so I had no concern about lodgings; that, however, was only a minor matter, for I was starving. Oh, how bitterly I regretted having forsaken my old profession! No one will ever know the agony I endured. I could have fought the world for the very crumbs that were used to fall from the cuddy table. Day after day I toiled up one street and down another, from mine to mine, and smelter to smelter, seeking for the work which never offered.
One sunset, weary and horribly sick at heart, I was crawling back to my usual camping place on the outskirts of the town, when a sudden faintness seized me. The whole world turned black before my eyes, I reeled, and fell unconscious by the road-side.