For Jacinta

by Harold Bindloss

"If he is alive in six months I feel almost sure he will have twice as much, which would mean an income of close upon £600 a year from sound English stock, and that, one would fancy, would not be considered abject poverty in a good many English rural parishes."

Gascoyne sighed. "That is true—it is certainly true. You said—if he were alive?"

"As he is now on his way to one of the most deadly belts of swamp and jungle in Western Africa, I think I was warranted. Knowing him as I do, it is, I fancy, certain that if he does not come back with £16,000 in six months he will be dead."

"Ah," said Gascoyne, with what was suspiciously like a sigh of relief. "One understands that it is a particularly unhealthy climate. Still, when one considers that all is arranged for the best——"

Austin, who could not help it, smiled sardonically, though he felt he had an almost hopeless task. It appeared impossible that Gascoyne should ever understand the character of a man like Jefferson. But he meant to do what he could.

"It is naturally easier to believe that when circumstances coincide with our wishes, sir," he said. "Now, I do not exactly charge you with wishing Jefferson dead, though your face shows that you would not be sorry. I am, of course, another careless seafarer, a friend of his, and I can understand that what you have seen of me has not prepossessed you in my favour. Still, if I can, I am going to show you Jefferson as he is. To begin with, he believes, as you do, that Miss Gascoyne is far above him—and in this he is altogether wrong. Miss Gascoyne is doubtless a good woman, but Jefferson is that harder thing to be, a good man. His point of view is not yours, it is, perhaps, a wider one; but he has, what concerns you most directly now, a vague, reverential respect for all that is best in womanhood, which, I think, is sufficient to place Miss Gascoyne under a heavy responsibility."

He stopped a moment, looking steadily at Gascoyne, who appeared blankly astonished.

"Because it was evident to him that a woman of Miss Gascoyne's conventional upbringing must suffer if brought into contact with the unpleasant realities of the outside world, he has staked his life willingly—not recklessly—on the winning of enough to place her beyond the reach of adversity. He realised that it was, at least, even chances he never came back from Africa; but it seemed to him better that she should be proud of him dead than have to pity him and herself living. I know this, because he told me he would never drag the woman who loved him down. He fell in love with her without reflection, instinctively—or, perhaps, because it was arranged so—I do not understand these things. As surely—conventionalities don't always count—she fell in love with him, and then he had to grapple with the position. Your daughter could not live, as some women do, unshocked and cheerfully among rude and primitive peoples whose morality is not your morality, in the wilder regions of the earth. It was also evident that she could not live sumptuously in England on the interest of £8,000. You see what he made of it. If he died, Miss Gascoyne would be free. If he lived, she could avoid all that would be unpleasant. Isn't that sufficient? Could there be anything base or mean in a nature capable of devotion of that description?"

Gascoyne sat silent almost a minute. Then he said very quietly: "I have to thank you, Mr. Austin—the more so because I admit I was a little prejudiced against you. Perhaps men living as I do acquire too narrow a view. I am glad you told me. And now where is my daughter and Mrs. Hatherly?"

"Wait another minute! Jefferson is, as you will recognise, a man of exceptional courage, but he is also a man of excellent education, and, so far as that goes, of attractive presence; such a one, in fact, as I think a girl of Miss Gascoyne's station is by no means certain to come across again in England. Now, if I have said anything to offend you, it has not been with that object, and you will excuse it. Your daughter and Mrs. Hatherly are on board this ship. It seemed better that you should hear me out before I told you."