A Bitter Heritage: A Modern Story of Love and Adventure

by John Bloundelle-Burton

Some two or three months of Julian's leave remained to expire at the time when the foregoing explanation had taken place, and perhaps nothing which had occurred since the day when he first set foot in British Honduras had caused him more perplexity than his present deliberations as to how to make the best of that period.

For now he knew that he had done with the colony for ever; he had achieved that for which he had come to it; he had proved the truth of George Ritherdon's statement up to the hilt, and--in so far as obtaining the possession of that which was undoubtedly his--well! the law would soon take steps to enable him to do so.

Only, when he told himself that he had done with the colony, when he reflected that henceforth his foot would never tread on its earth more, he had also to tell himself that he could alone consent to sever his connection with it by also taking away with him the most precious thing it contained in his eyes--Beatrix Spranger.

"For," he said to that young lady, as once more they sat in the garden at "Floresta," with about and around them all the surroundings that he had learned to know so well and to recall during many of the gloomy nights and days he had spent at Desolada--the great shade palms, the gorgeous flamboyants and delicate oleander blossoms, as well as the despairing looking and lugubrious monkey--"for, darling, I cannot go without you. If I were to do so, Heaven alone knows when I could return to claim you; and, also, I cannot wait. Sweetheart, you too must sail for England with me, and it must be as Mrs. Ritherdon."

He said the same thing often. Indeed at night, which is--as those acquainted with such matters tell us--the period when young ladies pass in review the principal events that have happened to them during the day, Beatrix used to consider, or rather to calculate, that he made the same remark about twenty times daily. While, since, loving and gentle as she was, she was also possessed of a considerable amount of feminine perspicacity, she supposed that he reiterated the phrase upon the principle that the constant drop of water which falls upon a stone will at last wear it away.

"Though," the girl would say to herself in those soft hours of maiden meditation, "he need not fear. He cannot but think that his longing is also shared by me."

Aloud, however, when once more he repeated what had become almost a set phrase, she said:

"You know that you have taken an unfair advantage of me. Indeed, though it was only by chance, you have put me to terrible mortification. You overheard my avowal to that unhappy girl, my avowal that--that--I loved you." And Beatrix blushed most beautifully as she softly uttered the words. "Think what an avowal it was. To be made by a woman for a man who had never asked for her love."

"Had he not," Julian said, "had he not, Beatrix? Never asked for that love on one happy day spent alone by that woman's side, when he confided everything to her that bore upon his presence here; and she, full of soft and gentle sympathy, told him all her fears and anxiety for the risks he might run. And, did he not ask for that love on the night which followed that day, as they rode back to Belize beneath the stars?"

And now his eyes were gazing into hers with a look of love which no woman could doubt, even though no other man had ever looked at her so before; while since loverlike, they were sitting close together, his arm stole round her waist.