It was sunset before the Fort Salisbury was once more cleaving her way through the water. Antony, from her decks, looked once more at the receding land. Again he saw it rising, like a purple amethyst, from the sea, but this time it was veiled in the rose-coloured light of the sinking sun. He looked towards that portion of the amethyst where the little courtyard with the orange trees in green tubs was situated.
Once more he heard his question and the Duchessa’s answer. It was a memory which was to remain with him for many a month.
CHAPTER VII
ENGLAND
A week later, Antony was sitting in a first-class carriage on his way from Plymouth to Waterloo. He gazed through the window, his mind filled with various emotions.
Uppermost was the memory of the voyage and the Duchessa. The memory already appeared to him almost as a vivid and extraordinarily beautiful dream, though reason assured him to the contrary. The whole events of the last month, and even his present position in the train, appeared to him intangible and unreal. It seemed a dream self, rather than the real Antony, who was gazing from the window at the landscape which was slipping past him; who was looking out on the English fields, the English woods, and the English cottages past which the train was tearing. He saw gardens ablaze with flowers; bushes snowy with hawthorn; horses and cows standing idly in the shadow of the trees; and, now and again, small, trimly-kept country stations, looking for all the world like prim schoolgirls in gay print dresses.
He glanced from the window to the rack opposite to him, where his portmanteau was lying. That, at all events, was tangible, real, and familiar. It struck the sole familiar note in the extraordinary unfamiliarity of everything around him. He looked at his own initials painted on it, slowly tracing them in his mind. He pulled out his pocket-book, and took from it the letter which had altered the whole perspective of his life. He could almost see the African stoep as he looked at it, feel the heat of the African sun, hear the occasional chirping of the grasshoppers. Age-old the memory appeared, caught from bygone centuries. And it was only a month ago. Replacing it in the book, his eye fell upon a small piece of pasteboard. The Duchessa had given it to him that morning. Her name was printed on it, and below she had written a few pencilled words,—her address in Scotland. She was remaining in Plymouth for a day or so, before going North. He was to write to her at the Scotland address, and let her know where she could acquaint him with her further movements, and the actual date of her return to the Manor House. That, too, was tangible and real,—that small piece of white pasteboard. And, then, a little movement beside him, and a long quivering sigh of content brought back to him the most tangible thing of all—Josephus. Josephus, who was sleeping the sleep of the contented, just after a frenzied and rapturous reunion with his deity.
Oh, of course it was all real, and it was he, Antony, his very self, who was sitting in the train, the train which was rushing through the good old English country, carrying him towards London and the answer to the riddle contained in that most amazing of letters.