The following morning, as he was leaving Belle Grace, he heard that Mrs. Charlton had left her husband two days previously, and had made her way through the bush to Port Denison, from where she had gone to Sydney.
Soon after Lester had sailed for Torres Straits in Fryer's schooner, the owner of Belle Grâce Plantation received a telegram from Sydney telling him that his wife was dead—she had jumped overboard on the passage down. And, later on, Lester heard it also.
Lester was doing well, but wondering why Nellie March did not write. He little knew that Charlton was in Sydney working out his revenge. This he soon accomplished.
From the local postmistress at Belle Grace Charlton had learned the address of the girl Lester was to marry; and the first thing he did when he arrived in Sydney was to call upon her parents, and tell them that Lester had run away with his wife. And they—and Nellie March as well—believed his story when he produced some Queensland newspapers which contained the accounts of the “elopement.” He was a good-looking man, despite his forty years of hard drinking, and could lie with consummate grace, and Nellie, after her first feelings of shame and anger had subsided, pitied him, especially when he said that his poor wife was at rest now, and he had forgiven her. Before a month was out she married him.
Then Charlton, who simply revelled in his revenge, sent the papers containing the announcement of his marriage to Lester.
Lester took it very badly at first. But his was a strong nature, and he was too proud a man to write to the woman he loved and ask for an explanation. It was Charlton's money, of course, he thought. And as the months went by he began to forget. He heard of Charlton sometimes from the captains of passing vessels. He was drinking heavily they said, and whenever he came to town boasted of having “got even” with the man who had thrashed him. Lester set his teeth but said nothing, and in time even such gossip as this failed to disturb him. But he swore to give Charlton another thrashing when the opportunity came.
A year had come and gone, and Lester found himself in Sydney. He liked the free, open life among the pearlers, and intended to go back after a month or so of idleness in the southern city. One evening he strolled into the bar of Pfahlerts Hotel and ordered a whisky-and-soda. The girl he spoke to looked into his face for a moment and then nearly fainted—it was Nina Charlton!
“Give me your address,” she said quickly, as she put out her hand. “I will come and see you in an hour from now.”