Darkest thoughts, thoughts of what might happen if this throbbing brain of his were to lose its balance. He had been thinking of the narrow wall between reason and unreason, and of the madness that may come out of one absorbing idea. Where did a passionate love like his end and monomania begin? Was it well that they two should be alone together, with only these black beasts of burden?
He thought of one of the men, a grinning good-natured-looking animal, the best of their porters, of whom it was told that setting out on a journey with one of his wives he arrived at his destination without her. It might have been his honeymoon. He explained that wild beasts had eaten the lady; but it was known afterwards that he had killed her and chopped her up on the way. Anger, jealousy, convenience? Who knows? The man was a good servant, and nobody cared about this episode in his career.
Was murder so easy, then? Easy to do, easy to forget?
A great horror came over him at thought of the deeds that had been done in the world by men of natures like his own; by despairing lovers, by jealous husbands, by men over whose ill-balanced minds one idea obtained the mastery. And, under the dominion of such ghastly fancies, he looked forward to the journey they two were to make, a journey that, all told, was likely to last the greater part of a year. Alone together, seeing each other's faces day after day, each thinking the same thoughts, and not daring to speak those thoughts; each with fonder and more passionate yearning as the time drew nearer when they should meet the woman they loved; each knowing that happiness for one must mean misery for the other. Friends in outward seeming, rivals and foes at heart, they were to go on journeying side by side, day after day, lying down beside the same fire night after night, waking in the darkness to hear each other's breathing, and to know that a loaded rifle lay within reach of their hands, and that a bullet would end all their difficulties.
It was horrible.
"I was an idiot to undertake the impossible, to believe that I could be happy and at ease with this man. If I were to go home alone, she would have me," he told himself. "It was only for Allan's sake she hung back. So tender, so over-scrupulous, lest she should pain the lover she had jilted."
If he were to go home alone! Was not that possible without the suggestion of darkest iniquity? If he could go home, and gain, say half a year, before his rival reappeared upon the scene, would not that half-year suffice for the winning of his bride?
"If she loved me as I think she loved me, and if she is as noble of nature as I believe her to be, two years of severance will have tried and strengthened her love. She will love me all the dearer for my wanderings. And if Allan is not there to remind her of his wrongs, to appeal to her too-scrupulous conscience, I shall win her."
To go back alone, to divide their resources, to divide their followers, and each to set out on his own way. Useless such a parting as that; for Allan might be the first to tread on English soil, the first to clasp Suzette's hands in the gladness of friends who meet after long absence.
"If he were to be the first, she might deceive herself in the joy of seeing a familiar face, and think she loved him, and give him back her promise in a fit of penitent affection. There are such nice shades in love. She must have had a certain fondness for him. It might revive were I not there—revive and seem enough for happiness. I must be first! I must be first, and alone in the field."