"What can I do?"
"You don't think Gray—"
"Don't put it into words, Minnie. I have no right to think anything. But his face startled me. No man ever looked like that who hadn't got some great trouble weighing on him. And he wasn't so devoted to Harding as all that, you know. It surprised me to see how much he felt it."
"I always thought he patronized Harding; believed himself too good for him."
"Oh, I know you never liked Gray much," returned her husband, "Harding liked him though. He must have something in him."
To get back to his own quarters Gray had to cross the garden. It was looking its loveliest this afternoon. The turf was as green if not as smooth as the turf of an English lawn, and the glow of colour was more brilliant than any English garden could show. Gray loved flowers. But he passed through that beautiful garden without a glance right or left, with his eyes bent upon the ground.
Not far from the gate which he would have to pass through Lumley was busy cutting the grass with a hand-machine. He had been working in another part of the garden when Gray had gone up to the house, but had caught sight of him as he crossed to the verandah steps. Soon after he left the work he was about in order to cut the grass by the gate.
It was a curious trait in his vicious character that he really loved his gardening work. He had come to the station for a definite purpose, a purpose nearly fulfilled—he was leaving the place at dawn next morning—yet he was working busily still in the pleasant evening light, anxious to leave the grass in perfect order. Mrs. Morton never had such a good gardener again. He was not working too busily, however, to be unmindful of Gray's approach. He watched him with a crafty sidelong look as he came swinging down the path, and when he was quite close to him he touched his cap as an English servant might have done in respectful greeting. He had saluted Gray in the same manner before, and Gray had been curiously pleased by it.
"Good evening, my man," he said loftily and would have passed on. But Lumley stepped out on the path. He had taken off his cap and he turned it round and round in his hands as he spoke.
"Beggin' your pardon, sir," he said humbly, "But I was wantin' to speak to you. I took the liberty of callin' on you this afternoon, but you was out."