So it came to pass that while Mr. Rockley and Wilfred were lounging in the Cingalese arm-chairs, which still adorned the verandah, Christabel betook herself to the piano, whence she evoked a succession of dreamy nocturnes and melancholy reveries which sighed through the hushed night air as though they were the wailings of the Lares and Penates mourning for their dispossession.
‘Bowerdale hasn’t turned up,’ said Rockley abruptly. ‘The Rebecca has never been heard of. She sailed the day we left Melbourne. Queer things presentiments. You remember his saying he felt hypped, don’t you?’
‘Yes, quite well. What an awful pity that he should have persisted in going by her—after your warning, too!’
‘Didn’t like to lose his passage-money, poor fellow!’ continued the sympathising Rockley. ‘I’d have settled that for him quick enough, but he wasn’t the sort of man to let any one pay for him. Leaves a wife and children too. Well, we must see what can be done. Fortune of war might have been our case if I hadn’t taken Jackson’s measure so closely.’
‘Happy to think you did,’ said Wilfred, with natural gratitude. ‘If you had not been so determined about the matter, I should have risked the sea-voyage. I was tired of land-travelling.’
‘We should all have been with “Davy Jones” now. No cigars, eh? This claret’s better than salt water? I suppose we all have our work to do in this world; mine is not half done yet; yours scarcely begun. By Jove! I forgot to leave word at the office about my Sydney address—where to send all the confounded packages, about a thousand of them. I’ll run down and see that put straight. Don’t you go till I come back. Tell Mrs. Rockley she must have a little supper ready for us.’
Rockley lighted a fresh cigar and plunged into the night, while Wilfred lost no time in repairing to the piano, which he managed to persuade the fair performer to quit for the verandah, under the assumption that the room was warm, and the night air balmy in comparison.
For a while they walked to and fro on the cool freestone pavement, talking on indifferent subjects, while Wilfred gazed steadfastly into the girl’s marvellous eyes, ever and anon flashing under the soft moon-rays, as if he could read her very soul. She was dressed that evening in a pale-hued Indian muslin, which but partly veiled the exquisite graces of her form. How well he remembered it in after-days! There was a languor in her movements, a soft cadence in the tone of her voice, a quicker sympathy in her replies to his low-toned speech, which in some indefinable manner encouraged him to hope. He drew the lounges together, and telling her she needed rest, sat by her side.
‘You are really going away,’ he said; ‘no more last farewells, and Heaven knows when we shall meet again. I feel unutterably mournful at the idea of parting from your mother, Mr. Rockley—and—yourself. My sisters were in the depths of despair yesterday. I don’t think it affects you in the least.’
‘Why should you think I am hard hearted?’ asked the girl as she raised herself slightly, and leaning her face on her hand, curving the while her lovely rounded arm, looked up in his face with the pleading look of a spoiled child. ‘Do you suppose it is so pleasant to me to leave our home, where I have lived all my life, and travel to a new place where we know nobody—that is, hardly any one?’