Thus tobacco, the good angel of all men, no longer came each day to teach Charles patience and amiability, and he fell into the ways of short temper and selfishness.
They took up their residence in a suburb of Newcastle, and this was also unfortunate for them, because there the society was scanty and middle-aged, and in consequence they had still to depend much upon their own resources. They knew little of life, less of each other, and nothing at all of themselves. Of course they quarrelled, and each quarrel left the wound a little deeper than before. No kindly experienced friend was at hand to laugh at them. Mivanway would write down all her sorrows in a bulky diary, which made her feel worse; so that before she had written for ten minutes her pretty unwise head would drop upon her dimpled arm, and the book, the proper place for which was behind the fire, would become damp with her tears; and Charles, his day's work done and the clerks gone, would linger in his dingy office and hatch trifles into troubles.
The end came one evening after dinner, when in the heat of a silly squabble Charles boxed Mivanway's ears. That was very ungentlemanly conduct, and he was most heartily ashamed of himself the moment he had done it, which was right and proper for him to be. The only excuse to be urged on his behalf is that girls sufficiently pretty to have been spoiled from childhood by every one about them can at times be intensely irritating. Mivanway rushed up to her room and locked herself in; Charles flew after her to apologize, but only arrived in time to have the door slammed in his face.
It had only been the merest touch; a boy's muscles move quicker than his thoughts. But to Mivanway it was a blow. This is what it had come to! This was the end of a man's love!
She spent half the night writing in the precious diary, with the result that in the morning she came down feeling more bitter than when she had gone up. Charles had walked the streets of Newcastle all night, and that had not done him any good. He met her with an apology combined with an excuse, which was bad policy. Mivanway, of course, fastened upon the excuse, and the quarrel recommenced. She mentioned that she hated him, he hinted that she had never loved him, and she retorted that he had never loved her. Had there been anybody by to knock their heads together and suggest breakfast, the thing might have blown over; but the combined effect of a sleepless night and an empty stomach upon each proved disastrous. Their words came poisoned from their brains, and they believed they meant what they said. That afternoon Charles sailed from Hull on a ship bound for the Cape, and that evening Mivanway arrived at the paternal home in Bristol with two trunks and the curt information that she and Charles had separated forever. The next morning both thought of a soft speech to say to the other, but the next morning was just twenty-four hours too late.
Eight days afterward Charles's ship was run down in a fog near the coast of Portugal, and every soul on board was supposed to have perished. Mivanway read his name among the list of lost.
By good luck, however, Charles and one other man were rescued by a small trading-vessel, and landed in Algiers. There Charles learned of his supposed death, and the idea occurred to him to leave the report uncontradicted. For one thing, it solved a problem that had been troubling him. He could trust his father to see to it that his own small fortune, with possibly something added, was handed over to Mivanway, and she would be free, if she wished, to marry again. He was convinced that she did not care for him, and that she had read of his death with a sense of relief. He would make a new life for himself and forget her.
He continued his journey to the Cape, and once there he soon gained for himself an excellent position. The colony was young, engineers were welcome, and Charles knew his business. He found the life interesting and exciting. The rough, dangerous up-country work suited him, and the time passed swiftly.
But in thinking he would forget Mivanway, he had not taken into consideration his own character, which at bottom was a very gentlemanly character. Out on the lonely veldt he found himself dreaming of her. The memory of her pretty face and merry laugh came back to him at all hours. Occasionally he would rate her roundly, but that only meant that he was sore because of the thought of her; what he was really rating was himself and his own folly. Softened by the distance, her quick temper, her very petulance became mere added graces; and if we consider women as human beings, and not as angels, it was certainly a fact that he had lost a very sweet and lovable woman.
Ah! if only she were by his side now—now that he was a man, capable of appreciating her, and not a foolish, selfish boy. This thought would come to him as he sat smoking at the door of his tent, and then he would regret that the stars looking down upon him were not the same stars that were watching her; it would have made him feel nearer to her. For, though young people may not credit it, one grows more sentimental as one grows older—at least some of us do, and they, perhaps, not the least wise.