He went over the whole scene anew. There was the spot where he had sat sleeping; he stepped over and sat there again, in the same attitude. There Stephanus had approached through the bushes; yonder was the place where the struggle for possession of the gun had taken place and where he had ignominiously sunk to the ground beneath his brother’s superior strength. A little to the right was the green tussock upon which Stephanus, after wrenching the gun from his grasp, had stood and looked insulting defiance at him. He recalled the face which bore such a detestable resemblance to his own, and remembered its look of triumphant hate. He recalled the taunting words that Stephanus had uttered and his own insulting reply. Again he felt the sickening torture of the crashing bullet tearing through flesh and bone. Involuntarily he lifted quickly the half-crippled limb; a torturing twinge shot through it and almost made him scream.
His thoughts swung back—searching among the mists of old memory for a clue to the one that had wrecked his life by telling falsehoods about him to the woman he loved, and who, he now knew for the first time, had loved him. Who could it be? None but the brother whose life he had been fool enough to save and who had always been his evil genius.
The scene he had just lived through was too recent for him to take in its full significance. He knew that he had caused Marta’s death by his confession—which he now bitterly regretted having made, and he wondered if they should meet in the next world whether she would hate him for what he had done. He had left the house of death with the full intention of confessing his transgression and expiating it in the fullest manner. It was not that he had made any resolution to this effect, but rather that a full confession, with its consequences, seemed to be the only possible outcome of what had happened.
Now, however, he determined to maintain silence. It was not that he dreaded the consequences of a confession to himself—his life was too full of misery for him to dread that—but rather that his somewhat waning hate of his brother had been reinforced by Marta’s words, and he could not bring himself to abate a jot of that brother’s bondage. Had it been possible to confess his sin without benefiting Stephanus by so doing, he felt that he would have told his tale to the first human creature he met, were it only a Bushman.
He had saved his brother’s life; it was not much, after all, to demand ten years of that life for the exigencies of his revenge. Stephanus, of course, deserved his punishment richly. What business had he to interfere with the gun at all? Every despiteful act,—every provocative detail, every maddening annoyance to which Stephanus had subjected him during the long, hate-blackened years of the feud, came back and grinned at him.
He found himself wondering whether anybody had been listening at the door when he made his confession, and the sudden dread of this contingency took precedence of every other consideration for the time. Well,—if he had been overheard he would abide by the result and make a full confession; if not his lips should remain sealed.
After the funeral, which Gideon attended with outward calmness, Aletta remained at the homestead for a few days arranging for the removal of the two girls. Uncle Diederick, who had been called in professionally, but had arrived on the scene after Marta’s death, said a simple prayer over the grave which was dug on the hill-side just behind the homestead. Sara was convulsed with grief, but Elsie hardly shed a tear. She and her mother had always been strangers; now the blind child’s utter ignorance of convention kept her from feigning a grief she did not feel. Gideon’s mind was now so far relieved, that he had no longer the fear of anyone having overheard his confession.
Uncle Diederick arranged to come and live at Stephanus’ farm and manage it for the benefit of the two children, until Stephanus’ release from prison. Accordingly, the “hartebeeste house” was abandoned—Jacomina having, in the meantime, carefully packed up all the drugs, herbs and surgical appliances in boxes and skin bags, and placed them in the wagon.
Thus, within a week of Marta’s death Uncle Diederick and his daughter were settled in their new dwelling. For months afterwards weary invalids from a distance continued to arrive at the “hartebeeste house” and to learn to their dismay that the physician had departed and left no address.