of them. Let me make that money. I can, and I will. Then she shall give me her answer – not before."
And yet he had an uneasy conscience about his new resolve, plausible as it became in words; but the qualm only hardened it within him; and he lay in the twilight with set teeth and dogged jaw, quite a different Denis from the one who had leaned forward to listen to Jimmy Doherty, but every inch a Dent.
Doherty came stealing back with the face of a conspirator; his worldly wisdom did not as yet include a recognition of the difficulty of picking up broken threads, even when they are threads of gold. Denis would not promise to speak to Mr. Kitto, would hear no more, indeed, of Ballarat; all he seemed to care to know now was what Captain Devenish was doing with himself.
"Him with the whiskers?" said Jimmy. "I can't sight that gent!"
"What do you mean?"
"Beg yer pardon, mister, but I don't like him. He speaks to you like as if you was a blessed dingo. That sort o' thing don't do out here; we ain't used to it." And young Australia shook a sage old head.
"But what's he doing with himself, Jimmy?"
"Oh, lookin' at the papers an' things, an' yawnin' an' smokin' about the place."
"And Mr. Merridew?"
"With the young lady. She ain't a-goin' to show up to-night, the young lady ain't; and you can take that as gospel – for I had it from the missus herself."
The boy's eyes were uncomfortably keen and penetrating. Denis got rid of him, and lay thinking until it was nearly dusk. Then they brought him his first solid meal; and presently Mrs. Kitto paid a visit to a giant so refreshed that nothing would persuade him to keep his bed without a break. He must have a breath of air: he was quite himself. So early evening brought him forth in a pair of Mr. Kitto's slippers.
The very first person he saw was Ralph Devenish, reading by lamplight in one of the many rude verandas which faced and flanked one another under the bright Australian stars. Denis went limping up to him with outstretched hand.
"I am glad to set eyes on you, Devenish," he said gravely.
"Really?" drawled the other, with light incredulity; but he could hardly refuse the bandaged hand.
"Ralph Devenish," pursued Denis, chilled but undeterred, "I make no apology for the sudden familiarity, partly because we've both been so near our death, and partly because we're cousins. My mother was a Devenish; you may open your eyes, but I would drop them if I came of the stock that treated her as her own people did! I never meant to tell you, for there can be no love to lose between your name and mine, but I blurted it out in a rage just before we struck. I want to say that I'm heartily ashamed of the expressions I made use of then; that I apologize for them, and take them back."
"My good fellow," replied Devenish, with engaging candour, "I don't recollect one of them; the fact is, I was a little drunk. As to our relationship, that's very interesting, I'm sure; but it's odd how one does run up against relations, in the last places you'd expect, too. I can't say I remember your name, though; never heard it before, to my knowledge. If there's been anything painful between your people and mine, don't tell me any more about it, like a good feller."
"I won't," said Denis, secretly boiling over, though for no good reason that he could have given. It certainly was not because Devenish continued occupying the only chair, leaving the lame man to stand. Denis was glad to have so whole a view of him as the lamplight and the easy chair afforded. Save for the patent fact that his clothes had not been made for him, the whiskered captain looked as he had looked on board, a subtle cross between the jauntily debonair and the nobly bored. As Denis watched he produced the same meerschaum that he had smoked all the voyage, a Turk's head beautifully coloured, with a curved amber mouthpiece, and proceeded to fill it from the same silken pouch.
"Another soul saved, you see!" said Ralph Devenish, as he tapped his Turk affectionately; it was the acme of sly callousness, even if intended so to appear. Denis turned away in disgust, but turned back for a moment in his stride.
"Are you going home with the Merridews?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Devenish. "Are you?"
"I don't know," echoed Denis. "But I think – not."
"Really?" drawled Devenish. "Well, as a year's leave don't last forever, I'm not so sure."
And as Denis saw the last of him under the lamp, he had not yet resumed the filling of the Turk's head.
CHAPTER VII
DENIS AND NAN
Miss Merridew continued prostrate, yet so exempt from bodily mischief that her case began to baffle all except the other woman, who had charge of it.
Mr. Merridew allowed himself to be dissuaded from obtaining indifferent medical advice at exorbitant cost, but his anxiety increased with his perplexity, and was only allayed by his instinctive confidence in Mrs. Kitto. That lady proved as practical and understanding as she was good and kind. Yet even Mrs. Kitto was puzzled just at first. They had to deal with one singularly reserved – who could lie for hours without closing an eye or uttering a word – and the father's way was to force her to say something, at the pain of his own passionate distress. But Mrs. Kitto would bring in her sewing, of which she seemed to have a great deal, and sit over it, also by the hour, in a quietude as grateful as her sparing speech. She was very observant, however, and the one thing that puzzled her only did so in the beginning. This was the anomaly presented by a patient whose face was often in a burning fever while her head and hand kept perfectly cool.
The wreck was never mentioned in the sick-room, nor did Nan guess that an inquest on the bodies was held within a few yards of where she lay. Yet it was she who eventually broke the ice.
"Is Mr. Dent still here?" she asked, but in a tone so magnificently offhand that a less astute person than Mrs. Kitto would have detected its anxiety as soon.
"He was this morning," replied Mrs. Kitto, smiling.
"Do you mean that he isn't now?" the girl demanded, half-rising on an elbow.
"No. I think I should have heard of it if he had thought of leaving us to-day."
Nan Merridew fell back upon her pillow.
"I wish he would go on board," she said petulantly, "if he is going."
"On board?" queried Mrs. Kitto; and she set down her work.
"Isn't he to be one of the officers on the ship we are all going home by?"
"I didn't know of it," said Mrs. Kitto, with equal embarrassment and surprise.
"But he is," declared the girl, with all an invalid's impatience. "I understood that from papa the day he came; he had spoken to the agents, or he was going to speak to them, and Denis – I mean Mr. Dent – was to have the best berth they could give him. I do wish he would go on board. I – I almost wish he hadn't saved my life!"
And she tossed her face to the wall, for it was burning as it had burned so often since her deliverance.
"It's meeting him again," said Mrs. Kitto to herself; "and she does care for him, or she would mind less." It made it all the harder to ask aloud, "Did your father say he had succeeded, dear?"
"We have never mentioned Mr. Dent again," said Nan to that, quite haughtily.
"Because I don't think he's sailing in the Memnon at all," continued Mrs. Kitto, gently. "I think he's going to the diggings instead."
"Going where?" the girl asked after a pause. The first sentence was all that she had heard.
"To Ballarat or Bendigo – to make his fortune."
"I hope he'll succeed," said Nan, after a pause; but her voice was a sweet bell jangled, and an hour went before she turned her face from the wall. It was still red, but there was a subtle difference in the shade. And in the hazel eyes, which were the most obvious of Miss Merridew's natural attractions, there was a crude, new light.
"I am going to get up," said she.
Mrs. Kitto proved not unprepared for the announcement; it appeared that all her needlework