real confidence between them, but in conformity with their previous arrangements.
It was on the evening of the same day, after they had sighted Cape Otway, that Mrs. Smith and Caldigate began their last conversation on board the Goldfinder—a conversation which lasted, with one or two interruptions, late into the night.
'So we have come to the end of it,' she said.
'To the end of what?'
'To the end of all that is pleasant and easy and safe. Don't you remember my telling you how I dreaded the finish? Here I have been fairly comfortable and have in many respects enjoyed it. I have had you to talk to; and there has been a flavour of old days about it. What shall I be doing this time to-morrow?'
'I don't know your plans.'
'Exactly;—and I have not told you, because I would not have you bothered with me when I land. You have enough on your own hands; and if I were to be a burden to you now it might be a serious trouble. I am afraid poor Mr. Shand objects to me.'
'You don't think that would stand in my way?'
'It stands in mine. Of course, with your pride and your obstinacy you would tell Mr. Shand to go to—the devil if he ventured to object to any little delay that might be occasioned by looking after me. Then Mr. Shand would go—there, or elsewhere; and all your plans would be broken up, and you would be without a companion.'
'Unless I had you.' Of all the words which he could have spoken in such an emergency these were the most foolish; and yet, at so tender a moment, how were they to be repressed?
'I do think that Dick Shand is dangerous,' she answered, laughing; 'but I should be worse. I am afraid Dick Shand will—drink.'
'If so, we must part. And what would you do?'
'What would I do? What could I do?' Then there was a pause. 'Perhaps I should want you to—marry me, which would be worse than Dick Shand's drinking. Eh?'
There is an obligation on a man to persevere when a woman has encouraged him in love-making. It is like riding at a fence. When once you have set your horse at it you must go on, however impracticable it may appear as you draw close to it. If you have never looked at the fence at all—if you have ridden quite the other way, making for some safe gate or clinging to the dull lane—then there will be no excitement, but also there will be no danger and no disgrace. Caldigate had ridden hard at the fence, and could not crane at it now that it was so close to him. He could only trust to his good fortune to carry him safe over. 'I don't suppose you would want it,' he said, 'but I might.'
'You would want me, but you would not want me for always. I should be a burden less easy to shake off than Dick Shand.'
'Is that the way a man is always to look at a woman?'
'It is the way in which they do, I think. I often wonder that any man is ever fool enough to marry. A poor man may want some one to serve him, and may be able to get service in no other way; or a man, poor in another way, may find an heiress convenient;—but otherwise I think men only marry when they are caught. Women are prehensile things, which have to cling to something for nourishment and support. When I come across such a one as you I naturally put out my feelers.'
'I have not been aware of it.'
'Yes, you are; and I do not doubt that your mind is vacillating about me. I am sure you like me.'
'Certainly, I like you.'
'And you know that I love you.'
'I did not know it.'
'Yes, you did. You are not the man to be diffident of yourself in such a matter. You must either think that I love you, or that I have been a great hypocrite in pretending to do so. Love you!' They were sitting together on a large spar which was lashed on to the deck, and which had served throughout all the voyage for a seat for second-class passengers There were others now on the farther end of it; but there was a feeling that when Caldigate and Mrs. Smith were together it would not be civil to intrude upon their privacy. At this time it was dark; but their eyes had become used to the gloom, and each could see the other's face. 'Love you!' she repeated, looking up at him, speaking in a very low voice, but yet, oh so clearly, so that not a fraction of a sound was lost to his ears, with no special emotion in her face, with no contortion, no grimace, but with her eyes fixed upon his. 'How should it be possible that I should not love you? For two months we have been together as people seldom are in the world—as they never can be without hating each other or loving each other thoroughly. You have been very good to me who am all alone and desolate. And you are clever, educated—and a man. How should I not love you? And I know from the touch of your hand, from your breath when I feel it on my face, from the fire of your eye, and from the tenderness of your mouth, that you, too, love me.'
'I do,' he said.
'But as there may be marriage without love, so there may be love without marriage. You cannot but feel how little you know of me, and ignorant as you are of so much, that to marry me might be—ruin.' It was just what he had told himself over and over again, when he had been trying to resolve what he would do in regard to her. 'Don't you know that?'
'I know that it might have been so among the connections of home life.'
'And to you the connections of home life may all come back. That woman talked about your "roll of ancestors." Coming from her it was absurd. But there was some truth in it. You know that were you to marry me, say to-morrow, in Melbourne, it would shut you out from—well, not the possibility but the probability of return.'
'I do not want to go back.'
'Nor do I want to hinder you from doing so. If we were alike desolate, alike alone, alike cast out, oh then, what a heaven of happiness I should think had been opened to me by the idea of joining myself to you! There is nothing I could not do for you. But I will not be a millstone round your neck.'
She had taken so much the more prominent part in all this that he felt himself compelled by his manliness to say something in contradiction to it—something that should have the same flavour about it as had her self-abnegation and declared passion. He also must be unselfish and enthusiastic. 'I do not deny that there is truth in what you say.'
'It is true.'
'Of course I love you.'
'It ought to be of course—now.'
'And of course I do not mean to part from you now, as though we were never to see each other again.'
'I hope not quite that.'
'Certainly not. I shall therefore hold you as engaged to me, and myself as engaged to you—unless something should occur to separate us.' It was a foolish thing to say, but he did not know how to speak without being foolish. It is not usual that a gentleman should ask a lady to be engaged to him '—unless something should occur to separate them!' 'You will consent to that,' he said.
'What I will consent to is this, that I will be yours, all yours, whenever you may choose to send for me. At any moment I will be your wife for the asking. But you shall go away first, and shall think of it, and reflect upon it—so that I may not have to reproach myself with having caught you.'
'Caught me?'
'Well, yes, caught you. I do feel that I have caught you—almost. I do feel—almost—that I ought to have had nothing to do with you. From the beginning of it all I knew that I ought to have nothing to say to you. You are too good for me.' Then she rose from her place as though to leave him. 'I will go down now,' she said, 'because I know you will have many things to do. To-morrow, when we get up, we shall be in the harbour, and you will be on shore quite early. There will be no time for a word of farewell then. I will meet you again here just before we go to bed—say at half-past ten. Then we will arrange, if we can arrange, how we may meet again.'
And so she glided away from him, and he was left alone, sitting on the spar. Now, at any rate, he had engaged himself. There could not be any doubt about that. He certainly could not be justified in regarding himself as free because