40+ Adventure Novels & Lost World Mysteries in One Premium Edition. Henry Rider Haggard

living one."

      "I am very sorry for you, dear."

      "Do you suppose, Mildred, that this will go on for all my life, that I shall always be at the mercy of these bitter memories and thoughts?"

      "I don't know, Arthur. I hope not."

      "I wish I were dead—I wish I were dead," he broke out, passionately. "She has destroyed my life, all that was happy in me is dead, only my body lives on. I am sure I don't know, Mildred, how you can care for anything so worthless."

      She kissed him, and answered,

      "Dearest, I had rather love you as you are than any other man alive. Time does wonders; perhaps in time you will get over it. Oh! Arthur, when I think of what she has made you, and what you might have been if you had never known her, I long to tell that woman all my mind. But you must be a man, dear; it is weak to give way to a mad passion, such as this is now. Try to think of something else; work at something."

      "I have no heart for it, Mildred, I don't feel as though I could work; and, if you cannot make me forget, I am sure I do not know what will."

      Mildred sighed, and did not answer. Though she spoke hopefully about it to him, she had little faith in his getting over his passion for Angela now. Either she must marry him as he was, or else let him go altogether; but which? The struggle between her affection and her idea of duty was very sore, and as yet she could come to no conclusion.

      One thing there was that troubled her considerably, and this was that, though Madeira was almost empty, there were enough people in it to get up a good deal of gossip about herself and Arthur. Now, it would have been difficult to find anybody more entirely careless of the judgments of society than Mildred, more especially as her great wealth and general popularity protected her from slights. But, for all her oddities, she was a thorough woman of the world; and she knew, none better, that, in pursuance of an almost invariable natural law, there is nothing that lowers a woman so much in the estimation of a man as the knowledge that she is talked about, even though he himself is the cause of the talk. This may be both illogical and unjust, but it is, none the less, true.

      But, if Mildred still hesitated, Arthur did not. He was very anxious that they should be married; indeed, he almost insisted on it. The position was one that was far from being agreeable to him, for all such intimacies must, from their very nature, necessitate a certain amount of false swearing. They are throughout an acted lie; and, when the lie is acted, it must sometimes be spoken. Now, this is a state of affairs that is repugnant to an honourable man, and one that not unfrequently becomes perfectly intolerable. Many is the love-affair that comes to a sudden end because the man finds it impossible to permanently constitute himself a peregrinating falsehood. But, oddly enough, it has been found difficult to persuade the other contracting party of the validity of the excuse, and, however unjust it may be, one has known of men who have seen their defection energetically set down to more vulgar causes.

      Arthur was no exception to this rule. He found himself in a false position, and he hated it. Indeed, he determined before long he would place it before Mildred in the light of an alternative, that he should either marry her, or that an end should be put to their existing relations.

      CHAPTER LXXIII

       Table of Content

      As the autumn came on, a great south-west gale burst over Madeira, and went sweeping away up the Bay of Biscay. It blew for three days and nights, and was one of the heaviest on record. When it first began, the English mail was due; but when it passed there were still no signs of her, and prophets of evil were not wanting who went to and fro shaking their heads, and suggesting that she had probably foundered in the Bay.

      Two more days went by, and there were still no signs of her, though the telegraph told them that she had left Southampton Docks at the appointed time and date. By this time, people in Madeira could talk of nothing else.

      "Well, Arthur, no signs of the Roman?" said Mildred, on the fifth day.

      "No, the Garth Castle is due in to-day. Perhaps she may have heard something of her."

      "Yes," said Miss Terry, absently; "she may have fallen in with some of the wreckage."

      "I must say that is a cheerful suggestion," answered Arthur. "She is an awful old tub, and, I daresay, ran before the gale for Vigo, that is all."

      "Let us hope so," said Mildred, doubtfully. "What is it, John?"

      "The housemaid wishes to speak to you, please, ma'am."

      "Very good, I will come."

      It has been hinted that Agatha Terry was looking absent on the morning in question. There was a reason for it. For some time past there had been growing up in the bosom of this excellent lady a consciousness that things were not altogether as they should be. Miss Terry was not clever, indeed it may be said that she was dense, but still she could not but see that there was something odd in the relations between Arthur and Mildred. For instance, it struck her as unusual that two persons who were not married, nor even, so far as she knew, engaged, should habitually call each other "dear," and even sometimes "dearest."

      But on the previous evening, when engaged in a search after that species of beetle that loves the night, she chanced to come across the pair standing together on the museum verandah, and, to her horror, she saw, even in that light, that Mildred's arm was round Arthur's neck, and her head was resting on his heart. Standing aghast, she saw more; for presently Mildred raised her hand, and, drawing Arthur's head down to the level of her own, kissed him upon the face.

      There was no doubt about it, it was a most deliberate kiss—a kiss without any extenuating circumstances. He was not even going away, and Agatha could only come to one conclusion, that they were either going to be married—or "they ought to be."

      She sought no more beetles that evening, but on the following morning, when Mildred departed to see the housemaid, leaving Arthur and herself together on the verandah, she thought it was her "duty" to seek a little information.

      "Arthur," she said, with a beating heart, "I want to ask you something. Are you engaged to Mildred?"

      He hesitated, and then answered.

      "No, I suppose not, Miss Terry."

      "Nor married to her?"

      "No; why do you ask?"

      "Because I think you ought to be."

      "I quite agree with you. I suppose that you have noticed something?"

      "Yes, I have. I saw her kissing you, Arthur."

      He blushed like a girl.

      "Oh, Arthur," she went on, bursting into tears, "don't let this sort of thing go on, or poor Mildred will lose her reputation; and you must know what a dreadful thing that is for any woman. Why don't you marry her?"

      "Because she refused to marry me."

      "And yet—and yet she kisses you—like that!" added Miss Terry, as the peculiar fervour of the embrace in question came back to her recollection. "Ah, I don't know what to think."

      "Best not think about it at all, Miss Terry. It won't bear reflection."

      "Oh, Arthur, how could you?"

      He looked very uncomfortable as he answered—

      "I know that I must seem a dreadful brute to you. I daresay I am; but, Miss Terry, it would, under all the circumstances, be much more to the point, if you insisted on Mildred's marrying me."

      "I dare not. You do not know Mildred. She would never submit to it from me."

      "Then I must; and, what is more, I will do it now."

      "Thank you, Arthur, thank you. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you."

      "There is no need to be grateful to the author of this mischief."

      "And