For Jacinta. Bindloss Harold

"One understands that it is a particularly unhealthy climate. Still, when one considers that all is arranged for the best – "

      Austin, who could not help it, smiled sardonically, though he felt he had an almost hopeless task. It appeared impossible that Gascoyne should ever understand the character of a man like Jefferson. But he meant to do what he could.

      "It is naturally easier to believe that when circumstances coincide with our wishes, sir," he said. "Now, I do not exactly charge you with wishing Jefferson dead, though your face shows that you would not be sorry. I am, of course, another careless seafarer, a friend of his, and I can understand that what you have seen of me has not prepossessed you in my favour. Still, if I can, I am going to show you Jefferson as he is. To begin with, he believes, as you do, that Miss Gascoyne is far above him – and in this he is altogether wrong. Miss Gascoyne is doubtless a good woman, but Jefferson is that harder thing to be, a good man. His point of view is not yours, it is, perhaps, a wider one; but he has, what concerns you most directly now, a vague, reverential respect for all that is best in womanhood, which, I think, is sufficient to place Miss Gascoyne under a heavy responsibility."

      He stopped a moment, looking steadily at Gascoyne, who appeared blankly astonished.

      "Because it was evident to him that a woman of Miss Gascoyne's conventional upbringing must suffer if brought into contact with the unpleasant realities of the outside world, he has staked his life willingly – not recklessly – on the winning of enough to place her beyond the reach of adversity. He realised that it was, at least, even chances he never came back from Africa; but it seemed to him better that she should be proud of him dead than have to pity him and herself living. I know this, because he told me he would never drag the woman who loved him down. He fell in love with her without reflection, instinctively – or, perhaps, because it was arranged so – I do not understand these things. As surely – conventionalities don't always count – she fell in love with him, and then he had to grapple with the position. Your daughter could not live, as some women do, unshocked and cheerfully among rude and primitive peoples whose morality is not your morality, in the wilder regions of the earth. It was also evident that she could not live sumptuously in England on the interest of £8,000. You see what he made of it. If he died, Miss Gascoyne would be free. If he lived, she could avoid all that would be unpleasant. Isn't that sufficient? Could there be anything base or mean in a nature capable of devotion of that description?"

      Gascoyne sat silent almost a minute. Then he said very quietly: "I have to thank you, Mr. Austin – the more so because I admit I was a little prejudiced against you. Perhaps men living as I do acquire too narrow a view. I am glad you told me. And now where is my daughter and Mrs. Hatherly?"

      "Wait another minute! Jefferson is, as you will recognise, a man of exceptional courage, but he is also a man of excellent education, and, so far as that goes, of attractive presence; such a one, in fact, as I think a girl of Miss Gascoyne's station is by no means certain to come across again in England. Now, if I have said anything to offend you, it has not been with that object, and you will excuse it. Your daughter and Mrs. Hatherly are on board this ship. It seemed better that you should hear me out before I told you."

      "Ah," said Gascoyne. "Well, I think you were right, and again I am much obliged to you. Will you take me to Mrs. Hatherly?"

      Austin did so, and coming back flung himself down on the settee in Macallister's room.

      "Give me a drink – a long one. I don't know that I ever talked so much at once in my life, and I only hope I didn't make a consummate ass of myself," he said.

      "It's no that difficult," said Macallister, reflectively, as he took out a syphon and a bottle of wine. "Ye made excuses for yourself and Jefferson?"

      Austin laughed. "No," he said. "I made none for Jefferson. I think I rubbed a few not particularly pleasant impressions into the other man. I felt I had to. It was, of course, a piece of abominable presumption."

      Macallister leaned against the bulkhead and regarded him with a sardonic grin.

      "I would have liked to have heard ye," he said.

       CHAPTER VII

      AT THE BULL FIGHT

      Austin was writing in the saloon, which was a little cooler than his room, at about eight o'clock that night, while Jacinta and Mrs. Hatherly made ineffectual attempts to read in the ladies' cabin, for the Estremedura was on her way south again, with the trade-wind combers tumbling after her. She rolled with a long, rhythmic swing, and now and then shook and trembled with the jar of her lifted propeller. Muriel Gascoyne was accordingly alone with her father on the deck above. She sat in a canvas chair, while Gascoyne leaned upon the rails in front of her. There was a full moon overhead, and a fantastic panorama of fire-blackened hills, wastes of ash and lava, whirling clouds of sand, black rocks lapped by spouting surf, and bays of deepest indigo, unrolled itself upon one hand. It is, however, probable that neither of the pair saw much of it, for their thoughts were not concerned with the volcanic desolation.

      "It is a pity I did not come a few weeks earlier," said Gascoyne with a sigh.

      Muriel's eyes were a trifle hazy, but her voice was even. "If you had come then, and insisted upon it, I might have given him up," she said.

      "That means it is irrevocable now? I want you to make quite sure, my dear. This man does not belong to our world. Even his thoughts must be different from ours. You cannot know anything of his past life – I scarcely think he could explain it to you. He would regard nothing from the same standpoint as we do."

      "Still, it cannot have been a bad one. I can't tell you why I am sure of that, but I know."

      Gascoyne made a little, hopeless gesture. "Muriel," he said, a trifle hoarsely, "it is a terrible risk – and if you marry him you must inevitably drift away from me. You are all I have, and I am getting old and lonely, but that is not of the greatest moment. It would be horrible to think of you drifting away from all you have been taught to believe in and hold sacred."

      It was a strong appeal, perhaps the strongest he could have made, for the girl had been without breadth of view when she left home, and the boundaries of her outlook had coincided with those of the little rural parish. Still, in some strange fashion she had gained enlightenment, and she was resolute, though her blue eyes slowly brimmed with moisture. It was true that he would be very lonely.

      "Ah," she said, and it was a significant sign that she questioned the comprehension of the man whom she had regarded as almost infallible a few weeks earlier, "how can I make you understand? There are, perhaps, many worlds, and we know there are many kinds of men. They must think differently, but does that matter so very much, after all? There is the same humanity in all of us."

      "Undoubtedly! In Turks, idolaters, and unbelievers. Humanity in itself is fallen and evil."

      Muriel smiled. "Father," she said, "you don't believe that there is no good in all those who have not been taught to believe as we do."

      Gascoyne did not answer her, though it is possible that there were circumstances under which he would have returned a very slightly qualified affirmative.

      "There is a perilous optimism abroad," he said.

      "Still," said Muriel, unconscious of the irony of her deprecatory answer, "Mr. Jefferson is neither a Turk nor an idolater. He is only an American sailor."

      Gascoyne sighed dejectedly, for there was, it seemed, nothing left for him to appeal to. The girl's beliefs had gone. The simple, iron-fast rules of life she had once acknowledged were now apparently discredited; but even in his concern he was vaguely sensible that an indefinite something which he did not recognise as the charity that love teaches was growing up in place of them. Still, he felt its presence as he watched her, and knew that it could not be altogether born of evil.

      "My dear," he said, "how shall I implore you to consider?"

      Muriel smiled out of hazy eyes. "It is too late. He has my promise, and I belong to him. Nothing that you could say would change that now. He has gone out – to Africa – believing in me, and I know that he may never come back again."

      Gascoyne appeared a trifle startled, and remembered a curious remark that