PAGE 19
The Penalty
by
IX
“Now, don’t bother any more about me!” commanded Betty Derwent, establishing herself with an air of finality on the edge of the trout stream to which she had just suffered herself to be conducted by her companion. “I am quite capable of baiting my own hook if necessary. You run along up-stream and have some sport on your own account!”
The companion, a very young college man, looked decidedly blank over this kindly dismissal. He had been manoeuvring to get Betty all to himself for days, but, since everybody seemed to want her, it had been no easy matter. And now, to his disgust, just as he was congratulating himself upon having gained his end and secured a tete-a-tete that, with luck, might last for hours, he was coolly told to run along and amuse himself while she fished in solitude.
“I say, you know,” he protested, “that’s rather hard lines.”
“Don’t be absurd!” said Betty. “I came out to catch fish, not to talk. And you are going to do the same.”
“Oh, confound the fish!” said the luckless one.
Nevertheless, he yielded, seeing that it was expected of him, and took himself off, albeit reluctantly.
Betty watched him go, with a faint smile. He was a nice boy undoubtedly, but she much preferred him at a distance.
She sat down on the bank above the trout-stream, and took a letter from her pocket. It had reached her the previous day, and she had already read it many times. This fact, however, did not deter her from reading it yet again, her chin upon her hand. It was not a lengthy epistle.
“DEAR BETTY,” it said, “I am back from my wanderings, and I am coming straight to you; but I want you to get this letter first, in time to stop me, if you feel so inclined. It is useless for me to attempt to soften what I have to say. I can only put it briefly, just because I know–too well–what it will mean to you. Betty, the boy is dead, has been dead for years. How he died and exactly when, I do not know; but I have certified the fact of his death beyond all question. He died at the hands of the Wandis, when his own men, the Zambas, were defeated. So much I heard from the Wandi Mullah himself, and more than that I cannot tell you. My dear, that is the end of your romance, and I know that you will never weave another. But, that notwithstanding, I am coming–now, if you will have me–later, if you desire it–to claim you for myself. Your happiness always has and always will come first with me, and neither now nor hereafter shall I ever ask of you more than you are disposed to give.–Ever yours,”
“MONTAGUE HERNE.”
Very slowly Betty’s eyes travelled over the paper. She read right to the end, and then suffered her eyes to rest for a long time upon the signature. Her fishing-rod lay forgotten on the ground beside her. She seemed to be thinking deeply.
Once, rather suddenly, she moved to look at the watch on her wrist. It was drawing towards noon. She had sent no message to delay him. Would he have travelled by the night train? But she dismissed that conjecture as unlikely. Herne was not a man to do anything headlong. He would give her ample time. She almost wished–she checked the sigh that rose to her lips. No, it was better as it was. A man’s ardour was different from a boy’s; and she–she was a girl no longer. Her romance was dead.
A slight sound beside her, a footstep on the grass! She turned, looked, sprang to her feet. The vivid colour rushed up over her face.
“You!” she gasped, almost inarticulately.
He had come by the night train after all.
He came up to her quite quietly, with that leisureliness of gait that she remembered so well.