FLAXMAN evidently had not heard me enter the room, for he did not turn round. For a few moments, perhaps while a man might have counted ten slowly, I stood and watched him. Then something that was very like a sob escaped him, and I saw his hands clench, as if he were battling with himself in an endeavour to suppress his emotion. Not being anxious to allow him to suppose that I was prying upon him, I stepped from the rug on to the polished floor and the sound brought him round face to face with me. Two large tears were coursing down his cheeks, and he made no attempt to hide them from me. Again I asked myself what had happened to bring about this extraordinary state of affairs. Had it been mail day I might have been tempted to believe that he had received bad news from the Old Country, but there would not be another mail for more than a week, so that that could not be held accountable for it. That he was really upset, as I had never seen him before, was as certain as that I was in the room, looking at him. And yet I knew him for a man who did not, as a rule, show emotion very easily.

On seeing me I noticed that he thrust the letter he held in his hand into his pocket, as if he did not desire that I should become aware of its existence. Whatever anything else might be, that scrap of paper at least had an important bearing on the affair.

“There is a letter for you upon the mantelpiece,” he said, doing his level best, I could see, to speak calmly, and succeeding very badly in the attempt. “You had better open it.”

I turned to the place in question and found there an envelope addressed with my name. I knew well enough before I opened it from whom it came, though, strange to say, I had never seen Miss Moira’s writing before. During the time she had been with us, she had neither written nor received any letters, so that there had been no chance of my becoming familiar with her penmanship. I took it down and opened it with a sinking heart. I could guess what it contained before I started to read a word. I remembered her cry on the previous day--“I must go away! I must go away!” The letter was a short one--only a few brief sentences. It read as follows:--

“DEAR FRIEND,--Before you receive this I shall have left Montalta for ever. I feel now that I was wrong ever to have come. But how thankful I am to you for all you have done for me, I think you know. I shall always pray to God to bless you for it. Good-bye.

“Your grateful friend.

“MOIRA PENDRAGON.

“P.S.--I beg of you not to attempt to find me, for I assure you your search will be in vain.”

For more than a minute I stood looking at the paper in my hand and trying to collect my thoughts. Moira gone! Could such a thing be possible? Were we never to see her again? These were the questions that tumbled over each other in wild confusion in my brain. What was the reason of it all? She had seemed so happy with us until the last week or so, that no one would have dreamt she was on the verge of leaving us. The whole thing was incomprehensible to me; it was more than that, it was unbelievable. At last I found my voice. Addressing Flaxman, who was still standing at the window, I said, “What hand had you in this?” He looked at me in amazement, as if he marvelled that I could ask such a question.

“What hand had I in it?” he repeated. “Good God, man, do you want to drive me mad with your questions? If so, you’re going the right way to work to do it, I can tell you that. Do you think I drove her away from the place? Do you think it was by my wish that she went away from comfort to misery, perhaps to starvation? Great heavens, I would have given all I possess in this world to have been able to prevent it. She gave me no hint of her intention or I should have done my utmost to stop her, whatever the consequences might have been. Surely you know me well enough for that. If not, you’re far from being the friend I took you to be.”

I laughed scornfully, and as I did so I saw his face flush crimson. To think that we should ever have come to such a pass as this. It seemed well-nigh inconceivable.

“This is just the right time to talk of friendship, isn’t it?” I cried, with scathing irony. “I admire your good plain commonsense. Perhaps you would like to discuss Shakespeare and the musical glasses while you are about it? There is nothing like putting in one’s time profitably. You regret that she has left us; you would have prevented it had you known. Yet you were on the spot and knew nothing of it. The consequences would have been nothing to you, you declare. Well, you have the consequences to amuse yourself with now, if they are of any solace to you. Bah! I believe you knew it all the time; I believe that you connived at it. John Flaxman, I have had my suspicions for some time past, and now they have been confirmed. Let me tell you to your face that I distrust you from the bottom of my heart. Now I’ve said it and the murder’s out.”

He took a step towards me, his hand raised as if he would strike me. His face was now white as a sheet and I could distinctly hear his breath come in gasps.

“You dare to tell me that you believe I connived at her leaving this place?” he cried, his voice almost guttural with passion. It is the quiet man whose anger is most deadly when once thoroughly roused. “Then I tell you you lie, and that you know it.”

“Show me that letter in your pocket then,” I retorted. “Let me see that before I believe that you have no hand in it.”

His expression and his manner changed as if by magic. The hand he had raised dropped to his side and his face began to flush once more.

There was a short pause, after which he said hesitatingly, as if he were not sure of the reception his words would receive:--

“I cannot show it to you.”

“You cannot show it to me,” I echoed mockingly. “That is good news, indeed, and may I be permitted to ask the reason that prompts that decision? There is my letter,” (here I threw it down upon the table for him to see). “You are quite at liberty to read it, if you please. Why may I not see yours in return?”

“Because I cannot show it to you,” he replied doggedly. “It would be abusing a confidence were I to do so. I must ask you to accept the explanation for what it is worth. I can give you no other.”

“I can quite believe that,” I sneered, “and I will take it for what it is worth--which is nothing, literally nothing. You know that as well as I do. You have already told me that you were not aware that she contemplated leaving us, yet a thought has just struck me which may throw some light on the case. Possibly you may remember that last week you talked of paying the South a visit in a few weeks. Doubtless you will do so now. It is a pretty little plot, but it seems to me as if it has miscarried somewhere.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, staring at me with dilated eyes. “What is this vile thing you are endeavouring to insinuate? Speak out like a man and say what you have in your mind. You can’t insult me more than you have done already. What do you charge me with?”

“I charge you with nothing. I make no insinuations. I simply leave you to your own conscience. You can settle with that.”

“I demand that you shall tell me what you meant when you said that,” he repeated angrily. “I do not want any further subterfuges. You have brought forward the fact that I talked of going South in connection with this affair, and I wish to know what you mean by it. You shall tell me, even if I have to force you into doing so. As a gentleman, I put you on your honour to do so.”

I had not bargained for this, but my blood was up and I was reckless as to the consequences.

“Very well, since you will have it, I’ll speak out as you bid me,” I answered defiantly. “What I charge you with is inducing Miss Moira to leave this house in order that you may meet her elsewhere. The reason that prompts such hole-and--corner work is best known to yourself.”

The words had scarcely left my lips before he had sprung at me, and had struck me such a severe blow upon the mouth that I could feel the blood trickling down my chin a moment later. The force with which it was dealt was sufficient to drive me back a couple of paces. Then, may God forgive me, I knocked him down. It was done in a fit of passion it is true, and in return for a blow dealt to me, but I give you my word, sworn by all I hold sacred, that if I could recall it now, I would willingly lose the hand that gave it. For a moment he lay upon the floor as if stunned, then he staggered to his feet. Having done so, he gave utterance to this extraordinary confession:--

“You did right,” he said, speaking calmly and deliberately, as if he had carefully worked the matter out. “I forgot myself and struck you; you only punished me according to my deserts.”

To my eternal shame be it set down that my only reply was a laugh. Idiot that I was, I imagined he had been frightened by my blow and had turned craven. Now, of course, I can see it all in the proper light. But then I was so blinded by my jealousy and the hatred it engendered in me, that I was incapable of believing in anything or anybody.

“Now that you know what I think,” I answered, “I’ll leave you to chew your cud in peace. I hope your reflections may bring you happiness. You may expect me back when you see me.”

So saying I flung out of the room, and in less than a quarter of an hour was galloping down the track in the direction of the township. At the best of times it was none too safe a road, but in the pitch-blackness of a stormy night it was positively dangerous. I gave no thought to that, however, but rode as if for my life, regardless of everything save my whirling, maddening thoughts, my love for Moira, and my hatred of the man who, I implicitly believed, had robbed me of her. My only regret now was that I had not thrashed him more severely, as soundly indeed as I believed that he deserved.

Overhead the storm roared, the wind lashing the trees with remorseless fury. The lightning flashed, the thunder crashed, while now and again in the lulls I could hear the tumult of the torrent in the valley below me. It was such another night as Tam--o’-Shanter must have been abroad in, and again such another as that on which I had first met the girl who was the primary cause of my present happiness. How much had happened since that momentous night! I had learnt to love, and I had also learnt to hate. I had believed myself one of the happiest of living men, and I now knew myself for one of the most miserable. To find relief I urged my gallant little horse to greater efforts. He was a game beast, and needed no spur to induce him to do his best. Regardless of the state of the track, which as often as not was merely a matter of conjecture, we sped on and on, sometimes tumbling and slipping, but with never a thought of caution. More than once, nay, at least a dozen times, a vivid flash of lightning showed me how near I had been to death’s door. Once we were scarcely half a horse’s length from the edge of a deep ravine, through which a swollen stream ran like a mill-sluice bounding down the hillside, missed the horse’s head by scarcely two yards, crossed the track and disappeared with a crash into the valley below. The animal’s sudden stop came within an ace of throwing me headlong out of the saddle. But even that narrow escape did not steady me.

“Come up, old horse,” I shouted. “We were not born to be killed in that clumsy fashion.”

Once more I set him going. We had put more than ten miles behind us by this time and were within an appreciable distance of the township. At the pace we were travelling, all being well, we should be there in less than half an hour. But would, or could, the animal hold out so long, was the question I should have asked myself. But I never thought of it. All I wanted was to get to my destination and into the society of men who could help me to forget what I was suffering. And what was Moira doing meanwhile? She had left the station on foot, so I had ascertained. Where could she be, then? Wandering in the scrub in all probability, as I had found her on that night when we had first met. I cursed Flaxman again, and rode on even harder than before. The thought of that poor girl wandering alone in the storm maddened me. Why was it Flaxman had not gone to her assistance? Had he told me a lie, I wondered, or was he tired of her and resolved to abandon her to her fate? Suspicion induced me to believe the first; common humanity forbade me to credit the second. No man could surely be such an out-and-out scoundrel as that. However, it was no business of mine now. All I had to do was to endeavour to forget that we had ever met.

At last and none too soon, for my horse was completely done for, I saw ahead of me the lights of the little township twinkling like so many stars on the plain. Thank goodness, we were there at last. From the point where one obtains the first view of the little settlement the track slopes somewhat steeply for between half and three--quarters of a mile. The main street of the township, if street indeed it can be called, consisting as it does of three hotels (save the mark!), a blacksmith’s shop, two stores, a policestation, and half a dozen wooden cottages, is as broad as any in the Empire, and probably muddier than most. After a storm, such as was then raging, it is well nigh impassable, either for man or b............