CHAPTER XXXIV.

CONTENTMENT.

"And on her lover's arm she leaned, And 'round her waist she felt it fold."

Some two or three months of Julian's leave remained to expire at the time when the foregoing explanation had taken place, and perhaps nothing which had occurred since the day when he first set foot in British Honduras had caused him more perplexity than his present deliberations as to how to make the best of that period.

For now he knew that he had done with the colony for ever; he had achieved that for which he had come to it; he had proved the truth of George Ritherdon's statement up to the hilt, and--in so far as obtaining the possession of that which was undoubtedly his--well! the law would soon take steps to enable him to do so.

Only, when he told himself that he had done with the colony, when he reflected that henceforth his foot would never tread on its earth more, he had also to tell himself that he could alone consent to sever his connection with it by also taking away with him the most precious thing it contained in his eyes--Beatrix Spranger.

"For," he said to that young lady, as once more they sat in the garden at "Floresta," with about and around them all the surroundings that he had learned to know so well and to recall during many of the gloomy nights and days he had spent at Desolada--the great shade palms, the gorgeous flamboyants and delicate oleander blossoms, as well as the despairing looking and lugubrious monkey--"for, darling, I cannot go without you. If I were to do so, Heaven alone knows when I could return to claim you; and, also, I cannot wait. Sweetheart, you too must sail for England with me, and it must be as Mrs. Ritherdon."

He said the same thing often. Indeed at night, which is--as those acquainted with such matters tell us--the period when young ladies pass in review the principal events that have happened to them during the day, Beatrix used to consider, or rather to calculate, that he made the same remark about twenty times daily. While, since, loving and gentle as she was, she was also possessed of a considerable amount of feminine perspicacity, she supposed that he reiterated the phrase upon the principle that the constant drop of water which falls upon a stone will at last wear it away.

"Though," the girl would say to herself in those soft hours of maiden meditation, "he need not fear. He cannot but think that his longing is also shared by me."

Aloud, however, when once more he repeated what had become almost a set phrase, she said:

"You know that you have taken an unfair advantage of me. Indeed, though it was only by chance, you have put me to terrible mortification. You overheard my avowal to that unhappy girl, my avowal that--that--I loved you." And Beatrix blushed most beautifully as she softly uttered the words. "Think what an avowal it was. To be made by a woman for a man who had never asked for her love."

"Had he not," Julian said, "had he not, Beatrix? Never asked for that love on one happy day spent alone by that woman's side, when he confided everything to her that bore upon his presence here; and she, full of soft and gentle sympathy, told him all her fears and anxiety for the risks he might run. And, did he not ask for that love on the night which followed that day, as they rode back to Belize beneath the stars?"

And now his eyes were gazing into hers with a look of love which no woman could doubt, even though no other man had ever looked at her so before; while since loverlike, they were sitting close together, his arm stole round her waist.

To the inexperienced--the present narrator included--it may be permitted to wonder how lovers learn to do these things as well as how they discover, too, the efficacy of such subtle tenderness; yet one is told that they are done, and that the success thereof is indisputable.

Nor, with Beatrix, did either the look of love or the soft environment of his arm fail in their effort, as may be judged from her answer to his whispered question, "It shall be, shall it not, darling?"

"Yes," she murmured, blushing again and more deeply. "Yes. If father permits."

And so Julian's love grew toward a triumphant termination; yet still there were other matters to be seen to and arranged ere he, with his wife by his side, should quit the colony forever. One thing, however, it transpired, would require little trouble in arranging; namely, the property of Desolada, when the law should put him in possession of it, since, on investigation being made after the disappearance of Sebastian, it was found to be so heavily mortgaged that to pay off the loans upon it would leave Julian without any capital whatever; while, at the same time, he would be saddled with a possession in a country with which he had nothing in common. Of what had become of the money left by Charles Ritherdon at his death (and it had been a substantial sum) or of what had become of the other sums borrowed on Desolada, there was no one to inform them.

Sebastian had disappeared, was undoubtedly gone forever--and of his fate there could be little doubt. Certainly there could be no doubt in the minds of either Beatrix or Julian or of Mr. Spranger, who had of course been made acquainted with the substitution of Sebastian for Julian. Zara also had disappeared, and Madame Carmaux had--escaped.

How she had done it no one ever knew, but in the morning which followed that eventful night when she made her confession, she was missing from her room, at the door of which one of the constabulary had been set as a guard. That she should be able so to evade those who were passing the night at Desolada was easily to be comprehended when, the next day, her room was examined; they understood how she might have passed on to the balcony outside that room, have traversed it for some distance, and then have made her way into some other apartment, and so from that have descended the great stairs in the darkness, and stolen away into the plantations. At any rate, whether these surmises were correct or not, she was gone, and she has never since been seen in British Honduras.

Yet one planter, who makes frequent journeys to New Orleans in connection with his imports and exports, declares that only a few months ago he saw her in Lafayette Square in that city. It was at the time when the terrible scourge of Louisiana, the yellow fever, is most dreaded, and even as the planter entered the Square he saw a man lying prostrate on the ground, while afar off from him, because of fear of the infection, yet regarding him with a gaping curiosity, was a crowd of negroes and whites. Then, still watching the scene, this gentleman saw a woman clad in the garb of a Nun of Calvary, who approached the prostrate man, and, while calling on those near to assist him, ministered to his wants in so far as she could. And, her veil falling aside, the planter declared that he saw plainly the face of the woman who, in British Honduras, had been known for a quarter of a century as Miriam Carmaux. He also recognized her voice.

If such were the case, if, at last, that tempestuous soul--the soul of a woman who, in her earlier days, had had meted out to her a more cruel fate than falls to the lot of most women--if at last the erring woman who had been driven to fraud and crime by the love she bore her child--had found calm, if not peace, beneath that holy garb, perhaps those who have heard her story may be disposed to think of her without harshness. Such was the case with Julian Ritherdon, who, as she made her confession, forgave her for all that she had attempted against him--since she was scarcely a greater sinner than his own father, who had countenanced the fraud she perpetrated, or his uncle, whose early vindictiveness led to that fraud. Such, also, was the case with Beatrix, from whose gentle eyes fell tears as she listened to the narrative told by the unhappy woman while she was yet uncertain of the doom of the son for whom she had so long schemed and plotted. And so let it be with others. If she had erred, so also she had suffered. And, by suffering, is atonement made.

You could not have witnessed, perhaps, a brighter scene than that which took place on a clear October morning in the handsome Gothic church of Belize, when Julian Ritherdon and Beatrix Spranger became man and wife.

Space has not permitted for the introduction of the reader to several other sweet young English maidens whose parents' affairs have led to their residences in the colony; yet such maidens there are in Honduras--as the inquiring traveller may see for himself, if he chooses--and of these fair exiles some were, this morning, bridesmaids. They, you may be sure, lent brightness and brilliancy to the scene, and so did the uniforms of several young officers of her Majesty's navy, these gentlemen having been impressed into the ceremony For, as luck would have it, not a week before, H.M.S. Cerberus (twin-screw cruiser, first-class, armoured) had anchored, off Belize, and, as those acquainted with the Royal navy are aware, no officer of that noble service can come into contact with any ship belonging to it (as Julian Ritherdon soon did) without finding therein old friends and comrades. Be very sure also, therefore, that George Hope, George Potter, John Hamilton, that most illustrious of naval doctors, "Jock" Lyons, and many others dear to friends both in and out of the service, all came ashore in the bravery of their full dress--epaulettes, cocked hats, and so forth--while the _Padré_ "stood by" to lend a hand to the local clergyman in performing the ceremony. While, too, the path from the churchyard gates to the church door was lined by bluejackets who, of course, were here clad in their "whites" and straw hats.

But, because rumour ever runneth swift of foot, even in so small a colony as this--where, naturally, its feet have not so much ground to cover--and in so small a capital as Belize, with its six thousand inhabitants, the church was also filled with many others drawn from the various races, mixed and pure, who dwell therein. For, by now, there was scarcely a person in either the colony or capital to whose ears there had not come the news that the handsome young officer who was in a few moments to become the husband of Miss Spranger, was, in truth, the rightful owner of Desolada. Likewise, all knew that Sebastian had never been that owner, but that he was the son of Carmaux, who had perished by the fangs of the tommy-goff, and of the dark, mysterious beauty who had come among them as Miriam Gardelle and had married him. And they knew, too, that this marriage was to be the reward and crown of dangers run by Julian, of more than one attempt upon his life, as well as that it was the outcome of a deep fraud perpetrated and kept dark for many years.

Paz was there, too, his eyes glistening with rapture at the sound of the Wedding March, his weird soul being ever stirred by music; so, also, was Monsieur Lemaire, grave, dignified, and calm as became a French gentleman in exile, and with, about him as ever, that flavour of one who ought by right to have walked in the gardens of Versailles two hundred years ago, and have basked in the smiles of the Great Monarch.

And so they were married, nor can it be doubted that they will live happy ever afterward--to use the sweet, old-time expression of the storybooks of our infancy. Married--she given away by her father; he supported by his oldest friend in the Cerberus--and both passing happy! Married, and going forth along the path of life, he most probably to distinction in his calling, she to the duties of an honest English wife. Married and happy. What more was needed?

"I come," he said to her that afternoon, when already the steamer was leaving Honduras far astern, and they were travelling by the new route toward Kingstown on their road to England--"I came to Honduras to find perhaps a father, perhaps an inheritance. Neither was to be granted to me, but, instead, something five thousand times more precious--a wife five thousand times more dear than any parent or any possession."

"And," she asked, her pure, earnest eyes gazing into his, "you are contented? You are sure that that will make you happy?"

To which he replied--as--well! as, perhaps--if a man--you would have replied yourself.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's A Bitter Heritage, by John Bloundelle-Burton