Nevermore. Rolf Boldrewood
are not complimentary,' replied Lance, rather sullenly, and 'You don't rate my understanding very highly. May I ask if you have any letter from your cousin Kate for me?'
'Yes, I have,' replied the girl, speaking with more energy than he had ever before noticed in her, 'and I have been tempted to tear it to pieces and leave you to guess the meaning. If I had acted as your true friend—which I have always been—I should have done so. Take my advice and drop us all—once and for ever. Why should you persist in making friends of us? We are not good company for you—a born gentleman. Why don't you behave like one, and leave people alone who are not your equals in any respect?'
'May I ask for the letter you refer to?'
'Listen to me for the last time,' she said, coming closer to him and looking earnestly into his face. 'Listen to me, as if I was your sister—your mother—or the dearest friend in a woman's shape you have on earth. I know what is in that letter. Kate wants you to join her and the rest of the crowd at Balooka. Don't go! Do you hear what I say?—don't go! or you will repent it to the last hour of your life.'
'Why should I not?' asked he. 'Are you not going yourself with Billy here to-morrow?'
'I am not going,' she said. 'I shall go to Melbourne to-morrow by the coach, and, perhaps, never see one of them again, or you either. They have been kind to me in their own fashion. I have eaten their bread, and, therefore, I will not say more than I can help. But beware of Kate Lawless! She is not what she appears to be! She is deceiving you, and worse even than being the dupe of a heartless and unprincipled woman may happen to you. Oh, promise me,' she said, 'promise me before I leave that you will not go!'
'If I had any doubt, your last words have decided me,' he said, and as the angry light commenced to gleam in his eyes the girl's expression changed to that of wonder and strange terror, deepening visibly.
'It is himself!' she said, almost shuddering. 'Can there be two? Is the Evil One walking on the earth and working his will as in the old old days? You will not be turned now,' she went on. 'God is my witness that I have done my best. Your blood be on your own head!'
'Say good-bye, Tessie,' he said. 'I shall never forget your good intentions, at any rate.'
'Good-bye,' she said, in a tone of such sadness that he felt impressed in spite of himself. 'You will not forget me. No, whatever happens you will not do that. For your dead mother's sake, for your sister's, and if there is any one dearer than either beyond the seas, for her sake, God bless and keep you.' And, waving her hands distractedly, like a woman in a dream, she walked swiftly towards one of the tents, which she entered, and was hidden from his view.
'Here it is,' she said, reappearing, 'if you will have it,' and, as if moved to sudden despair, she cast the letter upon the ground with every gesture of anger and contempt. 'If it was a snake you wouldn't pick it up, would you? And yet,' she went on, suddenly dropping her voice to a low, earnest whisper, 'the worst carpet snake you ever saw—a death adder, even—would do you less harm than what's in that letter, if you follow it. Be warned; oh, Mr. Trevanion, be warned.'
As she spoke her face softened, she leaned forward in a beseeching attitude, her eyes filled, and this ordinarily reserved and self-contained Tessie began to weep hysterically.
'Confound the girl!' said Lance to himself. 'What a terrible to-do about nothing at all! What's the good of coming to Australia if one can't choose one's own society? I might as well be in Cornwall again. Surely this girl isn't in love with me, too?'
His unspoken thought must have manifested itself in some mysterious fashion, though no word escaped him, for Tessie Lawless left off crying, and, wiping her eyes, with a haughty gesture, appeared to return to her usual composed bearing.
That night brought but little sleep to the eyes of Lance Trevanion. It was late when he entered his hut, and, flinging himself on the bed where, for the most part, he had known nought but dreamless repose, he commenced to think over the situation.
Should he accept the warning so solemnly given by this strange girl, who, before this, had manifested but little interest in his career, and had lived a merely negative and defensive life?
'How little we know of people's natures,' thought he, 'women's especially. Who would have thought this quiet girl had all this fire and earnestness in her? Her warning squared curiously with all that he had gathered from other sources. Was there something mysterious and by no means fair and above-board about these Lawlesses? It looked like it. And Kate! What an artful treacherous jade she had proved herself to be, if what her cousin said was true. Well, at any rate, he would go and see for himself. He knew, or thought he knew, enough of life not to entirely trust one woman's word about another. If Kate was false and deceitful, he would have the satisfaction of telling her so to her face. If she was true, well, he really did not know what was to be done in that case. At any rate, he would go and see. Yes, he would show he was not afraid to meet them all, there or anywhere else.'
The fateful letter was short, badly written and worse spelled. It merely stated that her brothers had settled to move to Balooka, naming a new digging nearly a hundred miles away, and not far from the foot-hills of the great Alpine range. They had gone into a large purchase in horses, and were going to drive them to Melbourne in another month, when they expected to make a lot of money out of them. 'If he cared to see her again he might meet them next week at Balooka. The road went by Wahgulmerang.' This precious epistle was signed, 'Your true friend and well-wisher, Kate Lawless. P.S. If you only seen the black mare that was gave me by a friend.'
There was nothing alarming in this apparently simple and guileless missive. A ride to a new digging was not only a pleasant novelty, but distinctly in the line of his occupation as a miner, now that he was an authority as a 'golden-hole man' with local fame and reputation. He had a good horse, and though stabling was expensive he had felt justified in being well mounted, as the companion of such a horsewoman as Kate Lawless. The reference to the black mare and the generous friend rather piqued him, as was probably intended. He had never encountered any one in the guise of a rival, and felt curious to see what kind of admirer had come forward.
His preparations were not long in making. He informed Hastings and his mate Jack that he was going to Balooka and might be absent for a week or two.
They evidently suspected the nature of the magnet which was attracting him, and by their manner showed anything but cheerful approval of his plans; wise by experience, however, they refrained from expostulation.
CHAPTER VIII
More than once—many times, in fact—Lance Trevanion revolved in his mind the strange mysterious warning which he had received from Tessie Lawless. Careless, indeed reckless, as he had become lately in the gratification of his caprices; safe in the possession of wealth hitherto undreamed of and daily increasing; basking in a local splendour of reputation based on the broad pedestal of success, there was yet something in the girl's earnest tones and candour of mien which awed and impressed him. Did she—could she—know anything really important? What could there be behind the scenes likely to operate prejudicially as far as he was concerned? Why should he not go to this place which Kate had named, stating playfully that it was rather an out-of-the-way hole, but one which, as he was always praising up the beauties of English scenery, he might like to see? 'She couldn't talk that sort of rubbish, but there was a big dark mountain, a running river, not like this ditch of a creek, and a flat beside it, like a small plain; snow, too, in the winter. He'd better come up and see. It would be a change after this beastly hot, dusty diggings.' So between idleness, irresolution, and the lure of womanly wiles not weakened in witchery, in a latter day and a newer world, Lance Trevanion finally decided to go to Balooka. 'He had given his word,' he told himself, 'and what a man says he should stand by, in great things or small. Such, at least, has always been the wont of the Trevanions of Wychwood.'
So next morning he sent for and saddled his horse—an upstanding, well-bred bay, with a star and two white hind legs,