“He was with my brother at Cambridge—in the same year, at the same college, Trinity. It was not till the year before last that he ever spoke to me about Harold, or that I knew they had been friends. But one summer afternoon when he called and happened to find me in the garden, alone—a thing that seldom happens in our family—he began to talk to me, very kindly, with a great deal of good feeling, about Harold. He said he had been slow to speak about him, as he knew that he must be in some measure under a cloud. And then I told him how unhappy I was about my poor brother; and how it was four or five years since anything had been heard of him directly or indirectly. His last letter had told us that he was going to join a party of young men who were just setting out upon an exploring tour in the Mashona country. They were willing to take him with them on very easy terms, as he was a fine shot, and strong and active. He would be little better than a servant in the expedition, he told me.”
“It was to you he wrote, then?”
“Yes, after my mother’s death, only to me. He never wrote to his father. I told Mr. Sefton how unhappy I was about Harold, and my fear—a growing fear—that he must be dead. He argued me out of this terror, and told me that when a man who was leading a wild life far away from home once let a long time slip without writing to his relations, the probabilities were that he would leave off writing altogether. His experience had shown him that this was almost a certainty. And then, seeing how distressed I was, he promised that he would try and find out Harold’s whereabouts. He told me that the newspaper press and the electric cable had made the world a very small world, and that he certainly ought to be able to trace my brother’s wanderings, and bring me some information about him.”
“And did he succeed?”
“No; he failed always in getting any certain knowledge of Harold’s wanderings, though he did bring me some scraps of information about his adventures in Mashonaland; but that was all news of past years—ever so long ago. He could hear nothing about Harold in the present—not within the last four years—so there was very little comfort in his discoveries. Last November he told me that he had heard of a man at the diamond fields whose description seemed exactly to fit my brother, and he thought this time he was on the right track. He wrote to an agent at Cape Town, and took every means of putting himself in communication with this man—both through the agent and by advertisements in the local papers—and the result was disappointment. There was no Harold Marchant among the diamond-seekers. That was what he had to tell me the afternoon you overheard our conversation. He had received the final letter which assured him he had been mistaken.”
“And that was all—and verily all?” inquired Vansittart, taking her hand in his.
“That was all, and verily all.”
“And beyond that association, Mr. Sefton is nothing in the world to you?”
“Nothing in the world.”
“And if there were someone else, quite as willing as Mr. Sefton, to hunt for this wandering brother of yours, someone else who loves you fondly”—his arm was round her now, and he was drawing her towards him, drawing the blushing cheek against his own, drawing the slender form so near that he could hear the beating of her heart—“someone else who longs to have you for his wife, would you listen to him, Eve? And if that someone else were I, would you say ‘Yes’?”
She turned to answer him, but her lips trembled and were mute. There was no need of speech between lovers whose very life breathed love. His lips met hers, and took his answer there.
“Dearest, dearest, dearest,” he sighed, when that long kiss had sealed the bond; and then they sat in silence, hand clasped in hand, in the face of the Sussex Weald, and the far-reaching Sussex Downs, and the silvery shimmer of the distant sea.
Oh, Easter Day of deep content! Would either of these two souls ever know such perfect bliss again—the bliss of loving and being loved, while love was still a new thing?
A shrill long cooey broke the silent spell, and they both started up as if awakened out of deepest slumber.
“They are looking for us,” cried Eve, as she walked swiftly towards the other side of the ridge.
Tivett and the four girls came toiling towards her.
“Mr. Tivett has taken us a most awful round,” cried Hetty. “He pretended to know the way, and he doesn’t know it one little bit.”
“My dear young lady,” apologized the gentle Tivett, “the truth of the matter is that I trusted to my natural genius for topography, for I have never been on Bexley Hill before.”
“And you pretended to pilot us, and have only led us astray.”
“Alas! sweet child, the world is full of such pilots.”
“Shall I tell them?” whispered Vansittart, at Eve’s ear.
“If you like. They will make a dreadful fuss. Can you ever put up with so many sisters-in-law?”
“I would put up with them if you had as many sisters as Hypermnestra;” and then, laughing happily, he told these four girls that they were soon to have a sister less and a brother more.
Hetty and Peggy received the news with whooping and clapping of hands, Sophy and Jenny with polite surprise. Was there ever anything so wonderful? Nothing could have been further from their thoughts. Little Mr. Tivett skipped and frisked like a young lamb in a meadow. Had Eve Marchant been his sister he could hardly have shown more delight.
The descent of the hill for Eve and Vansittart was a progress through pure ether. They knew not that their feet touched the earth.
