At midday there came an urgent message from Trent's bankers, and as he read it he cursed. It was short but eloquent.

"DEAR SIR,—We notice that your account to-day stands 119,000 pounds overdrawn, against which we hold as collateral security shares in the Bekwando Land Company to the value of 150,000 pounds. As we have received certain very disquieting information concerning the value of these shares, we must ask you to adjust the account before closing hours to-day, or we shall be compelled to place the shares upon the market.

"Yours truly,

"A. SINCLAIR, General Manager."

Trent tore the letter into atoms, but he never quailed. Telegraph and telephone worked his will, he saw all callers, a cigar in his mouth and flower in his buttonhole, perfectly at his ease, sanguine and confident. A few minutes before closing time he strolled into the bank and no one noticed a great bead of perspiration which stood out upon his forehead. He made out a credit slip for 119,000 pounds, and, passing it across the counter with a roll of notes and cheques, asked for his shares.

They sent for the manager. Trent was ushered with much ceremony into his private room. The manager was flushed and nervous.

"I am afraid you must have misunderstood my note, Mr. Trent," he stammered. But Trent, remembering all that he had gone through to raise the money, stopped him short.

"This is not a friendly call, Mr. Sinclair," he said, "but simply a matter of business. I wish to clear my account with you to the last halfpenny, and I will take my shares away with me. I have paid in the amount I owe. Let one of your clerks make out the interest account."

The manager rang the bell for the key of the security safe. He opened it and took out the shares with fingers which trembled a good deal.

"Did I understand you, Mr. Trent, that you desired to absolutely close the account?" he asked.

"Most decidedly," Trent answered.

"We shall be very sorry to lose you."

"The sorrow will be all on your side, then," Trent answered grimly. "You have done your best to ruin me, you and that blackguard Da Souza, who brought me here. If you had succeeded in lumping those shares upon the market to-day or to-morrow, you know very well what the result would have been. I don't know whose game you have been playing, but I can guess!"

"I can assure you, Mr. Trent," the manager declared in his suavest and most professional manner, "that you are acting under a complete misapprehension. I will admit that our notice was a little short. Suppose we withdraw it altogether, eh? I am quite satisfied. We will put back the shares in the safe and you shall keep your money."

"No, I'm d—d if you do!" Trent answered bluntly. "You've had your money and I'll have the shares. I don't leave this bank without them, and I'll be shot if ever I enter it again."

So Trent, with his back against the wall and not a friend to help him, faced for twenty-four hours the most powerful bull syndicate which had ever been formed against a single Company. Inquiries as to his right of title had poured in upon him, and to all of them he had returned the most absolute and final assurances. Yet he knew when closing-time came, that he had exhausted every farthing he possessed in the world—it seemed hopeless to imagine that he could survive another day. But with the morning came a booming cable from Bekwando. There had been a great find of gold before ever a shaft had been sunk; an expert, from whom as yet nothing had been heard, wired an excited and wonderful report. Then the men who had held on to their Bekwandos rustled their morning papers and walked smiling to their offices. Prices leaped up. Trent's directors ceased to worry him and wired invitations to luncheon at the West End. The bulls were the sport of everybody. When closing-time came Trent had made 100,000 pounds, and was looked upon everywhere as one of the rocks of finance.

Only then he began to realise what the strain had been to him. His hard, impassive look had never altered, he had been seen everywhere in his accustomed City haunts, his hat a little better brushed than usual, his clothes a little more carefully put on, his buttonhole more obvious and his laugh readier. No one guessed the agony through which he had passed, no one knew that he had spent the night at a little inn twelve miles away, to which he had walked after nine o'clock at night. He had not a single confidant, even his cashier had no idea whence came the large sums of money which he had paid away right and left. But when it was all over he left the City, and, leaning back in the corner of his little brougham, was driven away to Pont Street. Here he locked himself in his room, took off his coat and threw himself upon a sofa with a big cigar between his teeth.

"If you let any one in to see me, Miles," he told the footman, "I'll kick you out of the house." So, though the bell rang often, he remained alone. But as he lay there with half-closed eyes living again through the tortures of the last few hours, he heard a voice that startled him. It was surely hers—already! He sprang up and opened the door. Ernestine and Captain Francis were in the hall.

He motioned them to follow him into the room. Ernestine was flushed and her eyes were very bright. She threw up her veil and faced him haughtily. "Where is he?" she asked. "I know everything. I insist upon seeing him at once."

"That," he said coolly, "will depend upon whether he is fit to see you!"

He rang the bell.

"Tell Miss Fullagher to step this way a moment," he ordered.

"He is in this house, then," she cried. He took no notice. In a moment a young woman dressed in the uniform of one of the principal hospitals entered.

"Miss Fullagher," he asked, "how is the patient?"

"We've had a lot of trouble with him, sir," she said significantly. "He was terrible all last night, and he's very weak this morning. Is this the young lady, sir?"

"This is the young lady who I told you would want to see him when you thought it advisable."

The nurse looked doubtful. "Sir Henry is upstairs, sir," she said. "I had better ask his advice."

Trent nodded and she withdrew. The three were left alone, Ernestine and Francis remained apart as though by design. Trent was silent.

She returned in a moment or two.

"Sir Henry has not quite finished his examination, sir," she announced. "The young lady can come up in half an hour."

Again they were left alone. Then Trent crossed the room and stood between them and the door.

"Before you see your father, Miss Wendermott," he said, "I have an explanation to make to you!"



CHAPTER XLI

He looked at him calmly, but in her set, white face he seemed to read already his sentence!

"Do you think it worth while, Mr. Trent? There is so much, as you put it, to be explained, that the task, even to a man of your versatility, seems hopeless!"

"I shall not trouble you long," he said. "At least one man's word should be as good as another's—and you have listened to what my enemy"—he motioned towards Francis—"has to say."

Francis shrugged his shoulders.

"I can assure you," he interrupted, "that I have no feeling of enmity towards you in the slightest. My opinion you know. I have never troubled to conceal it. But I deny that I am prejudiced by any personal feeling."

Trent ignored his speech.

"What I have to say to you," he continued addressing Ernestine, "I want to say before you see your father. I won't take up your time. I won't waste words. I take you back ten years to when I met him at Attra and we became partners in a certain enterprise. Your father at that time was a harmless wreck of a man who was fast killing himself with brandy. He had some money, I had none. With it we bought the necessary outfit and presents for my enterprise and started for Bekwando. The whole of the work fell to my share, and with great trouble I succeeded in obtaining the concessions we were working for. Your father spent all his time drinking, and playing cards, when I would play with him. The agreement as to the sharing of the profits was drawn up, it is true, by me, but at that time he made no word of complaint. I had no relations, he described himself as cut off wholly from his. It was here Francis first came on the scene. He found your father half drunk, and when he read the agreement it was plain what he thought. He thought that I was letting your father kill himself that the whole thing might be mine. He has probably told you so. I deny it. I did all I could to keep him sober!

"On our homeward way your father was ill and our bearers deserted us. We were pursued by the natives, who repented their concession, and I had to fight them more than once, half a dozen strong, with your father unconscious at my feet. It is true that I left him in the bush, but it was at his bidding and I believed him dying. It was my only chance and I took it. I escaped and reached Attra. Then, to raise money to reach England, I had to borrow from a man named Da Souza, and afterwards, in London, to start the Company, I had to make him my partner in the profits of the concession. One day I quarrelled with him—it was just at the time I met you—and then, for the first time, I heard of your father's being alive. I went out to Africa to bring him back and Da Souza followed me in abject fear, for as my partner he lost half if your father's claim was good. I found your father infirm and only half sane. I did all I could for him whilst I worked in the interior, and meant to bring him back to England with me when I came, unfortunately he recovered a little and suddenly seized upon the idea of visiting England. He left before me and fell into the hands of Da Souza, who had the best possible reasons in the world for keeping him in the background. I rescued him from them in time to save him from death and brought him to my own house, sent for doctors and nurses, and, when he was fit for you to see, I should have sent for you. I did not, I'll admit, make any public declaration of his existence, for the simple reason that it would have crippled our Company, and there are the interests of the shareholders to be considered, but I executed and signed a deed of partnership days ago which makes him an equal sharer in every penny I possess. Now this is the truth, Miss Wendermott, and if it is not a story I am particularly proud of, I don't very well see what else I could have done. It is my story and it is a true one. Will you believe it or will you take his word against mine?"

She would have spoken, but Francis held up his hand.

"My story," he said coolly, "has been told behind your back. It is only fair to repeat it to your face. I have told Miss Wendermott this—that I met you first in the village of Bekwando with a concession in your hand made out to you and her father jointly, with the curious proviso that in the event of the death of one the other was his heir. I pointed out to Miss Wendermott that you were in the prime of life and in magnificent condition, while her father was already on the threshold of the grave and drinking himself into a fever in a squalid hut in a village of swamps. I told her that I suspected foul play, that I followed you both and found her father left to the tender mercies of the savages, deserted by you in the bush. I told her that many months afterwards he disappeared, simultaneously with your arrival in the country, that a day or two ago you swore to me you had no idea where he was. That has been my story, Trent, let Miss Wendermott choose between them."

"I am content," Trent cried fiercely. "Your story is true enough, but it is cunningly linked together. You have done your worst. Choose!"

For ever afterwards he was glad of that single look of reproach which seemed to escape her unwittingly as her eyes met his. But she turned away and his heart was like a stone.

"You have deceived me, Mr. Trent. I am very sorry, and very disappointed."

"And you," he cried passionately, "are you yourself so blameless? Were you altogether deceived by your relations, or had you never a suspicion that your father might still be alive? You had my message through Mr. Cuthbert; I met you day by day after you knew that I had been your father's partner, and never once did you give yourself away! Were you tarred with the same brush as those canting snobs who doomed a poor old man to a living death? Doesn't it look like it? What am I to think of you?"

"Your judgment, Mr. Trent," she answered quietly, "is of no importance to me! It does not interest me in any way. But I will tell you this. If I did not disclose myself, it was because I distrusted you. I wanted to know the truth, and I set myself to find it out."

"Your friendship was a lie, then!" he cried, with flashing eyes. "To you I was nothing but a suspected man to be spied upon and betrayed."

She faltered and did not answer him. Outside the nurse was knocking at the door. Trent waved them away with an imperious gesture.

"Be off," he cried, "both of you! You can do your worst! I thank Heaven that I am not of your class, whose men have flints for hearts and whose women can lie like angels."

They left him alone, and Trent, with a groan, plucked from his heart the one strong, sweet hope which had changed his life so wonderfully. Upstairs, Monty was sobbing, with his little girl's arms about him.



CHAPTER XLII

With the darkness had come a wind from the sea, and the boy crept outside in his flannels and planter's hat and threw himself down in a cane chair with a little murmur of relief. Below him burned the white lights of the town, a little noisier than usual to-night, for out in the bay a steamer was lying-to, and there had been a few passengers and cargo to land. The boy had had a hard day's work, or he would have been in the town himself to watch for arrivals and wait for the mail. He closed his eyes, half asleep, for the sun had been hot and the murmurs of the sea below was almost like a lullaby. As he lay there a man's voice from the path reached him. He sprang up, listening intently. It must have been fancy—and yet! He leaned over the wooden balcony. The figure of a man loomed out through the darkness, came nearer, became distinct. Fred recognised him with a glad shout.

"Trent!" he cried. "Scarlett Trent, by all that's amazing!"

Trent held out his hand quickly. Somehow the glad young voice, quivering with excitement, touched his heart in an unexpected and unusual manner. It was pleasant to be welcomed like this—to feel that one person in the world at least was glad of his coming. For Trent was a sorely stricken man and the flavour of life had gone from him. Many a time he had looked over the steamer's side during that long, lonely voyage and gazed almost wishfully into the sea, in whose embrace was rest. It seemed to him that he had been a gambler playing for great stakes, and the turn of the wheel had gone against him.

"Fred!"

They stood with hands locked together, the boy breathless with surprise. Then he saw that something was wrong.

"What is it, Trent?" he asked quickly. "Have we gone smash after all, or have you been ill?"

Trent shook his head and smiled gravely.

"Neither," he said. "The Company is booming, I believe. Civilised ways didn't agree with me, I'm afraid. That's all! I've come back to have a month or two's hard work—the best physic in the world."

"I am delighted to see you," Fred said heartily. "Everything's going A1 here, and they've built me this little bungalow, only got in it last week—stunning, isn't it? But—just fancy your being here again so soon! Are your traps coming up?"

"I haven't many," Trent answered. "They're on the way. Have you got room for me?"

"Room for you!" the boy repeated scornfully. "Why, I'm all alone here. It's the only thing against the place, being a bit lonely. Room for you! I should think there is! Here, Dick! Dinner at once, and some wine!"

Trent was taken to see his room, the boy talking all the time, and later on dinner was served and the boy did the honours, chaffing and talking lightly. But later on when they sat outside, smoking furiously to keep off the mosquitoes and watching the fireflies dart in and out amongst the trees, the boy was silent. Then he leaned over and laid his hand on Trent's arm.

"Tell me all about it—do," he begged.

Trent was startled, touched, and suddenly filled with a desire for sympathy such as he had never before in his life experienced. He hesitated, but it was only for a moment.

"I never thought to tell any one," he said slowly, "I think I'd like to!"

And he did. He told his whole story. He did not spare himself. He spoke of the days of his earlier partnership with Monty, and he admitted the apparent brutality of his treatment of him on more than one occasion. He spoke of Ernestine too—of his strange fancy for the photograph of Monty's little girl, a fancy which later on when he met her became almost immediately the dominant passion of his life. Then he spoke of the coming of Francis, of the awakening of Ernestine's suspicions, and of that desperate moment when he risked everything on her faith in him—and lost. There was little else to tell and afterwards there was a silence. But presently the boy's hand fell upon his arm almost caressingly and he leaned over through the darkness.

"Women are such idiots," the boy declared, with all the vigour and certainty of long experience. "If only Aunt Ernestine had known you half as well as I do, she would have been quite content to have trusted you and to have believed that what you did was for the best. But I say, Trent, you ought to have waited for it. After she had seen her father and talked with him she must have understood you better. I shall write to her."

But Trent shook his head.

"No," he said sternly, "it is too late now. That moment taught me all I wanted to know. It was her love I wanted, Fred, and—that—no use hoping for that, or she would have trusted me. After all I was half a madman ever to have expected it—a rough, coarse chap like me, with only a smattering of polite ways! It was madness! Some day I shall get over it! We'll chuck work for a bit, soon, Fred, and go for some lions. That'll give us something to think about at any rate."



But the lions which Trent might have shot lived in peace, for on the morrow he was restless and ill, and within a week the deadly fever of the place had him in its clutches. The boy nursed him and the German doctor came up from Attra and, when he learnt who his patient was, took up his quarters in the place. But for all his care and the boy's nursing things went badly with Scarlett Trent.

To him ended for a while all measure of days—time became one long night, full of strange, tormenting flashes of thought, passing like red fire before his burning eyes. Sometimes it was Monty crying to him from the bush, sometimes the yelling of those savages at Bekwando seemed to fill the air, sometimes Ernestine was there, listening to his passionate pleading with cold, set face, In the dead of night he saw her and the still silence was broken by his hoarse, passionate cries, which they strove in vain to check. And when at last he lay white and still with exhaustion, the doctor looked at the boy and softly shook his head. He had very little hope.

Trent grew worse. In those rare flashes of semi-consciousness which sometimes come to the fever-stricken, he reckoned himself a dying man and contemplated the end of all things without enthusiasm and without regret. The one and only failure of his life had eaten like canker into his heart. It was death he craved for in the hot, burning nights, and death came and sat, a grisly shadow, at his pillow. The doctor and the boy did their best, but it was not they who saved him.

There came a night when he raved, and the sound of a woman's name rang out from the open windows of the little bungalow, rang out through the drawn mosquito netting amongst the palm-trees, across the surf-topped sea to the great steamer which lay in the bay. Perhaps she heard it—perhaps after all it was a fancy. Only, in the midst of his fever, a hand as soft as velvet and as cool as the night sea-wind touched his forehead, and a voice sounded in his ears so sweetly that the blood burned no longer in his veins, so sweetly that he lay back upon his pillow like a man under the influence of a strong narcotic and slept. Then the doctor smiled and the boy sobbed.

"I came," she said softly, "because it was the only atonement I could make. I ought to have trusted you. Do you know, even my father told me that."

"I have made mistakes," he said, "and of course behaved badly to him."

"Now that everything has been explained," she said, "I scarcely see what else you could have done. At least you saved him from Da Souza when his death would have made you a freer man. He is looking forward to seeing you, you must make haste and get strong."

"For his sake," he murmured.

She leaned over and caressed him lightly. "For mine, dear."

THE END