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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75274 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+  A CROWN OF SHAME.
+
+  VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+  A CROWN OF SHAME.
+
+  _A NOVEL._
+
+  BY
+  FLORENCE MARRYAT,
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+  ‘LOVE’S CONFLICT,’ ‘MY SISTER THE ACTRESS,’
+  ETC. ETC.
+
+  _IN THREE VOLUMES._
+
+  VOL. I.
+
+  LONDON:
+  F. V. WHITE & CO.,
+  31 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
+
+  1888.
+
+  [_All rights reserved._]
+
+
+
+
+  EDINBURGH
+  COLSTON AND COMPANY
+  PRINTERS
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+_CONTENTS._
+
+
+                    PAGE
+
+  CHAPTER I.           1
+
+  CHAPTER II.         29
+
+  CHAPTER III.        56
+
+  CHAPTER IV.         83
+
+  CHAPTER V.         110
+
+  CHAPTER VI.        139
+
+  CHAPTER VII.       166
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.      204
+
+
+
+
+A CROWN OF SHAME.
+
+
+
+
+POPULAR NEW NOVELS.
+
+
+_Now ready, in One Vol., the Seventh Edition of_
+
+  =ARMY SOCIETY; or, Life in a Garrison Town.= By JOHN STRANGE WINTER.
+    Author of ‘Bootles’ Baby.’ Cloth gilt, 6s.; also picture boards, 2s.
+
+
+_Also now ready, in cloth gilt, 3s. 6d. each._
+
+  =GARRISON GOSSIP, Gathered in Blankhampton.= By JOHN STRANGE WINTER.
+    Also picture boards, 2s.
+
+  =IN THE SHIRES.= By Sir RANDAL H. ROBERTS, Bart.
+
+  =THE OUTSIDER.= By HAWLEY SMART.
+
+  =THE GIRL IN THE BROWN HABIT.= By Mrs EDWARD KENNARD.
+
+  =STRAIGHT AS A DIE.= By the same Author.
+
+  =BY WOMAN’S WIT.= By Mrs ALEXANDER. Author of ‘The Wooing O’t.’
+
+  =KILLED IN THE OPEN.= By Mrs EDWARD KENNARD.
+
+  =IN A GRASS COUNTRY.= By Mrs H. LOVETT-CAMERON.
+
+  =A DEVOUT LOVER.= By the same Author.
+
+  =TWILIGHT TALES.= By Mrs EDWARD KENNARD. _Illustrated._
+
+  =SHE CAME BETWEEN.= By Mrs ALEXANDER FRASER.
+
+  =THE CRUSADE OF ‘THE EXCELSIOR.’= By BRET HARTE.
+
+  =A REAL GOOD THING.= By Mrs EDWARD KENNARD.
+
+  =CURB AND SNAFFLE.= By Sir RANDAL H. ROBERTS, Bart.
+
+  =DREAM FACES.= By the Hon. Mrs FETHERSTONHAUGH.
+
+  =A SIEGE BABY.= By JOHN STRANGE WINTER.
+
+  =MONA’S CHOICE.= By Mrs ALEXANDER. Author of ‘The Wooing O’t.’
+
+
+F. V. WHITE & Co., 31 Southampton Street, Strand, London, W.C.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A CROWN OF SHAME.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+It was the close of the hot season in San Diego, and the thunderous
+clouds that hung over the island rendered the atmosphere still more
+oppressive. Liz, the Doctor’s daughter, stood at the open door of
+their leaf-thatched bungalow, gazing out into the starless night, and
+wondering when the rain would come, to relieve the intense heat and
+disseminate the sickness that was so rapidly thinning the population.
+The stillness was so unbroken that one might almost be said to feel
+it. Not a breath of air stirred the light feathery branches of the
+bamboo, not even the chirp of a solitary insect could be distinguished
+from their covert in the long grass, nor a note from the songsters
+that crowded the surrounding woods. The trailing creepers that hung
+like a gorgeous eastern canopy of crimson and purple and orange from
+the roof of the verandah, brushed their blossoms against her face, as
+she thrust it into the night, but they brought no sense of refreshment
+with them. Liz felt stifled for want of air, as she withdrew from the
+verandah, and re-entered the bungalow, with a deep-drawn sigh. But
+the sigh was for others. She was not a woman to make otherwise than
+lightly of her own pain or inconvenience. To witness suffering or
+distress, and be unable to relieve it, that was the great drawback of
+life to Elizabeth Fellows. She was not a girl, and the existence she
+led had tended to make her older than her age. She was five-and-twenty,
+and ever since she was a little child she had been motherless, and
+brought up to depend upon herself, and to minister to others rather
+than be ministered to. Her father, Dr Fellows, was generally considered
+to be a reserved, morose, and rather disagreeable man: but Liz knew
+otherwise. She was his only child, and ever since she could remember
+they two had lived together, and alone, and he had been both mother and
+father to her. He was not lively and talkative, even to Liz--but she
+had always felt that he was unhappy, though something in his manner
+had forbidden her inquiring the cause of his reticence and melancholy.
+But he had never said an unkind word to her. Gravely and affectionately
+he had brought his daughter up to help him in his work, and Liz, who
+possessed an active, clever brain and a large amount of courage, had
+taken an immense interest in the science of medicine and surgery,
+and knew almost as much about it as himself. Dr Fellows left all the
+simple cases in his daughter’s hands, and for a long time past she had
+been almost worshipped amongst the negro population of San Diego, as
+a species of white angel who came to their women and their children
+with healing in her hands. And both the Doctor and his daughter had had
+plenty of work to do during the last few months. Fever was reigning
+paramount in San Diego. Both Europeans and natives had been falling
+around them like rotten sheep; and with the epidemic had come a murrain
+on the rice-fields and sugar-cane plantations, so that the people
+had to contend with starvation as well as disease; and awful rumours
+of mutiny and insurrection had commenced to make the residents and
+planters feel alarmed. Inside the Doctor’s cottage were grouped some
+score of negresses, most of them with infants in their arms. Their
+work was over for the day, and this was the hour when they came to Liz
+to have their bottles refilled with medicines, and to show her what
+progress their wailing little ones had made.
+
+As she stepped back amongst them, her face assumed an expression of
+pity and sympathy for their distress, that did indeed make her look
+like an angel of goodness. She was not a beautiful woman--far from
+it--but it is not, as a rule, the most beautiful faces that are the
+most comforting to look upon in a time of difficulty or danger.
+
+Liz had a tall, well-developed figure, which her plain print dress
+showed off to perfection. Her skin was clear, and soft, and white, and
+her abundant fair hair was tucked smoothly away behind her ears, and
+twisted into a knot at the back of her head. Her grey eyes beamed with
+a tender, kindly light, that had no power to conceal her feelings, and
+her firm, well-shaped mouth showed firmness and decision. In fact,
+she was a typical English woman, with rather a majestic bearing about
+her, as if she knew her power and rejoiced in it. But, above all, she
+was a woman to love and trust in,--one who would never tell a lie nor
+betray a friend, and yet who, once convinced that her own trust had
+been betrayed, would stamp the image of the offender from her heart, if
+she died under the process. As the negresses caught sight of her again,
+they were startled to see the tears upon her cheeks, hardly believing
+they were shed for them.
+
+‘Missy feeling ill?’ ‘Missy like a little wine?’ ‘I go calling Massa to
+see Missy?’
+
+‘No! No! What are you talking about? I am as well as possible!’ cried
+Liz, hastily brushing her tears away. ‘I was only thinking.’
+
+‘Ah, Missy,’ said one poor mother, regarding an attenuated morsel
+of humanity which lay just breathing and no more across her lap, ‘I
+thinkin’ my little Sambo never run about again!’
+
+‘Don’t lose heart, Chrissie,’ replied Liz, in her grave, sweet voice,
+as she knelt down and laid her hand on the baby’s forehead. ‘He is very
+weak, poor little fellow, but so long as he can eat, there is hope for
+him. I will change his medicine, and perhaps we shall have the rain by
+to-morrow. A few cool nights would set him up again.’
+
+‘Ah! Missy very good to say so, but we shall have plenty more weeks hot
+weather yet. Poor little Sambo under ground before the rain sets in.’
+
+‘And my poor girl can’t stand no ways!’ cried another; ‘and Rosa’s boy
+die this afternoon.’
+
+‘Oh, what can I do--what can I do for you all?’ exclaimed Liz, with her
+hands to her head.
+
+At this moment, the group in the Doctor’s bungalow was augmented by a
+fresh arrival. This was Rosa, the yellow girl, who rushed in like a
+whirlwind, with her dead child in her arms. Liz had taken an interest
+in this girl, but it was one which Rosa strongly resented. Her child
+was born out of wedlock, and the gentle remonstrances on her conduct
+which the Doctor’s daughter had urged upon her, had been taken by the
+uneducated creature as an insult rather than a kindness. Her poor
+little dead Carlo had been tended as carefully as any of Liz’s other
+patients, but the bereaved mother chose to think it otherwise, as she
+burst in upon them.
+
+‘He is _dead_!’ she cried frantically, as she almost flung the body
+upon the table. ‘And now, perhaps you will be satisfied, Miss Lizzy.
+Now you will be glad to think there is one bastard child less on my
+massa’s plantation, and that I have nothing--nothing left to remind me
+of my lover who has sailed away to America.’
+
+‘Oh, Rosa! how can you so misjudge me?’ said Liz, as she put one arm
+round the weeping girl. But Rosa flung it off.
+
+‘It is true!’ she exclaimed fiercely; ‘you said he had better never
+have been born, and now you have taken no trouble to keep him in this
+world. I suppose you thought it would be a right punishment for my sin.
+But I hate you--and the punishment shall come back on your own head!
+I hope I shall live to see the day when you shall weep as I weep, and
+have nothing left you but the burden of the shame.’
+
+‘Rosa, you are not yourself! You do not know what you are saying,’
+replied Lizzy calmly. ‘It is God Who has taken your baby to Himself,
+and neither I nor any one could have kept him here. Try and think of
+it like that, Rosa. Think of little Carlo, happy and well for ever in
+the gardens of heaven, and you will not speak so wildly and bitterly
+again.’
+
+‘I shall! I shall!’ cried the girl, in the same tone, as she seized
+the body again and strained it in her arms; ‘and I shall never feel
+satisfied, Missy Liz, till you suffer as I have done.’
+
+And with that she rushed out again into the darkness.
+
+Liz leant against the table, and trembled. These were the things that
+had the power to upset her. To toil for these people early and late; to
+be at their beck and call whenever they chose to summons her; to lie
+awake at night thinking of the best means to relieve their trouble, and
+then to meet with ingratitude and reproaches. It did indeed seem hard!
+But it did not make her voice less sweet whilst addressing the others.
+The room in which they were assembled was long and narrow--the only
+sitting-room in the bungalow--and furnished with severe simplicity.
+The matted floor, the cane chairs, and plain unvarnished table, all
+told of a life of labour rather than of luxury, and except for Liz
+Fellows’ desk and workbox, and a few books which lay scattered about,
+it contained few traces of occupation. Yet it was the very absence of
+such things that proved the inmates of the cottage were too busy to
+think of much beyond their profession. A large cupboard, with a window
+in it, at the end of the apartment, served as a surgery, and there Liz
+soon turned to mix the febrifuges and tonics required by her patients.
+As she did so, she was greeted by a newcomer.
+
+‘Hullo! Miss Fellows, as busy as usual, I suppose, and no time even to
+bid a poor mariner welcome.’
+
+Liz turned at the sound of the cheery voice, with her welcome ready in
+her eyes.
+
+‘Oh, Captain Norris! Are you back again already? When did you arrive?’
+
+The stranger’s face fell.
+
+‘_Back again already!_ And I’ve been absent from San Diego for at least
+six months, and thinking they felt like six years! When did I arrive?
+Why, this evening! The “Trevelyan” dropped anchor exactly at six
+o’clock, and directly I could get away, I came up to see you.’
+
+‘It is very good of you, and my father will be delighted to see you. I
+expect him in every minute. Sit down, Captain Norris, whilst I mix the
+medicines for these poor women, who are anxious to get to their homes
+again, and then I will hear all your news.’
+
+She looked so cool and collected as, having dismissed her patients, she
+drew a chair to the table and sat down beside him, that Captain Norris
+did not know where to begin. He was a fine handsome young man, with
+dark eyes and hair; the skipper of a merchant vessel, and every inch a
+sailor; and he was very much in love with Lizzie Fellows. He carried
+several neatly tied up parcels in his hands, but he was too nervous to
+allude to them at once.
+
+‘I am sorry to find you have fever in the island,’ he said, by way of a
+commencement.
+
+‘Oh, it is terrible--a regular plague!’ replied Lizzie; ‘and though
+my father has worked early and late amongst the negroes, we have lost
+patients by the dozen. It is sickening to hear of the numbers of
+deaths, and to witness the trouble;--enough to break one’s heart.’
+
+‘But you keep well?’ he inquired anxiously.
+
+‘Oh, yes! Nothing ever ails me! I have too much to do, and no time to
+be ill. But I am very sad, and somewhat disheartened.’
+
+‘Mr Courtney must have experienced a great loss.’
+
+‘Yes! His plantation is sadly thinned, but the deaths have been chiefly
+amongst the children. Mr Courtney is very good to them, and spares
+no expense to provide them with comforts. It is no one’s fault. It
+is the will of God, and we must wait patiently till He removes the
+scourge. But there is great distress, and even starvation, amongst the
+native population in other parts of the island, and some degree of
+insubordination.’
+
+‘And how is Mr Courtney’s beautiful daughter?’
+
+‘Maraquita! She is not ill, but she has been very languid lately, which
+we attribute to the heat. But I have not seen so much of her during the
+last few months. I suppose she is too gay to have any time to spare for
+us.’
+
+‘And Henri de Courcelles! Is he still the overseer at Beauregard?’
+demanded Captain Norris, after a short pause.
+
+Liz coloured.
+
+‘Yes! Why should he not be so? Mr Courtney has every trust and
+confidence in him.’
+
+‘So much the worse, I think, for Mr Courtney.’
+
+She fired up directly.
+
+‘Captain Norris, you have no right to make such an insinuation! What
+do you know against Monsieur de Courcelles? It is unworthy of you to
+try and set his friends against him, behind his back.’
+
+‘I am sorry if you think so, Miss Fellows; I hoped that you might not
+be so intimate with De Courcelles as you used to be. But let us talk of
+something else. How is your father?’
+
+‘Much the same as usual, Captain Norris. Father is never very lively,
+as you know. Sometimes I fancy this climate must disagree with him, he
+is so silent and depressed; but he has always been the same, and he
+strenuously denies any feeling of illness.’
+
+‘It is a dull life that you lead here with him, Liz.’
+
+‘Don’t say that! A useful life can never be dull, and I have many
+pleasures beside.’
+
+‘But you would like to see a little more of the world, would you not?
+You would like to visit your native country, England, and make the
+acquaintance of your relations?’
+
+Liz looked at him wistfully.
+
+‘I don’t think I should, at least under present circumstances. I am
+afraid the pain of leaving San Diego, and all those whom I have known
+from childhood, would out-balance the pleasure of seeing fresh people
+and places. I have known no other home than San Diego, Captain Norris,
+and I don’t think I could bear to leave the--the plantation.’
+
+He did not answer her, but commenced, somewhat nervously, to undo the
+packages he held. As their contents came to view, Liz saw spread before
+her on the table a handsome morocco desk, a photographic album, and a
+complete set of silver ornaments.
+
+‘Oh, how beautiful!’ she could not help exclaiming.
+
+‘They are for you,’ said her companion brusquely; ‘I brought them from
+England expressly for you.’
+
+‘_For me!_’ repeated Liz wonderingly. ‘Oh, Captain Norris, how very
+good it is of you! Whatever made you think of _me_?’
+
+He seized the hand which was feeling the soft texture of the desk.
+
+‘I do not know, I cannot tell you, but it is the truth, Liz, that
+wherever I am, I always think of you. All the time that I have been
+away, your face and the sound of your voice has haunted me, and
+prevented my being charmed by any other woman. I love you as I have
+never loved before--as I never shall love again, because I shall never
+meet another woman so worthy of my love and my esteem.’
+
+‘Oh, Captain Norris, pray don’t talk to me like that! You are mistaken;
+I am not the good woman you take me for.’
+
+‘I must talk, and you must hear me to the end, Liz! I wanted to say all
+this to you last time I was in San Diego, but a grave doubt prevented
+me. But now I have come back to find you free, and I cannot hold my
+tongue any longer. I am not a boy, to be uncertain of my feelings. I
+am a man and my own master, and making a sufficient income to keep you
+in comfort. Be my wife, Liz; I won’t ask you to marry in a hurry, but
+promise you will be my wife some day, and I will summon up all the
+patience I possess, and live on the hope of the future.’
+
+‘I cannot,’ she said, in a low voice.
+
+‘You _cannot_!’ he echoed; ‘and why?’
+
+‘I don’t think you should ask me. I don’t think you have the right to
+ask me. But it is impossible. I shall never be your wife.’
+
+‘Does any one stand between us?’
+
+Liz was silent. She would not tell the truth, and she could not tell
+a lie. Captain Norris turned on her almost fiercely in his keen
+disappointment.
+
+‘There does,’ he exclaimed. ‘I know it, without your speaking, and I
+know who it is into the bargain,--the same man who drove me from San
+Diego last time without speaking,--Henri de Courcelles.’
+
+‘You have no right to make the assertion, without authority,’ retorted
+Liz Fellows; ‘but since you have done so, I will not stoop to deny it.
+You are right; I am engaged to be married to Monsieur de Courcelles,
+but the fact is not generally known, and so I trust you will respect my
+confidence.’
+
+Hugh Norris dropped his head upon his hands.
+
+‘Engaged,’ he murmured, ‘really and truly engaged! My God! why did I
+not have the courage to speak before?’
+
+His despair roused her compassion. She drew nearer, and laid her hand
+upon his shoulder.
+
+‘Indeed, it would have been of no use, dear friend,’ she said gently;
+‘Henri and I have made up our minds upon this matter for some time
+past, and should have been married long ago, had his position been a
+little better assured.’
+
+‘Oh, of course, I stand no chance against him!’ replied Captain Norris
+bitterly. ‘Monsieur de Courcelles, with his handsome face, and dandy
+dress, galloping about the plantation on his switch-tailed mustang,
+must needs carry everything before him. But he is not true to you,
+Liz, all the same--and sooner or later you will find it out. If he is
+engaged to be married to you, he is a scoundrel, for he spends half his
+time at the great house making love to the planter’s pretty daughter.’
+
+‘How _dare_ you say so?’ cried Liz, springing from her chair, and
+standing before him with her face all aflame. ‘What right have you to
+take away my lover’s character before me?’
+
+She had been too bashful to call him by that name before, but now that
+she heard him (as she thought) so cruelly maligned, she felt he needed
+the confession of her love for a protection against his slanderers.
+
+‘Don’t be angry with me, Liz! don’t be offended, but I feel I must
+tell you the truth, even at the risk of never speaking to you again.
+De Courcelles is not worthy of you. Every one sees it but yourself.
+His attentions to Maraquita Courtney are the common talk of the town,
+and I heard bets passing pretty freely this evening as to whether the
+planter would ever countenance his impudent pretentions to her hand.’
+
+‘It is not true,’ repeated Liz, though her face had turned very pale;
+‘but if it were, I know no reason why Mr Courtney should object to
+Henri as a son-in-law.’
+
+‘You are wilfully blind to the fact then that he has black blood in his
+veins.’
+
+Liz flushed crimson. How impossible it seems, under the most favourable
+circumstances, completely to overcome the natural prejudice against the
+mixture of blood; but she was true to her colours.
+
+‘I know more about him than you can tell me, Captain Norris! I know
+that his father was French and his mother a Spanish Creole. But it
+makes no difference to me. If he were all black, he is the man _I
+love_, and I will not stand by quietly and hear him defamed.’
+
+‘Who defamed him, Miss Fellows? I merely stated the general opinion as
+to De Courcelles’ chances of winning Miss Courtney, though whether he
+succeeds or not is a matter of the most perfect indifference to me.
+But with regard to yourself, it is a different matter. I may be strong
+enough to bear my own disappointment, but I will not see you throw
+your happiness away without making an effort to save you. Oh, Liz, my
+darling,’ cried Hugh Norris, forgetting himself in his anxiety for her,
+‘throw this man over, for Heaven’s sake, or you will rue it your whole
+life long!’
+
+‘Your advice has somewhat lost its effect from what preceded it,’
+replied Liz coldly, ‘and I must request you to spare it me in the
+future, Captain Norris. I also am old enough to know my own mind,
+and my friends from my enemies. I am very sorry that you came here
+to-night--still more so that you should have presumed to speak as you
+have done. I should have liked to keep you as a friend, but you have
+made that impossible. Please to relieve me of your presence, and let me
+quit the room until you are gone.’
+
+‘Oh, I will go--sharp enough!’ said Captain Norris, as he rose from his
+chair and walked towards the door. ‘You shall not ask me to leave you
+twice, Liz.’
+
+‘Stay!’ cried the girl impetuously. ‘You have forgotten your presents.
+Take them with you.’
+
+‘Won’t you even keep the poor things I have carried so far for you?’ he
+asked her humbly.
+
+‘Keep them!’ she echoed scornfully. ‘Keep a reminder always before me
+of the man who maligned my dearest friend to me? What do you take me
+for? No! If you have any wish left that I should forget this evening,
+and the pain you have caused me, take your presents away with you.’
+
+‘You set me a humbling task,’ said Hugh Norris, as he collected his
+despised gifts and repacked them in their papers. ‘But I will obey you.
+I would rather throw them into the swamp, than leave them here to annoy
+you. Only remember, Liz, that _I love you_, and that when the day comes
+(as it _will_ come) when your other lover forsakes you, I will prove
+what I say.’
+
+He went then without another word, though as he turned his eyes towards
+her for a farewell look, Liz saw a misty light beaming in them, which
+did not make her feel as triumphant as she thought she should have done
+to have gained the victory over him.
+
+She was still standing by the table where he had left her, feeling hot
+and cold by turns, as she pondered over the rumour he had repeated,
+when a hasty footstep passed over the threshold, and Henri de
+Courcelles stood before her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Before she turned her head to greet him, Liz knew _who_ had entered the
+bungalow. The marvellous instinct of love made her _feel_ his presence,
+before she perceived it, and this instinct, common to all human nature,
+was deeply engrafted in that of Liz Fellows. She had a heart that not
+only wound itself round that of those she loved but entered into it,
+and made its home there, and she loved Henri de Courcelles with all the
+strength and passion of which she was capable. Their attachment had
+commenced more than a year before, when she and her father had brought
+De Courcelles through a dangerous illness, and Liz had nursed him into
+convalescence with the tenderest care, and the young man had rewarded
+her devotion with a confession of love, which she believed to be as
+genuine as her own. Before he rose from his bed of sickness Henri de
+Courcelles had pledged himself to marry Liz Fellows, and at the time
+perhaps had honestly wished to do so. But there were obstacles in the
+way of an immediate union, and the engagement had never been publicly
+announced. Henri de Courcelles was a man whose personal appearance
+would have proved sufficient justification in most women’s eyes for
+Liz’s excessive love for him. From his French father he had inherited
+a strength of limb and muscle, and a symmetry of proportion, which
+is not common amongst tropical nations, whilst his beautiful Creole
+mother had given him her Spanish eyes and colouring, with a little
+trace--though too slight to be offensive--of her African blood. Taken
+altogether, Henri de Courcelles was a very handsome and athletic young
+fellow, and with an easy grace about his bearing and mode of expressing
+himself that made him very fascinating. That his visits to her father’s
+bungalow had been shorter and less frequent of late had never struck
+Liz as remarkable until Captain Norris had drawn her attention to the
+probable reason.
+
+She was not of a jealous temperament, and where we love and fear to
+lose, we will hatch up any excuse to lull our doubts to rest, sooner
+than wrong the creature on whom all our hopes are fixed. Besides,
+Liz was too busy a woman to spend her days sighing over an absent
+lover. When she was not mixing and dispensing medicines, or visiting
+her patients, or reading the medical works recommended by her father,
+she had her household affairs to look after, or needlework to do,
+and oftener longed for more time than for less. And De Courcelles
+was a busy man also. She would hardly have liked him if he had not
+been so. He was overseer on the coffee plantation of the rich planter
+Mr Courtney, on whose estate Dr Fellows lived, and had the complete
+control and _surveillance_ of the negro population. It made Liz’s
+heart grieve sometimes to hear the coolies complain of his harshness
+and severity. She did not believe in her heart that Henri _could_ be
+unjust to any one and thought the negroes only wished to escape the
+punishments they had incurred--still she could not help wishing, with
+a sigh, that he had the power to control them without punishment.
+But of course _he_ could not be in the wrong--not entirely, that is
+to say. As she recognised his footstep on the present occasion, and
+all the painful doubt she was experiencing fled like magic before the
+pleasure of his presence, any one with a knowledge of physiognomy
+could have read how the woman loved him. Her pale face flushed with
+expectation--her quiet eyes glowed with fire--her whole frame trembled
+in acknowledgment of the man’s supremacy over her. But as he advanced
+to the centre of the room and she could discern his features, Liz
+started with concern.
+
+‘Henri! what is the matter? Are you ill?’
+
+‘Ill! No,’ he answered pettishly, as he flung himself into a chair.
+‘You are so mixed up with your pills and potions, Liz, that you can
+never imagine any other cause for a man’s moods than illness. I’m right
+enough. What should ail me?’
+
+‘Ah! this dreadful fever, Henri. Forgive me if I am nervous for the
+safety of you and all whom I love. It strikes down its victims like a
+plague, and its terrible rapidity frightens me. It makes one feel so
+helpless. Sometimes it takes but a few hours to carry off its victims.
+I have been at three deathbeds to-day. It is enough to make a woman
+tremble at the least symptom of illness in her own people. And the
+epidemic seems to be on the increase. Nothing that my father does seems
+to stop it.’
+
+‘Well, try and find some livelier topic of conversation, Liz, for
+mercy’s sake. It’s enough to give any fellow the blues to hear you
+talk. I wish to goodness you followed some other calling, or rather
+none at all; but since it is unavoidable, spare me the nauseous
+details. I have enough worries of my own without discussing your
+professional difficulties.’
+
+Her sympathy was roused at once.
+
+‘What worries, dear? Tell me of them. Can I do nothing to help you out
+of them?’
+
+He coloured slightly under his dark skin as he stretched himself and
+said,--
+
+‘Nothing--nothing. They are matters of a purely private nature. But you
+know how I detest the coloured people, Liz. It is sufficiently annoying
+to me to be employed amongst the brutes all day long, without having to
+listen to a story of their grievances when my work is over. I come here
+for rest, not to talk about niggers.’
+
+‘Yes, I know, Henri, and it makes me happy to hear you say that you
+expect to find rest with me. But if you saw them suffer as I do, you
+could not fail to feel for them. Have you been very busy lately?’
+
+‘Pretty well. Why do you ask?’
+
+‘Because it is a week since you have been at the cottage.’
+
+‘You must be mistaken. I have called here several times when you were
+out. There’s no finding you at home now-a-days, Liz.’
+
+‘I have been very much occupied, I know,’ she answered quietly, ‘but
+not so much so as to make me forget that you have not been here, Henri.’
+
+The remembrance of what Captain Norris had repeated to her recurred to
+her mind, and on the spur of the moment she determined to learn the
+truth.
+
+‘You have been a great deal at the White House, have you not?’ she
+continued.
+
+He flushed again, and turned uneasily in his chair, so as to avoid the
+straightforward glance of her eyes.
+
+‘Why do you ask me that question? I am at the White House every morning
+with my employer. It is part of my business to go there.’
+
+‘I don’t mean at Mr Courtney’s office, Henri. I meant that you are a
+great deal with Mrs Courtney and Maraquita--at least I have been told
+so.’
+
+‘I am much obliged to whoever was kind enough to interest himself in
+my private affairs. Am I indebted to your old flame Captain Norris for
+spreading untruths about me? I met him skulking round the bungalow as I
+came along this evening.’
+
+‘Captain Norris does not _skulk_’, replied Liz quickly. ‘He has no need
+to do so. Neither is he a “flame” of mine, and you ought to know me
+better than to say so, Henri.’
+
+‘Well, it looks like it, when you take up the cudgels so warmly in his
+defence. However, we’ll let that drop. What has he been telling you
+against me?’
+
+‘Nothing--or at least nothing of his own accord. He only repeated the
+common rumour--that you are a great deal in the society of Maraquita,
+and that--that people are talking about it.’
+
+She stood for a few moments after that, expecting to hear an indignant
+denial from his lips, but De Courcelles was silent.
+
+‘Henri,’ she continued softly, turning a very pale face towards him,
+‘it is not _true_?’
+
+‘What is not true?’ he inquired brusquely.
+
+‘That--that you are tired of me, and making love to Maraquita Courtney.’
+
+‘Of course it isn’t true; it’s a d--d lie, and the next time I meet
+that Norris, I’ll break every bone in his body for saying so.’
+
+She was all penitence for having suspected his fidelity in a moment.
+She flung herself on her knees beside his chair, and threw one arm
+around his shoulders.
+
+‘Oh, Henri! forgive me for having repeated such a slander, but it hurt
+me so, I couldn’t keep it to myself. But it was not Captain Norris’s
+fault. He only told me what he had heard in the town. He did not think,
+perhaps, that it was of so much consequence to me. And I know that you
+_are_ very intimate at the White House; more so even than I am.’
+
+‘Well, Mrs Courtney is very civil to me, and I can hardly refuse her
+hospitality, on the plea that I am engaged to be married, can I?’
+
+‘No! No! of course not. But still--though I am _sure_ that you are true
+to me,’ cried the woman, fighting against her own horrible suspicions
+(for why should you have asked me to marry you, unless you loved me?)
+still, Maraquita is very lovely, and she _likes_ you, Henri, I am
+certain of that. No! don’t interrupt me! Let me say all I have to say
+to the end, and then perhaps I shall forget it. You see, dear, I--I am
+not beautiful (how I wish, for _your_ sake, that I were), and there
+is nothing in me worthy of your affection, except my love! And I have
+seen something of men in my lifetime, and I can understand something
+of their temptations. Quita has been a flirt from a little child. Who
+should know it better than myself, who have been like a sister to her
+from her birth? I was only five years old when my father brought me to
+live at Beauregard, and Quita was not born for two years after that. I
+remember so well the first visit I paid to the White House to see the
+wonderful new baby, and how proud I was when old Jessica let me hold
+her in my arms--’
+
+‘Stop!’ exclaimed De Courcelles authoritatively. ‘What has all this to
+do with me? I have no interest in these details about Miss Courtney’s
+birth.’
+
+‘I only mentioned it to show you how well I must know Maraquita’s
+character. We have grown up together, Henri, and I can almost read
+her thoughts. She likes you more than a friend, and when I heard the
+rumours about you, I felt as if I could have no chance against her.’
+
+Henri de Courcelles had risen from his seat during her last words,
+almost shaking off her caressing hand in his impatience, and stood
+beside her, white and angry.
+
+‘I will hear no more of this nonsense,’ he cried; ‘I have told you
+already it is a lie, and you insult me by repeating it. Miss Courtney
+and I are nothing to each other, and it will ruin me with my employer
+if this absurd report gains ground. I shall get kicked out of
+Beauregard for nothing at all, and then all chance of our marriage will
+be at an end, and I shall probably have to leave San Diego.’
+
+‘It will not gain ground through _my_ means, and I am only too glad to
+know that it is not true,’ replied Liz, rising to her feet also.
+
+She would have liked him to have put his arms round her and assured
+her with a kiss it was all an error, but she was too proud to show the
+blank disappointment that crept over her. Henri had denied the scandal,
+and she was bound to believe him, but still she was not satisfied,
+though she could hardly have given a reason for it.
+
+‘Of course--of course--I _knew_ it was not true,’ she repeated, in
+a quivering voice, as she tried to persuade herself that all was
+right between them. ‘For once you _promised_ me--do you remember it,
+Henri?--that if any one ever came between us, you would let me know, so
+that at any rate I should retain your confidence, even if I lost your
+love.’
+
+‘You harp so much on the question of losing my love,’ he replied
+angrily, ‘that you make me think you have no further use for it.’
+
+Liz looked bewildered.
+
+‘Oh! what have I said to make you speak like that?’ she exclaimed.
+‘When have I let you think that I was weary of you--we who have agreed
+to pass our lives together? Oh, Henri! is it my fault? Has this
+misunderstanding sprung from my apparent coldness? If so--forgive me!
+For indeed--_indeed_--’ continued Liz earnestly--all her reticence
+vanishing before the fear of offending her lover, ‘I am not cold. I
+have so much important work to do, and serious things to think of,
+that I am afraid sometimes to let my thoughts dwell too much on our
+affection, lest I should not keep my mind clear. But that is not
+indifference. It is too much love,’ she said, in a faltering voice.
+
+‘I have never doubted your love,’ replied De Courcelles, softened by
+the sound of her tearful voice, ‘and I don’t want you to doubt mine,
+and especially not to listen to tales that have no foundation, and are
+calculated to injure my reputation. Maraquita Courtney is nothing to
+me, and never has been, and never will be. You may take my word for
+that!’
+
+‘Will you swear it?’ cried Liz eagerly.
+
+He hesitated a moment, and then he said,--
+
+‘Yes, I swear it by the God Who made us both!’
+
+The woman dropped down into her chair again, and burst into a flood of
+hysterical tears.
+
+‘Oh! I _felt_ it! I _knew_ it!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have been so happy
+in the possession of your love. I was sure that Heaven could not be so
+cruel as to take it away from me.’
+
+The young man crossed over to her, and laid his hand upon her bent head.
+
+‘No! no!’ he said soothingly. ‘No one shall take it away. You are not
+like yourself to-night, Liz. Where is all your courage gone to? You,
+who can stand by quietly and see an operation performed, or a patient
+die, who are the coolest and most collected woman I have ever met with.
+Why! I don’t _know_ you in this new character.’
+
+‘I _have_ no courage where you are concerned,’ she answered
+passionately, as she looked up and met the glance of his dark eyes.
+‘You are my life, Henri, and everything that is best in me, would die
+without you.’
+
+He winced a little as she spoke, but he professed to laugh at her
+vehemence.
+
+‘It will not be my fault if you are ever put to the test, Liz. How
+often have I told you that my life belongs to you, since, without your
+skill and care, I should have lost it. Come, kiss me, and forget what
+has passed between us. It is all the fault of that meddling fellow
+Norris. I wish he had been farther before he made mischief between us.’
+
+‘No one has the power to make mischief between us,’ said Liz, smiling
+through her tears. ‘I am quite happy again now, and am only sorry my
+foolish jealousy should have betrayed me into making such a scene.
+And, to prove it, let us talk of Quita, Henri. I was wanting to see
+you, just to ask after her.’
+
+‘Can’t we find some pleasanter topic of conversation, Liz? Besides, you
+know more of Miss Courtney than I could tell you.’
+
+‘No! That is just where it is. I have hardly seen anything of her
+since the fever broke out. Father is not quite certain whether it is
+contagious or not, and whilst there is a doubt, he thinks it better
+I should keep away from the White House. But old Jessica says that
+Quita is not looking at all well, and she is afraid there is something
+serious the matter with her.’
+
+De Courcelles fired up again directly.
+
+‘Curse the old fool! What business is it of hers how she looks! It’s
+this infernal tittle-tattle from house to house, that makes all the
+mischief in the world.’
+
+‘Oh, Henri! You forget Jessica was Quita’s nurse. Why, she loves her
+like her own child, and she says she has been very depressed lately,
+and is often crying. What should make her cry, Henri? Has she any
+trouble?’
+
+‘Don’t ask me! How should I know?’ he answered roughly. ‘Miss Courtney
+is not likely to confide her troubles to her father’s overseer. But I
+see no difference in her.’
+
+‘Perhaps it is only Jessica’s anxiety,’ said Liz thoughtfully. ‘But
+I am always dreaming of this fever, and Maraquita is too delicate to
+battle against it. I wish Mr Courtney would send her out of the island
+until it is dispersed.’
+
+‘You don’t think of going yourself, though.’
+
+‘_I!_ Oh, dear no! I _should_ be a coward to run away from these poor
+people when I can be of use to them. But Maraquita is different. She
+has nothing to do but to think of the trouble and brood over it, and
+she is easily alarmed. She would be much better away.’
+
+‘I suppose if her parents thought so they would send her. They have
+sufficient money to do anything. But we have discussed the subject
+enough, Liz, and I am weary of it. Where is your father?’
+
+‘Here he is,’ replied Liz, in a brisk and cheerful tone, as Dr Fellows
+entered the bungalow.
+
+Whatever her own doubts and imaginings, she was always cheerful before
+her father, for he seemed to carry a weight through life that would
+break him down, unless sustained by his daughter’s strength of mind.
+
+Dr Fellows was a man of about fifty years of age, but he looked
+older. His figure was bent and attenuated, his hair nearly white, his
+features lined with care and yellow from ill-health. No one to see
+them together could have believed him to be the father of the healthy
+and finely-formed young woman who advanced to meet him. The frank,
+ingenuous expression on his daughter’s face contrasted pleasantly with
+his reserved and somewhat morose physiognomy. He hardly smiled as she
+took his broad-brimmed Panama hat and stick from him, and kissed him
+on the forehead. The doctor was dressed in a complete suit of white
+nankeen, and his face was scarcely less white than his clothes.
+
+‘You look very tired, father!’ exclaimed Liz. ‘Have you been far from
+the plantation to-night, and are there any fresh cases?’
+
+‘I walked to the other side of Shanty Hill, to see a child of Mathy
+Jones, but I was too late. The fever had set in with convulsions, and
+it was dead before I arrived. And poor old Ben is gone too, Liz; Mr
+Latham’s faithful old servant. I would have given all I am worth to
+save him, but I failed to do so. I think my right hand must have lost
+its cunning,’ said the Doctor, in a tone of deep depression.
+
+‘No, no! father! It is nothing of the sort. You are overtired with your
+constant work, or you would not think of such nonsense. Let me mix you
+a white wine sherbet, you seem quite exhausted. And here is Henri, so
+talk of something else, and divert your thoughts.’
+
+‘How are you, Monsieur de Courcelles? We have not seen much of you
+lately,’ said Dr Fellows languidly.
+
+The indifference with which he spoke, showed that he did not care much
+for his intended son-in-law. Indeed, excepting that he believed his
+daughter to possess a much clearer and more practical head than his
+own, he never would have sanctioned the engagement. But Lizzie loved
+him, so the Doctor argued--and believed in him, and therefore it must
+be all right. Lizzie was too sensible to make a mistake about it. The
+Doctor forgot, or was ignorant of the fact, that the cleverest women
+often make the greatest fools of themselves where their hearts are
+concerned, and their vivid imaginations make them believe those they
+love to be all they could wish them. The handsome, _nonchalant_ young
+Frenchman did not appear much better pleased to meet Dr Fellows than
+he did to see him, but he considered it worth his while to refute his
+assertion.
+
+‘That has been your fault more than mine,’ he replied airily. ‘I was
+just telling your daughter that I have made several attempts to find
+you at home, without success. My time is not my own, you know, any more
+than yours.’
+
+‘Oh, if Liz is satisfied, I am sure _I_ am!’ retorted Dr Fellows.
+
+‘It is all right, father, Henri and I perfectly understand each other,’
+interposed his daughter cheerfully. ‘But had you not better go and lie
+down, father? I don’t like that heavy look in your eyes; and you may be
+called up again at any hour of the night. Do take some rest whilst you
+can.’
+
+‘You are right, my dear,’ replied the Doctor, staggering to his feet;
+‘I really want rest. But you will go to bed, too, Lizzie. You will not
+sit up too late with Monsieur de Courcelles?’
+
+‘There is no fear of that, for I am going at once,’ said the young man,
+as he rose to his feet. ‘Good-night, Doctor; good-night, Liz. I shall
+look in upon you again to-morrow.’
+
+He nodded to each of them as he passed out into the night air, and
+Liz looked after his handsome lithe figure, as it disappeared behind
+the clump of mango trees, with a sigh of love and regret. But there
+was nothing but affectionate solicitude patent in her manner as she
+proffered her arm to support her father to his room.
+
+‘Father, you are trembling like a leaf. I think I shall give you a
+little quinine. By the way, have you heard any news from the White
+House to-day? Are they all well?’
+
+‘I trust so. I have heard nothing to the contrary; and I saw Mr
+Courtney as usual this morning. What makes you ask me, my dear?’
+
+‘Because Jessica said that Maraquita looked ill.’
+
+‘It can be nothing serious, or I should have heard of it. Probably
+the effects of this intense heat, and the unhealthy state of the
+atmosphere. But they are well provided with disinfectants at the White
+House, and Mr Courtney will not permit his wife or daughter to enter
+the plantation. They always drive on the other side of the island.’
+
+‘That accounts for my not having seen either of them for so long,’ said
+Lizzie, as she left her father to lie down, dressed as he was, and try
+to gain a much-needed repose.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+As she re-entered the sitting-room, she passed at once to the entrance
+which led on to the verandah. All the windows were wide open, and
+the shaded lamp upon the table, round which myriads of insects were
+hovering, conveyed no heat to the apartment, yet it seemed to stifle
+her for want of air. Her head and her heart seemed both on fire, and
+she could recall nothing of the events of the evening, except that
+Henri had denied he was untrue to her, and yet had left without giving
+her any proof of his fidelity. The world seemed to be crumbling
+beneath her feet as she stepped out of the open door, and lifted up
+her face to the star-spangled sky. How calm and peaceful and steadfast
+it appeared! What a contrast to her own turbulent spirit, and how she
+longed to be at peace also--anywhere, anyhow, only _at peace_!
+
+Liz was passing through the cruellest phase of a disappointment
+in love--when merciless doubt obtrudes its fang into the heart,
+and poisons the whole being. How we despise and hate ourselves for
+doubting, and yet how painfully we go into the minutiæ of our loathsome
+suspicion, and dissect every reason that forbids our casting it from us!
+
+Liz felt as if she dared not think about it. As she recalled De
+Courcelles’ words and manner that evening, she saw that he had not said
+or done a single thing calculated to set her mind at rest. Except the
+solemn oath which he had sworn, and somehow, though she loved him,
+Liz derived no comfort from remembering that oath, and even wished he
+had not taken it. That he might not have deserted her for the sake
+of Maraquita Courtney was true--as he had attested it, she was bound
+to believe it was true--but he was changed to herself. All the oaths
+sworn under heaven could not disabuse her mind of _that_ idea; and if
+he were false, what did it signify to her _who_ occupied the place
+which she had lost? The brave woman who could set a broken limb, or
+lance an abscess without wincing, shook like an aspen leaf at the
+prospect of losing her handsome lover. Her love was so knit to him,
+that she believed she could never disentangle it, but would have to
+live on, with her live warm heart beating against his dead cold one,
+until death came to release them. That is the worst of finding out the
+unworthiness of those whom we have believed in,--we cannot all at once
+tear our hearts away, and we despise ourselves for being so weak as to
+let them bleed to death by inches, instead of freeing them with one
+wrench.
+
+Liz was ready to despise herself as she walked a little way from the
+bungalow. It stood in the centre of the coffee plantation, but a
+considerable space round it had been set with ornamental shrubs and
+trees. The glossy-leaved creamy-white magnolias, with their golden
+centres, shed their powerful perfume on the night air, and a clump of
+orange trees in full blossom mingled their scent with the magnolia.
+The night-blowing cistus and the trumpet flowers wound themselves up
+the supports of the verandah; the insects, with many a birr-r and
+whiz-z, disported themselves in the lemon grass, and from the covert
+of the plantation came low-toned murmurs from the sleepy love-birds,
+or the shrill cry of a green parrot startled from its bower of bud and
+blossom. Liz lifted her heated face to heaven, as though she would draw
+inspiration from its majestic calm.
+
+Far off, from the cluster of negroes’ huts, which bordered the
+property, she could distinguish the crooning wails of the mourners,
+preparing their dead for burial at sunrise, and her heart bled for the
+poor black mothers who had been compelled to part with the babies at
+their breast. Death and sorrow seemed to surround her, and her spirits
+sunk down to their lowest ebb. The stillness was intense. It was a
+night when one seemed lifted up from this lower earth, and capable of
+holding communion with the Unseen.
+
+But absorbed as Liz Fellows was in her own trouble, she was startled
+after a while by the sound of a low faint moan that came from the
+surrounding thicket. Her first idea was that it proceeded from Rosa
+mourning over her dead child--poor wild Rosa, who was so heedless as
+to be almost half-witted, and who had fallen a ready prey to some
+loafing young sailor who had spent a few days near the plantation.
+Liz had felt deeply interested in this girl. She had been shocked and
+horrified to find she had so little sense of decency or respect for her
+womanhood as to succumb to the first temptation offered her, but she
+had not slighted nor reproached the girl in consequence. Such things
+were common enough amongst the coolies. It was not Liz’s vocation to
+preach but to console. She had indeed, whilst watching over Rosa and
+her baby, tried to convince her of the wrong she had committed, both
+to her child and herself, but the yellow girl had paid no attention to
+her words, until the fever had carried off little Carlo. Then they had
+come back upon her mind with double force, and she had resented them
+by insulting her benefactress. But Liz bore no malice. She was only
+anxious to console, as far as possible, the poor bereaved young mother,
+and when she heard the low moans, which she fancied came from Rosa,
+she plunged into the thicket whence they proceeded. She had gone but a
+few steps when she came upon a female figure leaning against the trunk
+of a mango tree, as though she had no strength to proceed further. But
+the first glance, even though given in the dusky light, showed Lizzie
+that this was no coolie girl--yellow, or otherwise. The slight form
+was enveloped in a black mantle, which covered it from head to foot,
+but the hood had fallen back, and in the white face turned up to the
+moonbeams, Liz recognised, to her dismay, the features of Maraquita
+Courtney.
+
+‘Quita!’ she exclaimed, rushing forward, ‘my dear Quita, are you ill?’
+
+But Maraquita shrunk from the kindly hand which was laid upon her, as
+if it had been the sting of a serpent.
+
+‘Don’t touch me,’ she murmured; ‘I could not bear it. I don’t want
+_you_. I want--your--your--father.’
+
+‘My father is at home, dear. He will see you at once if you wish it.
+But why didn’t you send for him, Maraquita, if you felt ill? Why did
+you take the trouble to come down here to see him?’
+
+But all the answer Maraquita made was to utter another heartrending
+moan as she swayed backwards and forwards with pain.
+
+‘Oh, my dearest girl, you are really ill! You must come to the bungalow
+at once, and let father prescribe for you. Lean on me, Maraquita, and
+let me support you. Only a few steps farther, and we shall be there.’
+
+The girl she spoke to appeared to have no alternative but to accede
+to her request. She leaned heavily on Liz’s arm, and with many a moan
+dragged her feet across the threshold of the Doctor’s house, where she
+sank exhausted into a chair.
+
+She was a beautiful creature, who had just attained her eighteenth
+year. Her fair-haired English father had imparted to her a skin of
+dazzling whiteness, with a complexion like the heart of a maiden-blush
+rose, and her Spanish mother had given her eyes dark as the sloe and
+soft as velvet, with languishing lids and curled lashes, and hair of
+rippling raven. Maraquita’s form was slight and supple; her hands and
+feet small and childlike. She was in all points a great contrast to the
+Doctor’s daughter, who regarded her as the loveliest girl she had ever
+seen. As little children they had been the most intimate companions
+and playmates, Lizzie acting as an elder sister and protector to the
+little Maraquita, who toddled all over the plantation under her care.
+When older, too, they had studied together, or rather Liz had tried
+to impart the knowledge she derived from her father to Quita; but
+the latter had never advanced beyond the rudiments of learning. Her
+indolent, half-educated mother, who lounged about in a dressing-gown
+all day, and had no thoughts beyond her Sunday attire and her evening
+drive, considered schooling quite unnecessary for her beautiful little
+daughter, and much preferred to see her running about the White House
+in a lace frock and blue ribbons, with her rosy, dimpled feet bare, to
+letting her be cooped up in the bungalow studying grammar and geography.
+
+So Maraquita had grown up to womanhood about as ignorant as it is
+possible for a young lady to be--about also as vain and foolish as
+it is possible for a woman to be. Yet Liz loved her--spite of it
+all--for the sake of those early memories. She had never relinquished
+her intimacy with Quita, and when they met, they were as familiar as
+of old, but they did not meet so often as before. The last two years,
+during which Miss Courtney had been introduced to the society of San
+Diego, had much separated them. The pleasant evenings which they had
+been used to spend together, wandering through the coffee plantation,
+were gone for ever. Quita was always engaged now, either to a dinner,
+or a ball, or to go to the theatre with her friends, and Liz had ceased
+to expect to see her. And since the fever had broken out amongst
+the coolies, they had never met, and she was content, for Quita’s
+sake, that it should be so. And now to find her wandering about the
+plantation at night and evidently so ill, filled Liz’s breast with
+alarm. There was but one solution of the riddle. Quita had contracted
+the fever in its worst form, and had come to them in her delirium. Liz
+had no time to do more than think the thought before she deposited
+Quita in a chair and rushed to wake her father, and summon him to her
+relief.
+
+‘Father,’ she exclaimed hurriedly, as she roused Dr Fellows from his
+sleep, ‘I am so sorry to disturb you, but it is absolutely necessary.
+Quita is ill--very ill, and you must come to her at once. I met her
+wandering about the grounds, evidently in great pain, and she says she
+wants to see you. I am afraid she is delirious. Oh, father, do come to
+her at once!’
+
+‘Maraquita _here_?’ said the Doctor, as he rose from his bed and
+prepared to quit the room. ‘And without her parents? Impossible.’
+
+‘Oh, father, I am sure she is not in her right senses, though she is
+too ill to speak much. What will Mr and Mrs Courtney say?’
+
+‘We must send word to them at once,’ exclaimed the Doctor, as he
+preceded his daughter to the sitting-room. But as soon as he had felt
+Maraquita’s pulse, and listened to her moans, the expression of his
+face changed from concern to the deepest dismay. ‘This is much worse
+than I anticipated,’ he whispered to his daughter. ‘We must carry her
+into my room at once.’
+
+‘Dr Fellows,’ cried the sick girl, as she clutched at his coat sleeve,
+‘save me, for God’s sake--save me! I came to you because you are so
+good and kind, but--but--I think I am dying.’
+
+‘No! No! my dear! it will be all right by-and-by,’ replied the Doctor
+soothingly; ‘but you must be good now, and do as I tell you, and you
+will soon be well. Liz and I are going to move you into my bedroom.’
+
+‘And shall I be alone with you?’ she asked, with scared eyes.
+
+‘Yes!--_quite_ alone! Now, Lizzie, take her feet, and I will carry her
+head and shoulders, and we’ll have her on the bed in no time.’
+
+‘Is it the fever?’ inquired Liz, with a white face, for she knew that
+Maraquita’s constitution was very fragile.
+
+‘Yes! yes! Now, go and leave us, and tell this to no one.’
+
+‘But, father, let me undress her first.’
+
+‘I wish you to go at once and leave us alone,’ repeated the Doctor
+firmly.
+
+Liz obeyed her father’s orders at once. She was too well used to work
+under him as an assistant, to dream of disputing them. But she was very
+much astonished to hear him send her away from her adopted sister’s
+side.
+
+‘Shall I run up to the White House and tell Mr and Mrs Courtney that
+Quita is with us, father? They will be terribly alarmed if they find
+out she has gone.’
+
+‘Go nowhere, and speak to no one,’ replied Dr Fellows authoritatively.
+‘They are _my orders_, remember. Remain in the sitting-room, and let no
+one enter the house. When I require you, I will call you.’
+
+Liz walked out of the bed-chamber at once, and left her father with
+his patient. She could not understand him this evening, and his action
+alarmed as much as it puzzled her. Maraquita must indeed be ill, to
+make him look and speak with such complete dismay; he who was generally
+so cool and self-collected, and who appeared to look on death, whenever
+it occurred, as a kindly note of release from a very troublesome
+world. She drew out her work (for whatever her mental perplexities,
+Liz was never idle) and sat down to sew and practise patience. She
+could not help hearing the low moans that forced their way through the
+wooden partitions of the building, and her father’s soothing tones, but
+she could gain no knowledge of what was passing there. At last, after
+the space of an hour, although it had seemed much longer, Dr Fellows
+entered the room in which she sat, and went to his cupboard in search
+of some medicine. His daughter looked up anxiously as he appeared.
+
+‘Only tell me if she is better,’ she urged.
+
+‘She is not better yet,’ replied her father; ‘but there is every hope
+she soon will be.’
+
+‘Thank Heaven for it! But I cannot help thinking of her poor parents.
+Perhaps they have discovered her absence, and are searching the island
+for her. It is cruel to keep them in suspense.’
+
+‘I think if you look at the matter from a sensible point of view, Liz,
+you will see that _when_ they miss Maraquita, _my_ bungalow is the
+first place they will visit. But I do not think they _will_ miss her,
+at least not yet. Meanwhile I want to speak to you. Can you give me
+your serious attention?’
+
+‘Unless Quita should want you,’ replied Liz, looking anxiously towards
+the bed-chamber.
+
+‘She will not do so for some little time, for I have given her a
+soothing draught, and she is asleep; and I can hear the least sound
+from where I stand. But it is necessary you should listen to me.’
+
+‘I am all attention, father.’
+
+‘You have spent the best part of your life in San Diego, Liz; has it
+ever struck you as strange that I, an Englishman, and a certificated
+doctor, should have chosen to make my home in this island, and live, as
+it were, on the bounty of Edward Courtney?’
+
+‘I don’t know that I have thought it _strange_, father, for you might
+have had a thousand reasons for settling in this beautiful island, but
+I have felt for a long time past that you have some secret trouble, to
+make you shun the curiosity or the publicity of the world.’
+
+‘You are right, Liz, and you are old enough now to share that
+sorrow--or rather that _shame_.’
+
+‘Oh! no, no, father, don’t say _that_!’ cried Lizzie, as her work
+dropped into her lap. ‘Whatever it may be, it is not _shame_.’
+
+‘My dear, I cannot conceal the fact any longer, for without it you will
+never understand what I am about to tell you. The very name we bear,
+Liz, is not our own. I was compelled to adopt the name of Fellows, in
+order to escape--’
+
+‘WHAT? In Heaven’s name, WHAT?’ she exclaimed, clutching at his sleeve.
+
+‘_Transportation_,’ replied Dr Fellows, in a low, strained voice.
+
+She was about to scream out, to protest her horror of the disgrace
+attached to them,--her indignation that he should have brought it on
+their heads,--but a glance at her father’s pale, pained face restrained
+her. In a moment she realised the awful effort it must have been for
+him to confess his guilt before his daughter, and womanly compassion
+took the place of her first resentment.
+
+‘My poor father,’ she said, in a low voice, as she took his hands in
+hers. ‘My _poor_ father! Surely it was not deserved. There _must_ have
+been some mistake.’
+
+‘No, Lizzie, there was no mistake. Since I have told you so far, you
+must hear all! I am a forger.’
+
+She hid her face in her hands then, for she did not care to look at
+him, lest he should read the contempt she felt her features must
+express.
+
+‘This is the secret of the friendship between me and Mr Courtney. I
+owe him more than my life. We were boys at school together, Liz, and
+chums at college, and always the best of friends. But he was rich--the
+only son of a wealthy planter--and I was very poor, and had nothing
+to depend on but my wits. He led me into extravagances which I was
+too ready to follow, but whilst he had the means to defray his debts,
+I had no power to do the same by mine. At last, in an evil moment,
+to prevent a bill coming upon my old father which would have broken
+up his humble home and sent him to the workhouse, I forged my friend
+Edward Courtney’s name, as a temporary relief. Before I could make up
+the money, the paper fell into his hands, and he might have ruined
+me; instead of which, Liz, he forgave me freely; but the rumour had
+got abroad, and I was a ruined man. I was married, and set up in a
+small practice. I lost it all, and it preyed so on your poor mother’s
+mind that when you were born, she faded out of life, and left me
+alone with my disgrace. I took you away from the place, and tried to
+establish a practice in various parts of England without success--the
+whispered scandal followed me everywhere--until Mr Courtney came into
+his father’s property, and settled out in San Diego; then he wrote
+and begged me for the sake of our old friendship, to let the past be
+forgotten between us, and to come out here and hold an appointment on
+Beauregard as medical overseer to the plantation. As soon as I could
+bring down my pride to accept a benefit from the man I had so deeply
+wronged, I brought you over here, and we have been dependants on Edward
+Courtney’s bounty ever since. Lizzie, what do we owe the man who has
+placed us under such an obligation?’
+
+‘Our lives, should he require them,’ she answered, in a low voice.
+
+She was deeply humiliated by what she had heard. She had never dreamt
+that the evident trouble under which her father laboured could be
+the brand of shame. Her proud independent spirit writhed under the
+knowledge that she had been reared on the bread of charity,--that the
+very name she passed by was not her own, and that the best spirit
+which she and her father could claim from their benefactor, was one of
+tolerance only. She could have cried out to Dr Fellows then and there,
+to take her away from the surroundings which had become hateful to her,
+because they must evermore be associated with the bitter story of his
+guilt. But she only hung her head, and spoke in a whisper. Her father
+had been sufficiently degraded by having to tell her such a story, and
+he had been very good to her, and it was not his daughter’s part to add
+to his suffering. But she threw the full depth of its meaning into the
+answer she returned him, and he caught at it eagerly.
+
+‘You are right, Liz. Our lives, and all we have, should be at his
+disposal, in return for all his goodness to us. You cannot feel that
+more deeply than I do. And now I want to hear you take a solemn oath to
+that effect.’
+
+‘_An oath!_’ cried Lizzie, startled at the idea.
+
+‘Yes! an oath before Almighty God. Nothing short of it will satisfy me,
+and set my mind at rest.’
+
+‘Ah, father!’ she exclaimed, remembering another oath which she had
+heard that evening, ‘will not my promise do as well? You know that I
+would not dare to break it. It would be as sacred to me as any oath.’
+
+‘No, Lizzie--no! I am not asking this for myself, but for another--for
+my friend Edward Courtney, to whom we owe so much, and nothing short
+of an oath will do. Say, “I swear before Almighty God, and by all my
+hopes of salvation, that I will never repeat what I may see, or hear,
+or suspect this night.”’
+
+‘Oh, father! you frighten me! What terrible thing is going to happen?’
+
+‘Are you a child, to be scared by a few words? If you will not swear
+it, Lizzie, I will send you out of the bungalow this minute, to the
+house of our next neighbours, and you shall not return until I fetch
+you. But I want your assistance, and if you will do as I require you,
+you can stay and help me.’
+
+‘For Quita’s sake then, father, “I swear before Almighty God, and by
+all my hopes of salvation, that I will never repeat what I may see, or
+hear, or suspect this night.”’
+
+‘That is my brave, good daughter,’ said the Doctor, as he laid his hand
+for a moment on her head, before he gathered up the medicines he had
+selected, and left the room.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Liz stood where he had left her, awestruck and bewildered. All her
+private trouble of that evening--the sickening doubts she had conceived
+of her lover’s fidelity, and her fears for Maraquita’s safety--faded
+before the humbling truths she had just heard. _This_, then, was the
+solution of the riddle which had so long puzzled her--the meaning
+of her father’s secret anxiety and depression. He was a criminal,
+whose crime was known to the law, and who had only escaped justice
+by yielding up his birthright and hiding on the plantation of his
+benefactor, Mr Courtney. It was a _very_ bitter truth to swallow.
+
+Liz wondered how much Mrs Courtney and Maraquita knew of their
+disgrace, and what revulsion of feeling it might not cause in the
+breast of Henri de Courcelles. The thought of her lover caused a sharp
+pang to Lizzie. What terrible thing was about to happen in the future
+for her with regard to him? Her father’s revelation had raised a new
+barrier between them--one which honour compelled her to feel could
+never be surmounted until she was permitted to reveal it; and what
+consequences might not follow such a confession. As Liz pondered on
+the difficulties in her path, she shivered to hear the keening of the
+night breeze as it sighed through the branches of the coffee trees,
+and the far-off wailing which could occasionally be heard from the
+negroes’ huts. They seemed like a requiem over the ashes of her love
+and blighted hope.
+
+The tears were standing on her cheeks when she was roused from her
+reverie by the opening of the door, and her father stood before her
+again.
+
+‘Do you want me?’ she said quickly.
+
+Dr Fellows answered her in a tone of portentous gravity,--
+
+‘Yes, Liz, though not in the way you imagine. Set your mind at rest
+concerning Maraquita. There is nothing to be alarmed at about her.
+But you must execute a commission at once for me. You must carry this
+basket to Mammy Lila on the Shanty Hill.’
+
+Liz glanced at the large basket which her father carried in his hand,
+with astonishment.
+
+‘I am to go to the Shanty Hill to-night, father? Do you know that it is
+five miles away, and it is just two o’clock? Cannot it wait until the
+morning?’
+
+‘If it could have waited till the morning I should not have told you to
+take it now,’ replied the Doctor sternly. ‘Have you already forgotten
+your own acknowledgment that we owe (if necessary) our very lives to
+Edward Courtney.’
+
+‘But what has this to do with Mr Courtney?’
+
+‘Ask no questions, but do as I bid you. If any one else could do
+the work as well as yourself, I should not trouble you, Liz. But I
+can trust no one but you. Carry the basket to Mammy Lila’s hut, and
+leave it there. Tell her it comes from me, and my message to her is
+“_Silence and secrecy_.”’
+
+‘I will go,’ said Lizzie shortly, as she took the basket from her
+father’s hand.
+
+‘Go by the path that skirts the outer plantation, and cross the ravine
+by Dorrian’s glen; it is the shorter way,’ continued Dr Fellows; and
+then suddenly twisting his daughter round so as to look into her face,
+he asked her,--‘Have you any fear? It is dangerous traversing these
+roads by night, and alone. There may be snakes across the path, or
+panthers lurking in the thickets. Are you sure you are not afraid?’
+
+The contemptuous curl of Liz’s lip showed him the futility of the
+question.
+
+‘_Afraid!_’ she echoed. ‘When have you ever known me afraid yet?
+Besides, if this is to be done for _Mr Courtney_, my life is at his
+service.’
+
+‘More than your life, Lizzie--your sacred honour. Remember your oath,
+never to reveal what you may hear, see, or suspect this night.’
+
+‘I have not forgotten it,’ said his daughter briefly, as she threw a
+mantle over her shoulders, and left the cottage with her burden.
+
+It was with strange feelings that she set out to accomplish her errand.
+The tropical night could hardly be called dark, for the deep blue
+firmament was set with myriads of stars, but the dusky glens and leafy
+coverts were full of shadows, sufficient to mask the unexpected spring
+of wild cat or panther, or to conceal the poisonous asp wriggling
+through the grass on which she trod.
+
+Yet she went bravely on, her only means of defence a stout stick with
+which she stirred the leaves in her path, in order to unearth a hidden
+enemy.
+
+The covered basket she bore was rather heavy, and she had no knowledge
+what it contained. Most women would have asked the question before they
+started--many would have untied and opened it as soon as they were out
+of sight. Liz did neither. A horrible suspicion had entered her mind,
+which she was fighting against with all her might, and it left no room
+for idle curiosity. On the contrary, she dreaded lest some accident
+should reveal the contents of the basket to her. She did not wish to
+ascertain them. She felt intuitively that the knowledge would be the
+cause of fresh unhappiness. So she walked rapidly and without a pause
+to Shanty Hill, though the five miles seemed very long without the
+landmarks familiar to her by daylight, and her feet were very weary
+before she got there.
+
+Mammy Lila was an old negress who had acquired some repute as a
+herbalist, and was much sought after by the Coolie population to
+doctor their children. She was the _sage-femme_ of Beauregard, and had
+helped Liz on many an occasion to usher the poor little dusky mites
+of humanity into a world which waited to welcome them with stripes
+and hard work. Mammy Lila was a seer into the bargain, and expectant
+brides and mothers were wont to go to her to read what fortune lay in
+the future for them. She was an old woman now, and rather infirm, but
+Dr Fellows had faith in her good sense and discretion, as he evinced on
+this occasion. The immediate approach to her hut was up a steep bit of
+hill, covered with loose stones, and as Lizzie, weary with mental and
+physical fatigue, toiled up it, she stumbled against an obstacle in her
+path, and shook the basket in her hand, from which issued in another
+second the feeble wailing cry of a new-born infant. Liz almost dropped
+the basket in her surprise. She had feared it, but she had resolved
+_not_ to believe it, and now her worst suspicions were confirmed. She
+stood still for a moment, trembling at the discovery she had made, and
+then recommenced almost to _run_ up the rocky hill, as though she would
+run from the horror that assailed her. Panting with the exertions she
+had made, and almost speechless with dismay, she entered the negress’s
+hut, white, scared, and hardly able to express herself. Mammy Lila
+was in bed, and had to be roused by repeated attacks upon her door,
+and when she answered the summons she was scarcely awake enough to
+understand what was said to her.
+
+‘Missy Liz!’ she exclaimed in her surprise; ‘who bad now? Not little
+Cora, sure! Dat chile not due for three week yet.’
+
+‘No, no, Mammy! I have not come for that,’ said Lizzie, in a faint
+voice. ‘The Doctor sent me. He said I was to give you _this_,’ placing
+the basket on the floor, ‘and to say his message to you is “_Silence
+and secrecy_.”’
+
+‘Ah! good Doctor know he can trust Mammy Lila,’ replied the old
+negress, as she began to untie the basket lid. ‘And what is this, Missy
+Liz--a baby?’
+
+‘I don’t know--I don’t want to know--don’t ask me!’ cried Liz Fellows,
+as she turned quickly away. ‘Only remember father’s message, “_Silence
+and secrecy_,”’ and with that she ran quickly down the uneven rocky
+path again.
+
+The loose stones rolled away from under her feet, and hurt them in
+her rapid descent, but she cared nothing at that moment for pain or
+inconvenience. All her desire was to get out of sight and out of
+hearing, and forget if possible the horrid task that had been imposed
+upon her. Maraquita--whom she had known from babyhood, and believed to
+be so innocent and pure, to have subjected herself to this penalty of
+shame. It seemed too awful and incredible a thought to be dwelt upon.
+Liz remembered, as she ran hurriedly homewards, how she had blamed poor
+heedless Rosa for the same fault,--how sternly she had reproved the
+ignorant yellow girl, who knew no better than to follow the instincts
+of her fallen nature, for her depravity, and told her she ought to
+have had more principle, and a better sense of right and wrong, than to
+yield to such a temptation. But Maraquita, so much beloved, so tenderly
+watched, so closely guarded, how could _she_ have so deceived her
+friends and lowered herself; and _who_ could have been so base as to
+lead her astray? This discovery, terribly as it affected Liz, cleared
+her lover’s character at once in her eyes; and even in the midst of
+her pain, she could not help breathing a sigh of thankfulness to think
+that Henri de Courcelles was innocent of the charge imputed to him. He
+could never have been flirting with the planter’s daughter whilst she
+had conceived a serious affection for some one else. Liz recalled the
+fervour of his oath with secret satisfaction; it was no wonder indeed
+that he felt justified in taking it, and she felt ashamed of the
+jealous spirit that had forced it from him.
+
+But her thoughts soon reverted to her adopted sister, and she
+burned with resentment against her unknown betrayer. Her vow to Dr
+Fellows--which she felt to be as sacred as though uttered before God’s
+throne; the revelation which had been made to her that evening of their
+own disgrace; pity for her friend’s misfortune, and love for Henri
+de Courcelles, were all warring in her breast, and making her mind a
+chaos, as, wearied and panting, she stumbled over the threshold of her
+father’s bungalow. She expected to find him alone with Quita,--to be
+able to tell him of her hopes and fears,--but, to her consternation,
+the room was full, and as she paused in the open doorway, her white and
+anxious face made her look like a guilty person. Mr and Mrs Courtney,
+with the old black nurse Jessica, were all there, and Dr Fellows was
+talking earnestly to them. As he caught sight of his daughter, he
+turned to meet her.
+
+‘_You know all_,’ he whispered sternly, as he looked into her sad eyes,
+and squeezed her hand as in a vice. ‘_Remember your oath._’
+
+‘Why, is that Lizzie?’ exclaimed Mrs Courtney from the sofa, where she
+lay extended. ‘I thought she was nursing our poor Quita. Whatever has
+she been doing out of doors at this time of night?’
+
+‘She has been to fetch me some necessary drugs,’ replied the Doctor
+quickly.
+
+Mrs Courtney had been a beautiful creature in her youth, but though
+not forty years of age, she had already lost all pretensions to good
+looks. She was corpulent and ungainly. Her large sleepy black eyes
+were sunk in a round face, with a yellow complexion, and triple chins.
+Her waving black hair was twisted untidily at the back of her head, and
+her abundant figure, unrestrained by belt or corset, was enveloped in a
+loose dressing-gown. But she rolled off the sofa nimbly enough when she
+heard the voice of Liz Fellows.
+
+‘Oh, Liz!’ she exclaimed, grasping her hand, ‘this is terrible news the
+Doctor has to give us; our darling Quita down with the fever. Fancy
+the dear child rambling to your house in her delirium! What a mercy
+she had sufficient sense left to guide her. She might have walked into
+the river. You may fancy what we felt when we heard that she was gone.
+Jessica found it out first when she went into her room with some iced
+sherbet, for Quita has been very restless at night lately. I suppose it
+was this horrid fever coming on, but she has been quite out of sorts
+for some weeks past. But oh! Lizzie, how _can_ she have caught it?’
+
+This long harangue had given Lizzie an opportunity to recover her
+equanimity, and she was able to reply quite calmly,--
+
+‘It is quite impossible to say, dear Mrs Courtney; but father does not
+think seriously of the case, and so you must not be too anxious about
+her.’
+
+‘But he will not let us even _look_ at the dear child. Dr Fellows, I
+really think you are _too_ particular. Surely her parents have the
+_right_ to see her.’
+
+‘Certainly, my dear madam, if you insist upon it; but I think Mr
+Courtney will uphold my decision. I have not been able to determine if
+this fever which is decimating your plantation is contagious or not. I
+rather fancy it is epidemic, but it is impossible to say, because it
+is of no known character. It is surely more prudent, however, to keep
+on the right side. If Maraquita were in the slightest danger--if she
+were even seriously ill, I should be the first to entreat you to see
+her, but as it is, your presence would only do her harm. She is weak
+and exhausted, and everything depends on her gaining strength from
+sleep. Would you be so selfish as to excite and throw her back again,
+by disturbing her, or run the risk of contracting the disease yourself?’
+
+‘Certainly _not_,’ interrupted Mr Courtney decisively. ‘You are right,
+Fellows, as you always are--’
+
+(‘Don’t say that,’ interpolated the Doctor, in a pained voice.)
+
+‘----and I forbid my wife going near the room where Maraquita lies. I
+can trust her to you, Fellows--implicitly, and with the most perfect
+confidence. I know you will do your very best for my dear child, and
+treat her as if she were your own.’
+
+‘Indeed--indeed I will, Courtney! If a sense of all I owe to you--’
+
+‘Hush! I will not hear you mention it. If such were ever the case, you
+have repaid it a thousand fold. And here I give you the best proof I
+could, of my friendship and affection. I leave with you my dearest
+possession--my only child. Fellows, my dear old chum, I know there is
+no need for me to recommend her to your care. You can remember how long
+it was before she came to us, how gladly I received the gift, and how
+precious it has been to me ever since. My very life is bound up in my
+little Quita. You will guard it--’
+
+‘With my own,’ interrupted the Doctor solemnly. ‘I would lay down my
+life to-morrow, Courtney, to save that of any one who is dear to you.’
+
+‘I believe it, my dear fellow, and, thank God, there is no necessity
+for such a sacrifice. You can assure us that Maraquita is in no danger.’
+
+‘On my word of honour, she is in no danger whatever, and in a few days
+she will be quite well again. All she needs is rest and quiet, and if
+you will trust her to Liz and me, we will see that she gets it.’
+
+‘We do trust her with you; and Liz, we know, will make the most devoted
+nurse,’ said Mr Courtney, smiling; but as he caught sight of Lizzie’s
+face, the smile faded. ‘Holloa! what is this? Are you going to have the
+fever too? You are as white as a sheet.’
+
+‘It is the heat,’ murmured Liz, in a low voice, as she turned away;
+‘and I have had a great deal of nursing lately into the bargain, Mr
+Courtney. Father and I have the heartache all day long, to see the
+ravages made by the fever amongst the coolies.’
+
+‘Yes, it is sad enough,’ said the planter, ‘even for those who have not
+to count the loss as I have, by pounds, shillings, and pence. Do what
+we will to improve the condition of these people, their natural love
+of dirt and over feeding makes them fall an easy prey to any disease.
+We are quite sensible of what you and your father have done for us,
+Lizzie. It is through your means alone, that we have not lost many
+more. You must not be disheartened on that account.’
+
+‘The distress seems universal,’ continued Liz; ‘the same floods that
+rotted the vegetation, and caused this malarious fever, have destroyed
+the rice-fields, and spread a famine amongst the negro population. The
+cases of starvation that reach us every day are heartrending, because
+it is so impossible to relieve them all. Have there been any more riots
+in the town, Mr Courtney?’
+
+‘No, Liz. I have heard of none since the military were called out to
+quell them. But we must keep you up no longer. It is already morning.
+Come, my dear Nita, let us leave Dr Fellows and his daughter to get
+some rest for themselves.’
+
+But Mrs Courtney was still unwilling to assent entirely to the Doctor’s
+wishes. She had no suspicion of the truth, but she felt intuitively
+that something had been kept back from them, and she was curious to
+find out what it was.
+
+‘Let Jessica stay, at all events,’ she said; ‘she has been Quita’s
+nurse since she was a baby, and has attended her through all her
+illnesses. She will break her heart if you do not let her stay; and she
+can watch Maraquita when Lizzie is absent or engaged.’
+
+‘That sounds reasonable,’ acquiesced Mr Courtney; ‘and perhaps Jessica
+had better remain at the bungalow.’
+
+But Dr Fellows was firm in resisting the proposal.
+
+‘Jessica can remain here if you desire it,’ he answered, ‘but she does
+not enter Quita’s room. I am not even sure that Lizzie will do so. You
+have confided your daughter to my care, Mr Courtney, and you will not
+find me unworthy of the trust. I shall be both nurse and doctor to
+Maraquita, until I can bring her to the White House again.’
+
+‘You are a good fellow,’ said Mr Courtney, wringing the Doctor’s hand,
+‘and I do not limit the confidence I place in you. Jessica shall
+return with us, and we will leave Quita entirely in your care.’
+
+‘You shall have no cause to regret it,’ replied Dr Fellows, as he
+accompanied them to the door of the bungalow. ‘You can send down as
+often as you like for news of her, and I shall be found at my post,
+ready to report on her progress. But I honestly anticipate restoring
+her to you in a very short time.’
+
+As he returned from seeing them off, and met his daughter’s eye, his
+face changed, and his expression became very grave.
+
+‘That is well over,’ he ejaculated, with a sigh, ‘and the rest remains,
+Lizzie, with you and me.’
+
+‘Which means, father, that she is safe as far as _we_ are concerned. Am
+I to go into her room?’
+
+‘No; I should prefer you should not. There is no necessity for your
+presence there, and I wish to leave you as unfettered as I possibly
+can. You have no notion how this calamity happened, Liz?’
+
+‘Not the slightest. I know so few of her friends. I have not even heard
+that she had an attachment for any one.’
+
+‘Well, it is a terrible business, but we must stand her friends, and
+see her through with it. She has told me nothing, poor child; but she
+has thrown herself upon my mercy, and entreated me to save her from
+the wrath and reproaches of her parents, and for their sakes I have
+promised to do so. She implores that even _you_ shall not be told of
+her misfortune, and I have been obliged to humour her. We must keep
+up the deception of the fever, and as soon as she is sufficiently
+recovered to return home, the danger will be over.’
+
+‘But--Mammy Lila!’ gasped Liz.
+
+‘Mammy Lila will do as I tell her, my dear, and at all risks this
+child’s reputation must be saved. Everything else is an after
+consideration,’ replied the Doctor, as he stumbled slightly, and saved
+himself by catching at the back of a chair.
+
+‘Father, are you ill?’ cried Lizzie quickly, as she sprang to his
+assistance.
+
+‘No, I think not; but I will take a cordial, if you will mix it for me.
+I _must_ not be ill until this business is settled, and Maraquita is
+safe under her parents’ roof again.’
+
+‘But your hands are very cold, and you are trembling all over. Surely
+you are unfit for further work, and should go to bed and rest. Father,
+trust her to me. Don’t overtax your strength, for her sake. You know
+that I am a careful and trustworthy nurse.’
+
+‘If I _die_ in the effort, I will watch over her myself, and without
+assistance!’ cried the Doctor excitedly, as he drank the draught she
+tendered him, and tottered back to the sleeping-chamber.
+
+Lizzie looked after him with the deepest anxiety.
+
+‘I am _sure_ he is ill,’ she said to herself, and if I am not very much
+mistaken, he has the symptoms of the fever strongly upon him. Oh, my
+poor father! is it possible that when you need the attention and skill
+you have bestowed on others, you will sacrifice yourself for the sake
+of this frail girl? Yes, I feel you will, even should it result in your
+own death. And I would have it so, though Heaven only knows what I
+should do without you--sooner than see you shrink from paying off one
+tithe of the heavy debt you owe to Maraquita’s father. But the bearing
+of this heavy burden laid upon us! Did Mr Courtney but know the weight
+of it, he would surely acknowledge his forbearance has not been in
+vain.’
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+The overseer of Beauregard occupied another bungalow on the plantation,
+a perfect bower of beauty, which, whilst lying close to the White
+House, was entirely concealed from observation by the glorious foliage
+that environed it. Its wooden walls were clothed in creepers, and
+surrounded by tall cocoa palms, and feathery bamboos and orange trees,
+with their double wealth of fruit and flower. The heavy perfumes by
+which the atmosphere was laden would have proved too much for any
+one but a man acclimatised to the West Indies, but they suited the
+sensuous, pleasure-loving nature of Henri de Courcelles perfectly. As
+he sat, or rather reclined, on a long bamboo lounge in his verandah,
+with a cigar between his lips, and his handsome eyes half closed,
+he looked the picture of lazy content. He was dressed in full white
+trousers, and a linen shirt, thrown open at the throat, round which
+a crimson silk neckerchief was carelessly knotted. His dark curling
+hair was thrown off his brow, and his olive complexion was flushed
+with the mid-day heat. His work was over for the time being, and he
+was free to rest and enjoy himself until the sun went down. He had
+been on horseback by six o’clock that morning, riding round the coffee
+and sugar plantations, keeping the coolies up to their work, and
+receiving the complaints of, or distributing his orders amongst, the
+men who worked under him. The labourers on Beauregard had long come
+to the conclusion that it was lost time to prefer any request out of
+the ordinary routine to Henri de Courcelles. Charming as he was when
+in the society of his equals, he was a stern and implacable overseer,
+being quick to find fault, and slow to extend forgiveness, and having
+no sympathy whatever with the people he ruled over. He looked upon the
+negroes as so many brute beasts out of which it was his duty to get as
+much work as possible, and he had often turned away with disgust on
+encountering Lizzie Fellows with a dusky baby on her lap, or with her
+arm beneath the head of a dying negress. He did not give vent to his
+opinions in public. It would scarcely have been safe, surrounded as he
+was by the creatures he despised, and often at their mercy; but they
+knew them, all the same, and were ripe to seize the first opportunity
+for revenge. Liz--with her calm practical brain, and reflective
+mind, should have seen for herself that a man who could swear at an
+unoffending coolie, or thrust a little child roughly from his path,
+or strike his horse between the ears with his hunting crop, for no
+reason except to gratify a passing temper, would never make a kind
+husband or father. But the ancients never did a wiser thing than to
+pourtray love as blind. It blinds the cleverest of us to mental as well
+as physical defects, until some fatal day, the rose-coloured glasses
+drop from our eyes, and we see the man, or woman, love has idealised,
+in their true colours. Liz saw some of De Courcelles’ faults, it is
+true, and grieved over them, but there was always some extenuating
+circumstance for them in her love-blinded eyes; and if there had not
+been, it was only sufficient for her lover to turn his glorious Spanish
+orbs reproachfully on her, to bring her, metaphorically, to his feet.
+Well, after all, perhaps, if love were not foolish, and weak, and
+blind, it would not be love at all, but only prudence; and the majority
+of us would fare badly enough if _some one_ did not see us through
+rose-coloured glasses. It would be terrible to stand before the world
+as we really are, in all the hideous nakedness of our evil tempers, and
+inclinations, and devices, and have no sweet, generous, pitying, and
+all-believing love somewhere to throw a cloak above our mortal nature,
+and believe that the making of a saint lurks behind it.
+
+Henri de Courcelles was thinking somewhat self-reproachfully of Liz
+that morning. The interview he had had with her the night before
+haunted him like a bitter taste when the draught is swallowed. He
+knew he had lied to her, and though the lie didn’t trouble him, her
+complete belief in his sincerity did. If we tell an untruth, and it is
+fiercely combatted and denied by the opposing party, we are apt to tell
+a dozen more to uphold the first, until we almost swear ourselves into
+believing it. But if the falsehood is at once received as truth, and
+believed in with the most innocent faith, it makes us, if we have any
+feeling left whatever, doubly ashamed of ourselves. Henri de Courcelles
+had quite ceased to love Liz Fellows--indeed, it is doubtful if he had
+ever loved her at all--but he had admired and esteemed her, and these
+very feelings had killed those of a warmer nature. She was too good
+for him--too far above him. She humbled him every time she opened her
+mouth. Maraquita Courtney was a woman much more to his taste--sweet,
+ripe, youthful Maraquita, with her outspoken love and unbridled
+passion,--her red lips and wreathing white arms, and utter disregard
+of truth or principle. But Monsieur de Courcelles had not been easy
+about Maraquita lately. He was perplexed and anxious. He did not quite
+foresee how matters would turn out, nor what prospect lay in the future
+for them. He was somewhat ashamed of the duplicity of which he had been
+guilty to Liz Fellows, but he consoled himself with the idea that it
+had been forced upon him by his relations with Maraquita, and that it
+behoved him, as a man of honour, to divert suspicion from her, even at
+the risk of deceiving another woman.
+
+As he was dreaming and ruminating on these things, he was surprised
+to see Mr Courtney approaching the bungalow. It was not the planter’s
+custom to visit his overseer, and their business hours, which were
+usually passed in the office at the White House, were over for the
+day. De Courcelles sprang to his feet as his employer appeared, and
+proffered his seat for his acceptance. Mr Courtney sank into it without
+a word. He did not seem uneasy, but he was certainly unprepared to open
+the conversation. De Courcelles was the first to speak.
+
+‘I suppose you have come to speak to me about Verney’s grant, sir. I
+should have given you the papers to sign this morning, but as you were
+not in the office, I brought them away with me again. Will you see them
+now?’
+
+‘No, no! They can wait till to-morrow,’ replied Mr Courtney
+impatiently. ‘Verney knows they are all right, and the land is his. I
+was unable to attend to business this morning, for I had a disturbed
+night, and slept late in consequence.’
+
+‘I am sorry to hear that, sir. What disturbed you?’
+
+‘The news has evidently not yet reached you. Our poor Maraquita has
+been dangerously ill.’
+
+De Courcelles started, and changed colour. His olive complexion turned
+to a sickly yellow, and his brilliant eyes became dull and lustreless.
+The planter was not blind to the emotion he expressed.
+
+‘Miss Courtney--ill?’ stammered the overseer.
+
+‘Yes, very ill, and with this terrible fever. How she contracted it
+we are unable to discover, but she left her bed, and wandered in her
+delirium into the plantation, and fortunately towards the Doctor’s
+bungalow, where she now lies. You may imagine what her mother and I
+felt when we heard she was missing. I thought Mrs Courtney would have
+gone distracted. However, the first thing I thought of was to ask for
+Dr Fellows’ assistance, and luckily we found her there, but very, very
+ill.’
+
+‘She _is_ better, I hope?’ gasped De Courcelles.
+
+‘She _is_ better, and, I thank God, out of danger,’ replied Mr
+Courtney, looking him steadfastly in the face, ‘and in a few days we
+hope to have her at the White House again. Lizzie Fellows, who has
+been like a sister to her, is nursing her with the greatest care. She
+is a most estimable young woman, clever, courageous, and thoroughly
+honest--good all round, in fact, and will prove a treasure to any man
+who is fortunate enough to win her. By the way, De Courcelles, I have
+heard a rumour that you are engaged to be married to Miss Fellows. Is
+it true?’
+
+The overseer stammered still more.
+
+‘Yes--no--that is to say, sir, there _has_ been some idea of such a
+thing between us, but nothing is definitely settled.’
+
+Mr Courtney regarded the young man sternly.
+
+‘_Some idea!_ Do you mean to tell me that you would presume to trifle
+with the girl, and hold out a prospect you have no intention of
+fulfilling? Do you forget that she is the daughter of one of my oldest
+friends, and second only in my affections to my own child? Dr Fellows
+is not the man to permit any one to play fast and loose with his
+daughter, and I should be as ready as himself to take up the cudgels in
+her behalf.’
+
+‘Indeed, sir, there is no necessity for such warmth on your part. You
+are judging me without a hearing. Lizzie and I perfectly understand
+each other. We are the best of friends, but at present I cannot see any
+prospect of our being more.’
+
+‘You mean to say that your salary is not sufficient to keep a wife
+upon?’
+
+‘I have never looked on it in that light, Mr Courtney. Miss Fellows is
+devoted to her father and her profession, and we have hardly spoken of
+the time when she will be called upon to leave them.’
+
+‘Then you ought to have done so, Monsieur de Courcelles. A man has no
+right to make love to a girl unless he can talk of marriage to her. Now
+I have more than an ordinary interest in Liz Fellows, and if it is for
+her happiness to marry you, I am ready to further your plans. You need
+not wish to bring your wife to a prettier home than the one you now
+occupy; but I will engage to furnish it afresh, and double your present
+salary on the day you marry her. Will that bring matters between you to
+a crisis?’
+
+Henri de Courcelles shifted his feet, and looked uncertain.
+
+‘I am not sure, sir; you see, you are precipitating them. Miss
+Fellows would be as astonished as I am, if she could overhear our
+present conversation. We have never spoken of marriage as a necessary
+contingency to our friendship.’
+
+‘Then you don’t love the girl, and you don’t intend to marry her?’
+
+‘I don’t say that, Mr Courtney. It is impossible to say what we may
+decide upon in the future; but for the present, I positively deny that
+we have any fixed plans whatever.’
+
+Mr Courtney looked dissatisfied for a moment, then, with the air of a
+man who has made up his mind to do a disagreeable thing, he proceeded,--
+
+‘Well! no one can settle these matters satisfactorily, but the parties
+concerned, and so I have no more to say about it. But there is another
+subject uppermost in my mind, which I feel I must mention to you. It
+is a delicate one, which I would much rather avoid, but I cannot shirk
+my duty. I have been unable to help observing, De Courcelles, that you
+admire my daughter Maraquita. I can hardly suppose you entertain any
+hopes from that quarter, but if you do, you must dismiss them at once,
+and for ever, for I have quite different views for Miss Courtney.’
+
+The handsome young overseer had flushed dark crimson during his
+employer’s speech, but he did not immediately reply to it.
+
+‘I hope I may be mistaken,’ continued Mr Courtney, ‘and I hope I have
+not offended you by mentioning it, but I have meant to do so for some
+time past. Maraquita is a lovely girl. I cannot help seeing that,
+though I am her father, and doubtless you appreciate her beauty, in
+common with many other men; but it can never go any further.’
+
+‘I have never presumed to think it could,’ replied De Courcelles, with
+dry lips, and a husky voice.
+
+‘It is not _you_ to whom I have an objection,’ said the planter, ‘it
+is to any man who cannot give Maraquita wealth and position. She is
+my only child, and I have great ambition for her; and I have already
+received a flattering proposal for her hand, from one of the highest
+men in the island. Had it not been for this unfortunate illness, I
+should have submitted his letter to my daughter by this time. But I
+have little doubt how she will receive it. Meanwhile, I think it but
+kind and just to let you know of my intentions, and to warn you, should
+there be any need of caution, to be careful.’
+
+‘I thank you, Mr Courtney, for your consideration,’ replied De
+Courcelles, in the same hard dry voice, ‘but there is no need of it.
+I hope I know my duty and my position too well, to aspire to Miss
+Courtney’s hand. No one can help admiring her, nor being grateful
+for any kindness she may extend to them, but there it ends. You have
+nothing to fear for me, nor I for myself.’
+
+‘I am glad to hear you say so,’ replied Mr Courtney, as he rose to
+go; ‘in a few days I expect that you will hear great news from the
+White House, and see preparations for a grand wedding, and then you
+will better understand my fears lest all should not prosper with my
+dear child, as I hope it may do. Meanwhile, do not forget what I said
+respecting Miss Fellows and yourself. If I can forward your happiness,
+you may count on my sympathy and assistance.’
+
+And with these kindly offers of help upon his lips, Mr Courtney
+walked away, leaving Henri de Courcelles bewildered by what he had
+heard. Maraquita ill, and in the Doctor’s bungalow, with her secret,
+perhaps, made patent to the world! And yet her father evidently knew
+nothing, and some one must have stood her friend, and shielded her from
+discovery. But Maraquita about to make a high marriage, and be lost to
+him for ever. That was a still more wonderful revelation, and one which
+he found it impossible to believe. Maraquita, who had so often sat,
+during their moonlight trysts, with her arms twined about his neck,
+and assured him that no man but himself should ever call her his wife.
+Henri de Courcelles would never have presumed, without a large amount
+of encouragement, to lift his eyes to his employer’s daughter. He knew
+that his birth and his position would both preclude him as a suitor,
+in Mr Courtney’s mind, and that it would be considered the height of
+presumption on his part to make proposals of marriage for her. But he
+had trusted to Maraquita’s influence with her parents, eventually to
+gain their cause; he had trusted also to certain love passages which
+had taken place between them, to bind her effectually to himself. And
+now the announcement of these intended nuptials did not make him so
+unhappy on his own account as they alarmed him for their mutual safety.
+What might not Maraquita say or do, in her dismay at the prospect of
+being separated from him?
+
+Henri de Courcelles secretly acknowledged his fickleness with regard
+to Liz Fellows, who had loved him well and constantly all along,
+and yet he could not believe that any one else could be unfaithful
+to him. The devil invents so many excuses for us wherewith to cover
+our own frailty, but they all disappear when we are called upon to
+judge our neighbour’s sin. As soon as Mr Courtney had left him,
+Henri de Courcelles, feeling very uncomfortable under the close
+examination to which he had been subjected, resumed his cigar, and
+his lounging attitude, and lay for a long time pondering over the
+morning’s interview. How much did the planter suspect, or know? Had
+his assumed warning been only a blind to entrap his overseer into an
+open confession, or surprise him into betraying himself? De Courcelles
+blessed his lucky stars that his self-control had not forsaken him,
+and that if Mr Courtney were on the lookout for a probable lover for
+his daughter, he had wrung no hint of the truth from him. But was the
+story of the fever true? That was a point on which he felt he must
+satisfy himself, and reaching down a wide Panama hat, he proceeded at
+once into the plantation. He looked handsome enough, as he strolled
+leisurely beneath the trees, towards the negro quarters, the fine
+plaited straw hat, which shaded his features, tipped jauntily to one
+side, and a red rose in the button-hole of his white drill jacket. But
+his face looked perplexed and anxious, and he gnawed his moustache as
+he went. The negroes’ huts were situated half a mile away from his
+bungalow, but they were close to that of Dr Fellows, and De Courcelles
+knew that in one place or the other he should find Lizzie, and hear the
+truth from her. But as he passed her cottage, he caught sight of her
+sitting at the window, sewing. Her face was pale, and her eyes red. She
+looked as if she had been both sitting up and weeping, though her print
+dress was fresh and dainty, and her glossy hair carefully arranged. A
+fear shot through the heart of Henri de Courcelles, as he drew near
+her, but the bright smile with which she welcomed his presence, drove
+it away.
+
+‘Why, Henri, what brings you here so early?’ she asked, from the open
+casement.
+
+‘Didn’t I say last night that you would see me again to-day?’ he
+answered, as he took her hand.
+
+‘Yes, but it is hardly wise of you to walk about in the sun, unless
+there is a necessity for it.’
+
+‘You are right, Lizzie; but I am a messenger from Mrs Courtney; she
+sent me down for the last bulletin of her daughter.’
+
+Lizzie looked surprised.
+
+‘How very strange! I sent up word by one of the servants half an hour
+ago!’
+
+He felt then he had not lied quite so cleverly as usual, but he got out
+of it by saying,--
+
+‘The brute has probably taken a circuit of five miles, in order to
+attend to his own business. You know what these niggers are, Liz.
+However, give me the last news of Miss Courtney, and I will see it is
+delivered.’
+
+Liz’s face grew very grave.
+
+‘She is better, Henri. I have not seen her this morning, but my father
+tells me so, and that in a few days she will be quite well. I have just
+been making her some fish soup.’
+
+‘Was she very bad with the fever?’ he asked.
+
+‘Very bad indeed. It is lucky I met her wandering about the plantation,
+or I don’t know what might have happened. But there is no need for
+anxiety now. All danger is at an end.’
+
+‘Were you with her in her delirium? Did she--did she--_rave_ much? I
+only ask for curiosity. I have heard that some of the negroes tried to
+destroy themselves during the fever; and her parents are very anxious
+still.’
+
+‘Are they?’ said Liz carelessly. ‘I thought my father had set their
+minds entirely at rest. As I said before, there is no occasion for it.
+Quita is quite sensible now, and only needs to regain her strength.’
+
+Henri de Courcelles looked much relieved. He drew a long breath, and
+straightened himself against the supports of the verandah. Liz regarded
+him for a moment, and then said, in a low voice,--
+
+‘I want to tell you something, Henri. I have been thinking over what I
+mentioned to you yesterday, and I feel I did you an injustice. I can’t
+tell you _how_ the conviction has been forced upon me--but it is there.
+Will you forgive me for my causeless jealousy? I have no excuse to
+offer for myself, excepting that I love you, and I fear to lose you.’
+
+He only answered,--
+
+‘I told you plainly you were wrong!’
+
+‘I acknowledge it _now_, but _then_, I thought only of what I had
+heard. But I see how foolish I was. A long night of reflection has
+shown it to me. The illnesses and troubles of our friends are enough
+to make us think, Henri. _We_ might be struck down to-morrow, and
+how doubly sad it would be to go whilst any misunderstanding existed
+between us and those whom we love.’
+
+She spoke so plaintively that his feelings were touched on her behalf.
+
+‘There is something more the matter with you, I am afraid, Liz, than
+mere regret for such a trifle. Something worse than that must have
+happened to annoy you.’
+
+‘No, no!’ she cried, in a voice of terror; ‘nothing has happened, I
+assure you, Henri; but life is uncertain, and I may be sorry some day
+to think I ever misjudged you. Things are not always what they seem,
+you know, and unexpected barriers rise sometimes to foil the brightest
+hopes. Let us resolve to be patient with each other, so that we may
+have nothing to reproach ourselves with if--if--anything should occur
+to part us.’
+
+The tears were standing in her patient eyes as she raised them to his,
+and the sight affected him. The man was not wholly bad--none of us
+are--but his senses drowned his better feelings. He knew--even at that
+moment, when his whole mind was fixed on Maraquita, and full of fears
+for her safety--that this woman was the more estimable of the two, that
+she loved him the best, and was the most worthy of love in return. But
+his heart had gone astraying, and he could not recall it at will. He
+could only pat Liz’s hand, and profess to laugh at her fears, all the
+while he knew how well founded they were.
+
+‘Why, what should occur to part us?’ he answered lightly; ‘unless,
+indeed, you elect to throw me over. But I thought we had settled that
+point satisfactorily last night, Liz?’
+
+‘Oh, I was not thinking of _that_!’ she exclaimed hurriedly. ‘It was
+quite another idea, and one of which there is no need to speak of to
+you now, for which, indeed, the necessity may never arise. But we shall
+always be _friends_, Henri--shall we not? true and steadfast friends,
+whatever may occur?’
+
+‘I don’t understand you. You are speaking in enigmas to me,’ he said
+petulantly, as he dropped the hand he had taken in his own.
+
+They were indeed playing at cross-purposes--she, thinking only of the
+story her father had told her, and he of Maraquita and her possible
+revelations.
+
+Liz sighed, and redirected her attention to her work. The same
+dissatisfied feeling which she had experienced the night before crept
+over her again, and turned her sick and cold, and it was not dispersed
+when Henri de Courcelles, after an awkward silence, lifted his
+broad-brimmed hat from his brow, and walked gloomily away.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+A week had passed away since Maraquita Courtney had entered the
+Doctor’s bungalow, and the moment that Liz dreaded had arrived--they
+were to meet again. Never once had she entered Quita’s chamber during
+the period of her illness. Dr Fellows had chosen the oldest, most
+stupid, and most deaf negress on the plantation to attend to his
+patient’s wants, and sternly forbidden his daughter to enter her
+presence. But to-day she was pronounced convalescent, or sufficiently
+so to return to the White House, and her parents, who were naturally
+anxious to have her home again, had arranged to fetch her away that
+afternoon. Dr Fellows had said to his daughter a moment before, on
+passing through the sitting-room,--
+
+‘Maraquita is up and dressed, and will be with you in a short time.
+She is still weak and nervous. Mind you say nothing to upset her;’ and
+Liz had promised, feeling almost as nervous at the idea of the coming
+interview as Quita herself could have done.
+
+She had not to wait long. In a few minutes the bedroom door opened,
+and Maraquita, leaning on the arm of the old negress, walked slowly
+into the apartment. She was robed in a white muslin gown. Her dark hair
+was hanging loose upon her shoulders, and her face was as white as
+her attire. There was an ethereal look about the girl that naturally
+excited pity, and the scared expression on her features went straight
+to Liz’s kindly heart. In a moment she had sprung to her assistance.
+
+‘You are still very weak, Quita. Are you sure you feel equal to leaving
+your room?’
+
+‘Oh, yes, yes,’ replied the girl, in a petulant tone, as if she did
+not like the subject of her illness alluded to. ‘There is nothing the
+matter with me now, Lizzie. I could have returned home two days ago, if
+your father would have let me. I really think he is _too_ particular.’
+
+‘How _can_ he be too particular where _you_ are concerned,’ said Lizzie
+gravely, as she placed the trembling Quita on the sofa. ‘Mr Courtney
+confided you to his care, and trusted him to look after you as if you
+were his own child, and father has felt the charge to be a sacred one.’
+
+‘He is very good,’ replied Maraquita, in a low voice; ‘but I have not
+been so _very_ ill, Lizzie, after all, and I am all right again now. I
+hope nobody will make a fuss about it.’
+
+Liz was silent, for she did not know what to reply. They had reached a
+point where confidence came to a full stop between them, and she could
+hardly have spoken without perverting the truth. So she tried to change
+the subject.
+
+‘How soon do you expect Mr and Mrs Courtney to fetch you, Quita?’
+
+‘I don’t know. I think the Doctor has walked up to the house to tell
+them I am ready. Mamma will be surprised to find _you_ didn’t nurse me,
+Liz. Why didn’t you do so?’ inquired Quita nervously, as if she wanted
+to find out how much or how little of her secret had been confided to
+her foster-sister’s discretion.
+
+But she had not fathomed the depths of Lizzie’s character. She had
+sworn not to reveal what she knew, and she would have been torn to
+pieces on the rack without confessing it. It was useless of Quita, or
+any other person, attempting to force it from her.
+
+‘Why didn’t I nurse you, Quita? Not because I was unwilling; you may
+be sure of that. Simply my father said he did not wish me to do so,
+and that was enough for me. I have been trained to understand that the
+first duty of a medical assistant is implicit obedience. I have full
+faith in my father’s discretion, and know that he would not lay one
+restriction on me that was unnecessary. I can tell you no more than
+that. Only believe that it was not my own wish, and that if I _might_
+have nursed you I gladly would.’
+
+‘It was best not, or you might have caught the fever. You know that I
+have had a touch of the fever?’ continued Quita interrogatively, but
+with downcast eyes.
+
+Liz could not answer ‘_Yes_.’
+
+‘I heard my father tell Mr and Mrs Courtney so,’ she said, after a
+pause.
+
+Her reticence alarmed Maraquita. She didn’t like Liz’s calm, collected
+manner and short replies.
+
+‘Well, I suppose your father doesn’t tell lies,’ she answered
+brusquely.
+
+‘I have always believed him,’ said Liz sadly. ‘But, Quita, you have
+talked enough. Your face is quite flushed. Keep quiet, like a good
+girl, or you may not be able to return home with your parents, and that
+will be a great disappointment to them.’
+
+She took up her work again, and commenced sewing, whilst Quita lay
+still, but with a palpitating heart, as she wondered what Liz could
+have meant by evading her question. Could she have read her friend’s
+thoughts at that moment, her curiosity would have been satisfied,
+though not in the way she desired. Liz was marvelling, with a feeling
+of contempt, as she stitched industriously at her calico, how any woman
+could bring a child into the world, lawfully or unlawfully, and think
+only of her safety afterwards, without one thought for her own flesh
+and blood; the flesh and blood, too, of some one who _ought_ to be so
+much dearer to her than herself. She sat there, nervously anticipating
+every moment to feel Quita’s little hand slip into hers, and to hear
+her quivering voice ask for news of her child.
+
+Liz would have loved her a thousand times more for the weakness. She
+would have forgiven her all her frailty and wickedness in one moment,
+and taken her into her arms with a loving assurance that her infant
+should be as carefully guarded as the secret of its birth. But no
+such appeal came from the young mother. On the contrary, she seemed
+anxious and worried about herself alone, and the only excuse which
+Liz had been able to conjure up for her sinfulness, grew weaker and
+weaker with the passing moments. But perhaps, thought Lizzie, with
+her ever ready charity, perhaps Quita had learned all she wished to
+know from Dr Fellows, and her own hasty judgment of her was a grievous
+wrong. But both the girls felt there was a barrier raised between their
+intercourse that had never been there before, and it was a relief to
+them to hear the sing-song chant of the palanquin bearers as they came
+through the grove to fetch Maraquita away.
+
+In another minute Dr Fellows appeared upon the threshold, accompanied
+by Mr and Mrs Courtney, and Quita was in her parents’ arms. In their
+delight at receiving her again, they almost forgot to ask for any
+particulars concerning her illness.
+
+‘Oh, my dear child!’ exclaimed her mother impressively, ‘I hope you
+have thanked Dr Fellows as you should do for all his attention to you.
+I don’t believe anybody could have brought you round so quickly as
+he has. Your father and I were dining with the Governor, Sir Russell
+Johnstone, last evening, and he said that Dr Martin of the Fort had
+told him no cases of fever had been declared convalescent under three
+weeks. And here you are, you see, almost well again in a third of the
+time.’
+
+‘Not so fast, my dear madam,’ interposed the Doctor. ‘As you are
+naturally anxious to have her under your own care, I can pronounce Miss
+Courtney to be sufficiently recovered to be moved to the White House,
+but I shall visit her every day, and it will be some weeks before she
+is completely off the sick list. But she must eat as much as she can,
+and do as little as she need, and she will soon be strong again.’
+
+‘But if you think it would be more prudent for her to remain here a
+little longer under your care, my dear Fellows, we are quite willing to
+leave her,’ said Mr Courtney.
+
+‘No, no!’ cried Quita, clinging to her mother’s neck, and sobbing.
+‘Take me home, mamma! I am longing to get away, and to be with you.’
+
+‘That does not sound very grateful in you, my dear,’ said her father,
+‘considering all that you owe to Dr Fellows, and Lizzie.’
+
+‘Don’t mention it!’ cried the Doctor quickly. ‘She is weak, and
+nervous, and hardly knows what she is saying, and the worst thing in
+the world for her is this agitation. She will be much better under
+her mother’s care. Take her home at once, Mr Courtney, and let this
+exciting scene be ended.’
+
+He threw a mantle over Maraquita’s shoulders as he spoke, and placed
+her in the palanquin, which was in the verandah. The bearers raised
+their burden to their shoulders and set off at a walking pace, the rest
+of the party keeping by their side.
+
+They had all been so occupied with the removal of Maraquita, that they
+had hardly noticed Lizzie, who stood at the open window watching their
+departure. So this was the end of it! The last week had passed like an
+unholy dream to her,--a dream of which she had had no time to read the
+import until now. Should she ever unravel it? Would the tangled meshes
+which it seemed to have woven round her, fall off again to leave her
+free? She did not see the way to burst her bonds, but she resolved that
+she must know the worst concerning herself and Henri de Courcelles at
+once. She felt that it would be impossible for her to live on, and
+do her duty as it should be done, whilst any moment might bring an
+exposure to sever her from her lover. She was still pondering on her
+troubles when Dr Fellows slowly re-entered the bungalow.
+
+‘How did she bear the journey?’ asked Liz, as she caught sight of her
+father. ‘She seemed to me too weak to attempt it.’
+
+‘So she would have been under ordinary circumstances, but of two
+evils we must choose the least. The poor child’s life here was one of
+torture, from the fear of detection. She will feel safer at the White
+House, and her recovery will be more rapid in consequence.’
+
+‘And meanwhile, she doesn’t care one jot if her infant lives or dies,’
+said Liz contemptuously.
+
+Dr Fellows regarded her with mild surprise.
+
+‘You are very hard on her, my daughter. Cannot you make some allowance
+for the terrible position in which she is placed?’
+
+‘I cannot understand it,’ she answered.
+
+‘No, and you never will--thank God for it. Your sense of right and
+wrong is too clear to permit you to be led astray. But this poor child
+is very different in character from yourself. She is weak, and foolish,
+and unprincipled, and the scoundrel who has taken advantage of her
+simplicity, should be strung up at the Fort. It seems a shame that, in
+order to protect her good name, he should be allowed to go unpunished.
+But perhaps you cannot understand that also.’
+
+‘Father, you mistake me!’ cried Lizzie. ‘I can love, or I believe I
+can, as fondly as any woman, and I can well imagine the force of the
+temptation which circumstances might bring with it. God forbid that I
+should judge any error that springs from too much love, or consider
+myself beyond its reach. But I _cannot_ understand the selfishness that
+makes a woman shrink from the consequences of her sin, as if it had no
+claim upon her. Where is the father of this child? If I were Quita, I
+would rather go out into the world with my baby in my arms, and beg
+from door to door by _his_ side, than run away as she has done, and
+leave it to the care of strangers.’
+
+‘Hush, hush!’ exclaimed the Doctor quickly, looking round them with a
+face of fear. ‘Even the walls have ears. Remember your oath, Lizzie,
+and never mention this subject, coupled with her name, again.’
+
+‘Let me ask you at least, father, if you have seen Mammy Lila.’
+
+‘More than once, Lizzie, and all will be right there, until I have
+time to decide what is best to be done in the future. But it will be a
+terrible puzzle, and I must think it over gravely. I am ill and weary
+at present, and would rather leave things as they are for a month or
+two.’
+
+‘I, too, feel ill and weary,’ rejoined Lizzie sadly. ‘I have not liked
+to worry you with my own troubles whilst you were attending on Quita,
+but now that she is gone, father, I must ask you one question. What
+am I to do with regard to what you told me on the night that she came
+here, and you extracted that oath of secrecy from me?’
+
+‘Do! What would you do?’ demanded Dr Fellows, with a white face.
+
+‘I don’t know. The knowledge seems to have laid a burden on me too
+heavy to be borne. Had I only myself to consider, my task would be,
+comparatively speaking, easy. I could take care that I suffered alone.
+But there is Monsieur de Courcelles; I must consider him.’
+
+‘What has De Courcelles to do with it?’
+
+‘Father, how can I contemplate a marriage with him without first
+telling him the truth? Am I to leave it to chance whether he finds out
+or no that--that you did what you told me? I could not do it. Such
+a life would kill me. I will marry no man unless he knows the whole
+story.’
+
+‘Would you betray my confidence?’ exclaimed Dr Fellows bitterly. ‘Have
+my long years of secret sorrow and humiliation not been sufficient
+punishment for me, but that my child will hold me up to public
+degradation?’
+
+‘No, no, father; do not say that! Not a word that you uttered shall
+ever pass my lips without your free consent. I will do anything rather
+than repeat them. I will even give up--Henri de Courcelles.’
+
+‘And would that break your heart, my dear?’
+
+‘Never mind if it breaks my heart!’ she cried, with a sudden storm of
+weeping; ‘if it must be, it must be, and there is no alternative. I
+love him too well to deceive him, and I love you too well to betray
+you. It is no one’s fault--it is only my misfortune; but I must end it
+at once and for ever, or it will get the better of me. To-morrow I will
+tell Henri de Courcelles that our engagement is at an end.’
+
+‘Do nothing in a hurry,’ replied her father wearily. ‘Be patient for a
+few days, Lizzie, and we may think of some way out of this dilemma. You
+owe it to Monsieur de Courcelles as well as to yourself--’
+
+At this moment a young negress, with a yellow handkerchief bound about
+her woolly head, and the tears running down her black cheeks, hastily
+entered the bungalow.
+
+‘Massa Fellows,’ she cried, ‘I bring berry bad news. Poor Mammy Lila
+gone to heaven! Mammy took sick with fever last night, and no one to
+send for Doctor but me, and I got de chile to tend. So Mammy say, “Gib
+me pepper pot, and I all right to-morrow;” but morning time Mammy go
+home. And Aunty Cora come and stay by her, and she tell me take dis
+chile back to Dr Fellows, ’cause Mammy Lila dead, and dis nigger must
+go home to her fader and moder.’
+
+‘Why, it’s Judy, Mammy Lila’s grandchild, and she has brought the
+infant back again!’ exclaimed Liz, as she saw the bundle in the girl’s
+arms.
+
+
+‘Mammy Lila gone! Here’s a misfortune to upset all our plans,’ said
+the Doctor.
+
+‘Father, what are we to do?’
+
+‘We can do nothing but keep the child here--at all events for a few
+hours, Liz. I know of no one else to take charge of it, or, at least,
+no one whom I could trust. To-morrow I will go over to the Fort and
+consult Dr Martin; but for the present it must remain with you, and I
+will take this girl back to Shanty Hill, to see that she speaks to no
+one in the plantation. Here, Judy, give the baby to Miss Liz, and you
+shall go back to Shanty Hill with me. Are you _sure_ that Mammy Lila is
+gone?’
+
+‘Sure, massa! Why, she cold as a stone, and Uncle Josh making her
+coffin already. The last words she sez was, “Take chile back to Doctor,
+and say Mammy can’t do no more;” and den she lay her head down and
+shut her eyes, and I run for Aunty Cora, and she say Mammy dead as a
+door nail.’
+
+‘All right, Judy. I’m very sorry to hear it, but I’ll go back with you
+all the same.’
+
+He reached down his hat and stick as he spoke, and turned to his
+daughter before he left the room.
+
+‘I’ll be back in an hour or two, Liz. Take the child into the inner
+room, and don’t leave the house till I return. I didn’t know the fever
+had reached Shanty Hill. I must see some sanitary precautions carried
+out there.’
+
+The young negress placed the infant in Lizzie’s outstretched arms.
+
+‘You’ll be glad to get it back again, I guess,’ she said slyly, as she
+deposited it there.
+
+‘I’m not so sure of that,’ replied Liz, taking no further notice of the
+remark, as she carried her burden tenderly away.
+
+She placed it on the bed, and carefully unfolded the wrappings round
+it. She had a natural curiosity to see the little creature born of one
+so near and dear to her, even though it had no title but to a heritage
+of shame. And when she saw it, the maternal instinct so strong in the
+breasts of all good and pure women rose like a fountain in her heart,
+and overflowed for the poor motherless and fatherless baby thrown so
+unexpectedly upon her care.
+
+Maraquita’s little daughter was a tiny, fragile-looking thing,
+with large dark eyes and a waxen complexion, and a wistful, solemn
+expression, as if she were asking the cold world not to spurn her for
+her parents’ fault. The first view of her touched Lizzie deeply. She
+hardly knew herself why she cried like a child at the sight of those
+tiny hands and feet, those grave, wondering eyes, and the head of soft,
+dark hair that nestled against her bosom. But the best feelings of her
+nature rose to the surface, and her first idea was that she could never
+part with the child again, but would tend and rear it for Maraquita’s
+sake. But when she confided her wishes to Dr Fellows, he shook his head
+in dissent.
+
+‘It would never do, Lizzie. It would be too great a risk,’ he said.
+‘The child’s presence here would excite general curiosity. The talk
+would reach Maraquita’s ears, and its proximity would unsettle
+her--perhaps cause her to betray herself. There is only one safe
+course to pursue in these unhappy cases, and that is, complete
+separation. Take care of the poor little creature to-night for me, and
+to-morrow I will ride over to the Fort, and see if Dr Martin knows
+of any trustworthy woman to take charge of it. The regiment is to be
+relieved next month. If I can get the child shipped off to England, I
+shall consider it the most fortunate circumstance that could befall it,
+unless indeed it would die first, which would be still better.’
+
+‘Oh, father!’ cried Liz reproachfully, as she laid her lips against the
+baby’s velvet cheek.
+
+‘It sounds hard, my dear, but it can inherit nothing but a life of
+shame and loneliness, and it would be very merciful of God to take it.
+You don’t know what it is to live under the crushing sense of shame.
+Besides, it is a weakly infant, and under any circumstances is not
+likely to make old bones.’
+
+‘I believe that I could rear it, with care and attention,’ repeated
+Liz, wistfully.
+
+‘It is impossible,’ repeated the Doctor briefly, as he left the room.
+
+But in a few minutes he returned, and walked up to where his daughter
+was still crooning over the baby.
+
+‘Lizzie, I have been thinking over your wish to tell Henri de
+Courcelles my story. But it must not be, my dear--not at least during
+my lifetime. You will be angry with me for saying so, but I don’t quite
+trust De Courcelles. We have never got on well together. There is
+something about him I don’t understand. If I should die, Lizzie, and
+sometimes I think it won’t be long, first, you can do as you think fit,
+but whilst I live, I hold you to your promise of secrecy.’
+
+‘And I will keep it,’ replied Lizzie, ‘as if it had been made to God.’
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Mr and Mrs Courtney could not sufficiently express their satisfaction
+at receiving their daughter back again. Maraquita was their only child.
+She had never had a brother nor a sister. All their hopes were centred
+in her, and in their love they naturally exaggerated her beauty, and
+were blind to her faults. Her father positively idolised her, and her
+mother’s affection, though rather languid and uneffusive, was none the
+less real. Had Mrs Courtney exercised a proper _surveillance_ over her
+daughter, Quita could never have suffered the misfortune she had just
+undergone; but it was not in her indolent Spanish nature to look after
+anything. She had had a suspicion of Maraquita’s condition, but it was
+only a suspicion, although the old black nurse Jessica had known it for
+months past. But Jessica had suckled Maraquita from the moment of her
+birth, and attended on her every hour of the day and night since, and
+would have died sooner than have brought one word of blame on the head
+of her young mistress. She had not even let the girl know that she had
+guessed her terrible secret, and so Maraquita returned to her father’s
+house with as proud a bearing as if she had done nothing to forfeit
+the esteem of her fellow-creatures, and quite ready to accept all the
+homage paid to her. She was carried straight from her palanquin to a
+room redolent of flowers, and laid upon a couch, whilst the household
+servants ran hither and thither, to bring her refreshment, or to do her
+service.
+
+Old Jessica was weeping for joy at the foot of her couch to think she
+had got her young mistress safely back again, and Mr and Mrs Courtney
+were almost as effusive in their gratitude for their good fortune.
+Meanwhile Maraquita lay there, lovely and languid, pleased to see
+how much pleasure she gave them by her recovery, and without a blush
+of shame to remember how that recovery had been attained. Hers was a
+frivolous, unthinking nature--easily scared by the approach of danger,
+but ready to forget everything that was not immediately before her.
+She was a very common type of our fallen humanity, intensely selfish,
+and only disturbed by the misfortunes that threatened herself. And
+now, she believed that she was safe. Her secret was known only to the
+Doctor, and he had promised her, for her father’s sake, that it should
+never rise up against her. So she reclined there, smiling, with one
+white hand clasped in that of her father’s, and a bunch of orange
+blossoms--emblems of woman’s purity--with which Jessica had presented
+her, laid against her cheek.
+
+‘How lovely our Quita is looking!’ exclaimed Mrs Courtney, who was
+rocking herself in a cane chair opposite, whilst a negress fanned her
+with a large palm leaf. ‘I really think her illness has improved her.
+She was rather sallow before it. What would Sir Russell Johnstone say
+if he could see her now.’
+
+‘Sir Russell Johnstone,’ repeated Quita, whilst Mr Courtney glanced at
+his wife with a look of warning.
+
+‘Yes, dear, the new Governor! Your father and I have seen a good deal
+of him lately, and he always inquires most particularly after you.’
+
+‘Nita, my dear,’ interposed Mr Courtney, ‘you must not forget that our
+child is still far from strong, and that Fellows cautioned us against
+any excitement.’
+
+‘I don’t believe that pleasurable excitement can hurt any one, Mr
+Courtney, but if you think it desirable, I will drop the subject.’
+
+‘No, no, mother, pray go on. What was it you were going to say? I want
+to hear all your news. It seems as if I had been shut up so long. Tell
+me everything you can think of about Sir Russell, and--and--our other
+friends. It will do me good to listen.’
+
+‘Sir Russell will have a great deal to say to you himself by-and-by
+I expect, Maraquita,’ continued her mother, ‘and he will want us to
+take you up to see Government House. It is such a beautiful place. You
+have not seen half of it at the balls. And the furniture is something
+superb. It will be a happy woman who is fortunate enough to be chosen
+to reign over it.’
+
+‘Is Sir Russell going to marry, then, mamma?’
+
+‘He wishes to do so, Quita.’
+
+‘And is the lady in San Diego?’
+
+‘He has told your father so, my dear.’
+
+‘Quita,’ exclaimed Mr Courtney, as the girl turned her lustrous eyes
+upon him, ‘cannot you guess the truth? Sir Russell Johnstone is almost
+as eager for your recovery as we are. He has proposed to me for your
+hand, and he is impatient to have your answer.’
+
+‘Sir Russell Johnstone, the Governor of San Diego, wants to marry
+_me_!’ said Maraquita, in a dazed voice.
+
+‘Yes, my dear. It is a great honour, but I will not have you biassed,’
+returned her father. ‘You shall do exactly as you like about it.’
+
+‘Sir Russell?’ repeated Quita, in the same dreamy tone. ‘But he is so
+old, and so ugly.’
+
+‘_Old!_’ cried Mrs Courtney. ‘Why, child, you are raving! He is not a
+day over forty, and a very good-looking man, although somewhat bald.
+But that has nothing to do with the matter. It is the position you
+must look at, and the honour of the thing. Fancy being Lady Russell,
+and at the head of all the ladies of San Diego, and then going,
+by-and-by, to live in England, and see all the sights of London, and
+the Queen, perhaps, and the Royal Family. Why, that chance alone would
+be worth all the rest, in my estimation!’
+
+‘Nita! I won’t have our daughter persuaded to do anything against her
+inclinations.’
+
+‘Dear me, Mr Courtney, I am not trying to persuade her! I am only
+showing her the proper way in which to consider Sir Russell’s proposal.
+Why, he’s the highest match in the island, and Quita will never get
+such another chance if she lives to be a hundred!’
+
+‘That’s true enough,’ replied her husband, ‘but she shouldn’t marry the
+Prince of Wales himself, if she hadn’t a fancy for him, whilst I have
+the money to keep her.’
+
+‘But stop, father,’ interrupted Quita, ‘there is no harm in talking it
+over with mother, and I like to talk of it. It’s a great compliment,
+isn’t it? I wonder whatever made Sir Russell think of me?’
+
+‘Oh, my dear girl, don’t talk such nonsense!’ exclaimed Mrs Courtney.
+‘You _must_ know how pretty you are, even if nobody’s told you so, and
+that there’s not another woman in San Diego can compare with you. Sir
+Russell has got a pair of eyes in his head like other men, and he sees
+you will make the handsomest Governor’s lady in the West Indies. And so
+you will, though it’s your mother says it.’
+
+Maraquita was evidently much impressed by the news which had been told
+her. She lay quiescent on her sofa, but her large eyes were gazing into
+space, and a faint rose flush had mounted to her face.
+
+‘Do you think he is _sure_ to take me to England?’ she inquired, after
+a pause.
+
+‘Why, naturally, my love, when his three years’ term is over here.
+And he tells me he has a lovely place in the country there, and he’s
+a Member of Parliament into the bargain, and knows all the grandest
+people in London. Why, you would live like a queen, and be the luckiest
+woman in the world.’
+
+‘And _we_ should have to part with her,’ said Mr Courtney, with a sigh.
+
+‘Well, I suppose that would come some day, in any case,’ replied his
+wife, ‘and there’ll be plenty of time to think of it. Sir Russell has
+only been in office six months, and by the time his term is ended, I
+don’t see why _we_ shouldn’t visit England too, Mr Courtney. You’ve
+promised to take me there, times out of mind.’
+
+‘Yes, yes! unlikelier things have happened,’ said her husband,
+brightening up.
+
+‘And I should have a splendid wedding, shouldn’t I?’ mused Maraquita.
+
+‘You should have the grandest wedding that’s ever been seen in San
+Diego,’ replied her mother, ‘and everybody in the island, black and
+white, to see it. It would be a universal holiday, and we would send
+for your wedding dress to Paris, Quita. Monsieur de Courcelles was
+telling me the other day that--’
+
+But Mrs Courtney was summarily stopped in her recital by a burst of
+hysterical tears from Maraquita.
+
+‘Oh, no! I can’t do it; I don’t like him enough,’ she sobbed. ‘He is
+old and ugly. I _won’t_ marry him. Don’t say any more about it.’
+
+Of course both her parents were full of concern for her agitation.
+
+‘I told you how it would be!’ exclaimed the father. ‘She is far too
+weak to hear so exciting a topic. You should have held your tongue till
+she is stronger, and able to decide the matter herself. Don’t cry,
+my dearest child. Try and compose yourself, or I shall be obliged to
+summon Dr Fellows.’
+
+‘You should have more sense,’ said her mother decidedly. ‘No one
+wishes you to do anything that is objectionable to you, Quita. There is
+nothing to cry for at having a grand proposal made you. However, let
+us drop the subject for to-day, and perhaps you had better lie down in
+your own room and have a siesta. Jessica has prepared it for you.’
+
+The two women supported the girl between them to her sleeping-chamber,
+when Mrs Courtney despatched the black nurse for some iced lemonade.
+
+‘Quita,’ she whispered, as she lifted her daughter on to the bed, ‘you
+haven’t deceived me? There is a mystery about this illness of yours
+which may ruin your whole life. Take my advice, my dear, and marry Sir
+Russell Johnstone. It will be your salvation.’
+
+‘But, mother,’ whispered Maraquita back again, with her face hidden in
+her mother’s sleeve, ‘there--there is _some one else_.’
+
+‘Do you suppose I don’t know that, and that I needn’t go far to find
+him, either, Quita? But no woman ever married yet, my dear, without
+there being “_some one else_.” But he will be no good to you, and you
+must forget him as soon as you can. You’ve made a fool of yourself,
+and your only remedy lies in marriage; but you can’t marry _him_. Your
+father would never hear of such a thing. He looks high for you, and he
+has a right to do so. He would as soon consent to your marrying Black
+Sandie as--as--’
+
+‘Hush, mother!’ cried Maraquita. ‘Don’t speak his name: I cannot bear
+it.’
+
+‘He has behaved like a villain to you, my dear, and you ought to
+despise him for it. It is only for your sake that I have not had him
+turned off the plantation. But if I hold my tongue, you must promise to
+think well over the advantages of Sir Russell’s proposal.’
+
+‘I will--I will--’
+
+‘It is a perfect godsend, and you would be a fool to reject it. I can’t
+understand your being so upset over a piece of good fortune,’ said Mrs
+Courtney, as she bent over her. ‘I hope--I _hope_, Maraquita, that you
+won’t let this folly interfere with it.’
+
+She said so meaningly, for she had not failed to observe the manner
+in which the young overseer and Maraquita had looked at each other on
+the occasions of Henri de Courcelles’ visits to the White House. Her
+daughter flushed slightly, and turned her head away.
+
+‘Of course not,’ she answered pettishly. ‘But if I did, what of it,
+mamma? My father says I am not to be biassed in my inclinations, and
+that means I may choose for myself.’
+
+‘So long as you choose an eligible person, Maraquita; but you quite
+mistake your father if you imagine he will consent to your marriage
+with any one beneath yourself. He is very particular on that score. You
+are our only child, and will inherit all his fortune, and you have a
+right to make a good match. Now, pray, my dear, don’t be foolish. All
+girls have their little fancies, you know, but they learn to get over
+them, and you must do the same, won’t you?’
+
+‘I don’t know what you are talking about, mamma,’ replied Quita
+uneasily. ‘All I have to think about now, I suppose, is whether I
+shall marry Sir Russell Johnstone or not.’
+
+‘My dear girl, you make me miserable by even suggesting a doubt on the
+subject. I am sure of one thing,--if you _don’t_ marry him, you will
+never cease to reproach yourself, and be ready to die of envy at seeing
+Mademoiselle Julie Latreille or one of the other San Diego belles in
+your place.’
+
+‘_Julie Latreille!_’ cried Maraquita. ‘Why, she can’t hold a candle to
+me! Every one said so at the last regimental ball.’
+
+‘Of course she can’t, dear, and she wouldn’t know how to conduct
+herself as the Governor’s lady either. But when a man is disappointed
+in one direction, he is apt to try and console himself in another. And
+Sir Russell is _very_ much in love with you, Maraquita; I never saw a
+man more so.’
+
+‘Well, he won’t expect me to be in love with him, I hope.’
+
+‘What a silly thing to say, my dear! If you will only consent to marry
+him, I’ll guarantee that Sir Russell will be satisfied with anything
+you may choose to give him. Of course, you will be very grateful to
+him, and kind and affectionate and all that,’ continued Mrs Courtney
+as an afterthought; ‘but it is quite unnecessary that any young lady
+should profess to be in love with her husband. You can leave all that
+to the men.’
+
+Maraquita sighed, and said nothing. She possessed a very warm
+temperament, like most people born of a mixture of bloods, and the
+prospect of being tied to a man for whom she did not care, was most
+displeasing to her. Her thoughts reverted to another lover, whom a
+marriage with the Governor would force her to give up, and the tears
+gathered in her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks.
+
+‘Come, my dear,’ exclaimed her mother hastily, as she watched the signs
+of her emotion, ‘we will drop this subject for to-day, and you must try
+and go to sleep. In a short time you will see all the advantages of Sir
+Russell’s proposal, and be very grateful for them. But at present you
+are weak, and must not think too much. I will leave you alone now, and
+Jessica shall fan you to sleep.’
+
+But it was very little sleep that visited Maraquita’s eyes that
+day, and it was in vain that old Jessica closed the green jalousies
+over her windows, and brought her cooling drinks, and fanned her
+incessantly to keep off the flies. Quita’s large dark eyes were fixed
+upon space, whilst she revolved the question in her mind whether she
+could possibly marry Sir Russell Johnstone, and always came back to the
+conclusion that it was impossible. When night arrived, her mother was
+so distressed to find the symptoms of fever strong upon her, that she
+wanted to send at once for Dr Fellows, but Quita entreated her not to
+do so.
+
+‘Mamma, dear, let me have my own way, and I shall be all right in the
+morning. Let me sleep quite alone. Jessica fidgets me. She jumps up
+twenty times in the night to see if I am asleep or want anything, and
+when she sleeps herself she snores. She is a good old creature, but
+I’d rather be left to myself.’
+
+‘But, Quita, my dear, supposing you should be ill in the night, and no
+one near you!’ exclaimed Mrs Courtney. ‘Why, I shouldn’t be able to
+sleep myself for thinking of it. Let _me_ sleep in the next room to
+yours, my darling. The curtain can be drawn over the open door, and you
+will be as much alone as if it were shut. And I should be within call
+if you required me.’
+
+‘No, no,’ replied the girl fretfully. ‘That would be worse than having
+Jessica in my room, for I should never be certain _when_ you were
+coming. I want to be _alone_, mother--really and truly _alone_--and
+when the darkness falls, I shall sleep soundly.’
+
+‘Very well, my dear,’ said Mrs Courtney. ‘If it is your whim, you
+shall be indulged in it, but I shall not dare tell your father that I
+have consented, or he will insist on sitting up with you himself.’
+
+She kissed her daughter then, and professed to leave her for the night,
+but she whispered to old Jessica that after she had prepared everything
+that was necessary, she was to lie down on the mat outside the door of
+Maraquita’s chamber, and listen to every sound that issued from it.
+
+The old negress obeyed with alacrity. She possessed the faculty,
+common to coloured people, of staying awake for hours if necessary,
+and even of sleeping with one eye open. The inner door of her young
+mistress’s apartment opened on a corridor, paved with marble, but
+there were two other doors to it which led out to the garden. Jessica
+sat down on a white bear-skin mat in the corridor, and listened for a
+possible summons. The night drew on apace. The lamps were extinguished
+throughout the White House, and the master and mistress had retired to
+rest. The coloured servants were sleeping on mats in the verandahs, and
+everything was hushed in silence, when midnight struck from the large
+clock over the stables. The old negress’s eyes were just about to close
+in slumber, when she was startled into consciousness again by the fall
+of a light footstep on the matted bedroom floor. Maraquita had left her
+bed. Jessica sat up straight and listened. The light step became more
+palpable. Quita had put on her shoes and stockings, and was passing
+through the door that led to the plantation. Quick and stealthy as a
+panther, and almost as noiselessly, old Jessica crept round another
+way, just in time to see a dark-robed form walking down the path
+towards the overseer’s bungalow.
+
+‘I thinking so,’ mused the old woman; ‘I _sure_ dat man at de bottom of
+it! Curse him! He’s stolen away my poor missy’s heart, and brought her
+into all dis trouble, and now she’s out of it, she can’t rest without
+him. Ah, if the massa only knew, he’d _kill him_. And _I’ll_ kill him
+if he don’t let my missy alone. I’ll make him drink obeah water and he
+shall die. My poor little missy to go through all dis trouble for a man
+who don’t care for her no more than he do for Jerusha. If I only tell
+Jerusha! _Dat_ would finish him once and for ever.’
+
+Meanwhile, Maraquita (for it was indeed she) was making what haste
+she could towards her lover’s home. She felt very weak as she tried to
+walk, and her limbs trembled under her, but she would not give in, for
+her reputation was at stake, and what will a woman _not_ do to save her
+good name? Henri de Courcelles’ study or room of business was at the
+back of the bungalow, and he was in the habit of sitting up there late
+into the night, reading. Well did the poor girl know her way to that
+room at the back of the house--well did she know her lover’s habits
+and customs--too well, unfortunately, for her own peace of mind. Henri
+de Courcelles was surprised and delighted--but not startled--when her
+slight form passed through the open door, and stood before him. He knew
+that she would come to him as soon as she was able, but he had hardly
+expected she would have been able to do so so soon. He leapt from his
+chair and clasped her in his arms.
+
+‘Quita, my darling,’ he exclaimed, ‘you have returned to me at last!’
+
+The girl did not speak, but she clung to his embrace as if she would
+never leave it.
+
+‘You are trembling, my dearest! You were imprudent, perhaps, to risk
+visiting me so soon. Sit down, and let me lie at your feet and hear all
+you have to tell me.’
+
+He placed her in the chair from which he had risen, as he spoke, and
+threw himself on his knees beside her.
+
+‘Do you know what I have suffered during your illness?’ he exclaimed.
+‘I thought the suspense would have driven me mad. And then the awful
+fear lest you should betray yourself. But tell me, Quita, is all danger
+over? Is our secret safe?’
+
+‘Yes!’ she answered wearily. ‘It is over.’
+
+‘Thank Heaven for that! And no one is the wiser.’
+
+‘No one except Dr Fellows, of course. I couldn’t deceive _him_. But
+even Liz does not know. No one knows except him--and you and me.’
+
+‘And the child, dearest. Where is it?’
+
+The girl gave a sudden gesture of repugnance.
+
+‘Don’t speak of it: I cannot bear the thought. I am trying so hard to
+forget everything. And yet, Henri, I _must_ speak, for this once only.
+Dr Fellows has sent it away to some one up the hills, but I shall
+never be happy till it is out of San Diego. Cannot you manage it for
+me? Can’t you send it away to America or England, so that I may never
+hear it spoken of again?’
+
+‘Perhaps you would like me to drop it in the sea,’ he answered
+gloomily. It cannot be pleasant for a man to hear a woman express
+nothing but horror of the child she has borne to him.
+
+‘I don’t know _what_ I want,’ rejoined Quita sadly, ‘only I am so
+frightened of what may happen. If my father should ever come to hear of
+it, I think he would _kill_ me.’
+
+‘No one shall molest you!’ exclaimed De Courcelles sternly. ‘You are my
+wife, Quita, and the man who injures you must answer for it to me.’
+
+‘Ah, don’t talk nonsense!’ she said, shrinking a little from him. ‘You
+know, Henri, that I am _not_ your wife.’
+
+‘But why should you not be so, Maraquita? Why not take the bull by the
+horns, and let me confess everything to your father?’
+
+‘What are you thinking of?’ she cried, in a voice of terror. ‘You would
+only bring down his wrath upon my head. He will never consent to my
+marrying you.’
+
+‘Then marry me without his consent, Quita. Surely that should not
+be distasteful to you, after all that has passed between us. Come,
+dearest, you love me, do you not? You have so often assured me so. Why
+not cross with me to Santa Lucia, and we will break the news of our
+marriage to your parents from there. Say “_Yes_,” Maraquita, for the
+sake of our child,’ he whispered.
+
+‘It is _impossible_!’ she said back again. ‘You are asking me to give
+up my father and mother for you. It would break their hearts. They
+would never speak to me again.’
+
+‘But why not? They are wealthy, and you are their only child. They can
+enrich any one on whom your happiness may be placed. They would be
+angry at first, naturally, but they would soon come round, for they
+could not live without you, Maraquita. A few weeks would see us all
+together again.’
+
+‘You are mistaken, Henri. My father loves me dearly, but his prejudices
+are very strong. Only to-night, my mother was telling me that he would
+never countenance my marriage to any one whom he did not consider an
+equal match to myself.’
+
+‘Heavens! Maraquita! Can Mrs Courtney suspect anything?’
+
+‘God knows! She has not actually mentioned the subject to me, but her
+words fell very much like a warning. Perhaps they were so. Perhaps she
+intended to caution me on my future conduct. She has at any rate shown
+me very decidedly that my father expects me to accede to the views he
+has formed for me.’
+
+De Courcelles turned pale.
+
+‘What views?’ he stammered. ‘Mr Courtney gave me some hints the other
+day that you were likely to make a grand marriage, but I felt--I
+_knew_, that it could not be true.’
+
+‘But it _is_ true, Henri. Sir Russell Johnstone, the Governor of the
+island, has proposed for me, and my father insists on my accepting
+him.’
+
+‘And you _will_?’ cried De Courcelles, in a voice of anguish.
+
+‘What am I to do?’ asked Maraquita wildly. ‘Can I go to my parents and
+tell them I have disgraced myself? How would that benefit us? I have
+already told you they would never consent to my marrying _you_. And
+_this_ marriage will, at all events, shelter me from any risk in the
+future. No one will be able to harm me when I am the Governor’s wife.’
+
+‘You will do it!’ exclaimed Henri de Courcelles fiercely; ‘I feel that
+you _will do it_!’
+
+At that moment he saw the girl in her true colours--selfish, avaricious
+and worldly-minded, yet, with the insane blindness of passion, he would
+have wrested her from the hands of his rival, even though his victory
+bound him to a life-long curse. His Nemesis had already overtaken him.
+He had seized his prey, but he could not hold it. He had made Maraquita
+(as he fondly believed) his own. In doing so, he had outraged every
+law of morality and friendship. He had even thrown over Liz Fellows,
+whom he knew loved him so purely and truly, and yet his sins had been
+sinned in vain. Quita no more belonged to him than the plantation
+of Beauregard did. She was straining at her fetters even now, and
+before long she would burst them altogether, to become the wife of the
+Governor of San Diego. As the truth struck home to him, De Courcelles’
+pain turned to anger.
+
+‘You cannot! You _dare not_!’ he continued. ‘You are in my power,
+Maraquita, and I defy you to throw me over.’
+
+Then her bravado changed to craven fear. She could lie and deceive, and
+be selfish and ungrateful, this beautiful piece of feminine humanity,
+but she was a terrible coward, and her lover’s Spanish eyes were
+gleaming on her like two daggers.
+
+‘Ah, don’t be angry with me, Henri!’ she exclaimed pitifully. ‘You know
+how much I love you. Haven’t I given you good proof of my affection? Do
+you think it possible that I could marry any one else of my own free
+will?’
+
+‘Then you will never marry any one else, Maraquita, for you shall not
+be coerced into it whilst I live. But I don’t feel sure of you yet.
+Will you promise me, if the Governor’s suit is pressed more closely
+upon you, to save yourself by flying with me?’
+
+‘I will!--on one condition, Henri.’
+
+‘What is it?’
+
+‘That you will shelter me from the shame you have brought upon me. _I_
+dare not do anything in the matter, but you are cleverer than I am,
+and may manage it without detection. Only get _it_--you know what I
+mean--sent away from San Diego, or devise some plan by which it can
+never be brought in judgment against me, and I--I--will do anything you
+ask me.’
+
+‘You give me your solemn word to that effect?’
+
+‘My solemn word, Henri,’ she answered, with downcast eyes.
+
+‘Then it shall be done--if I have to steal it away with my own hands.
+But after we are married, surely _then_, Maraquita--’ he said wistfully.
+
+‘Oh, don’t talk of that now!’ cried the girl hurriedly. ‘It will be
+time enough to discuss what we shall do, when the time arrives. But I
+must go now, Henri, or Jessica may miss me. Perhaps you will come up
+and see me to-morrow.’
+
+‘I will come up, without fail, whether they let me see you or not. One
+kiss, my darling. Remember that I look upon you as _my wife_, and no
+one shall wrest you from me.’
+
+‘_No one_--no one!’ she answered feverishly, as she returned his
+passionate kisses, and almost wished she had the courage to be true to
+him. Yet as she crept back to her home through the shadowy, moonlit
+paths--for she would not let De Courcelles accompany her, for fear
+of being intercepted--she knew she had been lying, and had no more
+intention of marrying him than before. She had used his entreaties as
+a means to her own end, and if _that_ were accomplished, she would
+have no hesitation in breaking the promise she had given him. She
+could always fall back--so she thought--on the duty which she owed her
+parents, and if the great misfortune of being found out befell her, and
+the wrath of her father and mother proved too hard to bear, why, Henri
+de Courcelles was ready and eager to marry her.
+
+Maraquita did not argue with her own conscience in so many words, but
+such were the thoughts that flitted through her brain as she traversed
+the slight distance between the overseer’s bungalow and the White
+House, and noiselessly re-entered her chamber. Jessica, who had
+watched her go and return, never closed her faithful eyes in slumber
+until she was assured that her young mistress was safely in her bed
+again, and, for the first time since she had sought it, fast asleep.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+Meanwhile Lizzie Fellows, unconscious of her lover’s infidelity, sat
+up the livelong night, cradling his deserted infant in her arms.
+Whilst the members of the White House were wrapped in slumber, and
+even Maraquita and Henri de Courcelles had gained a temporary relief
+from their perplexities, and everything was hushed and silent in the
+Doctor’s bungalow, Liz rocked the wailing infant to and fro, or slowly
+paced up and down the room singing a soft lullaby to try and soothe
+it. But the puny little creature refused to be comforted. It wanted
+the warmth and shelter of its mother’s bosom, and bleated as pitifully
+for it as an orphaned lamb standing beside the dead body of the ewe
+on a bleak hillside. Liz, who had had a great deal of experience
+with children, tried all her arts to quiet it in vain. The baby was
+determined she should have no rest that night.
+
+‘Poor wee mite,’ she whispered, as she laid her cheek against its face,
+and a natural instinct made it turn its soft lips towards it to find
+the breast. ‘How can she leave you to the care of strangers? How can
+she sleep in comfort, not knowing if you cry, or are at peace? If you
+were _mine_, I would die sooner than give up my mother’s right to feed
+and cherish you, yes, even if the world stoned me for it. How I wish I
+might bring you up for my own little girl--my little tiny Maraquita!’
+
+How startled we should be sometimes if the wishes we carelessly utter
+were to be immediately fulfilled! Liz little thought as she crooned
+over the unconscious baby, that the hour was rapidly approaching when
+her puzzle would be not how to keep it, but how to get rid of it. Yet
+so it was.
+
+All that night she walked the room with its little downy head nestled
+close to her bosom, and its tiny fingers locked round her own. A dozen
+times she warmed the milk, of which it could only take a few drops, to
+keep the flickering life in its frail body, and covered it warmly with
+flannel, to increase the circulation of its blood, although the hot
+night air permeated the apartment. It was so feeble, that sometimes
+she almost thought its heart had stopped beating, and uncovered it
+with a sudden terror. But the infant slept on, although each breath it
+drew seemed like a wail, until the shadows dispersed, and the glorious
+West Indian sun rose like a king, and flooded the island with his
+glory. There seemed to be no dawn to the watcher, or rather it was so
+momentary, that the night changed as if by magic into day, and the
+windows of heaven were thrown open suddenly to let the sunlight stream
+upon the land. It was the waking signal for all life. The big magnolia
+flowers opened their creamy blossoms as they felt its rays; the trumpet
+creepers unfolded their leaves; the mimosa spread herself out as though
+she would bask in the returning light. A hundred scents filled the
+morning air, and from the grove of trees came many a chirp--first
+singly and then in twos and threes, as the birds encouraged their mates
+to rouse themselves, and come forth to pick up the insects before they
+hid in the long grasses from the noonday heat. From the negro quarters
+was borne a sort of humming sound, as of a disturbed bee-hive, as the
+Aunt Sallies and Chloes and Uncle Toms turned out of their beds, and
+made their toilets in the open air. The morning had broken. It was five
+o’clock, and in another half-hour the overseer would be amongst them,
+and accept no excuses if the whole gang were not drawn up in readiness
+to march down to the cotton fields or the coffee plantation.
+
+Liz sat in her room with the baby on her knee, listening for the sound
+of his mustang’s feet. How often had she been roused from her sleep as
+they passed her window, and breathed a prayer for her lover’s safety
+before she laid her head on her pillow again--or watched for him after
+a night’s vigil, and given him a bright smile and a wave of her hand as
+a morning welcome. But to-day she shrank from seeing him. A cloud had
+risen between them, with the knowledge of her father’s secret, which
+made her afraid to meet the eyes of the man from whom she would be,
+perhaps, but too soon parted for ever. Besides, were a look from her
+to bring him to the open window, the sacred trust she held in her arms
+might be betrayed. Liz blushed as she wondered what explanation she
+could possibly give Henri de Courcelles of the child’s presence there,
+and how curious he would become to learn its parentage, and moved
+further from the window as the thought struck her.
+
+She need not have been afraid. She heard his palfrey canter by, and
+caught a glimpse of his handsome figure as he rode past the bungalow;
+but his head was filled with thoughts of Maraquita, and how he could
+accomplish the task she had set him, and he never even turned his head
+in her direction. Liz sighed as she observed the defalcation. It was
+foolish, no doubt, and unworthy of a sensible woman, for her first wish
+had been to avoid him. But who is sensible in love?
+
+The little child was sleeping soundly at last, and Liz laid it on the
+pillows of her bed, and commenced her morning toilet. The thought of
+her father had suddenly struck her. If he was to ride to the Fort that
+morning and consult Dr Martin about a foster-nurse for the baby, it was
+time he was roused and went upon his way. The cool hours are soon over
+in that climate, and when the sun has fairly risen, it is unsafe for
+any European to ride about, and her father had not looked well of late.
+
+The excitement of Maraquita’s illness, and the necessity for
+concealment, had told on Dr Fellows, and made his face more drawn
+and haggard than it had been before. And though he had brought much
+trouble on her, and might prove the cause of her losing what she most
+cared for, still Lizzie loved him dearly, and pitied more than she
+blamed him. To live for years under a load of shame and the fear of
+detection, what greater curse could any human creature be called upon
+to suffer? Liz’s own burthen sunk into insignificance beside it.
+
+Her mind reverted to her early days, when she used to wonder why _her_
+father’s hair was grey, whilst that of Maraquita’s was brown, or why
+Mr Courtney played hide-and-seek with them in the plantation, whilst
+Dr Fellows shook his head and told her such games were only meant for
+little boys and girls. Liz understood it now, and felt almost glad to
+think she could show her sympathy with all he had gone through, even
+though she had to sacrifice her own future in order to pass it by his
+side.
+
+Meanwhile Henri de Courcelles had completed his journey, and reined
+in his steed at the negroes’ quarters. The hands were all ready to
+receive him--the men chiefly dressed in white or striped linen jackets,
+with dark blue trousers, and the women in print petticoats, and gaily
+coloured orange or crimson handkerchiefs knotted about their woolly
+hair. They were a fine-looking set of coolies, all free men, as they
+were termed by courtesy, but in reality as much slaves as any before
+the passing of the Abolition Act. They were not all of African blood.
+Many had come from the East Indies--had been shipped across in hundreds
+at a time from Calcutta to San Diego, under a promise of higher pay,
+and less work, than they could obtain in their own country, and had
+been landed penniless and powerless, to find themselves compelled to
+take any wages that were offered them, and do any work they were
+ordered, because they had no means of returning to India. These coolies
+were not so muscular and capable of hard labour as the Africans, but
+they were handsomer, both in face and figure. Some of the women had
+almost perfect features, and were lithe and supple as young roes; but
+they all bore, more or less, an expression of melancholy. They were
+not so well able to cast off care, and make the best of the present,
+as their companions in slavery, but they were more crafty and more
+desirous of revenge. Amongst them--standing very much to the front,
+in fact, as if she wished to attract attention--was a young girl of
+perhaps fifteen--the age of a child in our country, but of a grown
+woman in hers. She was tall for her nationality, and had a beautifully
+rounded figure, with tiny hands and feet, and a face fit for a sultan’s
+harem. She was evidently a coquette, and thought much of her personal
+appearance, for a bunch of white flowers was twined in her long plaits
+of hair, and a crimson handkerchief was tied across her bosom. In her
+arms she held an infant of a few months old, a lusty crowing boy,
+who showed evident signs of having a mixture of white blood in his
+composition, and of whom his mother seemed inordinately proud. She was
+standing so close to Henri de Courcelles’ horse, that as he dismounted
+he brushed up against her, and so roughly as almost to knock her infant
+out of her arms.
+
+‘Ah, sahib! take care of the little baby!’ she cried warningly.
+
+‘Who’s that? Jerusha! Then keep your cub out of my way, will you? Now
+then, my men, are you all ready? March!’
+
+The coolie girl frowned ominously as the overseer addressed her, but
+she made no answer. Only as the rest of the labourers moved off in
+single file to the fields, she remained to the last, sulking, as if she
+had no intention to move.
+
+‘Now then, Jerusha!’ exclaimed Henri de Courcelles impatiently, as he
+told off the last negro, and saw her standing there. ‘Make haste, will
+you?’ and he cracked the whip he held as he spoke. He seldom used the
+whip. It was only his insignia of office, and served as a signal for
+starting, but it sounded differently in Jerusha’s ears that morning.
+
+‘You dare beat _us_?’ she demanded menacingly.
+
+‘I am not going to beat you, but I dare do anything, so don’t be a
+fool,’ he replied, half laughing.
+
+‘I’m sick,’ persisted Jerusha. ‘The child kept me up all night. I’m not
+fit to work. Sahib must let me go back to my hut.’
+
+‘I will let you do no such thing,’ replied De Courcelles. ‘You’re only
+shamming. You’re as “fit” as any woman on the plantation, and you must
+work like the rest. Now, move on, and look sharp about it.’
+
+But Jerusha was obstinate, and had got the bit between her teeth. She
+considered herself a privileged person, and at one time had been able
+to do pretty much as she liked with the overseer. But that time was
+past. He was tired of her, and disposed to treat her, in consequence,
+a little more harshly than the rest. Jerusha had reckoned without her
+host when she thought she could give herself airs. When De Courcelles
+ordered her to move on, she shrugged her shoulders and stood still.
+
+‘Now, are you going?’ he asked her sharply.
+
+‘I telling sahib I’m too sick.’
+
+‘And I tell you you’re a liar. If you won’t move of your own accord, I
+will make you.’ He raised his whip as he spoke, and Jerusha observed
+the movement.
+
+‘You don’t _dare_ strike me!’ she said defiantly; but before the words
+were well out of her mouth, he had done it, and the long lash curled
+round her shoulders and stung the baby’s cheek, and made the youngster
+squall. Jerusha’s big black eyes flashed fire on him.
+
+‘You coward,’ she cried, ‘to strike your own child! Some day I pay you
+out for this. Some day _my_ whip strike _you_.’
+
+He laughed carelessly at the girl’s threat as she joined the gang of
+labourers, and he flung himself across his palfrey’s back, and rode
+after them. But after a while, when the sun’s rays began to beat rather
+fiercely on his Panama hat, and he found his servant had neglected to
+fill the straw-covered flask that hung at his saddle bow, he called the
+yellow girl Rosa and gave the flask to her, and directed her to carry
+it to the Doctor’s bungalow.
+
+‘Ask Miss Lizzie to fill it with fresh sherbet or milk for me, Rosa,
+and tell her I am coming in to breakfast with her by-and-by.’
+
+The residents in hot climates invariably partake of two breakfasts; one
+a light meal taken at break of day, and the other a more substantial
+one, which they can discuss at leisure when the morning’s business is
+concluded. Rosa, who was a lazy wench, who preferred running messages,
+or doing odd jobs, to regular work at any time, ran with alacrity to
+the Doctor’s bungalow, and began to sneak around it. A negro employed
+on business can very seldom go straight to the matter in hand. He
+generally slinks about first, peering into windows, and listening at
+doors, and on this wise it came about that Rosa’s cunning face was very
+soon to be seen at the open window of Liz Fellows’ room. The apartment
+was empty, Liz having just left it to go to that of her father, but
+from a bundle of flannel on the bed proceeded a wailing cry, which
+roused all Rosa’s curiosity. The black people are proverbially curious,
+but this was a case in which the offence might surely be termed a
+venial one. And with poor Rosa too, who had so lately been bereft of
+her own child.
+
+As soon as she recognised the cry, she leapt into the room through the
+window, and rushed up to the bed. Yes! it was actually a baby, and a
+white baby too, and in Miss Liz’s bed! What inference but _one_ could
+be drawn in any ignorant mind from such a circumstance? Miss Liz, who
+had been so angry with her for the same thing; who had said her poor
+little Carlo had better never have been born; who had talked so much
+to her of virtue, and purity, and the sanctity of marriage. Miss Liz
+had a baby in _her_ bed, that she had never told anybody about! Here
+was a glorious opportunity for revenge. Rosa’s eyes rolled about and
+showed their yellow whites as she thought of it. Miss Liz hadn’t pitied
+her, or so she chose to believe. Why should she pity Miss Liz? And
+why shouldn’t Massa Courcelles, and all the niggers, and the people
+at the White House, know what she had done? The engagement between
+Liz and Henri de Courcelles had been kept so secret that no one could
+say it was a positive fact, but most of the plantation hands knew he
+had courted the Doctor’s daughter, and believed that it would end in
+marriage. Rosa showed all her white teeth as she chuckled over the
+idea that now perhaps the overseer would have nothing more to do with
+Miss Lizzie, and she would be pointed at and scorned, as Rosa had been,
+when first she appeared out of doors with little Carlo in her arms. As
+the yellow girl thought thus, she slipped off the bed, where, she had
+mounted to better examine the baby, and left the room as noiselessly as
+she had entered it. A cunning idea had flashed across her brain,--that
+if Miss Lizzie caught her there, she would hide the infant, and no one
+would be ever the wiser. So she must get back to the field without
+seeing her, and invent some excuse for her return, on the way. She was
+quite ready with it by the time she reached the side of De Courcelles,
+and she lied so glibly that at first he did not suspect her of an
+untruth.
+
+‘Miss Liz have got no sherbet, Massa! She very sick all night, and
+drink all de sherbet. But Miss Liz want to see you berry particuler
+and berry directly, please, Massa. She got something berry important
+to say; and she tell me,--“Rosa, go and fetch Massa Courcelles here
+directly, and come back with him all de way.”’
+
+‘That’s a curious message, Rosa. What does Miss Liz want _you_ for?’
+asked De Courcelles, as he turned his steps towards the bungalow, with
+the yellow girl by his side.
+
+‘How can _I_ tell Massa Courcelles? P’r’aps Miss Liz want me to mind de
+baby a bit. P’r’aps she want to ask my ’pinion. Miss Liz know how well
+I look after my poor little Carlo ’fore de fever come and taken him to
+heaven.’
+
+The words naturally attracted the overseer’s attention.
+
+‘_The baby!_’ he exclaimed, taken off his guard. ‘What do you mean?’
+
+Rosa’s cunning eyes looked full into his own.
+
+‘You not _know_?’ she said inquisitively. ‘Miss Liz not tell you she
+got a little baby at the bungalow--and in her own bed too? Ah, Miss Liz
+berry sly--but it’s truth, Massa. I have seen it with my own eyes. A
+little white baby, too, only dressed like a little nigger in a cotton
+shirt.’
+
+‘Rosa, you must be dreaming. You are lying to me,’ said Henri de
+Courcelles, suddenly alive to the danger of the girl’s discovery. ‘How
+can Miss Liz have a baby at the bungalow?’
+
+‘Ah, Missy Liz knows that best herself,’ replied the yellow girl, with
+an oracular nod; ‘but it’s God’s truth, all de same, Massa, and dere’s
+not much difference ’tween white gal and yaller gal, after all. Miss
+Liz berry angry with me because little Carlo come a bit too soon, but
+dere’s a baby come to her now, and I shall have my revenge.’
+
+‘Don’t talk nonsense!’ exclaimed De Courcelles; ‘and don’t presume to
+speak to me in that way of Miss Liz.’
+
+But though he affected to be angry, he saw a light glimmering through
+the clouds of perplexity that overshadowed him, all the same. What if
+this child--for he could not doubt _which_ child Rosa meant--should
+be taken by the plantation hands for Lizzie’s? How fortunately the
+circumstance would divert public suspicion from his poor Maraquita!
+It never occurred to him what a piece of dastardly cruelty it would
+be to shift the blame from one woman to the other, so selfish does
+the madness of passion render us. But he could not understand how the
+infant came to be at the bungalow, and he was painfully curious on the
+subject.
+
+‘Massa Courcelles not believe me?’ continued Rosa, as they drew in
+sight of Lizzie’s window; ‘then Massa just come here and look for
+himself.’
+
+The yellow girl was standing before the open casement, and beckoning to
+him as she spoke, and something stronger than mere curiosity urged him
+to obey her summons. He drew near on tiptoe, and peeped in. The infant
+was still lying on the bed, its tiny face uncovered to the air.
+
+De Courcelles was not a man much subject to the softer emotions, but
+as he looked at it, he trembled. In another moment he had started
+backwards, for the bedroom door opened, and Lizzie herself appeared
+upon the threshold, and, taking up the baby, carried it into the outer
+room.
+
+‘Now do you believe I telling lies?’ exclaimed Rosa triumphantly,
+as she looked up into the overseer’s pale face; and before he could
+prevent her, she had run round the house, and in at the front door.
+
+Fearful of what discovery might follow her intrusion, De Courcelles
+hurried after her, and arrived just in time to see the mock curtsey
+which she dropped to the Doctor’s daughter. Lizzie herself, taken at a
+disadvantage, and utterly unprepared at that early hour of the morning
+for visitors, was standing by the table, white as a sheet, holding the
+baby in her arms, and apparently unable to say a word.
+
+‘Good morning, Miss Lizzie!’ cried Rosa, with another deep reverence.
+‘Massa Courcelles and I jest come round to see you and de new baby, and
+to ask how you both do to-day.’
+
+‘What do you mean?’ said Lizzie, though she knew well enough, as she
+stood before them white and trembling.
+
+‘Ah, Miss Lizzie, you berry sly. You know berry well what I mean. I
+want to see dat nice baby of yours. Is he like my little Carlo? Ah! I
+know he’s white, like his moder, but I will love him all de same, if
+you will let me.’
+
+‘Henri,’ said Lizzie, with an assumption of great calmness, in order to
+cover the shaking of her voice, ‘will you stand by silent and hear this
+girl insult me?’
+
+‘Certainly not,’ he replied. ‘Go back to the field, Rosa, and continue
+your work. You said Miss Lizzie asked you to return with me, or you
+should not have come.’
+
+‘She deceived you,’ said Lizzie. ‘I have not seen her nor spoken to her
+this morning.’
+
+‘I know dat berry well,’ cried Rosa impudently; ‘but I come to see dat
+baby of yours, and I bring Massa Courcelles to see it too. And now I
+will go back to my work with a light heart, for I wish you joy, Miss
+Lizzie, and I hope de Lord won’t send for dat baby of yours same He
+did for my poor little Carlo,’ and with another curtsey, the yellow
+girl turned on her heel, and ran out of the bungalow, leaving Henri de
+Courcelles and Lizzie together.
+
+She was the first to speak.
+
+‘Had you any knowledge of Rosa’s intentions when she brought you here?’
+she asked quietly.
+
+‘Not the slightest, upon my honour,’ he replied. ‘I sent her to you
+with my empty flask, to beg a little sherbet, and she returned with
+a message that you desired to see me at once, and that _she_ was to
+accompany me back again. On the way, she told me a story that I found
+it almost impossible to believe.’
+
+‘And what was the story?’
+
+‘That--that--you have a white infant at the bungalow. Is it true?’
+
+‘You can see for yourself that it is true! What then?’
+
+‘Whose child is it? Where does it come from?’ he asked, in a nervous
+voice, for he fully believed that, being alone, she would confide the
+secret of Maraquita’s shame to him.
+
+But she was silent.
+
+‘Why will you not tell me?’ he continued, more boldly; ‘it is
+impossible but that you must know. You cannot be sheltering a child of
+whose origin you are not aware.’
+
+‘Why should it be impossible?’ she answered; ‘might I not have found
+it, or adopted it?’
+
+‘Nonsense!’ he rejoined impatiently; ‘where did you find it then?’
+
+Again she was silent.
+
+‘Lizzie! I resent this want of confidence between us. Considering how
+we stand to one another, I have a right to ask you whose child that is.
+Do you know what Rosa thinks and says about it?’
+
+‘It is nothing to me,’ returned Lizzie proudly, ‘_what_ Rosa may think
+or say.’
+
+‘But it may be a great deal to _me_. It is not very pleasant for me
+to hear your name handled and defamed by the black brutes I look
+after,--to know they speak of you lightly, and say--’
+
+‘What do they _dare_ to say?’ she exclaimed, as she turned and faced
+him, with the infant on her breast.
+
+‘That that infant is your own!’
+
+There was the silence of a minute between them, and then she said, in a
+low voice,--
+
+‘And what do _you_ say?’
+
+‘That I require to be satisfied who it belongs to, and that you must
+tell me.’
+
+‘_I cannot!_’
+
+There was such an amount of quiet despair in her voice as she
+pronounced the words, that De Courcelles felt at once that Maraquita’s
+secret was safe, and that she would not disclose it even to _him_. And
+with the conviction, came a glad, unworthy satisfaction that her guilt
+and his would be concealed, even at the expense of their most faithful
+friend.
+
+‘_You cannot?_’ he repeated, in a voice of feigned astonishment. ‘But I
+say _you must_, or everything shall be over between us!’
+
+‘Henri!’ she exclaimed earnestly, ‘think--think what you are doing.
+You cannot possibly suspect _me_! Why, I--I--_love you_!’ she ended
+falteringly, as if that confession must clear her at once, and for ever.
+
+‘It’s all very fine talking,’ he answered roughly, ‘but facts are ugly
+things; and if there is any honourable explanation of them, I have a
+right to demand it. You have a newly-born infant in your arms, and all
+the plantation is talking of it. If you are not its mother, _who is_?’
+
+Lizzie turned away from him proudly.
+
+‘Go and find out for yourself,’ she said. ‘If you can suspect me even
+for one moment, you are unworthy of my affection. I will not lower
+myself to contradict your base suspicion. Think what you will, and act
+as you think best. I can tell you no more than I have done already.’
+
+‘Then I am to believe Rosa’s story?’
+
+‘You can believe what you choose. This child was given in trust to me
+by my father, and I am not at liberty to speak to you, or any one,
+concerning it. It is by an unhappy accident that it has even been seen.
+I cannot remedy that, but I can prevent the mischief going further. If
+you cannot accept my word that it bears no relationship to myself, I
+can do no more than deny it. On any other subject, my lips are sealed.’
+
+Admiration for her sisterly devotion and fidelity had almost made him
+forget the part he had to play; but the thought of Maraquita came to
+his assistance, and nerved him to complete his cruel task.
+
+‘Well, I will not court your confidence further, Lizzie,’ he said,
+rising, ‘but you must consider our engagement at an end. It would be
+impossible to be happy in married life with a secret like this between
+us. You _may_ have told me the truth, but I am not convinced of it; and
+where there is distrust, there can be no love. Let us part now, and for
+ever.’
+
+For the first time, the extent of the sacrifice she was making seemed
+to strike Lizzie’s mind.
+
+‘No! no!’ she screamed, rushing after him; ‘I cannot part with you
+thus! Oh, Henri! think a moment! Think how I have loved you! Can you
+imagine it possible that I should have been so false to you--so false
+to myself? I swear to you on my knees, and before God, that this child
+is not mine. Will not that content you?’
+
+‘No! nothing will content me now--not even if you attempted to cast the
+blame on some one else. You have spoken too late, Lizzie. Nothing but
+conscious guilt would have kept your lips closed until this moment.’
+
+‘You shall _not_ believe it of me!’ she exclaimed vehemently. ‘I will
+not throw my good name away so recklessly. My father is sleeping still.
+He has been ill and weary lately, and I thought it kind to let him
+rest; but he would never forgive me for letting him sleep on whilst his
+daughter’s fair name was being called in question. Stay but one moment,
+Henri, and my father shall tell you that I speak the truth.’
+
+She flew past him to the Doctor’s sleeping apartment as she spoke, and
+Henri de Courcelles, anxious to know the best or worst at once, stood
+where she had left him, gazing after her retreating form.
+
+But in another moment a piercing cry of agony sent him to her side.
+He found her standing by the bed, staring at her father’s still, cold
+features.
+
+‘He is gone!’ she exclaimed wildly. ‘See here, Henri, he is
+dead--_dead_, and can never now release me from my oath! O God! have
+pity on me!’
+
+And with that she fell to weeping over the prostrate form.
+
+‘_Dead!_’ echoed De Courcelles, momentarily awed into the reverence we
+all feel at the approach of the White King. ‘But now, at least, you are
+free to tell me the truth, Lizzie.’
+
+‘Never!’ she cried. ‘My lips are sealed as his own for evermore. If I
+could keep my vow to the living, how much more do you suppose will I
+hold it sacred to the dead? Act as you think right, Henri, but I will
+never tell you the name of the mother of this child.’
+
+‘Then all is over between us,’ he returned, as he slunk away, heartily
+ashamed of himself, and yet with a load lifted from his breast as he
+remembered that he had unconsciously, but surely, obeyed Maraquita’s
+behest, and might boldly claim the reward she had promised for it.
+
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
+
+
+  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
+
+  Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
+
+  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+
+  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
+
+  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75274 ***