An indefinite engagement had long existed between the girl and the man beside her, and at one time they had cherished a degree of affection for each other; but when the merry, high-spirited girl returned from London changed into a calculating woman, Geoffrey was bound up, mind and body, in his mine, and Millicent began to wonder whether, with her advantages, she might not do better than to marry a dalesman burdened by heavy debts. They formed a curious contrast, the man brown-haired, brown-eyed, hard-handed, rugged of feature, and sometimes rugged of speech; and the dainty woman who appeared born for a life of ease and luxury.
"Beauty and the beast!" said one young woman to her companion as she laid by her racquet. "I suppose he has the money?"
"Unless his mine proves successful I don't think either will have much; but if Miss Austin is a beauty in a mild way, he's a noble beast, one very likely to turn the tables upon a rash hunter," was the answer. "And yet he's stalking blindly into the snare. Alas, poor lion!"
"You seem interested in him. I'm not partial to wild beasts myself," remarked her companion, and the other smiled as she answered:
"Hardly that, but I know the family history, and they are a curious race with great capabilities for good or evil. It all depends upon how they are led, because nobody could drive a Thurston. It is rather, I must confess, an instinctive prejudice against the woman beside him. I do not like, and would not trust, Miss Austin, though, of course, except to you, my dear, I would not say so."
The young speaker glanced a moment towards the pair, and then passed on with a slight frown upon her honest face, for Thurston bent over his companion with something that suggested deadly earnestness in his attitude, and the spectator assumed that Millicent Austin's head was turned away from him, because she possessed a fine profile and not because of excessive diffidence. Nor was the observer wrong, for Millicent did little without a purpose, and was just then thinking keenly as she said:
"I am very sorry to hear about your misfortune, Geoffrey, but there is a way of escape from most disasters if one will look for it, you know, and if you came to terms with them I understand those London people would, at least, recoup you for your expenditure."
"You have heard of that!" exclaimed Geoffrey sharply, displeased that his fiancée, who had been away, should betray so accurate a knowledge of all that concerned his business affairs.
"Of course I did. I made Tom tell me. You will agree with them, will you not?" the girl replied.
"So," said Geoffrey, with a slight huskiness. "I wish I could, but it is impossible, and I am not pleased that Tom should tell you what I was waiting to confide to you myself. Let that pass, for I want you to listen to me. The old holding will have to go, and there is little room for a poor man in this overcrowded country. As you know, certain property will revert to me eventually, but, remembering what is in our blood, I dare not trust myself to drag out a life of idleness or monotonous drudgery, waiting for the future here. The curse is a very real thing – and it would not be fair to you. Now I can save enough from the wreck to start us without positive hardship over seas, and George has written offering me a small share in his Australian cattle-run. You shall want for nothing, Millicent, that toil can win you, and I know that, with you to help me, I shall achieve at least a competence."
Millicent, who glanced up at him as if she were carefully studying him, could see that the man spoke with conviction. She knew that his power of effort and dogged obstinacy would carry him far toward obtaining whatever his heart desired. She dropped her long lashes as he continued:
"Hitherto, I have overcome the taint I spoke of – you knew what it was when you gave me your promise – and working hard, with you to cheer me, in a new land under the open sun, I shall crush it utterly. Semi-poverty, with an ill-paid task that demanded but half my energies, would try you, Millicent, and be dangerous to me. What I say sounds very selfish, doesn't it – but you will come?"
There was an appeal in his voice which touched the listener. It was seldom a Thurston of Crosbie asked help from anyone; but she had no wish to encourage Geoffrey in what she considered his folly, and shook her head with a pretty assumption of petulance.
"Don't be sensational," she said with a wave of her hand. "You are prone to exaggeration, and, of course, I will not go with you. How could I help you to chase wild cattle? Now, try to be sensible! Come to terms with these company people, and then you need not go."
"Would you have me a thief?" asked Geoffrey, gazing down upon her with a fierce resentment in his look of reproach, and the girl shrank from him a little.
"No, but, so far as I understand it, this is an ordinary business transaction, and if these people are willing to buy the mine, why should you refuse?" she returned in a temporizing tone.
If Thurston was less in love with Millicent Austin than he had been, he hardly realized it then. He was disappointed, and his forehead contracted as he struggled with as heavy a temptation as could have assailed the honor of any man. Millicent was very fair to look upon, as she turned to him with entreaty and anxiety in her face.
Nevertheless, he answered wearily: "It is not an ordinary business transaction. These people would pay me with the general public's money, and when the mine proves profitless, as it certainly will, they would turn the deluded shareholders loose on me."
"There are always risks in mining," Millicent observed significantly. "The investing public understands that, doesn't it? Of course, I would not have you dishonest, but, Geoffrey – "
Thurston was patient in action, but seldom in speech, and he broke out hotly:
"Many a woman has sent a man to his damnation for a little luxury, but I expected help from you. Millicent, if I assist those swindlers and stay here dragging out the life of a gentleman pauper on a dole of stolen money, I shall go down and down, dragging you with me. If you will come out to a new country with me, I know you will never regret it. Whatever is best worth winning over there, I will win for you. Can't you see that we stand at the crossroads, and whichever way we choose there can be no turning back! Think, and for God's sake think well! The decision means everything to you and me."
Again Millicent was aware of an unwilling admiration for the speaker, even though she had little for his sentiments. He stood erect, with a grim look on his face, his nostrils quivering, and his lips firmly set – stubborn, vindictive, powerful. Though his strength was untrained, she knew that he was a man to trust – great in his very failings, with no meanness in his composition, and clearly born for risky enterprise and hazardous toil. She was a little afraid of him, a fact which was not in itself unpleasant; but she dreaded poverty and hardship! With a shrug of the shoulder upon which he had laid his hand, she said:
"I think you are absurd to-day; you are hurting me. This melodramatic pose approaches the ludicrous, and I have really no patience with your folly. A little period of calm reflection may prove beneficial, and I will leave you to it. Clara is beckoning me."
She turned away, and Thurston, after vainly looking around for Clara, stalked sullenly into the hall, where he flung himself down in a chair beside an open window. It did not please him to see Millicent take her place before the net in the tennis court and to hear her laugh ring lightly across the lawn. A certain sportsman named Leslie, who had devoted himself to Miss Austin's service, watched him narrowly from a corner of the big hall.
"You look badly hipped over something, Thurston," commented the sportsman presently. "I suppose it's the mine, and would like to offer my sympathy. Might I recommend a brandy-and-soda, one of those Cubanos, and confidence? Tom left the bottle handy for you."
In spite of the family failing, or, perhaps, because it was the only thing he feared, Thurston had been an abstemious man. Now, however, he emptied one stiff tumbler at a gulp, and the soda frothed in the second, when he noticed a curious smile, for just a moment, in the eyes of his