Tourmalin's Time Cheques

"No more reason than before," admitted Peter.

"And your uncertainty still continues? Very unsatisfactory, I must say! I do think, my dear fellow, that, in your position, you should have been more careful to refrain from betraying any interest in Violet until you knew that you were free to speak. As it is, you may have cast a shadow upon her young life that it will take years to dispel!"

Peter's heart sank into his boots for very shame at this gentle and almost paternal reproof.

"Yes," continued the worthy Judge, "Violet is a high-minded girl, scrupulously sensitive on points of honour; and, unless the young lady you are under a semi-engagement to should release you of her own free will, I know my daughter too well to doubt that she will counsel you to fulfil your contract and renounce all hope so far as she is concerned."

Peter felt a little easier.

"I – I am prepared to do that," he said.

"Well, I don't say myself that I go quite so far as she does; but strictly, no doubt, a promise is a promise, and should be kept at all hazards. You have done all that a man can honourably do to put himself right. You have written to this young lady, so I understand, informing her of the change in your sentiments, and offering, nevertheless, to redeem your promise if she insisted upon it. I think that was the general purport of your letter?"

Here was one more evil fruit of his extra time! What would Sophia think, or say, or do, if such a letter as that ever came to her knowledge? Fortunately, that at least was impossible!

"You have some grounds," the Judge went on, "for assuming that the lady has already treated the contract as non-existent – a person called Alfred, I think my daughter said?"

"No, that was a mistake," explained Peter. "Alfred is engaged to quite a different person."

"Well, in any case, it is quite possible that you may obtain your release when you meet her; and your suspense will soon be over now. Miss – er – Pincher, is it? – will probably be on board the ship before many minutes. I see the boats are putting out from the harbour already."

"What!" cried Peter, with the terrible conviction darting through his mind that Sir William spoke the bare truth.

Sophia had said something about meeting him at Gibraltar; but if she had done so during the real voyage, how could he have the meeting all over again, with this ghastly variation? If he could only remember whether she had come out, or not! It was singular, incomprehensible! But his memory was a blank on such a vital fact as this!

"Would you like to have my field-glass for a moment?" said Sir William, considerately.

Peter took it, and the next moment the binocular fell from his nerveless hands. He had seen only too clearly the familiar form of Sophia seated in the peaked stern of a small craft, which a Spanish boatman was "scissoring" through the waves towards the Boomerang.

"Come, courage!" said the Judge kindly, as he picked up his glass and wiped the lenses. "Don't be nervous, my boy. You don't know what she may have to say to you yet, you know!"

"No, I don't!" he groaned. "I – I think I ought to go down to the gangway and meet her," he added, tremulously, – not that he had any intention of doing so, but he wanted to be alone.

Before the Judge could even express his approbation of Peter's course, Tourmalin was down on the saloon-deck seeking a quiet spot wherein to collect his thoughts.

Before he could find the quiet spot, however, he almost ran into the arms of the matron from Melbourne, whom he had not seen since the episode of the music-room.

"A word with you, Mr. Tourmalin!" she said.

"I – I really can't stop now," stammered Peter. "I – I'm expecting friends!"

"I, too," she said, "am expecting a relation, and it is for that reason that I wish to speak to you now. My brother, who has been staying at Gibraltar on account of his health, will be as determined as I am to trace and punish the infamous calumny upon the name and career of our honoured parent."

"I daresay, madam," said Peter, – "I daresay. Very creditable to you both – but I really can't stop just now!"

"You appear to forget, sir, that, unless you can satisfactorily establish your innocence, my brother will certainly treat you as the person primarily responsible for an atrocious slander!"

"A slander – upon your father!.. Me?" said the indignant Peter. "Why, I never heard of the gentleman!"

"Denial will not serve you now," she said. "I have not only your own admissions in the music-room, but the evidence of more than one trustworthy witness, to prove that you circulated a report that my dear father – one of the most honoured and respected citizens of Melbourne – began his Colonial career as – as a transported convict!"

After all, as the hapless Peter instantly saw, he might have said so, for anything he knew, in one of those still unexhausted extra quarters of an hour!

"If I said so, I was misinformed," he said.

"Just so; and in our conversation on the subject, you mentioned the name of the person who used you as his mouthpiece to disseminate his malicious venom. What I wish to know now is, whether you are prepared or not to repeat that statement?"

Peter recollected now that he had used expressions implicating Mr. Perkins, although merely as the origin of totally different complications.

"I can't positively go so far as that," he said. "I – I made the statement generally."

"As you please," she said. "I can merely say that my brother, whom I expect momentarily, is, although an invalid in some respects, a powerful and determined man; and unless you repeat in his presence the sole excuse you have to offer, he will certainly horsewhip you in the presence of the other passengers. That is all, sir!"

"Thank you – it's quite enough!" murmured Peter, thinking that Alfred himself could hardly be much more formidable; and he slipped down the companion to the cabin-saloon, where he found Miss Davenport anxiously expecting him.

"He is here," she whispered. "I have just seen him through the port-hole."

"What – the old lady's brother!" he replied.

"He has no sister who is an old lady. I mean Alfred."

"Alfred?" he almost yelped. "Alfred here!"

"Of course he is here. Is not his battalion quartered at Gibraltar? You knew it; we were to meet him here!"

"I didn't, indeed – or I should never have come!" he protested.

"Don't let us waste words now. He is here; he will demand an explanation from you. He has his pistol with him – I could tell by the bulge under his coat. We must both face him; and the question is, What are you going to say?"

Peter thrust his hands through his carefully-parted hair:

"Say?" he repeated. "I shall tell him the simple, straightforward truth. I shall frankly admit that we have walked, and sat, and talked together; but I shall assure him, as I can honestly, that during the whole course of our acquaintance I have never once regarded you in any other light but that of a friend."

"And you suppose that, knowing how I have changed, he will believe that!" she cried. "He will fire long before you can finish one of those fine sentences!"

"In that case," suggested Peter, "why tell him anything at all? Why not spare him, poor fellow, at all events for the time? It will only upset him just now. Let him suppose that we are strangers to one another; and you can break the truth to him gently when you reach England, you know. I 'm sure that's much the more sensible plan!"

She broke into strange mirthless laughter.

"Your prudence comes too late," she said. "You forget that the truth was broken to him some days ago, in the letter I wrote from Brindisi."

"You wrote and broke it to him at Brindisi!" cried Peter. "What induced you to do that?"

"Why, you!" she retorted. "You insisted that it was due to him; and though I knew better than you what the effect would be, I dared not tell you the whole truth. I wanted to end the engagement, too; and I scarcely cared then what consequences might follow. Now they are upon us, and it is useless to try to escape them. Since we must die, let us go up on deck and get it over!"

"One moment," he said; "Alfred can wait a little. I – I must go to my cabin first, and put on a clean collar."

And with this rather flimsy pretext, he again made his escape. He made up his mind what to do as he rushed towards his cabin. He could hardly have been anything like an hour on board the Boomerang as yet; he had to get through at least another three before he could hope for deliverance. His only chance was to barricade himself inside his cabin, and steadfastly refuse to come out, upon any consideration whatever, until he was released by the natural expiration of time.