The Marriage of Esther

"Of what are you thinking, husband mine?"

He started as if she had stung him, and hastened to reply:

"Can't you guess? I was thinking of you and of all you have done for me."

"Perhaps a little of me, but not altogether, I fear. Cuthbert, do you believe you will ever regret?"

"No, no! ten thousand times, no! Would a man ever regret having been given a chance of heaven?"

"You are begging the question! I mean, my husband," – her voice dwelt with infinite tenderness upon the name, – "do you think you will ever have cause to wish you had never seen me, when you see what other cleverer and prettier women you might have married?"

"I should never have married any other. You are my destiny. I was born into the world to marry you, and no one else. How could it possibly have been otherwise?"

"You are very silly. I want to talk seriously."

"That is talking seriously."

"It is nonsense. But listen, dear. You must forgive me for bringing up the subject on this night, of all others, but I cannot let it rest. I will never speak of it again if you wish it. But you must answer me truthfully for the last time."

He bit his lip to keep back the cry of fear that almost escaped him. He knew what was coming, and dreaded it like the cutting of a flashing knife.

"Go on!"

"Cuthbert, if you ever went back to your old world and saw women, as I say, cleverer and more beautiful than I am, you might wish you had never seen me. You would not tell me so, and you would not, if you could help it, let me guess it, but my woman's instinct would warn me – and then what should I do? I should be chained to you, and you would be chained to me. I should be a drag upon you – a curse – instead of the help I wish to be. I should love you just the same, because I could never love anyone else; but think what the depth of my despair would be!"

A large tear fell on the back of his hand. He drew her to him with almost a fierceness.

"I told you the other day I should never go back to my old world. I am dead to it, and it is dead to me. I am Cuthbert Ellison, the pearler, your husband, and I wish to be no other. Forget, for mercy's sake, that I ever had a past; let us live only for my present and the future. Let me be to you the husband I would wish to be; let me work, toil, knowing no weariness in what is done for you; let me build up a new life of honour for your sake, and let the dead past bury its dead. I love you, and I want no world that has not you in it. Let us never speak on this subject again."

"You are not angry with me for saying what I did."

"Angry, no! I am sorry, full of remorse that I ever told you that story. God must help me to atone for it. I shall never be able to rid myself of the fear that you will hate me for it."

"You are unjust to yourself, and even, I think, a little unjust to me. Had you not told me, there would always have been a barrier between us. Now I know everything, and, believe me, I do not honour you the less for telling me."

She raised his hand to her mouth and imprinted a kiss upon it. That kiss stung him to the quick. Like the look of trust upon her face when he had helped her from the boat, it was almost a reproach. It was the beginning of his punishment. He made shift to change the course of the conversation.

"Darling," he said, "have you thought seriously yet of what our marriage means to us? Have you thought what you have made of the man who only a month ago stood before you in this very veranda, in rags and tatters, asking for employment to keep body and soul together? That man is now your husband. Linked to you not for to-day or to-morrow, next week or next month, but for all time, for all eternity. Your husband – part of your own self: surely that should be sufficient passport for me into heaven itself. My interests are to be your interests, your hopes my hopes – in fact, your life is mine, and my life yours. There is an awful solemnity about it. If I could only grasp the drift of it all!"

"Grasp the drift? You are the drift. You must help me to make my life, I must help you to make yours; that is what it means. If we do our duty to each other, surely we ought, then, to pull through?"

"I am afraid of myself, Esther. Not afraid of my love for you, but afraid of the slowness of Time, of the gradual development of things."

"Are we not getting a little out of our depth, love? I want to know nothing but your love for me, that is all. Let us leave the subject. See how vivid the lightning is getting. I fear we are in for a storm."

And in truth the flashes were growing almost alarming. Heavy thunder echoed among the islands, and the wind was every moment increasing in violence. Suddenly an awful flash seemed to tear the very heavens asunder. In that brief instant Ellison made out the figure of a man standing in the open before them, not more than forty yards from the veranda steps. His back was towards them, and his hands were uplifted above his head. Esther saw him too, and uttered a little cry.

"Who can it be?" she exclaimed in alarm. "Cuthbert, call him in! He will be struck by the lightning!"

She had hardly spoken before another flash rent the darkness. Still the figure stood before them exactly where they had first seen it. But this time his identity was unmistakable. It was Murkard! When the next flash came he was gone.

"What could he have been doing?" Esther asked, as the thunder rolled away. To her Murkard's ways were always a matter of much mystery.

"I can't think. Thank goodness, he doesn't often act in that fashion."

"I am afraid of him, Cuthbert. I have never been able to make myself take to him as I took to you."

"He is a difficult man to know, that is why, little woman. But he is as good as gold! A queer fish, perhaps a little mad, but with it all a better man than I am."

"That I will never believe."

"God grant you may never have reason to think otherwise. But don't worry yourself about Murkard. He is and always has been my truest friend."

"And what am I, my lord and master?"

"You are my wife – part of myself!"

She nestled lovingly against his side.

"Part of yourself! How sweet that sounds! I wonder if any other woman was ever so happy as I?"

Once more Ellison sighed. At that moment the lightning flashed out again, just in time to show them the same mysterious figure emerging from the group of palms and moving towards the hut, Esther saw it, and gave another little cry. Ellison rose.

"I must go and find out what he means by it. Don't be afraid, I'll be back in a minute."

As he left the veranda the storm broke, and the rain came pouring down. Presently he was running back. For a moment he could hardly speak. His face was as pale as death.

"Well, what did he say?"

"Nothing; he is fast asleep! I never knew he was a somnambulist before."

"But you are trembling, and you are as white as a sheet. Something is troubling you, Cuthbert. Tell me what it is."

"It is nothing, dearest, believe me. I was only a little frightened at the risk he had run. He might have been struck by lightning at any moment. Poor Murkard!"

A few minutes later she went inside and turned up the lamp. The rain was still pouring on the roof. But, though he was looking straight before him into the night, he hardly noticed it. He was saying to himself over and over again a sentence he had heard Murkard mutter in his sleep. It was an old Bible warning, one with which he had been familiar from his youth up, but to-night it had the power to shake him to his very core. It ran as follows:

"Be sure your sin will find you out!"

CHAPTER VI

A TEMPTATION – A FALL – AND A SERIES OF EMOTIONS

Six months had elapsed since the wedding – six months of almost perfect happiness for Ellison. I am compelled to say almost, for the reason that an influx of business worries during that period had caused him a very considerable amount of anxiety, and had, in a measure, necessarily detracted from his domestic peace. The pearling season had not turned out as well as had been expected of it. Continual stormy weather had militated against the boats at sea, and a gradual but appreciable decline in the price of shell had had the same effect on shore. As he could only regard himself in the light of a trustee of his wife's estate, this run of bad luck struck him in a tender place. But through it all Esther proved herself a most perfect wife. He found it an inestimable boon after a long and hard day's work to be able to go to her for sympathy and advice, both of which she was quite competent to give. She was, by long experience, a past mistress of all the details of the business, and her shrewd common sense and womanly penetration enabled her to grasp things and advise on them long before her more matter-of-fact husband had mastered their first general elements. His respect for her talents became almost enthusiastic. She was now no longer the old Esther of the past, but a new and glorious womanhood, figuring in his eyes more as a leader than a wife.

As the year advanced, instead of bettering themselves things grew steadily worse. Acting on the advice of his wife and Murkard, he had curtailed expenses in every direction, forced himself to do without many things that at other times would have been classed as absolute necessaries, and discharged as many hands as could possibly be spared. This lightened the load for a while; but it soon became painfully evident that, unless more capital was soon forthcoming, the pearling station must inevitably close its doors. But in what direction could they look for such assistance? The banks were already dropping hints as to long-standing overdrafts, and, seeing the losses they were daily sustaining, it would be impossible to expect any mercy from them. On all sides companies were abandoning stations, or transferring their business elsewhere. It was a time of serious financial danger, and night and day Ellison worried himself to know how it was all to end. It was not for himself he cared; it was for Esther – only for Esther. Indeed, the anxiety was telling seriously upon his health. He could not sleep for its weight upon his mind. If only he could raise a couple of thousand pounds, he continually argued, he might place the station in a position by which it might not only weather the storm, but enable it to do even a larger business than before when the reaction set in. Again and again he discussed the matter with his wife and Murkard, but without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.

One night after dinner, just as he was going out to the veranda for his customary smoke, Murkard called him outside.