At Large

"Have you and Alice been quarrelling?" asked Alice's father abruptly.

Dick answered simply that they had. Colonel Bristo silently paced the carpet. When he spoke again it was to revert to the subject of Miles.

"Yes, I am sorry enough to lose him; for we had become great friends, intimate friends, and we understood one another thoroughly, he and I. But the worst of it is, we shan't have him with us in Yorkshire. What a man for the moors! And how he would have enjoyed it! But there; it's no use talking; we're all disappointed, and there's an end of it."

The Colonel laid his hand on Dick's shoulder, and added:

"You won't disappoint us, my boy?"

"For the moors, sir?"

"Why, of course."

"I cannot go – I am very sorry" – hastily – "but – "

"Nonsense, Dick!"

"I really cannot – I cannot, indeed," with lame repetition.

"And why?" asked Colonel Bristo, mildly. "Why – when you promised us weeks ago?"

Dick raised his eyes from the ground, and the answer was given and understood without words; yet he felt impelled to speak. He began in a low voice, nervously:

"Without disrespect, sir, I think I may beg of you not to insist on an explanation – either from me, or from – anyone else. It could do no good. It might do – I mean it might cause – additional pain. You have guessed the reason? Yes, you see it clearly – you understand. And – and you seem sorry. Don't let it trouble you, sir. There are lots better than I." He paused, then added uncertainly: "Colonel Bristo, you have been more, far more, than kind and good to me. If you treated me like a son before it was time – well – well, it will all be a pleasant memory to – to take away with me."

"Away?"

"Yes, away; back to Australia," said Dick, expressing his newest thought as though it were his oldest. "Before you get back from the north, I shall probably be on my way."

"Don't do that, Dick – don't do that," said Colonel Bristo, with some feeling.

Personal liking for Dick apart, it was not a pleasant reflection that his daughter had jilted the man who had come from Australia to marry her, and was sending him back there.

Dick answered him sadly.

"It can't be helped, sir. It is all over. It is decent that I should go."

"I don't understand 'em – never understood 'em," muttered the old man vaguely, and half to himself. "Still, there is no one but Dick, I dare swear; who should there be but Dick?"

Dick stepped forward, as though to push the scales from the eyes of this unseeing man; but he checked his impulse, and cried huskily, holding the thin hand in his own great strong one:

"Good-bye, Colonel Bristo. God bless you, sir! Good-bye!"

And the young man was gone.

XVI

MILITARY MANŒUVRES

"Well!" exclaimed Colonel Bristo, after some minutes. He leant back in his chair and stared sternly at his book-shelves. "It's a nice look-out for the moors; that's all."

His reflections were dispiriting. He was thinking that the only two men whom he had really wanted down in Yorkshire had this morning, almost in the same breath, declared that they could not go. They were, in fact, both going back to Australia – independently, from widely different reasons. With Miles the necessity was pressing enough, no doubt; and then he had only been visiting England, and never contemplated a long stay. But Dick's case was very different. He had come home for good, with his "pile" and his prospects. Could he possibly have been made so miserable during these few weeks that he would be glad to bury himself again in the bush? Could his case be really so hopeless as he himself believed it?

"If so," said Colonel Bristo with irritation, "then Alice has played the deuce with the best young fellow in England!"

But how could he tell? How was he, the father, to get at the facts of the case? Alice was all the world to him: but for all the world he would not have sought her confidence in such a matter. Then what was he to do?

He got up from his chair, and paced the floor with the stride of a skipper on his poop. He had liked young Edmonstone always – respected him as a mere stripling. Love-sick boys were, as a rule, selfish, if not sly, young fools – that was his experience; but this one had shown himself upright and fearless – had, in fact, behaved uncommonly well, once the mischief was done. But that liking had developed into affection since the night of Dick's arrival. Poor fellow! how grateful he had been! how hopeful! Who could have discouraged him? The Colonel, for his part, had no reason to do so now. What was there against him? what against "it"? In a word, he had soon – as he saw more of him – set his heart upon Dick for his son. Secretly, he had already formed certain projects of parental ingenuity. He had already, in his walks, held stealthy intercourse with house and estate agents, and otherwise dipped into the future of other people, further than he had any business. And here was the death-blow to it all! The pair had quarrelled so violently that the prospective son-in-law was on the point of taking himself back to Australia! One thing was certain: it could be no ordinary disagreement – she must have jilted him. But if so, for whom? She had seen nobody for months – nobody but Miles! And Miles – the Colonel smiled indulgently – with all his good points, with all his fine qualities, Miles was no marrying man. Then who could it be? Once more he, her father, was unable to tell, for the life of him.

He sat down, rose again in a moment, and rang the bell. Then he sent a polite message to Mrs. Parish, requesting her kind attendance, if not in any way inconvenient.

"She can at least put me right on one or two points. That is, if she doesn't go off at a tangent, down some blind-alley of a side issue!"

The lady appeared after the regulation delay, by which she was in the habit of italicising the dignity of her office.

By her greeting, one would have thought the appointment was of her making. She observed that she would have come before to inquire how the Colonel felt after it all, but understood that he was engaged.

The Colonel explained with a sigh.

"He is gone."

"Ah!" There was unprecedented sympathy in the lady's look and tone.

"You saw him go?" asked the Colonel, looking up in surprise.

"I did," sadly; "I did."

"He said good-bye to you, perhaps?"

"To be sure he did! He was hardly likely to – "

"He didn't ask to see Alice, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, he did."

"Dear me!" said the Colonel to himself.

"But she could not see him, I grieve to say; it was a thousand pities, seeing that he's going straight back to Australia."

"Oh, he told you that too, did he?"

"Of course, Colonel Bristo, when he said good-bye."

"Dear me! But why wouldn't Alice see him?"

"It was too early."

"A mere excuse," exclaimed the Colonel angrily, looking at his watch. "Too early! It is plain that she has thrown him over. If so, then the best young fellow in England has been – But perhaps you can tell me whether it really is so?"