“I fear that is clear enough,” said Mr. Clifford, as he folded up his paper.
“Yes, clear enough,” she repeated in a strained voice. “And yet—yet— oh! Father, he had just asked me to marry him, and I can’t believe that he is dead before I had time to answer.”
“Good Heavens!” said the old man, “they never told me that. It is dreadfully sad. God help you, my poor child! There is nothing more to say except that he was only one among three hundred who have gone with him. Be brave now, before all these people. Look—here comes the tug.”
The following week was very much of a blank to Benita. When they reached shore some old friends of her father’s took her and him to their house, a quiet place upon the Berea. Here, now that the first excitement of rescue and grief was over, the inevitable reaction set in, bringing with it weakness so distressing that the doctor insisted upon her going to bed, where she remained for the next five days. With the healing up of the wound in her head her strength came back to her at last, but it was a very sad Benita who crept from her room one afternoon on to the verandah and looked out at the cruel sea, peaceful now as the sky above.
Her father, who had nursed her tenderly during these dark days, came and sat by her, taking her hand in his.
“This is capital,” he said, glancing at her anxiously. “You are getting quite yourself again.”
“I shall never be myself again,” she answered. “My old self is dead, although the outside of me has recovered. Father, I suppose that it is wrong, but I wish that I were dead too. I wish that he had taken me with him when he jumped into the sea to lighten the boat.”
“Don’t speak like that,” he broke in hastily. “Of course I know that I am not much to you—how can I be after all that is past? But I love you, dear, and if I were left quite alone again——” And he broke off.
“You shall not be left alone if I can help it,” she replied, looking at the old man with her dark and tender eyes. “We have only each other in the world now, have we? The rest have gone, never to return.”
He threw his arms about her, and, drawing her to him, kissed her passionately.
“If only you could learn to love me!” he said.
“I do love you,” she answered, “who now shall never love any other man upon the earth.”
This was the beginning of a deep affection which sprang up between Mr. Clifford and his daughter, and continued to the end.
“Is there any news?” she asked a little later.
“None—none about him. The tide took his body away, no doubt, after the Kaffir had gone. I remember him well now. He was a fine young man, and it comes into my mind that when I said good-bye to him above those old ruins, I wished that I had a son like that. And to think that he went so near to becoming a son to me! Well, the grass must bend when the wind blows, as the natives say.”
“I am glad that you knew him,” she answered simply.
Then they began talking about other matters. He told her that all the story had become known, and that people spoke of Robert Seymour as “the hero”; also that there was a great deal of curiosity about her.
“Then let us get away as soon as we can,” she said nervously. “But, Father, where are we going?”
“That will be for you to decide, love. Listen, now; this is my position. I have been quite steady for years, and worked hard, with the result that I and my partner have a fine farm in the Transvaal, on the high land near Lake Chrissie, out Wakkerstroom way. We breed horses there, and have done very well with them. I have £1,500 saved, and the farm brings us in quite £600 a year beyond the expenses. But it is a lonely place, with only a few Boers about, although they are good fellows enough. You might not care to live there with no company.”
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