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"Lady Holmhurst," said Augusta, taking the bull by the horns, "Mr. Tombey has been speaking to me and has" "Proposed to you," suggested Lady Holmhurst, admiring the Southern Cross through her eyeglasses. "You said he went forward, you know." "Has proposed to me," answered Augusta, ignoring the little joke. "I regret," she went on hurriedly, "that I have not been able to fall in with Mr.
"I am in no hurry," said Augusta, stepping forward with the trembling child in her arms; and her action for a few seconds produced a calming effect, for the men stopped. "Come on!" said Mr. Tombey, stooping to lift her over the side, only to be nearly knocked down by a man who made a desperate effort to get into the boat. It was Mr. Meeson, and, recognising him, Mr.
Tombey's plans." "Ah!" said Lady Holmhurst; "I am sorry, for some things. Mr. Tombey is such a very nice young man, and so very gentlemanlike. I thought that perhaps it might suit your views, and it would have simplified your future arrangements. But as to that, of course, while you are in New Zealand, I shall be able to see to that.
"Confound her!" went on Meeson, without noticing his remark, and contracting his heavy eyebrows, "there's no end to the trouble she has brought on me. I quarrelled with my nephew about her, and now she's dragging my name through the dirt here, and I'll bet the story will go all over New Zealand and Australia." "Yes," said Mr. Tombey, "I fancy you will find it take a lot of choking; and now, Mr.
I held out my hand and he looked right over it, and marched by." "Ah!" said Mr. Tombey, who was a wealthy New Zealand landowner; "and now, why do you suppose he did that?" "Why? I'll tell you why. It's all about that girl." "Miss Smithers, do you mean?" said Tombey the big, with a curious flash of his deep-set eyes. "Yes, Miss Smithers.
"Well, Augusta?" said Lady Holmhurst, for she called her "Augusta" now. "And what have you done with that young man, Mr. Tombey that very nice young man?" she added with emphasis. "I think that Mr. Tombey went forward," said Augusta. The two women looked at each other, and, womanlike, each understood what the other meant. Lady Holmhurst had not been altogether innocent in the Tombey affair.
Tombey had been very, even markedly, polite, and she, not being a fool, had seen that he admired her; but she had never expected this, and the suddenness with which the shot was fired was somewhat bewildering. "Why, Mr. Tombey," she said in a surprised voice, "you have only known me for a little more than a fortnight."
Tombey was nervous and ill at ease; Miss Smithers very much at ease, and reflecting that her companion's moustachios would very well become a villain in a novel. Mr. Tombey looked at the star-spangled sky, on which the Southern Cross hung low, and he looked at the phosphorescent sea; but from neither did inspiration come. Inspiration is from within, and not from without.
She heard her, and waved her hand wildly towards her; and then the men in the boat gave way, and in a second it was out of earshot. Just then a tall form seized Augusta by the arm. She looked up: it was Mr. Tombey, and she saw that in his other hand he held a revolver. "Thank God!" he shouted in her ear, "I have found you! This way this way, quick!"
It passed with a sigh, and in its place there came the memory of poor Mr. Tombey, but for whom she would not have been standing there a bride, and of his last words as he put her into the boat. He was food for fishes now, poor fellow, and she was left alone with a great and happy career opening out before her a career in which her talents would have free space to work.
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