"We shall see,"Francis answered grimly."I'll be frank with you,Trent.When we came in here you called me your enemy.Well,in a sense you were right.I distrusted and disliked you from the moment I first met you in Bekwando village with poor old Monty for a partner,and read the agreement you had drawn up and the clause about the death of either making the survivor sole legatee.In a regular fever swamp Monty was drinking poison like water -and you were watching.That may have seemed all right to you.To me it was very much like murder.It was my mistrust of you which made me send men after you both through the bush,and,sure enough,they found poor Monty abandoned,left to die while you had hastened off to claim your booty.After that I had adventures enough of my own for a bit and I lost sight of you until I came across you and your gang road-making,and I am bound to admit that you saved my life.
That's neither here nor there.I asked about Monty and you told me some plausible tale.I went to the place you spoke of -to find him of course spirited away.We have met again in England,Scarlett Trent,and I have asked once more for Monty.Once more I am met with evasions.This morning I granted you a week -now I take back my word.I am going to make public what I know to-morrow morning.""Since this morning,then,"Trent said,"your ill-will toward me has increased.""Quite true,"Francis answered."We are playing with the cards upon the table,so I will be frank with you.What you told me about your intentions towards Miss Wendermott makes me determined to strike at once!""You yourself,I fancy,"Trent said quietly,"admired her?""More than any woman I have ever met,"Francis answered promptly,"and I consider your attitude towards her grossly presumptuous."Trent stood quite still for a moment -then he unlocked the door.
"You had better go,Francis,"he said quietly."I have a defence prepared but I will reserve it.And listen,when I locked that door it was with a purpose.I had no mind to let you leave as you are leaving.Never mind.You can go -only be quick."Francis paused upon the threshold."You understand,"he said significantly.
"I understand,"Trent answered.
An hour passed,and Trent still remained in the chair before his writing-table,his head upon his hand,his eyes fixed upon vacancy.
Afterwards he always thought of that hour as one of the bitterest of his life.A strong and self-reliant man,he had all his life ignored companionship,had been well content to live without friends,self-contained and self-sufficient.To-night the spectre of a great loneliness sat silently by his side!His heart was sore,his pride had been bitterly touched,the desire and the whole fabric of his life was in imminent and serious danger.
The man who had left him was an enemy and a prejudiced man,but Trent knew that he was honest.He was the first human being to whom he had ever betrayed the solitary ambition of his life,and his scornful words seemed still to bite the air.If -he was right!
Why not?Trent looked with keen,merciless eyes through his past,and saw never a thing there to make him glad.He had started life a workman,with a few ambitions'all of a material nature -he had lived the life of a cold,scheming money-getter,absolutely selfish,negatively moral,doing little evil perhaps,but less good.There was nothing in his life to make him worthy of a woman's love,most surely there was nothing which could ever make it possible that such a woman as Ernestine Wendermott should ever care for him.All the wealth of Africa could never make him anything different from what he was.And yet,as he sat and realised this,he knew that he was writing down his life a failure.For,beside his desire for her,there were no other things he cared for in life.Already he was weary of financial warfare -the City life had palled upon him.He looked around the magnificent room in the mansion which his agents had bought and furnished for him.He looked at the pile of letters waiting for him upon his desk,little square envelopes many of them,but all telling the same tale,all tributes to his great success,and the mockery of it all smote hard upon the walls of his fortitude.
Lower and lower his head drooped until it was buried in his folded arms -and the hour which followed he always reckoned the bitterest of his life.
