A WEDDING—A CONVERSATION—AND AN EPISODE.

Towards sundown the following afternoon the remains of Alexander McCartney were conveyed across the straits and interred in the little cemetery above the township of Port Kennedy. A week later his daughter became Cuthbert Ellison's wife. It had been the dead man's wish that there should be no delay in the marriage. He was anxious to have his daughter's safety assured within as short a time of his demise as possible. Nor had either of them any objection to raise. The wedding took place in the little church on the hill-side, and Silas Murkard acted as his friend's best man. After the ceremony they sailed quietly home in one of their own boats to receive the congratulations of Mrs. Fenwick and the station, and to take up the old life once more.

As Ellison lifted his wife out of the boat on to the little jetty he looked into her eyes. There was only pure happiness and unutterable trust written there. He lowered his own before her gaze and heaved a heavy sigh.

When she had passed into the house, proudly escorted by Mrs. Fenwick, Murkard came up to him and took his hand.

"Cuthbert, I have waited my chance to congratulate you. We are alone now, and from the bottom of my heart I wish you happiness."

"Thank you. You have been a good friend to me, Silas."

"There is no question of friendship between us. It is more than that. But there is one thing I want to say to you."

"Say on."

"You will not be offended with me?"

"Never. I don't think it is in your power to do that, old friend."

"Very well, then I will say it. Cuthbert Ellison, you think you know the woman who has this day become your wife?"

Ellison nodded. He wondered what was coming.

"You would be surprised and perhaps angry if I told you that I know her a thousand times better than you do or ever will know her. I can read her nature as I can read yours. And for this reason I warn you. That woman has one of the purest and most beautiful minds ever given by God to any human being. Beware how you act towards her, beware of what you say! Remember, though you may mean nothing by what you say, she will never forget one single word. You have only to look into her eyes to see what she thinks of you now. She believes in you heart and soul, she worships the very ground you walk on; it remains with you to say whether she shall retain that trust or not. What you have said to her already cling to as a shipwrecked man clings to a spar; what you say in the future must be your own concern. I will help you if ever help be needed, but in the meantime watch yourself, and if there is a God watching over us may he bless and keep you both. I have spoken!"

Having said this he turned on his heel and walked quickly away in the direction of his own solitary hut. He entered and closed the door.

The evening meal finished, Ellison and Esther passed out to the veranda together. The day had been fine, but the night was dark and stormy; thick clouds obscured the heavens, big waves broke on the beach with ominous grumblings, and now and again swift streaks of lightning flashed across the sky. Husband and wife sat side by side. The man was reviewing in his mind the events of the day, and wondering at the strange conversation he had had with Murkard that evening. In spite of his supreme happiness a vague feeling of sadness was upon him that would not be dispelled. Esther was all content. Woman-like she derived an intense pleasure from mere personal contact with the being she adored. She could just see the outline of his face against the sky, and she wondered at its sadness. At last she spoke:

"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!"