A Son of the Sahara Part 33

Raoul Le Breton a half-caste! The man she loved "a n.i.g.g.e.r"!

Pansy did not hide from herself the fact that she still loved Le Breton, but this last piece of news about him put him quite beyond the pale.

Also it put a new light on the affair of Lucille Lemesurier.

He was of a different race, a different religion, a different colour, with a wholly different outlook.

After the first gust of temper was over, Pansy had wanted to find some excuse for Le Breton over the affair of the French actress.

It is easy to find excuses for a person when one is anxious to find them. And now it seemed she had one.

He was a Mohammedan. His religion allowed him four wives, and as many other women as he pleased. No wonder he had been angry at the fuss she had made over Lucille Lemesurier! According to his code he had done no wrong.

Now Pansy wanted to apologise for her rudeness in invading his villa; for her temper, and the scene that followed.

The fault was all hers. She ought to have found out more about him before letting things go so far. She had liked him, and she had troubled about nothing else.

She ought never to have encouraged him. For when they had breakfasted together that morning among the red roses, she knew he was in love with her.

"There are lots of things about myself I haven't told you."

Le Breton's remark came back to her mind.

No wonder he had wanted to marry her at once! Before she found out anything about him.

Pansy tried to feel angry with her erstwhile lover. But, phantom-like, the strength of his arms was around her, his handsome, sunburnt face was close to her own, his voice was whispering words of love and longing, his lips on hers in those pa.s.sionate kisses that made her forget everything but himself.

Her eyes went round the room, a brave, tortured look in them.

Were there other women there, suffering as she was suffering?

Suffering, and who yet had to go on smiling? The world demanded her smiles, and it should have them, although her heart was bleeding at the tragedy of her own making.

Not only her heart, but Raoul's. Because she had encouraged him.

She must not blame him. For the odds were all against him. She must try and see things from his point of view--the point of view of a polygamist.

That night when Pansy got back home, she wrote the following note:--

"Dear Mr. Le Breton,

I owe you an apology. Only to-night I have learnt that you are of another race, another religion than mine. It makes things look quite different. You see things from the point of view of your race, I, of mine. I am sorry I did not know all this sooner; I should have acted very differently. I should not have come to your villa that night and made a stupid fuss, for one thing. About such matters men of your race and religion are quite different from men of my own. I am sorry for all that occurred. For my own bad temper and the annoyance I must have caused you. But I did not know anything about you then.

Yours regretfully, Pansy Langham.

P.S.--I shall be calling at Grand Canary in about ten days' time with my father, Sir George Barclay. I am going out to Africa with him. If you care to come on board during the evening I should like to see you and say how sorry I am.

P. L."

CHAPTER XXII

One day when Le Breton returned from one of the mad rides he frequently indulged in, in a vain effort to a.s.suage the pain and chagrin that raged within him, he found among a pile of letters put aside for his inspection, one with an English stamp.

Letters from that country rarely came his way. But it was not the novelty that attracted him, making him pick it out from the others, but the writing.

He had seen it once before, on a note that had turned his heaven into h.e.l.l, when for the first time he had learnt what it was to be rejected by a woman.

He tore the envelope open, eager for the contents.

What had the girl to say to him? Why had she written?

With a wild throb of hope, he drew out the message.

Once he had called Pansy a little creature of rare surprises. But none equalled the surprise in store for him now.

It was not the apologies in the note he saw; nor a girl's desire to try and see things from his point of view; nor the fact that, despite everything, she was unable to break away from him.

He saw only one thing.

She was Sir George Barclay's daughter! The girl he loved to distraction was the child of his father's murderer!

Astounded he stared at the note. He could not believe it. Yet it was there, written in Pansy's own hand.

"With my father, Sir George Barclay."

Pansy, the child of the man he hated! That brave, kind, slim, teasing girl, who for one brief week had filled him with a happiness and love and contentment such as he had once deemed impossible.

As he brooded on the note a variety of emotions raged within him.

A vengeance that had rankled for sixteen years fought with a love that had grown up in a week.

Then he pulled himself together, as if amazed at his own indecision.

He took the note, with its pathos and pleading; a girl's endeavour to meet the view of the man she loved, whose outlook was quite beyond her.

Deliberately he tore it across and across, into shreds, slowly and with a cruel look on his face, as if it were something alive that he was torturing, and that gave him pleasure to torture.

For Le Breton had decided what his course was to be. The vengeance he had promised long years ago should be carried out, with slight alterations. He had a way now of torturing Sir George Barclay that would be punishment beyond any death. And Pansy was the tool he intended to use. What was more, she was to pay the penalty of her father's crime. For he would mete out to her the measure he had promised sixteen years ago.

However, this decision did not prevent Le Breton from going to Pansy's yacht the evening of its arrival in Grand Canary.

After dinner he made his way along the quay towards the white vessel with its flare of light that stood out against the dark night.

Evidently he was expected. On inquiring for Miss Langham, he was shown into the cabin where he had had his previous interview with her; and with the feeling that things would go his way, if he had but a little patience: a virtue he had never been called upon to exercise where a woman was concerned.

Le Breton's feelings as he stayed on in the pretty cabin would be difficult to describe. Everything was redolent of the girl, touching his heart with fairy fingers; a heart he had hardened against her.