Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/398

378 “Damn the house!” cried Daintree. “The girl can look after the house; your place is at your master’s side, or else you are the foulest ingrate in New South Wales! But you are; I have always known you were; you have only waited for this hour to turn and rend me!”

“You are wrong,” said Tom grimly. “I do not leave your side again.” For the man must be mad: and Tom no longer shirked the ceremony, but for one instant had a mad design himself; the next, his right hand was warmly held.

“Thank God!” cried Daintree in a breaking voice. “I knew you didn’t mean it; no more did I mean anything I said; forgive me, Thomas, and don’t desert me at the last!”

And Tom’s heart sank as it once more softened to the man who was not mad but only unstrung; and again he longed to eschew the church; but he kept his word, and fortune was yet to prove his friend. A mile they had driven when a loud cry broke from Daintree. In his agitation he had forgotten the ring. He burst into tears at the discovery.

“Never mind—never mind!” cried Tom in his oldest rôle. “We can turn back—what, isn’t there time? No, I know it would never do to keep her waiting! Then look here, I’ll run back and gallop in again on your horse; I’ll be there almost as soon as you; and the ring isn’t wanted till quite the end.”

Daintree thanked him through his tears—the first Tom had ever seen in those fiery eyes —and he sped back strangely touched, but strangely comforted too. At least he loved her! The man might be egotistical and vain and overbearing, all three to the verge of lunacy, but that he was marrying for sheer love was even