The expression on Claude's face when they met to go home together told him all; but he did not need to be told anything. He knew that it was inevitable. Agnes had accepted Claude: she had accepted him and told him to go out to Africa; she would wait for him to return, even though he might not return for ten years, she had said, laughingly.
Alas! alas! the lover had gone at the head of his expedition to the Zambesi, and for seven months news had come from him at irregular intervals--for seven months only; after that--silence. No line came from him, no rumour of the fate of the expedition had reached England, though at the end of the second year a large reward had been offered to any one who could throw light on the mystery.
Eight years had now passed since the expedition had set out from Zanzibar, and there was only one person alive who rejected every suggestion that disaster had overtaken Claude Westwood and his companions. It had become an article of faith with Agnes that her lover would return. The lapse of years seemed to strengthen rather than to attenuate her hope. Her father had died when Claude had been absent for two years, and almost his last words to her had been of hope.
“Fear nothing for him; he will return to you. I know what manner of man it is that succeeds in the world, and Claude Westwood is not the man to fail. I shall not see him, but you will. Whatever happens, whatever people round you may say, don't relinquish hope for him.”
Those had been her father's words, and she had obeyed their injunction. She had not given up hope, although no one in the neighbourhood ever thought of mentioning the name of Claude Westwood in her hearing. It seemed that the very memory of the man had died out in Brackenhurst. She had not given up hope although now and again she had been startled to see a grey hair where a brown one had been.
And for eight years Richard Westwood had watched her, wondering what would be the end of her devotion--what would be the end of his own devotion. People in the neighbourhood could not understand him. They took the trouble every now and then to invent a theory to account for his singular rejection of the delicate hints that had been thrown out to him by mothers of many daughters--hints that the head of the house of Westwood had certain duties in life--social duties--to discharge. The theories were more or less ingenious; but even when some of them had come to his ears he remained as obdurate as ever. He merely laughed, and the man who laughs is well known to be the most discouraging of men.