"I know that now. While you have been speaking I, too, have had my eyes opened. It is not necessary to say I believe what you have told me, Murkard; but from the bottom of my heart I thank you. I will go back now and deal with him."
"Forgive you? No, no! It must be the other way about, it is for you to forgive me!"
"Freely, freely, if I have anything to forgive. Now what do you intend to do?"
"Go home and turn him off the place. That's what I shall do."
"No! You must do nothing of the kind. Somebody must watch him, and I will do it. Possibly we may find out what he has done with the pearl. Then we shall catch him in his own toils, and I shall be even with him for his treachery to me."
"I cannot tell you the real shame, but it was on his evidence that I was condemned. He was staying in the house at the time."
"Murkard, I could give my oath you were not guilty."
"And you would be right. I was not. But I had to plead guilty all the same to save what a worthless woman miscalled her honour. That man knew my secret, and traded on it to my ruin."
"Come, let us get back to the station. I cannot breathe freely until I have rid myself of him."
"When we get there--you must not let my presence be known. I shall hide and watch him."
They went back round the hill and by a circuitous track to the jetty. In less than a quarter of an hour they were back at the station and walking up the path towards the house.
A warm flood of lamplight streamed from the sitting room window out on the path as Ellison approached the house. He could make out Merton's voice inside raised in argument, and at intervals his wife's replying in tones that were as unnatural to her as they were terrible to him to hear. He drew into the shadow of the veranda and watched and listened. Esther was seated on the sofa near the fireplace, Merton was kneeling by her side holding her hand. She had turned her head away from him, but as it was in the direction of the place where her husband lay concealed, he could see that big tears were coursing down her cheeks. He ground his teeth with rage as he noticed the look upon Merton's face. For the first time he saw the man's real nature written in plain and unmistakable characters.
"Esther, you cannot mean it. You cannot be so cruel to me as to persist in your refusal. Think what you are to me, and think what you may be in the days before us. True, I have only known you a little while, but in that little while I have learned to love you as no other man could ever do. Body and soul I am yours, and you are mine. You love me--I know it--I am certain of it. Then you will not draw back now?"