and every soul on board was supposed to have perished.
Mivanway read his name among the list of lost; the child died within her,
and she knew herself for a woman who had loved deeply, and will not love
again.
Good luck intervening, however, Charles and one other man were rescued by
a small trading vessel, and landed in Algiers. There Charles learnt of
his supposed death, and the idea occurred to him to leave the report
uncontradicted. For one thing, it solved a problem that had been
troubling him. He could trust his father to see to it that his own small
fortune, with possibly something added, was handed over to Mivanway, and
she would be free if she wished to marry again. He was convinced that
she did not care for him, and that she had read of his death with a sense
of relief. He would make a new life for himself, and forget her.
He continued his journey to the Cape, and once there he soon gained for
himself an excellent position. The colony was young, engineers were
welcome, and Charles knew his business. He found the life interesting
and exciting. The rough, dangerous up-country work suited him, and the
time passed swiftly.
But in thinking he would forget Mivanway, he had not taken into
consideration his own character, which at bottom was a very gentlemanly
character. Out on the lonely veldt he found himself dreaming of her. The
memory of her pretty face and merry laugh came back to him at all hours.
Occasionally he would curse her roundly, but that only meant that he was
sore because of the thought of her; what he was really cursing was
himself and his own folly. Softened by the distance, her quick temper,
her very petulance became mere added graces; and if we consider women as
human beings and not as angels, it was certainly a fact that he had lost
a very sweet and lovable woman. Ah! if she only were by his side now--now
that he was a man capable of appreciating her, and not a foolish, selfish
boy. This thought would come to him as he sat smoking at the door of his
tent, and then he would regret that the stars looking down upon him were
not the same stars that were watching her, it would have made him feel
nearer to her. For, though young people may not credit it, one grows
more sentimental as one grows older; at least, some of us do, and they
perhaps not the least wise.
One night he had a vivid dream of her. She came to him and held out her
hand, and he took it, and they said good-bye to one
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