enough to love the girl,--an explanation. He would have asked it of
Trafford first if he had seen him. She said Lawless should trust her;
that she had no explanation at that moment to give. If he waited--but
Lawless asked her if she cared for him at all, if she wished or intended
to marry him? She replied lightly, 'Perhaps, when you become Sir Duke
Lawless.' Then Lawless accused her of heartlessness, and of encouraging
both his uncle and Just Trafford. She amusingly said, 'Perhaps she had,
but it really didn't matter, did it?' For reply, Lawless said her
interest in the whole family seemed active and impartial. He bade her
not vex herself at all about him, and not to wait until he became Sir
Duke Lawless, but to give preference to seniority and begin with the
title at once; which he has reason since to believe that she did. What
he said to her he has been sorry for, not because he thinks it was
undeserved, but because he has never been able since to rouse himself to
anger on the subject, nor to hate the girl and Just Trafford as he ought.
Of the dead he is silent altogether. He never sought an explanation from
Just Trafford, for he left that night for London, and in two days was on
his way to Australia. The day he left, however, he received a note from
his banker saying that L8000 had been placed to his credit by Admiral
Lawless. Feeling the indignity of what he believed was the cause of the
gift, Lawless neither acknowledged it nor used it, not any penny of it.
Five years have gone since then, and Lawless has wandered over two
continents, a self-created exile. He has learned much that he didn't
learn at Oxford; and not the least of all, that the world is not so bad
as is claimed for it, that it isn't worth while hating and cherishing
hate, that evil is half-accidental, half-natural, and that hard work in
the face of nature is the thing to pull a man together and strengthen him
for his place in the universe. Having burned his ships behind him, that
is the way Lawless feels. And the story is told."