Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/94

any more than that Eve Milward and Geoffrey Hernshaw are lovers.’

‘That is a truth, I suppose?’ Mr. Fletcher said, smiling.

Mabel nodded. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘If not yet—then soon. But, now or soon, it is certain.’

Mr. Fletcher mounted his horse, with the girl’s words tingling in his ears, and they kept time to the lumbering canter of his big horse as he moved along the Beach towards Wairangi. Certain! Certain! But was there anything certain in this world?

At the moment the black-coated figure turned up the track to the stables Geoffrey was in the office behind the store, and Eve was with him.

The girl sat on a low seat near the door, and looked eagerly up into her companion’s face. ‘Could you not reconsider it ?’ she asked pleadingly. ‘The case surely cannot be so one-sided as you think, else how may we account for the wise and learned men who accept it?’

‘It would be no use,’ Geoffrey replied. ‘It is not that I will not believe, but simply that my reason does not permit me.’

‘Do you remember what Mr. Fletcher said about relying on our reason?’

‘Yes, But it is all we have—or at least it is all I have.’

‘What is it you cannot believe?’

Geoffrey smiled at the little eager question, but his eyes remained troubled. ‘It used to be details,’ he said; ‘but I have reached a stage when I can