Chapter XXXIV. A Stroke for Freedom - Page 2

their very eyes, for the gratification of mere freaks of passion or jealousy, a European murderer of the gentlemanly class seemed almost by comparison a mild and gentle personage. Granville hardly liked to allow it in his own mind, but it was nevertheless the case; he was getting positively fond of this man, Guy Waring.

Besides, blood is generally thicker than water. Living in such close daily communion with Guy, and talking with him unrestrainedly at last upon all possible points--save that one unapproachable one, which both seemed to instinctively avoid alluding to in any way--Granville began to feel that, murderer or no murderer, Guy was in all essentials very near indeed to him. Nay, more, he found himself at times actually arguing the point with his own conscience that, after all, Guy was a very good sort of fellow; and if ever he had murdered Montague Nevitt at all--which looked very probable--he must have murdered him under considerably extenuating circumstances.

There was only one thing about Guy that Granville didn't like when he got to know him. This homicidal half-brother of his was gentle as a woman; tender, kindhearted, truthful, affectionate; a gentleman to the core, and a jolly good fellow into the bargain; but--there's always a but--he was a terrible money-grubber! Even there in the lost heart of Africa, at such a distance from home, with so little chance of ever making any use of his hoarded wealth, the fellow used to hunt up those wretched small stones, and wear them night and day in a belt round his waist, as if he really loved them for their own mere sakes--dirty high-priced little baubles! Granville, for his part, couldn't bear to see such ingrained love of pelf. It was miserable; it was mercenary.

To be sure, he himself hunted diamonds every day of his life, just as hard as Guy did; there was nothing else to do in this detestable place, and a man must find something to turn his idle hands to. Also he carried them, like Guy, bound up in a girdle round his own waist; it was a pity they should be lost, if ever he should chance to get away safe in the end to England. But then, don't you see, the cases were so different. Guy hoarded up his diamonds for mere wretched gain; whereas Granville valued his (he said to himself often) not for the mere worth in money of those shimmering little trinkets, but for his mother's sake, and Gwendoline's, and the credit of the family. He wanted Lady Emily to see her son filling the place in the world she had always looked forward with hope to his filling; and, by Heaven's help, he thought, he could still fill it. He couldn't marry Gwendoline on a beggar's pittance; and, by Heaven's help, he hoped still to be able to marry her.

Guy, on the other hand, found himself almost equally surprised in turn at the rapid way he grew really to be fond of Granville Kelmscott. Though Kelmscott knew, as he thought, the terrible secret of his half-unconscious crime--for