Ralph Stock

“ Fred went to Sydney. Young fellow, you know—must see something besides Delaniva. Ah, here they come!"
With a blind man's sharpened sense of hearing, he had detected the beat of horse's hoofs on the beach road long before it reached Compton.
"I must tell you before they come," added Metcalf quickly. "It may be, as I say, a whim, but I have a feeling—it amounts to that—a feeling that something is being held back from me; they are hiding something. ”

“ So much Compton gathered, with Fred perched on the edge of his bed. The rest came later.
There followed busy days in the house of illusion. Compton read his report without a hitch, and answered searching questions with a glibness that surprised himself.
Apparently Metcalf was satisfied, and that was all that mattered. The work of destruction went on. Acre by acre Delaniva was felled to the ground, and burnt when the wind was favourable. And through it all Metcalf sat on the verandah or in his beloved "office," fragile, indomitable, living on dreams. ”

“ Yet he remembered what Metcalf had said when he left the blessed old overseer's outhouse for Gallipoli and France: "I can't see you these days, Jim, but I know you all the better for that, and I want you to remember Delaniva as home." Then, with the suddenly changed manner of a man who has caught himself on the verge of displaying sentiment: "I have made arrangements for you to have half-pay while you're away. And I want you back, Jim; remember that."
"If I get through, I'll come," Compton had answered. ”

“ The place was so clearly photographed on Compton's mind that it was a full five minutes before he could believe that his eyes were not at fault. The thing was incredible, yet there was no gainsaying it—not a palm reared its feathery head on Delaniva! What he had seen was grass—grass and prone palm trunks littering the mountain-side.
Hurricane? The thought was discarded as soon as conceived. A hurricane rends and crushes; it does not slice palms neatly a foot from the ground and stack them ready for burning. ”

“ That made me go on. And I've failed," she ended abruptly. "He feels we're hiding something——"
"We must begin all over again," said Compton a trifle hurriedly—there was a hint of tears in her eyes. "Others have had to do it; we must do it, until there's no need for illusions."
Jill smiled at him.
"Yes," she said. "That's all."
But Compton knew that it was not all. Less than an hour after the arrival of Mr. Fred Metcalf, direct from an atmosphere of stagnant tobacco-smoke, whisky, and cards at the Settlement club, Compton knew that it was more than the ruin of Delaniva that troubled Jill. ”

“ But he knew. In that moment it was given to him to catch a brief glimpse of himself as he was. Such a rare vision is apt to startle most of us; it awed Fred Metcalf. He turned uncertainly to the door and paused.
"You'll find Jim on the beach road," he muttered dazedly. "I don't quite know what I've done ... I must try and think ... Good-bye!"
Jill listened to his footsteps growing fainter down the powdered coral pathway, then hurried down to the beach road.
Compton watched her coming in dull suspense. His own helplessness filled him with unreasoning disgust. ”

“ It would have killed him—it would kill him now. I promised to have Delaniva torn up by the roots in a month. I don't know what I didn't promise. So he sent a notification instead, and we started work the next day. It was like pulling teeth. But you can imagine. There are only fifteen acres more to do; then comes the burning. That's how we stand to-day, Mr. Overseer. What do you think of my stewardship?"
Jill paused. Her finger-tips were white with the pressure of her clasped hands. Compton had nothing to say—nothing, that is, that would not sound puerile. ”

“ He was brought back to earth, and more particularly to the cheap restaurant in the Vauxhall Bridge Road, by his bill being slapped on the imitation marble-topped table with a vigour that sent a dagger's point of pain to his left hip. ”