He kissed her
gravely, and then, being a straightforward, honourable man, he went to
the Sisters and told them. A week afterward they were married.

When he returned to Kalahua with his wife, Sherard met them on the
verandah of his house, and Prout wondered at the remarkable change in
his manner, for even to women Sherard was coarse and tyrannical.

From the moment he first saw Marie's fresh young beauty Sherard
determined to have a deadly revenge upon her husband. But he went about
his plans cautiously. Only a few days previously he had made a fresh
agreement with Prout to remain for another two years. Before those two
years had expired he meant to put his plan into effect. There was on
the plantation a ruffianly Chileno who, he knew, would dispose of Prout
satisfactorily when asked to do so.

*****

When Marie's child was born, Sherard acted the part of the imperatively
good-natured employer, and told Prout that as soon as his wife was
strong enough, he was to leave the house he then occupied and take up
his quarters permanently in the big house.

"This place of yours will do me, Prout," he said, when his manager
protested; "and your wife's only a delicate little thing. There's all
kinds of fixings and comforts there that she'll appreciate, which
you haven't got here. D------n my thick skull, I might have done this
before."

"Thank you, Sherard," said Prout, with a genuine feeling of pleasure.
"You are very good to us both. But I won't turn you out altogether; you
must remain there too."

Sherard laughed. "Not I. You'll be far happier up there together by
yourselves, like a pair of turtledoves. But I'll always be on hand in
the smoking-room when you want me for a game of cards."

The change was soon made, and Moreno, the Chilian overseer, grinned when
he saw the white-robed figure of the manager's wife lying on one of the
verandah lounges, playing with her child.

"Bueno," he said to Sherard that night, as they drank together, "the
plan works. Make the bird learn to love its pretty nest. _Dios_, when am
I to feel my knife tickling Senor Prout's ribs?"

"At the end of the crushing season, I think," answered Sherard coolly;
"the brat will be old enough to be taken from her by then."

It is a bad thing for a man to "thump" either a Chilian, or a Peruvian,
or a Mexican. And Prout had "thumped" the evil-faced Chileno very badly
one day for beating a native nearly to death. Had he been wiser he would
have take