Renshaw Fanning's Quest: A Tale of the High Veldt

Sometimes he talks of making another expedition to the wonderful Valley. True, the marvellous “Eye” shines there in the moonlight no more, but the place holds other stones, and as yet he has only touched the fringe of its wealth. But Marian’s mind is made up against, and her foot is down on, any such scheme. Has not the mystic jewel proved indeed a demon’s eye to all concerned. They have enough, and life is better than inordinate wealth. Is he not content with the grisly risk he has run, so narrowly escaping with his life? And Renshaw, with a laugh, is fain to answer that he is. Yet peradventure, some day, when the quiver is full – but we must not anticipate.

Not a word more has been heard of Maurice Sellon or the partner of his flight – not a word beyond the brief reassurance on the score of her bodily safety which Violet had had the grace to forward to poor old Mrs Aldridge by the last boat which left the New Zealand steamer. Not a word more is even likely to be heard of either. That “the way of the transgressors is hard” may be a good and edifying axiom for all Sunday school purposes, but it is in no wise borne out by the experiences of real life. So it is highly probable that Sellon and Violet are in some safe and withal comfortable retreat in the New World, flourishing like the green bay tree, while enjoying to the full the abundant, if treacherously gained, results of the former’s expedition in search of “The Valley of the Eye.”

The End