Old habit was strong in him and he was gathering together material for a paper on the Samoan speech.
The old crone who shared the hut with Sally invited him to come in and sit down.
She gave him kava to drink and cigarettes to smoke.
She was glad to have someone to chat with and while she talked he looked at Sally.
She reminded him of the Psyche in the museum at Naples.
Her features had the same clear purity of line, and though she had borne a child she had still a virginal aspect.
It was not till he had seen her two or three times that he induced her to speak.
Then it was only to ask him if he had seen in Apia a man called Red.
Two years had passed since his disappearance, but it was plain that she still thought of him incessantly.
It did not take Neilson long to discover that he was in love with her.
It was only by an effort of will now that he prevented himself from going every day to the creek, and when he was not with Sally his thoughts were.
At first, looking upon himself as a dying man, he asked only to look at her, and occasionally hear her speak, and his love gave him a wonderful happiness.
He exulted in its purity.
He wanted nothing from her but the opportunity to weave around her graceful person a web of beautiful fancies.
But the open air, the equable temperature, the rest, the simple fare, began to have an unexpected effect on his health.
His temperature did not soar at night to such alarming heights, he coughed less and began to put on weight; six months passed without his having a haemorrhage; and on a sudden he saw the possibility that he might live.
He had studied his disease carefully, and the hope dawned upon him that with great care he might arrest its course.
It exhilarated him to look forward once more to the future.
He made plans.
It was evident that any active life was out of the question, but he could live on the islands, and the small income he had, insufficient elsewhere, would be ample to keep him.
He could grow coconuts; that would give him an occupation; and he would send for his books and a piano; but his quick mind saw that in all this he was merely trying to conceal from himself the desire which obsessed him.
He wanted Sally.
He loved not only her beauty, but that dim soul which he divined behind her suffering eyes.
He would intoxicate her with his passion.
In the end he would make her forget.
And in an ecstasy of surrender he fancied himself giving her too the happiness which he had thought never to know again, but had now so miraculously achieved.
He asked her to live with him.
She refused.
He had expected that and did not let it depress him, for he was sure that sooner or later she would yield.
His love was irresistible, he told the old woman of his wishes, and found somewhat to his surprise that she and the neighbours, long aware of them, were strongly urging Sally to accept his offer.
After all, every native was glad to keep house for a white man, and Neilson according to the standards of the island was a rich one.
The trader with whom he boarded went to her and told her not to be a fool; such an opportunity would not come again, and after so long she could not still believe that Red would ever return.
The girl’s resistance only increased Neilson’s desire, and what had been a very pure love now became an agonising passion.
He was determined that nothing should stand in his way.
He gave Sally no peace.
At last, worn out by his persistence and the persuasions, by turns pleading and angry, of everyone around her, she consented.
But the day after, when exultant he went to see her he found that in the night she had burnt down the hut in which she and Red had lived together.
The old crone ran towards him full of angry abuse of Sally, but he waved her aside; it did not mailer; they would build a bungalow on the place where the hut had stood.
A European house would really be more convenient if he wanted to bring out a piano and a vast number of books.
And so the little wooden house was built in which he had now lived for many years, and Sally became his wife.
But after the first few weeks of rapture, during which he was satisfied with what she gave him, he had known little happiness.
She had yielded to him, through weariness, but she had only yielded what she set no store on.
The soul which he had dimly glimpsed escaped him.
He knew that she cared nothing for him.
She still loved Red, and all the time she was waiting for his return.
At a sign from him, Neilson knew that, notwithstanding his love, his tenderness, his sympathy, his generosity, she would leave him without a moment’s hesitation.
She would never give a thought to his distress.
Anguish seized him and he battered at that impenetrable self of hers which sullenly resisted him.
His love became bitter.
He tried to melt her heart with kindness, but it remained as hard as before: he feigned indifference, but she did not notice it.