The sub-inspector nodded. "You 're interrupting an inquiry, Dr. Jakes."

"Oh." Again the doctor seemed to wrestle with thoughts. "Am I?"

"Yes. You 'll excuse us, but--"

"No," said Jakes, with an appearance of grave thought. "No; certainly

not. You--you mustn't shout here."

"Look here," began Van Zyl.

The doctor turned his back on him and came over to Margaret, treading

lumberingly across the worn carpet.

"Can't allow shouting," he said. "It means--temperature. I--I think you

'd better--yes, you 'd better go and lie down for a while, Miss

Harding."

He was as vague as a cloud, a mere mist of benevolence.

As unexpectedly and almost as startlingly as Van Zyl's sudden loudness,

Mrs. Jakes spoke from her chair.

"You must take the doctor's advice, Miss Harding," she said.

Margaret rose, obediently, her letters in her hand. Van Zyl rose too.

"Once and for all," he said loudly, "I won't allow any--"

"I 'll report you, Van Zyl," said the little doctor, huskily. "You

're--you 're endangering life--way you 're behaving. Go with Mrs.

Jakes, Miss Harding."

"_You 'll_ report me," exclaimed Van Zyl.

"Ye-es," said Jakes, foggily. "I--I call Mr. Ford to witness--"

He turned quaveringly towards the couch and stopped abruptly.

"What 's this?" he cried, in stronger tones, and walked quickly toward

the bent figure of the young man. "Van Zyl I--I hold you responsible.

You 've done this--with your shouting."

Margaret was in the door; she turned to see the doctor raise Ford's head

and lift it back against the cushions. Van Zyl went striding towards

them and aided to place him on his back on the couch. As the doctor

stood up and stepped back, she saw the thin face with the high spot of

red on each cheek and the blood that ran down the chin from the wry and

painful mouth.

"Hester," Dr. Jakes spoke briskly. "The ergotin--and the things. In

the study; you know."

"I know." And Mrs. Jakes--so her name was Hester--ran pattering off.

They shut Margaret out of the room, and she sat on the bottom step of

the stairs, waiting for the news Mrs. Jakes had promised, between

breaths, to bring out to her. Van Zyl, ordered out unceremoniously--the

doctor had had a fine peremptory moment--and allowing a certain

perturbation to be visible on the regulated equanimity of his features,

stood in the hall and gave her side glances that betrayed a disturbed

mind.

"Miss Harding," he said presently, after long thought; "I hope you don't

think it 's any pleasure to me to do all this?"

Margaret shook her head. "You can do what you like," she said. "I

shan't complain."

"It is n't that," he answered irritably, but she interrupted him.

"I don't care what it is," she said. "I don't care; I don't care about

anything. Stand there, if you like, or come and sit here; but don't

talk any more till we know what 's happened in there."

Sub-inspector Van Zyl coughed, but after certain hesitation, he made up

his mind. When Mrs. Jakes came forth, tiptoe and pale but whisperingly

exultant, she found them sitting side by side on the stairs in the

attitude of amity, listening in strained silence for sounds that

filtered through the door of the room. She was pressed and eager, with

no faculty to spare for surprise.

"Splendid," she whispered. "Everything 's all right--thank God. But if

it hadn't been for the doctor, well! I'm going to fetch the boys with

the stretcher to carry him up to his room."

"I 'm awfully glad," said Van Zyl as she hurried away.

"So am I," said Margaret. "But I ought to have seen before the doctor

did. I ought to have known--and I did know, really--that he would have

taken you by the throat before then, if something hadn't happened to

him."

She had risen, to go up the stairs to her room and now stood above him,

looking down serenely upon him.

"Me by the throat," exclaimed Van Zyl, slightly shocked.

Margaret nodded.

"As Kamis would," she said slowly. "And choke you, and choke you, and

choke you."

She went up then without looking back, leaving him standing in the hall,

baffled and outraged.

*CHAPTER XV*

Not the stubbornness of a race too prone to enthusiasms, any more than

increasing years and the _memento mori_ in his chest, could withhold Mr.

Samson from the zest with which he initiated each new day. Bathed,

razored and tailored, he came out to the stoep for his early

constitutional, his hands joined behind his back, his soft hat cocked a

little forward on his head, and tasted the air with puffs and snorts of

appetite, walking to and fro with a eupeptic briskness in which only the

closest observer might have detected a delicate care not to over do it.

Nothing troubled him at this hour of the morning; it belonged to a duty

which engrossed it to the exclusion of all else, and not till it was

done was Mr. Samson accessible to the claims of time and place.

He looked straight before him as he strode; his manner of walking did

not allow him to bestow a glance upon the Karoo as he went. Head well

up, chest open--what there was of it--and neck swelling over the purity

of his collar: that was Mr. Samson. It was only when Mrs. Jakes came to

the breakfast-room door and set the gong booming melodiously, that he

relaxed and came back to a mild interest in the immediate earth, as

though the gong were a permission to stand at ease and dismiss. He

halted by the steps to wipe his monocle in his white abundant

handkerchief, and surveyed, perfunctorily at first and then with a

narrowing interest, the great extent of brown and gray-green that

stretched away from the foot of the steps to a silvery and indeterminate

distance.

A single figure was visible upon it, silhouetted strongly against the

low sky, and Mr. Samson worked his monocle into his eye and grasped it

with a pliant eyebrow to see the clearer. It was a man on a horse,

moving at a walk, minutely clear in that crystal air in spite of the

distance. The rider was far from the road, apparently aimless and at

large upon the veld; but there was something in his attitude as he rode

that held Mr. Samson gazing, a certain erectness and ease, something

conventional, the name of which dodged evasively at the tip of his

tongue. He knew somebody who sat on a horse exactly like that; dash it,

who was it, now? It wasn't that Dutchman, Du Preez, nor his long-legged

youngster; they rode like Dutchmen. This man was more like--more

like--ah! Mr. Samson had got it. The only folk who had that look in the

saddle were troopers; this must be a man of the Mounted Police.

A tinge of annoyance colored his thoughts, for the far view of the

trooper, slowly quartering the land, brought back to his mind a matter

of which it had been purged by the ritual morning march along the stoep,

and he found it returning again as distasteful as ever. He had been

made a party to its details by Mrs. Jakes, when he inquired regarding

Ford's breakdown. The communication had taken place at the foot of the

stairs, when he was preparing to ascend to bed, on the evening of Van

Zyl's visit. At dinner he had noted no more than that Ford was absent

and that Margaret was uneasy; he kept his question till her skirt

vanished at the bend of the stairs.

"I say; what 's up?" he asked then.

Mrs. Jakes, standing by to give good night, as her wont was, fluttered.

She gave a little start that shook her clothes exactly like the movement

of an agitated bird in a cage, and stared up at him, rather

breathlessly, while he leaned against the balustrade and awaited her

answer.

"I don't know what you mean." It was a formula that always gave her

time to collect her thoughts.

"Oh, yes, you do," insisted Mr. Samson, with severe geniality. "Ford

laid up and Miss Harding making bread pills, and all that. What 's the

row?"

Mrs. Jakes regarded him with an eye as hard and as wary as a fowl's, and

then looked round to see that the study door was securely shut.

"I 'm afraid, Mr. Samson," she said, in the low tones of confidential

intercourse--"I 'm afraid we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding."

"Eh? What 's that?"

Old Mr. Samson _would_ speak as though he were addressing a numerous

company, and Mrs. Jakes' nervousness returned at his loud exclamation.

She made hushing noises.

"Yes, but what's all this nonsense?" demanded Mr. Samson. "Somebody 's

been pullin' your leg, Mrs. Jakes."

"No, indeed, Mr. Samson," Mrs. Jakes assured him hastily, as though

urgent to clear herself of an imputation. "There is n't any doubt about

it,--I 'm sorry to gay. You see, Mr. Van Zyl came here this afternoon

and wanted to see Miss Harding in the study. Well, she would n't go to

him."

"Why the deuce should she?" inquired Mr. Samson warmly. "Who 's Van Zyl

to send for people like this?"

"It was about a Kafir," said Mrs. Jakes. "The police are looking for

the Kafir and Miss Harding refused to help them. So--"

Mr. Samson's lips moved soundlessly, and he changed his position with a

movement of lively impatience.

"Let 's have it from the beginning, please, Mrs. Jakes," he said, with

restraint. "Can't make head or tail of it--way you 're telling it.

Now, why did this ass Van Zyl come here?"

It was the right way to get the tale told forthright. His indignation

and his scorn fanned the spark of spite in the core of Mrs. Jakes, who

perceived in Mr. Samson another victim to Margaret's duplicity. She was

galled by the constant supply of champions of the girl's cause who had

to be laid low one after the other. She addressed herself to the

incredulity and anger in the sharp old face before her, and spoke

volubly and low, telling the whole thing as she knew it and perhaps a

little more than the whole. As she went on, she became consumed with

eagerness to convince Mr. Samson. Her small disfigured hands moved

jerkily in incomplete gestures, and she rose on tiptoe as though to

approach nearer to the seat of his intelligence. He did not again

interrupt her, but listened with intentness, watching her as the swift

words tumbled on one another's heels from her trembling lips. His

immobility and silence were agonizing to her.

"So that's why I say that we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding," she

concluded at last. "You wouldn't have thought it of her, would you, Mr.

Samson? And it is a shocking thing to come across here, in the house,

isn't it?"

Mr. Samson withdrew a hand from his pocket, looked thoughtfully at three

coins in the palm of it, and returned them to the pocket again.

"You 're quite certain," he asked, "that she admitted the kissin'?

There 's no doubt about that?"

"If I never speak another word," declared Mrs. Jakes, with fervor. "If

I die here where I stand. If I never move from this spot--those were

her exact words. It was then that poor Mr. Ford had his attack--he was

so horrified."

"Well," said Mr. Samson, with a sigh, after another inspection of his

funds, "so that 's the trouble, is it?"

"The doctor and I are much disturbed," continued Mrs. Jakes. "Naturally

disturbed. Such a thing has never happened here before."

Mr. Samson heaved himself upright and put one foot on the bottom stair.

"It's only ignorance, of course," he said. "The poor little devil don't

know what she 's letting herself in for. If she 'd only taken a bad

turn after a month or so and--and gone out, Mrs. Jakes, we 'd have

remembered her pleasantly enough then. Now, of course, she 'll have

this story to live with. Van Zyl 'll put it about; trust him. Poor

little bally fool."

"I 'm sorry for her, too, of course," replied Mrs. Jakes, putting out

her hand to shake his. "Only of course I 'm--I 'm disgusted as well.

Any woman would be."

"Yes," said Mr. Samson thoughtfully, commencing the ascent; "yes, she

'll be sure to get lots of that, now."

It was a vexation that abode with him that night and through the next

day; it kept him from the sincere repose which is the right of

straightforward and uncompromising minds, whose cleanly-finished effects

have no loose ends of afterthought dangling from them to goad a man into

revising his conclusions. Lying in the dark, wide awake and regretful,

he had a vision of her in her room, welcoming its solitude and its

freedom from reproachful eyes, glad now not of fellows and their

companionship but of this refuge. It gave him vague pain. He

experienced a sense of resentment against the arrangement and complexity

of affairs that had laid open this gulf at Margaret's feet, and made its

edges slippery to trap her. A touch of a more personal anger entered

his thoughts as he dwelt on the figure of the girl, the fine, dexterous,

civilized creature that she had been. She had known how to hold him

with a pleasant humor, a light and stimulating irreverence, and to

soften it to the point at which she bade him close his eyes and kissed

him. But--and Mr. Samson flushed to the heat at which men swear--the

Kafir, the roaming criminal nigger, had had that much out of her. Mrs.

Jakes had not been faithful to detail on that head. "Kiss," she had

said, not "kissed her hand." Mr. Samson might have seen a difference

where Van Zyl, lacking his pretty discrimination of degrees in the

administration and reception of kisses, had seen none.

The morning had brought no counsel; the day had delivered itself of

nothing that enlightened or consoled him. Margaret had managed somehow,

after a manner of her own, to withdraw herself from his immediate

outlook, and there were neither collisions nor explanations. It was not

so much that she preserved a distance as avoided contact, so that meals

and meetings in the drawing-room or about the house suffered from no

evidences of a change in their regard for each other. The adroitness

with which it was contrived moved him to new regrets; she might, he

thought, have done so well for herself, whereas now she was wasted.

This was the second morning since he had invaded Mrs. Jakes' confidences

at the foot of the stairs and extracted her story from her. The gong at

the breakfast-room door made soft blurred music at his back while he

stood watching the remote figure of the trooper, sliding slowly across

the skyline. It finished with a last note of added emphasis, a frank

whack at the middle of the instrument, and he turned deliberately from

his staring to obey it.

Mrs. Jakes, engine-driving the urn, was alone in the room when he

entered, and gave him good morning with the smile which she had not

varied for years.

"A beautiful day, is n't it?" she said.

"Oh, perfect," agreed Mr. Samson, receiving a cup of coffee from her.

"I say. You haven't seen any signs of Van Zyl to-day, have you?"

"To-day? No," replied Mrs. Jakes, surprised. "Were you expecting--did

he say--?"

Mr. Samson shook his head. "No; I don't know anything about him," he

told her. "It 's just that matter of Miss Harding, you know. From the

stoep, just now, I was watching a mounted man riding slowly about on the

veld, and it looks as if they were arranging a search. Eh?"

"Oh, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, "I do hope they won't come here again.

I 've never had any trouble with the police before. And Mr. Van Zyl,

generally so gentlemanly--when I saw how he treated Miss Harding, I was

really sorry for her."

Mr. Samson sniffed. "Man must be a cad," he said. "Anyhow, I don't see

what right he 's got to put his foot inside these doors. It was simply

a bluff, I fancy. Next time he comes, I hope you 'll let me know, Mrs.

Jakes. Can't have him treatin' that poor little fool like that, don't

y' know."

"But they 've got a _right_ to search, surely?" protested Mrs. Jakes.

"And it never does to have the police against you, Mr. Samson. I had a

cousin once--at least, he wasn't exactly a cousin--but he took a

policeman's number for refusing to arrest a man who had been rude to

him, and the policeman at once took him in custody and swore the most

dreadful oaths before the magistrate that he was drunk and disorderly.

And my cousin--I always used to call him a cousin--was next door to a

teetotaller."

"Perhaps the teetotaller bribed the policeman," suggested Mr. Samson,

seriously. "Still--what about Miss Harding? She has n't said anything

to you about goin' back home, has she?"

"No," said Mrs. Jakes. She let the teetotaller pass for the time being

as the new topic opened before her. "But I wanted to speak to you about

that, Mr. Samson."

"Best thing she can do," he said positively. "There 's a lot of people

at Home who don't mind niggers a bit. Probably would n't hurt her for a

month and her doctors can spot some other continent for her to do a cure

in."

"Now I 'm very glad to hear you say so, Mr. Samson," declared Mrs.

Jakes. "You see, what to do with her is a good deal on our minds--the

doctor's and mine. My view is--she ought to go before the story gets

about."

"Quite right," agreed Mr. Samson.

"But Eustace--he 's so considerate, you know. He thinks of her

feelings. He 's dreadfully afraid that she 'll fancy we 're turning her

out and be hurt. He really doesn't quite see the real state of affairs;

he has an idea it 'll all blow over and be forgotten."

Mr. Samson shook his head. "Not out here," he said. "That sort of

story don't die; it lives and grows. Might get into the papers, even."

"Well, now," Mrs. Jakes' voice was soft and persuasive; "do you mind my

telling the doctor how you look at it? He doesn't pay any attention to

what I say, but coming from you, it 's bound to strike him. It would be

better than you talking to him about it, because he would n't care to

discuss one of his patients with another; but if I were just to mention,

as an argument, you know--"

"Oh, certainly," acquiesced Mr. Samson, "certainly. Those are my views;

anybody can know 'em. Tell Jakes by all means."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Jakes, with feeling. "It does relieve me to know

that you agree with me. And it is such a responsibility."

Margaret's entrance shortly afterwards brought their conference to a

close, and Mr. Samson was able to return to his food with undivided

attention.

Margaret's demeanor since the exposure was a phenomenon Mrs. Jakes did

not profess to understand. The tall girl came into the room with a high

serenity that stultified in advance the wan little woman's efforts to

meet her with a remote dignity; it suggested that Mrs. Jakes and her

opinions were things already so remote from her interest that they could

not recede further without becoming invisible. What she lacked, in Mrs.

Jakes' view, was visible scars, tokens of punishment and suffering; she

could conceive no other attitude in a person who stood so much in need

of the mercy of her fellows. To a humility commensurate with her

disapproval, she would have offered a forbearance barbed with

condescension, peppered balm of her own brand, the distillation of her

narrow and purposeful soul. As it was, she not only resented the girl's

manner--she cowered.

"Good morning," said Margaret, smiling with intention.

"Good morning, Miss--ah--Miss Harding," was the best Mrs. Jakes could

do.

"Morning," responded Mr. Samson, lifting his white head jerkily, hoping

to convey preoccupation and casual absence of mind. "Morning, Miss

Harding. Jolly day, what?"

"Oh, no end jolly," agreed Margaret, dropping into her place. "Yes,

coffee, please, Mrs. Jakes."

"Certainly, Miss Harding," replied Mrs. Jakes, who had made offer of

none, and fumbled inexpertly with the ingenious urn whose chauffeur and

minister she was.

"How is Mr. Ford?" inquired Margaret next.

"Oh, yes," chimed in Mr. Samson, anxious to prevent too short a reply;

"how 's he this morning, Mrs. Jakes. Nicely, thank you, and all

that--eh?"

Mrs. Jakes was swift to seize the opportunity to reply in Mr. Samson's

direction exclusively.

"He 's not to get up to-day," she explained. "But he 's doing very

well, thank you. When I asked him what he 'd like for breakfast, he

said: 'Oh, everything there is, please.' But, of course, he 's had a

shock."

"Er--yes," said Mr. Samson hurriedly. "I 'll look him up before lunch,

if I may."

"Certainly," said Mrs. Jakes graciously.

"Good idea," said Margaret. "So will I."

Mrs. Jakes shot a pale and desperate glance at her and then looked for

support to Mr. Samson. But that leaning tower of strength was eating

devotedly and would not meet her eye.

She envisaged with inward consternation a future punctuated by such

meals, with every meal partaking of the nature of a hostile encounter

and every encounter closing with a defeat. Her respectability, her sad

virtue, her record clean of stain, did not command heavy enough metal to

breach the gleaming panoply of assurance with which Margaret opposed all

her attacks, and she felt the grievance common to those who are

ineffectually in the right. The one bright spot in the affair was the

possibility that she might now bend Jakes to her purpose, and be deputed

to give the girl notice that she must leave the Sanatorium. She felt

she could quote Mr. Samson with great effect to the doctor.

"Mr. Samson feels strongly that she should leave at once. He said so in

the plainest words," she would report, and Jakes would be obliged to

take account of it. Hitherto, her hints, her suggestions and even her

supplications, had failed to move him. He had a way, at times, of

producing from his humble and misty mildness a formidable obstinacy

which brooked no opposition. With bent head, he would look up at her

out of the corners of his eyes, while she added plausibility to

volubility, unmoving and immovable. When she had done, for he always

heard her ominously to an end, he would shake his head slightly and emit

a negative. It was rather impressive; there was so little show of force

about it; but Mrs. Jakes had long known that it betokened a barrier of

refusal that it was useless to hope to surmount. If he were pressed

further, he would rouse a little and amplify his meaning with phrases of

a deplorable vulgarity and force. In his medical student days, the

doctor had been counted a capable hand at the ruder kinds of out-patient

work.

The last time she had pressed him to decree Margaret's departure was in

the study, where he sat with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves turned

up, as though he contemplated an evening of strenuousness; the bottles

and glasses were grouped on the desk at his elbow. Mrs. Jakes had

represented vivaciously her sufferings in having to meet Miss Harding

and contain the emotions that effervesced in her bosom. She sat in the

patient's chair, and carefully guided her eyes away from the drinking

apparatus. The doctor had uttered his "No" as usual, and she tried,

against her better sense, to reason with him.

"There 's me to think of, too," she urged anxiously. "The way she walks

past me, Eustace, you 'd think I 'd never had a silk lining in my life."

"No," said the doctor again, with a little genteel cough behind three

fingers. "No, we can't. 'T would n't do, Hester. Bringing her out o'

bed in her night-gown that night--it was doing her dirt. Yes, I know

all about the nigger, and dam lucky it was for me she 'd got him handy.

I might have been there yet for all you did. And as for silk linings,

don't you get your shirt out, Hester. She 's all right."

He put out a hand to the whisky bottle, looking at her impatiently with

red-rimmed eyes, and she had risen with a sigh, knowing it was time for

her to go. She fired one parting shot of sincere feeling.

"Well, I suppose I 've got to suffer in silence, if you say so,

Eustace," she observed resignedly. "But it 's as bad as if we kept a

shop."

But as the mouthpiece of Mr. Samson, she would be better equipped. It

could be made to appear to Jakes that remonstrances were in the air and

that there was a danger of losing Samson and Ford, and he would have to

give ground. Mrs. Jakes thought well of the prospects of her enterprise

now. She would have been alarmed and astonished if any responsible

person had called her spiteful and unscrupulous, for she knew she was

neither of these things. She was merely creeping under obstacles that

she could not climb over, going to work with such means as came to her

hand to secure an entirely worthy end. She knew her own mind, in short,

and if it had wavered in its purpose, she would have known it no longer.

Margaret, all unconscious of the ingenuity that spent itself upon her,

ate a leisurely breakfast, giving Mr. Samson ample time to escape to the

stoep alone and establish himself there. She didn't at all mind being

left alone with Mrs. Jakes. That lady's stiffness and the facial

expressions which she tried on, one after the other, in an endeavor to

make her countenance match her mind, could be made ineffective by the

simple process of ignoring them and her together. By dint of preserving

a seeming of contented tranquillity and speaking not one word, it was

possible to abash poor Mrs. Jakes utterly and leave her writhing in

impotence behind her full-bodied urn. This was the method that

commended itself to Margaret and which she employed successfully.

Everybody should have a cut at her, she had decided; she would not baulk

one of them of the privilege; but Mrs. Jakes had had her turn, and could

not be permitted to cut and come again.

There were several remarks that Mrs. Jakes might have made with effect,

but none of them occurred to her till Margaret had left the room,

departing with an infuriating rustle of silk linings. Mrs. Jakes moved

in her chair to see her cross the hall and go out. A look of

calculation overspread her sour little face.

"I didn't notice the silk in _that_ one," she murmured thoughtfully.

Mr. Samson, with a comparatively recent weekly edition of the _Cape

Times_ to occupy him did not notice her rubber-soled approach till her

shadow fell on the page he was reading. He looked up sharply.

"Ah, Miss Harding," he said weakly.

She leaned with her back against the rail, looking down at him in his

basket chair, half-smiling.

"You want to speak to me, don't you?" she asked.

Mr. Samson did not understand. "Do I?" he said. "Did I say so? I

wonder what it was."

"You didn't say so," Margaret answered, "But I know you do. You

wouldn't send me finally to Coventry without saying anything at all,

would you?"

"Ah!" He made a weary gesture with one hand, as though he would put the

subject from him. "But--but I 'm not sending you to Coventry, my--Miss

Harding, I mean. Don't think it, for a moment."

He shook his white head with a touch of sadness, looking up at her

slender, civilized figure as she stood before him with a gaze that

granted in advance every claim she could make on his consideration and

forbearance.

"You know what I mean," said Margaret steadily.

"Do I though? Well, yes, I suppose I do," he said. "No use fumbling

with it, is there? And you're not the fumbling kind. Each of us knows

what the other means all right, so what's the use of talking about it?"

Margaret would not let him off; she did not desire that he should spare

her and could see no reason for sparing him.

"I want to talk about it, this once," she answered. "You won't have many

more chances to tell me what you think of me. I know, of course; but I

was n't going to shirk it. I 've disappointed you, have n't I?"

"I don't say so," he replied, with careful gentleness. "I don't say

anything of the kind, Miss Harding. You took your own line as you 'd

every right to do. If I had--sort of--imagined you were different, you

're not to blame for my mistake. God knows I don't set up for an

example to young ladies. Not my line at all, that sort of thing."

"Nothing to say, then?" queried Margaret. He shook his head again.

"You know," she added, "I 'm not a bit ashamed--not of anything."

"Of course you 're not," he agreed readily. "You did what you thought

was right."

"But you don't think so?" she persisted.

"Miss Harding," replied Mr. Samson; "so far as I can manage it, I don't

think about the matter at all."

Margaret had a queer impulse to reply to this by bursting into tears or

laughter, whichever should offer itself, but at that moment Mrs. Jakes

came out, and restrained a too obvious surprise at the sight of the pair

of them in conversation. Circumstances were forever lying in ambush

against Mrs. Jakes and deepening the mystery of life by their unexpected

poppings up.

She addressed Mr. Samson and pointedly ignored Margaret.

"Mr. Ford could see you now, if you cared to go up," she announced.

"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Samson, with alacrity.

Margaret spoke, smiling openly at Mrs. Jakes' irreconcilable side-face.

"Oh, would you mind if I went first?" she asked. "I rather want to see

him."

"By all means," agreed Mr. Samson, with the same alacrity. "I 'm not

perishin' to inspect him, you know. Tell him I 'll look him up

afterwards."

Mrs. Jakes turned a fine bright red, and swallowed two or three times.

She had matured a plan for declaring that Ford must not be disturbed

again after Mr. Samson's visit, and she was fairly sure that Margaret

had suspected it. She watched the girl's departure with angry and

baffled eyes.

"She 's doing it on purpose," was her thought. "She swings them like

that so as to make me hear the frow-frow."

Ford was propped against pillows in his bed, with most of the books in

the house piled alongside of him on chairs and a bedside table. He was

expecting Mr. Samson and sang out a hearty, "Come in; don't stand

drumming there," at Margaret's rap on the door.

"It's me," announced Margaret, pushing it open; "not Mr. Samson. He 'll

look you up afterwards. Do you mind?"

He flushed warmly, staring at her unexpected appearance.

"Of course I don't mind," he said. "It 's awfully good of you. If you

'd shove these books off on the floor, I could offer you a chair."

Margaret did as he suggested, but rose again at once and set the door

wide open.

"The proprieties," she remarked, as she returned to her seat. "Also

Mrs. Jakes. That keyhole might tempt her beyond her strength."

The room was a large one, with a window to the south full of sunshine

and commanding nothing but the eternal unchanging levels of the Karoo

and the hard sky rising from its edge. Its walls were rainbow-hued with

unframed canvasses clustering upon them, exemplifying Ford's art and

challenging the view through the window. She liked vaguely the

spareness of the chamber's equipment and its suggestions of

uncompromising masculinity. The row of boots and shoes, with trees

distributed among the chief of them, the leather trunks against the

wall, the photographs about the dressing table, and the iron bath

propped on end under the window,--these trifles seemed all to

corroborate the impression she had of their owner. They were so

consistent with the Ford she knew, units in the sum of him.

"Well," she said, looking at him frankly; "are we going to talk or just

exchange civilities?"

"We won't do that," he answered, meeting her look. "Civilities be

blowed, anyhow."

"But I 'd like to ask you how you feel, first of all," said Margaret.

"Oh, first-rate. I 'd get up if it wasn't for Jakes," he assured her

eagerly. "And I say," he added, with a quick touch of awkwardness, "I

hope, really, you haven't been bothering about me, and thinking it was

that affair in the drawing-room that made the trouble. Because it

wasn't, you know. I 'd felt something of the kind coming on before

lunch. Jakes says that running up stairs may have done it--thing I 'm

always forgetting I mustn't do. A chap can't always be thinking of his

in'ards, can he?"

"No," agreed Margaret.

She recognized a certain tone of politeness, of civil constraint, in his

manner of speaking. He was doing his best to be trivial and ordinary,

but she could not be deceived.

"It was rotten, though," he went on quickly. "That brute Van Zyl--look

here! I 'm most fearfully sorry I wasn't able to put a stop to his

talk, Miss Harding. It makes me sick to think of you being badgered by

that fellow."

"It didn't hurt me," said Margaret thoughtfully. "All that is nothing.

But are n't we being rather civil, after all?"

He made a slight grimace. He looked very frail against the pillows,

with his nervous, sun-tanned hands fidgeting on the coverlet. One

button of his pyjamas was loose at the throat, and let his lean neck be

seen, with the tan stopping short where the collar came and giving place

to white skin below.

"Oh, well," he said, in feeble protest. "Why bother?"

"I thought you 'd want to," replied Margaret. "I don't expect you

to--to approve, but I did rely on your bothering about it all a little.

But if you 'd rather not, that ends the matter."

"I didn't mean it like that," he said.

"Tell me," demanded Margaret; "don't you think I owe you an

explanation?"

He considered her gravely for some seconds.

"Yes," he answered finally. "I think you ought to tell me about it."

"I 'm willing to," she said earnestly. "Oh, I wanted to often and often

before. But I had to be careful. This Kafir is in danger of arrest by

Mr. Van Zyl, and though he could easily clear himself before a court,

you know what it means for a native to be arrested by him. He 'takes

the kick out of them.' So I was n't really free to speak."

"Perhaps you weren't," granted Ford. "But you were free to keep away

from him, and from niggers in general--were n't you?"

"Quite," agreed Margaret. "It is n't niggers in general, though--it 's

just this one."

She leaned forward, with both elbows on the edge of the bed and her

fingers intertwined. She felt that the color had mounted in her face,

but she was sedulous to keep her eyes on his.

"He 's a nigger--yes," she said; "black as your hat, and all that. But

there 's a difference. This--nigger--I hate that word--was taken away

when he was six years old and brought up in England. He was properly

educated and he 's a doctor, a real doctor with diplomas and degrees,

and he 's come out here to try and help his own people. As yet, he

can't even speak Kafir, and he 's had a fearful time ever since he

landed. Talking to him is just like talking to any one else. He 's read

books and knows a bit about art, and all that; and he 's ever so humble

and grateful for just a few words of talk. He 's out there in the veld,

all day and all night, lonely and hunted. Of course I spoke to him and

was as friendly as I could be. Don't you see, Mr. Ford? Don't you

see?"

He nodded impartially.

"Yes, I see," he answered. "Well?"

"Well, that's all," said Margaret. "Oh, yes--you mean the--the kiss?

That was absolutely nothing. I used to make him talk and he 'd been

telling me about how hard it was to make a start with his work, and how

grateful he was to me for listening to him, and I said there was no need

to be so grateful, and that it was a noble thing he had undertaken and

that--yes--that I 'd always be proud I 'd been a friend of his. I held

out my hand as I was saying this, and instead of shaking it, he kissed

it."

"That was what the blackmailer saw, was it?" asked Ford. Margaret

nodded. "By the way, who paid him?"

"_He_ did," Margaret answered. "I wouldn't have paid a penny. He

insisted on paying."

She was watching him anxiously. He was frowning in deep thought. She

felt her heart beat more rapidly as he remained for a time without

answering.

"It was worth paying for, if the fellow had kept faith," he said at

last. "The whole thing 's in that--you don't know what such a secret is

worth. It 's the one thing that binds people together out here, Dutch

and English, colonials and Transvaalers and all the rest--the color

line. But you didn't know."

"Oh, yes," Margaret made haste to correct him. "I did know. But I

didn't care and I don't care now. I 'm not going to take that kind of

thing into account at all. I won't be bullied by any amount of

prejudices."

"It isn't prejudice," said Ford wearily. "Still--we can't go into all

that. I 'm glad you explained to me, though."

"You 're wondering still about something," Margaret said. She could

read the doubt and hesitation that he strove to hide from her. "Do let

's have the whole thing out. What is it?"

He had half-closed his eyes but now he opened them and surveyed her

keenly.

"You 've told me how reasonable the whole thing was," he said, in

deliberate tones. "It was reasonable. That part of it 's as right as it

can be. I understand the picturesqueness of it all and the sadness; it

is a sad business. I could understand your connection with it, too, in

spite of the man's hiding from the police, if only he wasn't a nigger.

Beg pardon--a negro."

Margaret was following his words intently.

"What has that got to do with it?" she asked.

"You don't see it?" inquired Ford. "Didn't you find it rather awful,

being alone with him? Didn't it make you creepy when he touched your

hand?"

He was curious about it, apart from her share in the matter. He was

interested in the impersonal aspect of the question as well.

"I didn't like his face, at first," admitted Margaret.

"And afterwards?"

"Afterwards I didn't mind it," she replied. "I 'd got used to it, you

see."

He nodded. Upon her answer he had dropped his eyes and was no longer

looking at her.

"Well, that 's all," he said. "Don't trouble about it any more. You

've explained and--if you care to know--I 'm quite satisfied."

Margaret sat slowly upright.

"No, you 're not," she answered. "That isn't true; you 're not

satisfied. You 're disappointed that I did n't shrink from him and feel

nervous of him. You are--you are! I 'm not as good as you thought I

was, and you're disappointed. Why don't you say so? What's the use of

pretending like this?"

Ford wriggled between the sheets irritably.

"You 're making a row," he said. "They 'll hear you downstairs."

Margaret had risen and was standing by her chair.

"I don't care," she said, lowering her voice at the same time. "But why

are n't you honest with me? You say you 're satisfied and all the time

you 're thinking: 'A nigger is as good as a white man to her.'"

"I 'm not," protested Ford vigorously.

"I _did n't_ shrink," said Margaret. "My flesh didn't crawl once. When

I shake his hand, it feels just the same as yours. That disgusts you--I

know. There 's something wanting in me that you thought was there. Mrs.

Jakes has got it; her flesh can crawl like a caterpillar; but I have

n't. You did n't know that when you asked me not to go away, did you?"

"Sit down," begged Ford. "Sit down and let me ask you again."

"No," said Margaret. "You shan't overlook things like that. I 'm

going--going away from here as soon as I can. I 'm not ashamed and I

won't be indulged."

She walked towards the door. There was a need to get away before the

tears that made her eyes smart should overflow and expose themselves.

"Come back," cried Ford. "I say--give a fellow a chance. Come back. I

want to say something."

She would not answer him without facing him, even though it revealed the

tears.

"I 'm not coming," she replied, and went out.

She had fulfilled her purpose; they had all had their cut at her, save

Dr. Jakes, who would not take his turn, and Mrs. Jakes, to whom that

privilege was not due. Only one of them had swung the whip effectually

and left a wheal whose smart endured.

Mrs. Jakes did not count on being left out of the festival. Her rod was

in pickle. She was on hand when the girl came out of her room, serene

again and ready to meet any number of Mrs. Jakeses.

"Oh, Miss Harding."

Mrs. Jakes arrested her, glancing about to see that the corridor was

empty.

"The doctor wishes me to tell you," said Mrs. Jakes, aiming her words at

the girl's high tranquillity, "that he considers you had better make

arrangements to remove to some other establishment. You understand, of

course?"

"Of course," agreed Margaret.

"A month's notice, then," said Mrs. Jakes smoothly. "That is usual. But

if it should be convenient for you to go before, the doctor will be

happy to meet you."

"Very good of the doctor," smiled Margaret, and walked on, her skirts

rustling.

*CHAPTER XVI*

Voices below the window of her room that alternated briskly and yet

guardedly, drew Margaret to look out. On the stoep beneath her, Fat

Mary was exchanging badinage of the most elementary character with a

dusty trooper of the Mounted Police, who stood on the ground under the

railing with his bridle looped over his arm and his horse awaiting his

pleasure at his elbow. Seen from above, the main feature of Fat Mary

was her red-and-yellow headkerchief tied tightly over her large and

globular skull, presenting the appearance of a strikingly-colored bubble

at the summit of her person.

"You savvy tickle?" the trooper was saying. "By'-mby I come up there

and tickle you. You like that plenty."

Fat Mary giggled richly. "You lie," she returned, with immense

enjoyment.

"Tickle do you good," rejoined the trooper.

He was a tall lathy man, with the face of a tired Punchinello, all nose

and chin with a thin fastidious mouth hidden between. His eyes wandered

restlessly while he talked as though in search of better matter for his

interest; and he chaffed the stout Kafir woman with a mechanical ease

suggesting that this was a trick he had practised till it performed

itself. The tight-fitting blue uniform, in spite of the dust that was

thick upon it, and all his accoutrement of a horseman, lent a dandified

touch to his negligent attitude; and he looked like--what he probably

was--one of those gentlemen of sporting proclivities in whom the process

of decay is arrested by the preservative discipline and toil of service

in a Colonial force.

Margaret, examining him unseen from above, with hatpins in her hands,

found his miserable and well-bred face at once repellent and distantly

terrible; he seemed to typify so completely what she had learned to fear

in the police, a humanity at once weak and implacable. His spurs, his

revolver, his authority were means of inflicting pain given into feeble

hands to supply the place of power. Within a few days she had come to

know the dread which the street-hawker in the gutter feels for the

policeman on the pavement who can destroy him when he chooses. It did

not call for much imagination to see how dreadful the bored perfunctory

man below might become when once he had fastened on his quarry and had

it to himself to exercise upon it the arts of which the revolver and the

rest were the appliances.

His presence under her window was a sign that the search for Kamis'

hiding-place was still going forward. At any hour of the day now the

inmates of the Sanatorium might lift up their eyes to see the unusual

phenomenon of a human being sharing with them the solitude and the

silence. Van Zyl had high hopes of laying his hands on the mysterious

Kafir who had committed the crime of being incomprehensible to nervous

kraals, whose occupants had a way of shaking off wonder and alarm by

taking exercise with their weapons among the cattle of their neighbors.

The Sanatorium, under his orders, was being watched for any indications

of messages passing between Margaret and the Kafir, and the dusty, armed

men came and went continually, a succession of drilled shoulders,

tanned, unconcerned faces, and expressionless eyes puckered against the

sun's stare.

Their chief effect was to keep Margaret in a state of anxious fear lest

their search should be successful, and she should be a witness of their

return, riding past at the walk with a handcuffed figure trudging

helplessly before them. She saw in painful dreams the dust that rose

about them cloudily and the prisoner's bowed back as he labored to

maintain the pace. The worst of the dreams followed their progress to a

moment when the man on foot flagged, or perhaps fell, and one of the

riders pressed forward with a foot disengaged from its stirrup and the

spur lifted to rowel him to livelier efforts. Such was the fruit of Van

Zyl's pregnant word when he spoke of prisoners who had had "the kick

taken out of them."

She had had no opportunity of seeing Paul, to send through him a warning

message to Kamis, since her interview with Van Zyl; but on this day she

had glimpsed him from the stoep, as he moved about among the farm

buildings, and she lost no time in preparing to go to him. She was

putting on her hat as she watched the trooper and Fat Mary.

The couple of them were still at work upon their flirtation when she

came out of the Sanatorium and descended the steps. The man's wandering

eyes settled on her at once with grateful interest, and followed her as

she went across to the path at a pace suited to the ardor of the sun.

His Punchinello features brightened almost hopefully.

Fat Mary, observing the direction of his gaze, giggled afresh and gave

information in a whisper.

"What--her? That lady there?"

Fat Mary nodded corroboratively. The trooper swore softly in mere

amazement.

"You're sure that's her?" he demanded. "Well, I 'm--"

He stared at Margaret's receding back with a frown of perplexity, then

drew the reins over his horse's head and prepared to mount.

"You go now?" asked Fat Mary, disappointed at the effect of her news.

"You bet," was the answer, as he swung up into the saddle and moved his

horse on.

Margaret turned as the sound of hoofs padding on the dust approached

from behind and was met by a salute and bold avaricious eyes above the

drooping beak. He reined up beside her, looking down from the height of

his saddle at her.

"Miss Harding, isn't it?" he said. "May I ask where you 're goin'?"

There was jocular invitation in his manner of saying it, the gallantry

of a man who despises women.

"I 'm going to the farm, there," Margaret answered. The unexpected

encounter had made her nervous, and she found herself ill at ease under

his regard. "Why?"

"Because I 'll ask you for the pleasure of accompanyin' you so far, if

you don't mind," he returned. "I want a look at the happy man you 're

goin' to see. Hope you don't object?"

"I can't stop you," replied Margaret. "You will do as you please, of

course."

She turned and walked on, careful not to hurry her steps. The trooper

rode at her side, and though she did not look up, she felt his eyes

resting on her profile as they went.

"Bit slow, livin' out here, Miss Harding," he remarked, after they had

gone for a minute or so in silence. "Not what you 've been use to, I

imagine. Found yourself rather short of men, didn't you?"

"No," replied Margaret thoughtfully; "no."

"Oh, come now." The mounted man laughed thinly, failing utterly to get

his tolerant and good-natured effect. "If you 'd had a supply of decent

chaps to do the right thing by a girl as pretty as you--admire you, an'

flirt, and all that, I mean--you wouldn't have fallen back on this

nigger we 're lookin' for, would you, now?"

This was what it meant, then, to have one's name linked with that of a

Kafir. She was anybody's game; not the lowest need look upon her as

inaccessible. She had to put a restraint upon herself to keep from

quickening her pace, from breaking into a run and fleeing desperately

from the man whose gaze never left her. Its persistence, though she was

aware of it without seeing it, was an oppression; she imagined she could

detect the taint of his breath blowing hot upon her as she walked.

He saw the flush that rose in her cheek, and laughed again.

"You needn't answer," he said. "I can see for myself I 'm right. Lord,

whenever was I wrong when it came to spottin' a girl's feelings? Say,

Miss Harding--did n't I hit it first shot? Of course I did. Of course I

did," he repeated two or three times, congratulating himself. "Trust

me.

"I say," he began again presently. "This little meetin'--I hope it 's

not goin' to be the last. I expect you 've learnt by now that niggers

have their drawbacks, and it is n't a safe game for you to play. People

simply won't stand it, you know. Now, what you want is a friend who 'll

stand by you and show you how to make the row blow over. With savvy and

a touch of tact, it can be done. Now, Miss Harding--I don't know your

Christian name, but I fancy we could understand each other if you 'd

only look up and smile."

The farm was not far now. Paul had seen them coming and was standing at

gaze to watch them approach, with that appearance of absorbed interest

which almost anything could bring out. Soon he must see, he could not

fail to see, that she was in distress and needing aid, and then he would

come forward to meet them.

"No?" the trooper inquired, cajolingly. "Come now--one smile. No?

No?"

He waited for an answer.

"I wouldn't try the haughty style," he said then. "Lord, no. You

wouldn't find it pay. After the nigger business, haughtiness is off.

What I 'm offering you is more than most chaps would offer; it isn't

everybody 'll put on a nigger's boots, not by a long sight. Now, we

don't want to be nasty about it, do we? One smile, or just a word to

say we understand each other, and it 'll be all right."

It was insupportable, but now Paul was coming towards them, shyly and

not very fast.

"Who 's this kid?" demanded the trooper. "Quick, now, before he 's

here. Look up, or he 'll smell a rat."

Margaret raised her eyes to his slowly, cold fear and disgust mingling

in her mind. He met her with a smile in which relief was the salient

character.

"When Mr. Van Zyl hears how you have insulted me," she began trembling.

"Eh?" He stared at her suspiciously. "Van Zyl?" He seemed suddenly

enlightened. "I say, I could n't tell you 'd--you 'd made your

arrangements. Could I, now? I would n't have dreamed--look here, Miss

Harding; I 'm awfully sorry. Couldn't we agree to forget all this? You

can't blame a chap for trying his luck."

She did not entirely understand; she merely knew that what he said must

be monstrous. No clean thing could issue from that hungry, fastidious

mouth. She walked on, leaving him halted and staring after her,

perturbed and apprehensive. His patient horse stood motionless with

stretched neck; he sat in the saddle erect as to the body, with the easy

secure seat which drill had made natural to him, but with the

Punchinello face drooped forward, watching her as she went. He saw her

meet Paul, saw the pair of them glance towards him and then turn their

backs and walk down to the farm together. Pain, defeat and patience

expressed themselves in his countenance, as in that of an ignoble

Prometheus. Presently he pulled up the docile horse's head with a jerk

of the bridoon.

"My luck," he said aloud, and swung his horse about.

Paul had not time to question Margaret as to her trouble, for she spoke

before he could frame his slow words.

"Paul," she cried, "I want to speak to you. But--oh, can I sit down

somewhere? I feel--I feel--I must sit down."

She looked over her shoulder nervously, and Paul's glance followed.

"Is it him?" he inquired. "Sit here. I 'll go to him."

"No," she said vehemently. "Don't. You mustn't. Let 's go to your

house. I want to sit down indoors."

Her senses were jangled; she felt a need of relief from the empty

immensity of sun and earth that surrounded her.

"Come on," said Paul. "We 'll go in."

He did not offer her his arm; it was a trick he had yet to learn. He

walked at her side between the kraals, and brought her to the little

parlor which housed and was glorified by Mrs. du Preez's six rosewood

chairs, upholstered in velvet, sofa to match, rosewood center-table and

the other furniture of the shrine. He looked at her helplessly as she

sank to a seat on the "sofa to match."

"You want some water," he said, with an inspiration, and vanished.

Margaret had time somewhat to recover herself before he returned with

his mother and the water.

Mrs. du Preez needed no explanations.

"Now you 'll have a bit of respect for our sun, Miss Harding," she said,

after a single, narrow-eyed look at the girl. "Hand that water here,

Paul; you didn't bring it for show, did you? Well, then. And just you

let me take off this hat, Miss Harding. Bond Street, I 'll bet a pound.

They don't build for this sun in Bond Street. Now jus' let me wet this

handkerchief and lay it on your forehead. Now, ain't that better?"

She turned her head to drive a fierce whisper at Paul.

"Get out o' this. Come in by an' by."

"Thanks awfully." Margaret shivered as the dripping handkerchief

pressed upon her brow let loose drops that gravitated to her neck and

zigzagged under the collar of her blouse. "I 'm feeling much better

now. I 'd rather sit up, really."

"So long as you haven't got that tight feeling," conceded Mrs. du Preez.

She stood off, watching the girl in a manner that expressed something

striving within her mind.

"All right now?" she asked, when Margaret had got rid of the wet

handkerchief.

"Quite," Margaret assured her. "Thanks ever so much."

Mrs. du Preez arranged the glass and jug neatly upon the iron tray on

which they had made their appearance.

"Miss Harding," she said suddenly. "I know."

"Oh? What do you know?" inquired Margaret.

Mrs. du Preez glanced round to see that Paul had obeyed her.

"I know all about it," she answered, with reassuring frowns and nods.

"Your Fat Mary told my Christian Kafir and she told me. About--about

Kamis; _you_ know."

"I see."

The story had the spreading quality of the plague; it was an infection

that tainted every ear, it seemed.

"You mean--you 'd like me to go?" suggested Margaret.

"No! _No_! NO!"

Mrs. du Preez brought both hands into play to aid her face in making the

negatives emphatic. "Go? Why, if it was n't for the mercy of God I 'd

be in the same box myself. I would--Me! I 've got nothing to come the

heavy about, even if I was the sort that would do it. So now you know."

"I don't understand," said Margaret. "Do you mean that you--?"

"I mean," interrupted Mrs. du Preez, "that if it wasn't for that Kafir I

'd ha' been hopping in hell before now; and if people only knew

it--gosh! I 'd have to hide. I wanted to tell you so 's you should

know there was some one that could n't throw any stones at you. You 're

beginnin' to find things rather warm up there, aren't you?"

Margaret smiled. The true kindness of Mrs. du Preez's intention moved

her; charity in this quarter was the last thing she had expected to

find.

"A little warm," she agreed. "Everybody 's rather shocked just now, and

Mrs. Jakes has given me notice to leave."

"_Has_ she?" demanded Mrs. du Preez. "Well, I suppose it was to be

expected. I 've known that woman now for more years than I could count

on my fingers, and I 've always had my doubts of her. She 's no more

got the spirit of a real lady than a cow has. That 's where it is, Miss

Harding. She can't understand that a lady 's got to be trusted. For

two pins I 'd tell her so, the old cross-eyed _skellpot_. So you 're

going? Well, you won't be sorry."

"But--how did you come across Kamis?" asked Margaret.

"Oh, it 's a long story. I was clearin' out of here--doing a bolt, you

know, an' I got into trouble with a feller that was with me. It was a

feller named Bailey that was stoppin' here," explained Mrs. du Preez,

who had not heard the whole history of Margaret's exposure. "He was

after a bit of money I 'd got with me, and he was startin' in to kick me

when up jumps that nigger and down goes Bailey. See?"

Margaret saw only vaguely, but she nodded.

"That 's Bailey," said Mrs. du Preez, drawing her attention to the Boy's

photograph. "Christian warned me against smashing it when I wanted to.

He 's got notions, Christian has. 'Leave it alone,' he says; 'we 're

not afraid of it.' So of course I had to; but I 'd be more 'n a bit

thankful if it was gone. I can't take any pleasure in the room with it

there."

"I could help you in that, perhaps," suggested Margaret. "You 've helped

me. It was sweet of you to tell me what you did, the friendliest thing

I ever knew."

"I 'd rather you did n't speak about it to Christian," objected Mrs. du

Preez.

"I did n't mean to," Margaret assured her, rising.

She crossed to the narrow mantel as though to look more particularly at

Boy Bailey's features. She lifted the plush frame from its place.

"There are people who would call this face handsome," she remarked.

"Heaps," agreed Mrs. du Preez. "In his best days, he 'd got a

style--Lord! Miss Harding."

Margaret had let the photograph fall face-downwards on the edge of the

fender and the crash of its glass cut Mrs. du Preez short. She stared

at Margaret in astonishment as the girl put a foot on the picture and

broke it.

"Wasn't that clumsy of me?" she asked, smiling.

"Well, of all the cheek," declared Mrs. du Preez, slowly. "I never

guessed what you were after. But I don't know what Christian will say."

"He can't mend it, anyhow," replied Margaret. "You did want it gone, did

n't you?"

"You bet," said Mrs. du Preez. "But--but that was a dodge. Here, let's

make sure of it while we 're at it; those two pieces could be easily

stuck together. I 'll stamp some of that smashed glass into it.

Still--I should think, after this, you 'd be able to hold your own with

Mrs. Jakes."

She kicked the pieces of the now unrepairable photograph into a little

heap.

"I 'll leave it like that for Christian to see," she said. "But, look

here. Didn't you want to speak to Paul? You 'll be wondering when I 'm

goin' to give you a chance. I 'll just tap the drum for him."

Paul's whistle from behind the house answered the first strokes and Mrs.

du Preez, with an unusual delicacy, did not return to the parlor with

him.

"You 're all right now?" he asked, as he entered.

"Oh, yes. That was nothing," said Margaret.

Paul took his stand by the window, leaning with a shoulder against it,

looking abstractedly at her face, and waiting to hear her speak.

"Paul," asked Margaret, "do you know where Kamis is now?"

"Yes," he said.

"Do you see him? Can you speak to him for me?"

"I don't see him much now," answered Paul. "That is because the

policemen are riding about looking for him. But I can speak to him

to-night."

"He must take care not to be caught," said Margaret. "They 're very

anxious to find him just now. You 've heard, Paul, that they 've found

out about me and him?"

"Ye-es," answered Paul. "I heard something."

"It's true," said Margaret. "So I 've got to go away from here. They

won't have me at the Sanatorium any longer and the police are watching

to see if Kamis comes anywhere near me and to catch him if he does. You

must warn him to keep right away, Paul. He mustn't send any messages,

even."

"I will tell him," said Paul. "But--you are going away? To England?"

"Perhaps," replied Margaret. "I expect I shall have to now. They tell

me that people won't let me live in South Africa any more. I 'm a sort

of leper, and I must keep my distance from healthy people. So we shan't

see each other again after a few more days. Are you sorry, Paul?"

He reddened boyishly and fidgeted.

"Oh, it is best for you to go," he answered, uncomfortably.

"Paul! But why?"

"It 's--it 's not your place," he said, facing the difficulty of putting

an elusive thought into words. "This country--people don't know what 's

good and what 's bad--and there isn't enough people. Not like London.

You should go to London again. Kamis was telling me--theaters and

streets and pictures to see, and people everywhere. He says one end of

London is just like you and the other end is like that Bailey. That is

where you should go--London, not here. I will go to London soon, too."

"I see," said Margaret. "I was afraid at first that you were sick of me

too, Paul. I needn't have been afraid of that, need I? Wouldn't it be

fine if we could meet in London?"

"We can," said Paul seriously. "I have got a hundred and three pounds,

and I will go."

"That's a good deal," said Margaret.

"It's a lot," he agreed. "My father gave it to me the other day, all

tied up tight in a little dirty bundle, and there was my mother's

marriage lines in it too. He said he didn't mean me to have those but

the money was for me. It was on the table in the morning and he rolled

it over to me and said: 'Here, Paul. Take this and don't bring any more

of your tramps in the house.' That was because I brought that Bailey

here, you know. So now--soon--I will go to London and Paris and make

models there. Kamis says--"

"What?" asked Margaret.

"He says I will think my eyes have gone mad at first when I see London.

He says that coming to Waterloo Station will be like dying and waking in

another world. But he says too--blessed are the pure in heart, for they

will see God even in Waterloo Station."

"He ought to go back himself," said Margaret, with conviction. "He 's

wasted here."

"Will you see him before you go?" asked Paul.

"No," said Margaret. "No; I daren't. Tell him, Paul, please, that I 'd

like to see him ever so much, but that it 's too dangerous. Say I wish

him well with all my heart, and that I hope most earnestly that he won't

let himself be caught."

"He won't," said Paul, with confidence. "But I 'll tell him."

"And say," continued Margaret--"say he 's not to feel sorry about what

has happened to me. Tell him I 'm still proud that I was his friend,

and that all this row is worth it. Can you remember all that?"

Paul nodded. "I can remember," he assured her. "It is--it is so fine to

hear, for me, too. I won't forget anything."

"Please don't, if you can help it. I want him to have that message,"

said Margaret. "And now, Paul, I 'll have to say good-by to you,

because I shan't come here again."

Paul stood upright as she rose. His slow smile was very friendly.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "You are going to London, and soon I

shall see you there."

"I wonder," she said, giving him her hand. "I 'll write you my address

and send it you before I leave, Paul."

"I should find you anyhow," he assured her confidently.

Mrs. du Preez, also, had to be taken leave of, and shed a tear or so at

the last. In her, a strong emotion found a safety valve in ferocity.

"As for that Jakes woman," she said, in conclusion, "you tell her from

me, Miss Harding--from _me_, mind,--that it wouldn't cost me any pain to

hand her a slap acrost the mug."

Margaret went homeward through the late light dreamily. Far away,

blurred by the sun's horizontal rays, the figure of the trooper occupied

the empty distance, no larger than an ant against the flushed sky. Peace

and melancholy were in the mood of the hour, a cue to lead her thoughts

towards sadness. It caused her to realize that she would not leave it

all without a sense of loss. She would miss its immensity, its effect

of setting one at large on an earth without trimmings under a heaven

without clouds, to make the most of one's own humanity. It would be a

thing she had known in part, but which henceforth she would never know

even as she herself was known. She could never now find the word that

expressed its wonder and its appeal.

Mr. Samson was on the stoep as she went up the steps to enter the

Sanatorium. He put down his paper and toddled forward to open the door

for her, anxiously punctilious.

"Ford was down for tea," he said. "Askin' for you, he was."

"Oh, was he?" replied Margaret inanely, and went in.

At supper that evening in the farmhouse kitchen, Christian du Preez,

glancing up from the food which occupied him, observed by a certain

frowning deliberation on Paul's face, that his son was about to deliver

himself in speech.

"Well, what is it, Paul?" he inquired encouragingly.

Paul looked up with a faint surprise at having his purpose thus

forecasted.

"That money," he said doubtfully.

"Oh." The Boer glanced uneasily at his wife, who laid down her knife

and fork and began to listen with startled interest.

"That 's all right," said Christian. "Do what you like with it. Go to

the dorp and spend it; it 's yours. Now eat your supper."

"I am going to London," said Paul then, seriously, and having got it off

his mind, said, heard and done with, he resumed his meal with an

appetite.

"London," echoed the Boer. "London?" exclaimed Mrs. du Preez.

"Yes," said Paul. "To make models. Here there is nobody to see them."

"He is gone mad," said the Boer with conviction. "He has been queer for

a long time and now he is mad. Paul, you are mad."

"Am I?" asked Paul respectfully, and continued to eat.

His father and mother had much to say, agitatedly, angrily,

persuasively, but people were always saying things to him that had no

real meaning. It was ridiculous, for instance, that the Boer should

call him a dumb fool because at the close of a lecture he should ask for

more coffee. He wasn't dumb and didn't believe he was a fool. People

were n't fools because they went to London; on the contrary, they had to

be rather clever and enterprising to get there at all. And at the back

of his mind dwelt the thing he could not hope to convey and did not

attempt to--a sense he had, which warmed and uplifted him, of nearing a

goal after doubt and difficulty, the Pisgah exaltation and tenderness,

the confidence that to him and to the work which his hands should

perform, Canaan was reserved, virgin and welcoming. It was a strength

he had in secret, and the Boer knew himself baffled when after an hour

of exhortation to be sane and explanatory and obedient and

comprehensible, he looked up and said, very thoughtfully:

"In London, people pay a shilling to look at clays, father."

*CHAPTER XVII*

Ford's return to normal existence coincided with the arrival of

mail-morning, when the breakfast menu was varied by home letters heaped

upon the plates. Mrs. Jakes had one of her own this morning and was

very conscious of it, affecting to find her correspondent's caligraphy

hard to read. Old Mr. Samson had his usual pile and greeted him from

behind a litter of torn wrappers and envelopes.

"Hullo, Ford," he cried, "up on your pins, again? Feelin' pretty

bobbish--what?"

"Nice way you 've got of putting it," replied Ford, taking his seat

before the three letters on his plate. "I 'm all right, though. You

seem fairly well supplied with reading-matter this morning."

"The usual, the usual," said Mr. Samson airily. "People gone to the

country; got time to write, don't you know. Here 's a feller tells me

that the foxes down his way are simply rotten with mange."

"Awful," said Ford, glancing at the first of his own letters. "And here

's a feller tells _me_ that he 's sent in the enclosed account nine

times and must press for a cheque without delay. What 's the country

coming to? Eh?"

"You be blowed," retorted Mr. Samson, and fell again to his reading.

From behind the urn Mrs. Jakes made noises indicative of lady-like

exasperation.

"The way some people write, you 'd never believe they 'd been educated

and finished regardless of expense," she declared. "There 's a word

here--she 's telling me about a lady I used to know in Town--and whether

she suffers from her children (though I never knew she was married) or

from a chaplain, I can't make out. Can you see what it is, Mr. Ford?

There, where I 'm pointing?"

"Oh, yes," said Ford. "It 's worse than you think, Mrs. Jakes. It 's

chilblains."

"O-oh." Mrs. Jakes was enlightened. "Why, of course. I remember now.

Even when she was a girl at school, she used to suffer dreadfully from

them. I thought she couldn't have been married, with such feet. But is

n't it a dreadful way to write?"

She would have indulged them with further information regarding the lady

who suffered, but Margaret's entrance drove her back behind the

breastwork of the urn. She distrusted her own correctness when the

girl's eyes were on her, and her sure belief that Margaret had revealed

herself as anything but correct by every standard which Mrs. Jakes could

apply, failed to reassure her.

"Good morning, Miss Harding," she said frostily. "You will take coffee?"

"Good morning," replied Margaret, passing to her place at the table.

"Yes, it is lovely."

"Er--the coffee?" asked Mrs. Jakes, suspicious and uncomprehending.

"Oh, coffee. Yes, please," said Margaret. "I thought you said

something about the weather."

Ford grinned at the letter he was reading and greeted her quietly.

"Glad you 're better," she replied, not returning his smile, and turned

at once to the letters which awaited her.

He was watching her while she sorted them, examining first the envelopes

for indications of what they held. One seemed to puzzle her, and she

took it up to decipher the postmark. Then she set it down and opened

the fattest of all, a worthy, linen-enveloped affair, containing a

couple of typewritten sheets as well as a short letter. She read it

perfunctorily and looked through the business-like typescripts

impatiently, folded them all up again and tucked them back into the

linen envelope. Then followed the others, and the one with the smudged

postmark last of all. She scrutinized the outside of this again before

she opened it; it was not an English letter, but one from some

unidentifiable postal district in South Africa. At last she opened it,

and drew out the dashing black scrawl which it harbored. A glance at

the end of the letter seemed to leave her in the dark, and Ford saw her

delicate brows knit as she began to read.

He found himself becoming absorbed in the mere contemplation of her. He

was aware of a character in her presence at once familiar to him by long

study and intangible; it had the quality of bloom, that a touch

destroys. She had hair that coiled upon her head and left its shape

discernible, and beneath it a certain breadth and frankness of brow upon

which the eyebrows were etched marvelously. She was like a lantern

which softens and tempers the impetuous flame within it, and turns its

ardor into radiance. The Kafir and the shame and the imprudence of that

affair did not suffice to darken that light; at the most, they could but

cause it to waver and make strange shadows for a moment, like the candle

one carries, behind a guarding hand, through a windy corridor. It did

not cool the strong flame that was the heart of the combination.

Suddenly Margaret laid the letter down. She put it back on her plate

with an abrupt gesture and he noted that she had gone pale, and that her

mouth was wry as though with a bitter taste. She even withdrew her

fingers from the sheet with exactly the movement of one who has by

accident set his hand on some unexpected piece of foulness.

She went on with her breakfast quietly enough, but she did not look at

her letters again. They were perhaps the first letters in years to come

to the Sanatorium and be dismissed with a single perusal.

"Fog in London," said Mr. Samson, suddenly. "Feller writes as though it

was the plague. _He_ does n't know what it is to have too much bally

sun."

The glare that shone through the window returned his glance unwinking.

"Fog?" responded Mrs. Jakes, alertly. "That is bad. Such dreadful

things happen in fogs. I remember a lady at Home, who was divorced

afterwards, who lost her way in a fog and didn't get home for two days,

and even then she had somebody else's umbrella and could no more

remember where she 'd got it than fly. And she was so confused and

upset that all she could say to her husband was: 'Ed,'--his name was

Edwin--'Ed, did you remember to have your hair cut?'"

"Had he remembered?" demanded Mr. Samson.

"I think not," replied Mrs. Jakes. "What with the worry, and the things

the servant said, I don't believe he 'd thought of it. He always did

wear it rather long."

"Think of that," said Mr. Samson, with solemn surprise.

Margaret finished her breakfast in silence and then gathered up her

letters. Ford thought that as she picked up the sheet which had

distressed her, she glanced involuntarily at him. But the look conveyed

nothing and she departed in silence. He was careful not to follow her

too soon.

It was not difficult to find her. For some two hours after breakfast

was over, the only part of the Sanatorium which it was possible to

inhabit with comfort was the stoep. The other rooms were given over to

Fat Mary and her colleagues for the daily ceremony known as "doing the

rooms," a festival involving excursions and alarms, skylarking,

breakages and fights. To seek seclusion in the drawing-room, for

example, was to be subjected to a cinematograph impression of surprised

and shocked black faces peering round the door and vanishing, to

scuffling noises on the mat and finally to hints from Mrs. Jakes

herself: "_Would_ you mind the girls just sweeping round your feet? They

're rather behindhand this morning."

Margaret had betaken herself and her chair to the extreme end of the

stoep, beyond the radius of Ford's art and Mr. Samson's meditations.

Her letters were in her lap, but she was not looking at them. She was

gazing straight before her at the emptiness which stretched out

endlessly, affording no perch for the eye to rest on, an everlasting

enigma to baffle sore minds.

Ford was innocent of stratagem in his manner of approach.

"I say," he said, and she looked up listlessly. "I say--I 'm sorry.

Can't we make it up?"

"All right," she answered.

He looked at her closely.

"But is it all right?" he persisted. "You 're hurt about something; I

can see you are; so it 's not all right yet. Look here, Miss Harding:

you were wrong about what I was thinking."

"Oh no." Margaret shifted in her chair with a tired impatience. "I

wasn't wrong," she answered. "I could see; and I think you should n't

go back on it now. The least you can do is stand by your beliefs. You

won't find yourself alone. I had a letter from some one this morning

who would back you up to the last drop of his blood, I 'm sure."

"Who 's that?"

"I don't know," she answered. "It 's my first anonymous letter.

Somebody has heard about me and therefore writes. He thinks just as you

do. Would you like to see it?"

She handed him the bold, crowded scrawl and sat back while he leaned on

the rail to read it.

At the second sentence in the letter he looked up sharply and restrained

an ejaculation. She was not looking at him, but a tinge of pink had

risen in her quiet face.

It was an anonymous letter of the most villainous kind. Something like

horror possessed him as he realized that her grave eyes had perused its

gleeful and elaborate offense. The abominable thing was a vileness

fished from the pit of a serious and blackguard mind. It had the

baseness of ordure, and a sort of frivolity that transcended commonplace

evil.

"I say," he cried, before the end of the ingenious thing was reached.

"You have n't read this through?"

"Not quite," she answered.

"I--I should think not."

With quick nervous jerks of his fingers which betrayed the hot anger he

felt, he tore the letter into strips and the strips again into smaller

fragments, and strewed them forth upon the stiff dead shrubs below.

"It's getting about, you see," said Margaret, with a sigh. "I suppose,

before I manage to get away, I shall be accustomed to things of that

kind."

"But this is awful," cried Ford. "I can't bear this. You, of all

people, to have to go through all that this means and threatens--it 's

awful. Miss Harding, let me apologize, let me grovel, let me do

anything that 'll give you the feeling that I 'm with you in this. You

can't face it alone--you simply can't. I'm sorry enough to--to kick

myself. Can't you let me stand in with you?"

He stopped helplessly before Margaret's languid calm. She was not in

the least stirred by his appeal. She lay back in her chair listlessly,

and only withdrew her eyes from the veld to look at him as he ceased to

speak.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," she said indifferently. "It's a silly business.

Don't worry about it, please."

"But--" began Ford, and stopped. "You mean--you won't have me with you,

anyhow?" he asked. "What you thought I thought, upstairs--you can't

forget that? Is that it?"

She smiled slowly, and he stared at her in dismay. Nothing could have

expressed so clearly as that faint smile her immunity from the passion

that stirred in him.

"Perhaps it 's that," she answered, always in the same indifferent, low

voice. "I 'm not thinking more about it than I can help."

"I didn't think any harm of you," Ford protested earnestly, leaning

forward from his perch on the rail and striving to compel her to look at

him. "We 've been good friends, and you might have trusted me not to

think evil of you. I simply didn't understand--nothing else. You can't

seriously be offended because you imagined that I was thinking certain

thoughts. It isn't fair."

"I 'm not offended," she answered.

"Hurt, then," he substituted. "Anything you please."

He stepped down from his seat and walked a few paces away, with his

hands deeply sunk in his pockets, and then walked back again.

"I say," he said abruptly; "it 's a question of what I think of you, it

seems. Let me tell you what I do think."

Margaret turned her face towards him. He was frowning heavily, with an

appearance of injury and annoyance. He spoke in curt jets.

"It 's only since I 've known you that I 've really worried over being a

lunger," he said. "The Army--I could stand that. But seeing you and

talking to you, and knowing I 'd no right to say a word--no right to try

and lead things that way, even, for your sake as much as mine--it 's

been hard. Because--this is what I do think--it 's seemed to me that

you were worth more than everything else. I 'd have given the world to

tell you so, and ask you--well, you know what I mean."

Margaret was not so steeped in sorrows but she could mark this evasion

of a plain statement with amusement.

Ford, staring at her intently, clicked with impatience.

"Well, then," he said in the tone of one who is goaded to extreme

lengths; "well then, Miss--er--Margaret--" he paused, seemingly struck

by a pleasant flavor in the name as he spoke it--"Margaret," he

repeated, less urgently; "I 'm hanged if I know how to say it, but--I

love you."

There was an appreciable interval while they remained gazing at each

other, he breathless and discomposed, she grave and unresponding.

"Do you?" she said at last. "But--"

"I do," he urged. "On my soul, I do. Margaret, it 's true. I 've

been--loving--you for a long time. I thought perhaps you might care a

little, too, sometimes, and I 'd have told you if it was n't for this

chest of mine. That 's what I meant when you said you were going away

and I asked you to stay. I thought you understood then."

"I did understand," she replied, and sat thoughtful.

She wondered vaguely at the apathy that mastered her and would not

suffer her to feel even a thrill. Some virtue had departed out of her

and drawn with it the whole liveliness of her mind and spirit, so that

what remained was mere deadness. She knew, in some subconscious and

uninspiring manner, that Ford was what he had always been, with passion

added to him; he was waiting in a tension of suspense for her to answer,

with his thin face eager and glowing. It should have moved her with

compassion and liking for the stubborn, faithful, upright soul she knew

him to be. But the letter, the confident approaches of the Punchinello

policeman, and even Mrs. Jakes' ill-restrained joy in bidding her leave

the place, had been so many blows upon her function of susceptibility.

The accumulation of them had a little stunned her, and she was not yet

restored.

Ford saw her lips hesitate before she spoke, and his heart beat more

quickly.

She looked up at him uncertainly and made a movement with her shoulders

like a shrug.

"Oh, I can't," she said suddenly. "No, I can't. It 's no use; you must

leave me alone, please."

His look of sheer amazement, of pain and bewilderment, returned to her

later. It was as though he had been struck in the face by some one he

counted on as a friend. He stood for an instant rooted.

"Sorry," he said, then. "I might have seen I was worrying you. Sorry."

His retreating feet sounded softly on the flags of the stoep, and she

sank back in her chair, wondering wearily at the event and its

inconsequent conclusion, with her eyes resting on the wide invitation of

the veld.

"Am I going to be ill?" was the thought that came to her relief. "Am I

going to be ill? I 'm not really like this."

The ordeal of lunch had to be faced; she could not eat, but still less

could she face the prospect of Mrs. Jakes with a tray. Afterwards,

there was the dreary labor of writing letters to go before her to

England and make ready the way for her return. There would have to be

explanations of some kind, and it was a sure thing that her explanations

would fail to satisfy a number of people who would consider themselves

entitled to comment on her movements. There would have to be some

mystery about it, at the best. For the present, she could not screw

herself up to the task of composing euphemisms. "Expect me home by the

boat after next. I will tell you why when I see you"; that had to

suffice for the legal uncle, his lawful wife, the philosophic aunt and

all the rest.

Then came tea and afterwards dinner; the day dragged like a sick snake.

Dr. Jakes made mournful eyes at her and talked feverishly to cover his

nervousness and compunction, and now and again he looked down the table

at his wife and Mr. Samson with furtive malevolence. Afterwards, in the

drawing-room, Mrs. Jakes, having made an inspection of the doctor,

played the intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" five times, and Ford

and Samson spent the evening over a chessboard. Margaret, on the couch,

found herself coming to the surface of the present again and again from

depths of heavy and turgid thought, to find the intermezzo still limping

along and Mr. Samson still apostrophizing his men in an undertone ("Take

his bally bishop, old girl; help yourself. No, come back--he 'll have

you with that knight"). It was interminable, a pocket eternity.

Then the view of the stairs sloping up to the dimness above and the cool

air of the hall upon her neck and face, and the sourness of Mrs. Jakes

trying to give her "good night" the intonation of an insult--these

intruded abruptly upon her straying faculties, and she came a little

dazed into the light of the candles in her own room, where her eyes fell

first on the breadth of Fat Mary's back, as that handmaid stood at the

window with the blind in her hand and peered forth into the dark. As

she turned, Margaret gained an impression that the stout woman's

interest in something below was interrupted by her entrance.

Fat Mary had been another of Margaret's disappointments since the

exposure. The Kafir woman's manner to her had undergone a notable

change. There was no longer the touch of reverence and gentleness with

which she had tended Margaret at first, which had made endearing all her

huge incompetence and playfulness. There had succeeded to it a manner

of familiarity which manifested itself chiefly in the roughness of her

handling. Margaret was being called upon to pay the penalty which the

African native exacts from the European who encroaches upon the

aloofness of the colored peoples.

Fat Mary grinned as Margaret came through the door.

"Mo' stink," she observed, cheerfully, and pointed to the

dressing-table.

Margaret's eyes followed the big black finger to where a bunch of aloe

plumes lay between the candles on the white cloth, brilliantly red. The

sight of them startled the girl sharply. She went across and raised

them.

"Where did they come from?" she asked quickly.

"That Kafir," grinned Fat Mary. "Missis's Kafir, he bring 'im."

"What did he say? Did he give any message?"

"No," replied Fat Mary. "Jus' stink-flowers, an' give me Scotchman."

"Scotchman" is Kafir slang for a florin; it has for an origin a myth

reflecting on the probity of a great race. But Margaret did not

inquire; she was pondering a possible significance in this gift of

bitter blooms.

Fat Mary eyed her acutely while she stood in thought.

"He say don't tell nobody," she remarked casually. "I say no fear--me!

I don't tell. Missis like that Kafir plenty?"

"Mary," said Margaret. "You can go now. I shan't want you."

"All a-right," replied Fat Mary willingly, and took herself off

forthwith. She had her own uses for a present of spare time at this

season.

Margaret put the red flowers down as the door closed behind Fat Mary,

and set herself before the mirror. There was still that haze between

her thoughts and the realities about her, a drifting cloudiness that

sometimes obscured them all together, and sometimes broke and let

matters appear.

She noted in the mirror the strange, familiar specter of her own face,

and saw that the hectic was strong and high on either cheek. Then the

aloe plumes plucked at her thoughts, and the haze closed about her

again, leaving her blind in a deep and aimless preoccupation in which

her thoughts were no more than a pulse, repeating itself to no end.

Ford's declaration and his manner of making it; the Punchinello

countenance of the trooper, bestially insinuating; Mrs. Jakes eating

soup at Mr. Samson;--these came and went in the dreadful arena of her

mind and made a changing spectacle that baffled the march of the

clock-hands.

She did not know how long she had been sitting when a rattle at the

window surprised her into looking up. She stared absently at the blind

till it came again. It had the sound of some one throwing earth from

below. She rose and went across and looked out.

It had not touched her nerves at all; it was not the kind of thing which

could frighten her. The window was raised at the bottom and she kneeled

on the floor and put her head, cloudily haloed with her loose hair, out

to the star-tempered dark.

A whisper from below, where the whisperer stood invisible in the shadow

at the foot of the wall, hailed her at once.

"Miss Harding," it said. "Miss Harding. I 'm here, directly below

you."

She could see nothing.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Hush." She had spoken in her ordinary tones. "Not so loud. It 's

dangerous."

"Who is it?" she asked again, subduing her voice.

"Why--Kamis, of course." The answer came in a tone of surprise. "You

expected me, did n't you? Your light was burning."

"Expected you? No," said Margaret "I didn't expect you; you ought n't

to have come."

"But--" the voice was protesting; "my message. It was on the paper

around the aloe plumes. I particularly told the fat Kafir woman to give

you that, and she promised. If your light was burning, I 'd throw

something up at your window, and if not, I 'd go away. That was it."

The night breeze came in at the tail of his words with a dry rustling of

the dead vines.

"There was no paper," said Margaret.

The Kafir below uttered an angry exclamation which she did not catch.

"If only you don't mind," he said, then. "I got Paul's message from you

and I had to try and see you."

"Yes," said Margaret. She could not see him at all; under the lee of

the house the night was black, though at a hundred paces off she could

make out the lie of the ground in the starlight. His whispering voice

was akin to the night.

"Then you don't mind?" he urged.

"I don't mind, of course," said Margaret. "But it 's too risky."

Further along the stoep there was a dim warmish glow through the red

curtains of the study and a leak of faint light under the closed front

door. The house was loopholed for unfriendly eyes and ears. There was

no security under that masked battery for their privacy. At any moment

Mrs. Jakes might prick up her ears and stand intent and triumphant to

hear their strained whispers in cautious interchange. Margaret shrank

from the thought of it.

"I only want a word," answered Kamis from the darkness. "I may not see

you again. You won't let me drop without a word--after everything?"

Margaret hesitated. "Some one may pick up that paper and read your

message and watch to see what happens. I couldn't bear any more trouble

about it."

There was a pause.

"No," agreed Kamis, then. "No--of course. I didn't think of that. I

'll say good-by now, then."

Margaret strained to see him, but the night hid him securely.

"Wait!" she called carefully. "I don't want you to go away like that;

it 's simply that this is too risky." She paused. "I 'd better come

down to you," she said.

She could not tell what he answered, whether joy or demurral, for she

drew her head in at once, and then opened the door and went out to the

corridor.

It was good to be doing something, and to have to do with one whose

sympathies were not strained. She went lightly and noiselessly down the

wide stairs, and recognized again, with a smile, the secret aspect of

the hall in the dark hours. There was a thread of light under the door

of Dr. Jakes' study, and within that locked room the dutiful small clock

was still ticking off the moments as stolidly as though all moments were

of the same value. The outer door was closed with a mighty lock and a

great iron key, and opened with a clang that should have brought Dr.

Jakes forth to inquire. But he did not come, and she went unopposed out

to the stoep under the metallic rustle of its dead vines.

She was going swiftly, with her velvet-shod feet, to that distant part

of it which was under the broad light of her window, when the Kafir

appeared before her so suddenly that she almost ran into him.

"Oh." She uttered a little cry. "You startled me."

"I 'm sorry," he answered.

"You ought n't to be here," Margaret said, "because it 's dangerous.

But I am glad to see you."

"That 's good of you," he said. "I got Paul's message. I had to come.

I had to see you once more, and besides, he said you were--in trouble.

About me?"

"Oh, yes," said Margaret. "No end of trouble, all about you. An

anonymous letter, notice to quit, pity and smiles, two suitors, one with

intentions which were strictly dishonorable, and so on. And the simple

truth is, I don't care a bit."

"Oh, Lord!" said the Kafir.

They were standing close to the wall, immersed in its shadow and

sheltered from the wind that sighed above them and beside them and made

the vines vocal. Neither could see the other save as a shadowy presence.

"I don't care," said Margaret, "and I refuse to bother about it. I 've

got to go, of course, and I don't like the feeling of being kicked out.

That rankles a little bit, when I relax the strain of being superior and

amused at their littleness. But as for the rest, I don't care."

"It's my fault," said the Kafir quietly. "It's all my fault. I knew

all the time what the end of it would be; and I let it come. There 's

something mean in a nigger, Miss Harding. I knew it was there well

enough, and now it shows."

"Don't," said Margaret.

There fell a pause between them, and she could hear his breathing. She

remembered the expression on Ford's face when he had questioned her as

to whether she did not experience a repulsion at a Kafir's proximity to

her, and tried now to find any such aversion in herself. They stood in

an intimate nearness, so that she could not have moved from her place

without touching him; but there was none. Whoever had it for a pedestal

of well and truly laid local virtues, she had it not.

"This is good-by, of course," said the Kafir, in his pleasant low tones.

"I 'll never see you again, but I 'll never forget how good and

beautiful you were to me. I must n't keep you out here, or there are a

hundred things I want to say to you; but that 's the chief thing. I 'll

never forgive myself for what has happened, but I 'll never forget."

"There 's nothing you need blame yourself for," said Margaret eagerly.

"It 's been worth while. It has, really. You 're somebody and you 're

doing something great and real, while the people in here are just shams,

like me. Oh," she cried softly; "if only there was something for me to

_do_."

"For you," repeated the Kafir. "You must be--what you are; not spoil it

by doing things."

"No," said Margaret. "No. That 's just chivalry and nonsense. I want

something to do, something real. I want something that _costs_--I don't

care what. Even this silly trouble I 'm in now is better than being a

smiling goddess. I want--I want--"

Her mind moved stiffly and she could not seize the word she needed.

"It would be wasting you," Kamis was saying. "It would be throwing you

away."

"I want to suffer," she said suddenly. "Yes--that 's what I want. You

suffer--don't you? That woman in Capetown will have to suffer;

everybody who really does things suffers for it; and I want to."

"Do you?" said Kamis, with a touch of awkwardness. "But--what woman in

Capetown do you mean?"

"Oh, you must have heard," said Margaret impatiently. "She married a

Kafir; it 's been in the papers."

"Yes," he said, "I remember now."

"I told them all, in here, a long time ago, that in some city of the

future there would be a monument to her, with the inscription: 'She felt

the future in her bones.' But while she lives they 'll make her suffer;

they 'll never forgive her. I wish I could have met her before I go."

There was a brief pause. "Why?" asked Kamis then, in a low voice.

"Why? Because she 'd understand, of course. I 'd like to talk to her

and tell her about you. Don't you see?" Margaret laughed a little. "I

could tell her about it as though it were all quite natural and

ordinary, and she 'd understand."

She heard the Kafir move but he did not reply at once.

"Perhaps she would," he said. "However, you 're not going to meet her,

so it does n't matter."

"But," said Margaret, puzzled at the lack of responsiveness in his tone

and words, "don't you think she was splendid? She must have known the

price she would have to pay; but it didn't frighten her. Don't you

think it was fine?"

"Well," Kamis answered guardedly; "I suppose she knew what she was

about."

"Then," persisted Margaret, "you don't think it was fine?"

She found his manner of speaking of the subject curiously reminiscent of

Ford.

Kamis uttered an embarrassed laugh. "Well," he said, "I 'm afraid I 'm

not very sympathetic. I suppose I 've lived too long among white

people; my proper instincts have been perverted. But the fact is, I

think that woman was--wrong."

"Oh," said Margaret. "Why?"

"There isn't any why," he answered. "It 's a matter of feeling, you

know; not of reason. Really, it amounts to--it 's absurd, of course,

but it 's practically negrophobia. You can't bring a black man up as a

white man and then expect him to be entirely free from white prejudices.

Can you?"

"But--" Margaret spoke in some bewilderment. "What's the use of being

black," she demanded, "if you 've got all the snobbishness of the white?

That 's the way Mr. Ford spoke about it. He said he could feel all that

was fine in it, but he wouldn't speak to such a woman. I thought that

was cruel."

"Oh, I don't know," said Kamis.

"Another time," said Margaret deliberately, "he asked me whether it

didn't make my flesh creep to touch your hand."

"He thought it ought to?"

"Yes. But it doesn't," said Margaret. "How does your negrophobia face

that fact? Doesn't it condemn me to the same shame as the woman in

Capetown? Or does it make exceptions in the case of a particular

negro?"

"I said I did n't reason about it," replied Kamis. "I told you what I

felt. You asked me and I told you."

"I wish you hadn't," said Margaret. "I thought that you at any rate--"

She broke off at a quick movement he made. A sudden sense came to her

that they two were no longer alone, and, with a stiffening of alarm, she

turned abruptly to see what had disturbed him. Even as she turned, she

lifted her hand to her bosom with a premonition of imminent disaster.

At the head of the steps that led down to the garden, and in the dim

light of the half-open front door, a figure had appeared. It came

deliberately towards them, with one hand lifted holding something.

"Hands up, you boy!" it said. "Up, now, or I 'll--"

By the door, the face was visible, the unhappy, greedy, Punchinello

features that Margaret knew as those of the policeman. Its hard eyes

rested on the pair of them over the raised revolver that threatened the

Kafir.

The driving mists returned to beat her back from the spectacle; she was

helpless and weak. Warmth filled her throat, chokingly; an acrid taste

was in her mouth. She took two groping steps forward and fell on the

flags at the policeman's feet and lay there.

From a window over their heads, there came the gurgle of Fat Mary's rich

mirth.

*CHAPTER XVIII*

It was the scream of Mrs. Jakes that woke Ford, when, hearing

unaccountable noises and attributing them to the doctor, she went to the

hall and was startled to see in the doorway the figure of the Kafir,

with his hands raised strangely over his head, as though he were

suspended by the wrists from the arch, and behind him the shadowy

policeman, with his revolver protruded forward into the light. She

caught at her heart and screamed.

Ford found himself awake, leaning up on one elbow, with the echo of her

scream yet in his ears, and listening intently. He could not be certain

what he had heard, for now the house was still again; and it might have

been some mere incident of Jakes' transit from the study to his bed,

into which it was better not to inquire. But some quality in the cry

had conveyed to him, in the instant of his waking, an impression of

sudden terror which he could not dismiss, and he continued to listen,

frowning into the dark.

His room was over the stoep, but at some distance from the front door,

and for a while he heard nothing. Then, as his ears became attuned to

the night's acoustics, he was aware that somewhere there were voices,

the blurred and indistinguishable murmur of people talking. They were

hardly audible at all; not a word transpired; he knew scarcely more than

that the stillness of the night was infringed. His curiosity quickened,

and to feed it there sounded the step of a booted foot that fell with a

metallic clink, the unmistakable ring of a spur. Ford sat upright.

A couple of moments later, some one spoke distinctly.

"Keep those hands up," Ford heard, in a quick nasal tone; "or I 'll blow

your head off."

Ford thrust the bedclothes from his knees and got out of bed. He lifted

the lower edge of the blind and leaned forth from the open window.

Below him the stone stoep ran to right and left like a gray path, and a

little way along it the light in the hall, issuing from the open door,

cut across it and showed the head of the wide steps. Beyond the light,

a group of dark figures were engaged with something. As he looked, the

group began to move, and he saw that Mrs. Jakes came to the side of the

door and stood back to give passage to four shuffling Kafirs bearing the

stretcher which was part of the house's equipment. There was somebody

on the stretcher, as might have been seen from the laborious gait of the

bearers, but the thing had a hood that withheld the face of the occupant

as they passed in, with Mrs. Jakes at their heels.

Two other figures brought up the rear and likewise entered at the

doorway and passed from sight. The first, as he became visible in the

gloom beyond the light, was dimly grotesque; he seemed too tall and not

humanly proportioned, a deformed and willowy giant. Once he was opposite

the door, his height explained itself; he was walking with both arms

extended to their full length above his head and his face bowed between

them. Possibly because the attitude strained him, he went with a gait

as marked as his posture, a measured and ceremonial step as though he

were walking a slow minuet. The light met him as he turned in the

doorway and Ford, staring in bewilderment, had a momentary impression

that the face between the raised arms was black. He disappeared, with

the last of the figures close behind him, and concerning this one there

was no doubt whatever. It revealed itself as a trooper of the Mounted

Police, belted and spurred, his "smasher" hat tilted forward over his

brows, and a revolver held ready in his hand, covering the back of the

man who walked before him.

"Here," ejaculated Ford, gazing at the empty stoep where the shadow-show

had been, with an accent of dismay in his thoughts. The affair of

Margaret and the Kafir leaped to his mind; all that had occurred below

might be a new and poignant development in that bitter comedy, and but

for a chance he might have missed it all.

He was quick to make a light and find his dressing-gown and a pair of

slippers, and he was knotting the cord of the former as he passed out to

the long corridor and went swiftly to the head of the stairs, where the

lamp that should light Dr. Jakes to his bed was yet burning patiently.

The stretcher was already coming up the staircase and he paused and

stood aside to make room for it. The four Kafirs were bringing it up

head first, treading carefully and breathing harshly after the manner of

the Kafir when he is conscious of eyes upon him. Behind them followed

Mrs. Jakes, shepherding them up with hushing noises. A gray blanket

covered the form in the stretcher with limp folds.

The Kafirs saw Ford first and acknowledged his presence with

simultaneous grins. Then Mrs. Jakes saw him and made a noise like a

startled moan, staring up with vexed, round eyes.

"Oh, Mr. Ford," she exclaimed faintly. "Please go back to bed. It

's--it 's three o'clock in the morning."

Beyond and below her was the hall, in which the lamp had now been turned

up. Ford looked past her impassively, and took in the two men who

waited there, the Kafir, with his raised arms--trembling now with the

fatigue of keeping them up--and the saturnine policeman with his

revolver. The stretcher had come abreast of him and he bent to look

under the hood. The bearers halted complaisantly that he might see,

shifting their grips on the poles and smiling uneasily.

Margaret's face had the quietude of heavy lids closed upon the eyes and

features composed in unconsciousness. But the mouth was bloody, and

there were stains of much blood, bright and dreadful, on the white linen

at her throat. For all that Ford knew what it betokened, the sight gave

him a shock; it looked like murder. They had broken her hair from its

bonds in lifting her and placing her in the stretcher and now her head

was pillowed on it and its disorder made her stranger.

Mrs. Jakes was babbling nervously at him.

"Mr. Ford, you really must n't. I wish you 'd go back to bed. I 'll

tell you about it in the morning, if you 'll go now."

Ford motioned to the Kafirs to go on.

"Where's the doctor?" he demanded curtly.

"Oh," said Mrs. Jakes, "I 'll see to all that. Mr. Ford, it 's _all

right_. You 're keeping me from putting her to bed by standing talking

like this. Don't you believe me when I say it 's all right? Why are

you looking at me like that?"

"Is he in the study?" asked Ford.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Jakes. "But _I 'll_ tell him, Mr. Ford.

I--I--promise I will, if only you 'll go back to bed now. I will

really."

Ford glanced along the corridor where the Kafirs had halted again,

awaiting instructions from Mrs. Jakes. There was a picture on the wall,

entitled "Innocence"--early Victorian infant and kitten--and they were

staring at it in reverent interest.

"Better see to Miss Harding," he said, and passed her and went down to

the hall. She turned to see what he was going to do, in an agony of

alertness to preserve the decency of the locked study door. But he went

across to speak to the policeman, and she hurried after the Kafirs, to

get the girl in bed and free herself to deal with the demand for the

presence of the doctor.

The Kafir stood with his back to the wall, near the big front door,

closer to which was the trooper, always with the revolver in his hand

and a manner of watching eagerly for an occasion to use it. Ford went

to them, knitting his brows at the spectacle. The prisoner saw him as a

slim young man of a not unusual type in a dressing-gown, with short

tumbled hair; the policeman, with a more specialized experience, took in

the quality of his manner with a rapid glance and stiffened to

uprightness. He knew the directness and aloofness that go to the making

of that ripe fruit of our civilization, an officer of the army.

"Have n't you searched him for weapons?" demanded Ford.

"No," said the policeman, and added "sir," as an afterthought.

Ford stepped over to the Kafir and passed his hands down his sides and

across his breast, feeling for any concealed dangers about his person.

"Nothing," he said. "You can handcuff him if you want to, but there 's

no need to keep him with his hands up. It's torture--you hear?"

"Yes, sir," responded the policeman again. "Put them down," he bade his

prisoner.

Kamis, with a sigh, lowered his hands, wincing at the stiffness of his

cramped arms.

"Thank you," he said to Ford, in a low voice. "I 've had them up--it

must be half an hour."

"Well, you 're all right now," responded Ford, with a nod.

He tried the study door but it was locked and there was no response to

his knocks and his rattling of the handle.

"Jakes," he called, several times. "I say, you 're wanted. Jakes,

d'you hear me?"

Kamis and the trooper watched him in silence, the latter with his bold,

unhappy features set into something like a sneer. They saw him test the

strength of the lock with a knee; it gave no sign of weakness and he

stood considering on the mat. An idea came to him and he went briskly,

with his long stride, to the front door.

"I say," called the Kafir as he went by.