PART I

E-text prepared by Al Haines

BLUE ALOES

Stories Of South Africa

by

CYNTHIA STOCKLEY

Author of "Poppy," "Wild Honey," etc.

G. P. Putnam's Sons

New York and London

The Knickerbocker Press

1919

Copyright, 1919

by

Cynthia Stockley

CONTENTS

BLUE ALOES

THE LEOPARD

ROSANNE OZANNE

APRIL FOLLY

Blue Aloes

The Strange Story of a Karoo Farm

PART I

Night, with the sinister, brooding peace of the desert, enwrapped the

land, and the inmates of the old Karoo farm had long been at rest; but

it was an hour when strange tree-creatures cry with the voices of human

beings, and stealthy velvet-footed things prowl through places

forbidden by day, and not all who rested at Blue Aloes were sleeping.

Christine Chaine, wakeful and nervous, listening to the night sounds,

found them far more distracting than any the day could produce. Above

the breathing of the three children sleeping near her in the big room,

the buzz of a moth-beetle against the ceiling, and the far-off howling

of jackals, she could hear something out in the garden sighing with

faint, whistling sighs. More disquieting still was a gentle,

intermittent tapping on the closed and heavily barred shutters, inside

which the windows stood open, inviting coolness. She had heard that

tapping every one of the three nights since she came to the farm.

The window stood to the right of her bed, and, by stretching an arm,

she could have unbolted the shutters and looked out, but she would have

died rather than do it. Not that she was a coward. But there was some

sinister quality in the night noises of this old Karoo farm that

weighed on her courage and paralyzed her senses. So, instead of

stirring, she lay very still in the darkness, the loud, uncertain beats

of her heart adding themselves to all the other disconcerting sounds.

Mrs. van Cannan had laughed her lazy, liquid laugh when Christine

spoke, the first morning after her arrival, of the tapping.

"It was probably a stray ostrich pecking on your shutters," said the

mistress of Blue Aloes. "You are strange to the Karoo, my dear. When

you have been here a month, you'll take no notice of night noises."

There was possibly truth in the prophecy, but Christine doubted it.

There were also moments when she doubted being able to last a week out

at the farm, to say nothing of a month. That was only in the night

watches, however; by day, she found it hard to imagine any

circumstances so unpleasant as to induce her to leave the three little

van Cannan children, who, even in so short a time, had managed to twine

their fingers and their mops of bronze hair round her affections.

The tapping began again, soft and insistent. Christine knew it was not

a branch, for she had taken the trouble to ascertain; and that a stray

ostrich should choose her window to peck at for three nights running

seemed fantastic. Irrelatively, one of the children murmured drowsily

in sleep, and the little human sound braced the girl's nerves. The

sense of loneliness left her, giving place to courageous resolution.

She forgot everything save that she was responsible for the protection

of the children, and determined that the tapping must be investigated,

once and for all. Just as she was stirring, the soft sighing

recommenced close to the shutters, followed by three clear taps.

Christine changed her mind about getting out of bed, but she leaned

toward the window on her elbow, and said, in a low voice that trembled

a little:

"Is any one there?"

A whistling whisper answered her:

"_Take care of the children._"

With the words, a strangely revolting odour came stealing through the

shutters. The girl shrank back, all her fears returning. Yet she

forced herself to speak again.

"Who is it? What do you want?"

"_Mind the boy--take care of the boy,_" sobbed the whistling voice, and

again the foul odour stole into the room. It seemed to Christine the

smell of something dead and rotten and old. She could not bear it.

Hatred of it was greater than fear, and, springing from her bed, she

wrestled with the bolts of the shutters. But when she threw them open

there was--nothing! Darkness stood without like a presence, and seemed

to push against the shutters, trying to enter as she hastily rebarred

them.

Something was stirring in the room, too. With hands that shook, she

lit the candle and, by its gleam, discovered Roderick, the eldest

child, sitting up in bed, his red-gold mop all tumbled, his eyes, full

of dreams, fixed on her with a wide stare. She crossed the room, and

knelt beside him.

"What is it, darling?"

"I thought my nannie was there," he murmured.

"Your nannie?" she echoed, in surprise, knowing that "nannie" was the

common name for any black nurse who tended and waited on them. "But

she is in bed and asleep long ago."

"I don't mean _that_ one. I mean my nannie what's dead--Sophy."

The girl's backbone grew chill. She remembered hearing that the

children had been always minded by an educated old Basuto woman called

Sophy, who had been a devoted slave to each from birth up, and because

of whose death, a few months back, a series of English governesses had

come and gone at the farm.

She remembered, too, those fluty whispers that resembled no human voice.

"Lie down, darling, and sleep," she said gently. "I will stay by you."

The boy did not instantly obey. He had a whim to sit up, watching.

There was no fear in his wide grey eyes, but it was uncanny to see them

searching the shadows of the room and returning always, with a fixed,

somnambulistic stare, to the window. Christine had a fancy that

children, with the memories of another world clinging to them, have a

vision of unseen things denied to older people; and she wondered

painfully what was going on in the mind behind this handsome little

face. At last, she prevailed upon him to lie down, but it was long

before he slept. Even then, she sat on, holding his hand, keeping

vigil over him and the two other small sleepers.

They were lovely children. Each head glowed red-gold upon its pillow,

and each little profile was of a regularity almost classical, with the

pure colouring peculiar to red-haired people. The boy's face was well

sprinkled with freckles, but five-year-old Marguerite and little Coral,

of four, who were perfect little imps of mischief, had the dainty

snow-pink look of daisies growing in a meadow with their faces turned

up to God.

It was difficult to connect such fragrant, well-tended flowers with the

whistling horror out in the darkness. More, it was absurd, impossible.

The girl decided that the whole thing was a bad nightmare which she

must shake off. The explanation of it could only be that, half asleep,

she had dreamed she heard the tapping and the whispers, and smelled the

evil odour. Why should a _Thing_ come and tell her to mind the

children? "_Mind the boy._" He was already minded--they were all

happy and well cared for in their own home. The boy Roderick must have

been dreaming, too, and talking in his sleep. Thus, Christine's clear

English mind rejected the whole thing as an illusion, resulting from

weariness and the new, strange conditions of her life. Yet there was

an Irish side to her that could not so easily dispose of the matter.

She remembered with what uneasiness her nights had been haunted from

the first. How always, when the dark fell, she had sensed something

uncanny, something unseen and menacing, that she could never track to

its source. But tonight the sense of hovering evil had taken definite

form and direction. It was at the children that harm was directed; the

whistling, sighing words had concerned the children only. The girl

shivered again at the horrid recollection.

"Yet anything that cares about children cannot be altogether evil," she

thought. That comforted her a little, but the spell of horror the

night had laid upon her was not lifted until dawn came. Then she

slipped on some clothes and let herself out into the morning air.

The garden that straggled about the farm was composed of a dozen

century-old oaks, a sprinkling of feathery pepper-trees, and many

clumps of brilliant-blossomed cacti. The veranda and outbuildings were

heavily hung with creepers, and great barrels of begonias and geraniums

stood about. Within a few hundred yards of the house, the green and

glowing cultivation stopped as abruptly as the edges of an oasis in the

desert, and the Karoo began--that sweeping, high table-land, empty of

all but brown stones, long white thorns, fantastically shaped clumps of

prickly-pear, bare brown hills, and dried-up rivulets, and that yet is

one of the healthiest and, from the farmer's point of view, wealthiest

plateaux in the world.

Between the farm and the far hills arose a curious line of shroudy

blue, seeming to hover round the estate, mystically encircling it, and

cutting it off from the rest of the desert. This was the century-old

hedge of blue aloes which gave the farm its name. Planted in a huge

ring of many miles' circumference, the great spiked cacti, with leaves

thick and flat as hide shields, and pointed as steel spears, made a

barrier against cattle, ostriches, and human beings that was impassable

except by the appointed gaps. No doubt it had a beauty all its own,

but beneath its fantastic, isolated blooms and leaves of Madonna blue,

the gnarled roots sheltered a hundred varieties of poisonous reptiles

and insects. That is why, in Africa, no one likes blue aloes--they

always harbour death.

Dawn on the Karoo more than compensates for its fearsome nights and

torrid noontides. The dew, jewelling a thousand spider-webs, the

sparkling brightness of the air, the exquisite purity of the

atmosphere, and grandeur of space and loneliness rimmed about by

rose-tipped skies and far forget-me-not hills make a magic to catch the

heart in a net from which it never quite escapes.

Christine felt this enchantment as she wandered across the veld, her

eyes fixed on the hills from behind which the sun would presently

emerge to fill the land with a clear, pitiless heat that turned

everything curiously grey. A dam of water reflecting pink cloud-tips

lay bright and still as a sheet of steel. The fields of lucerne, under

the morning light, were softly turning from black to emerald, and

beyond the aloe hedge a native kraal that was scattered on the side of

a hill slowly woke to life. A dog barked; a wisp of smoke curled

between the thatched huts, and one or two blanketed figures crept from

the low doors. The simple yet secret lives of these people intrigued

Christine deeply. She knew little of Kafirs, for she had been in

Africa only a few months; but the impassive silence of them behind

their watching, alert eyes always fascinated her. They said so little

before their masters, the whites. Here, for instance, was a little

colony of fifty or more people living in a kraal close to their

employers. Some of them were grey-haired and had worked for a quarter

of a century on the farm--the men on the land, the women at the

house--yet, once their daily tasks were over, none knew what their

lives were when they returned to the straggling village of palisades

and low-doored huts.

Musing on these things, Christine turned at last and sauntered slowly

homeward. Everything was still very quiet, but smoke was rising from

the solid farm chimneys, and, rounding the corners of some large

outbuildings, she came suddenly upon more life--feathery, fantastic

life of spindlelegs and fluttering wings. Scores of baby ostriches,

just released from their night shelter, were racing into the morning

light, pirouetting round each other like crazy, gleesome sprites.

Christine stood laughing at their fandangos and the antics of the

Kafirs engaged in herding them. A man standing near, pipe in mouth,

and hands in pockets, observing the same scene, was astonished that her

sad yet passionate face could so change under the spell of laughter.

He had wondered, when he first saw her, why a girl with such ardent

eyes should wear such weariness upon her lips and look so disdainfully

at life. Now he saw that it was a mask she wore and forgot when she

was alone, and he wondered still more what had brought such a girl to

be a governess on a Karoo farm.

But in a moment Christine's face changed, resuming, like a veil over

its youth and bloom, the look of world-weariness. She bowed slightly

to him, with a somewhat cool response to his pleasant morning greeting,

and made haste to resume her walk homeward.

She knew him to be Richard Saltire, the government forest and land

expert, who was engaged in certain experiments on the farm. He shared

a bungalow somewhere on the land with two young Hollanders who were

learning ostrich-farming, and came with them to lunch every day at the

house. Already, his bold, careless face, with its sunbitten beauty,

had separated itself in her memory from the faces of the other men, for

it was a face and personality that could not leave a woman undisturbed.

Incidentally, it had disturbed her in connection with an impression not

altogether agreeable.

One of the first hints Mrs. van Cannan had given the new governess was

that the master of Blue Aloes did not care for any kind of intimacy to

exist between the womenfolk of the farm and the men occupied about it.

Christine had been long enough in South Africa to recognize that this

was an odd departure from the general rule of friendliness and

equality; but a hint to the proud has the same efficacy as a word to

the wise. Besides, she had no longing for the society of men, but

rather a wish to forget that she had ever known any. Life had made a

hole in her heart which she meant to fill if she could, but only with

inanimate things and the love of children. So that Mr. van Cannan's

unsociable restriction, far from being irksome, suited her perfectly.

Mrs. van Cannan apparently did not apply to herself her husband's

injunction, for she was charming to everybody, and especially to Mr.

Saltire. It was impossible not to notice this, and also that the fact

was not lost upon the gloomy, fanatic glance of the master of the house.

If Mr. Saltire showed bad taste in so openly returning Mrs. van

Cannan's interest, it had to be admitted that it was the form of bad

taste that is a law unto itself and takes no thought of the opinion of

others. Although Africa had spoiled Saltire's complexion, it was

evident that she had never bowed his neck or put humility into his eye

or made him desist from looking over his boldly cut nose as though he

had bought the world and did not want it.

But to Christine Chaine it seemed that to cause pain to a man racked

with neuritis and jealousy for the sake of a mild flirtation with a

pretty woman was a cruel as well as a dangerous game. That was one of

the reasons why the friendliness of his morning greeting had been met

with such coldness. She had known heartlessness before in her life,

and wished no further acquaintance with it. That was the resolution

with which she hurried back through the straggling garden, the

whitewashed porch, and massive front door to the nursery.

The children, full of high spirits and wilfulness, were engaged in

their morning romp of trying to evade Meekie, the colored "nannie,"

whose business it was to bathe them.

They were extraordinarily lovable children, in spite of a certain

elf-like disobedience which possessed them like a disease. It was

quite enough to tell them not to do a thing for them to be eaten up

with a desire to do it forthwith. Christine had discovered this, and

had learned to manage them in other ways than by direct command.

"Take Roddy--no; take Coral, she is the dirtiest--no, no--Rita! Rita

is the pig!" they shrieked, as they pranced from bed to bed. "Bathe

yourself, old Meekie--you are the blackest of all."

Christine had her work cut out with them for the next half-hour, but at

last they were marshalled, sweet and shining, to breakfast, where she

presided, for their father always took an early breakfast, and Mrs. van

Cannan never rose until eleven. Afterward, according to custom, they

paid a visit to the latter's room, to wish her good-morning.

Isabel van Cannan was a big, lazy, laughing woman, with sleepy, golden

eyes. She spent hours in bed, lying, as she did now, amid quantities

of pillows, doing absolutely nothing. She had told Christine that she

was of Spanish extraction, yet she was blond as a Swede. Her hair,

which had a sort of lamb's-wool fluffiness, lay upon her pillows in two

great ropes, yellow as the pollen of a lily. She took the children one

by one into a sleepy embrace, kissed and patted their cheeks,

admonishing them to be good and obey Miss Chaine in everything.

"Be sure not to go in the sun without your hats," she adjured the two

small girls. "Roddy doesn't matter so much, but little girls'

complexions are very important."

Rita and Coral stuck out their rose-pink chins and exchanged a

sparkling glance. Christine knew that she would have trouble with them

and their hats all day.

"Good-bye," said Mrs. van Cannan, and sank back among her pillows. As

the children scampered out of the room, she called sharply, "Don't go

near the dam, Roddy!"

Christine had heard her say that before, and always with that sharp

inflection.

"I never let them go near the dam without me," she said reassuringly.

Mrs. van Cannan did not answer, but a quiver, as if of pain, passed

over her closed eyelids.

Outside in the passage, Roderick pressed close to Christine and

murmured, with a sort of elfin sadness:

"Carol was drowned in the dam."

The girl was startled.

"Carol?" she echoed. "Who was Carol?"

"My big brother--a year older than me," he whispered. "He is buried

out in the graveyard. I'll take you to see the place if you like. Let

us go now."

Christine collected herself.

"We must go to lessons now, dear. Later on, you shall show me anything

you like."

But from time to time during the morning, sitting in the

creeper-trimmed summer-house they used for a school-room, with her

charges busy round her, Christine's thoughts returned to the strange

little revelation. Roddy, with his red-gold brush of hair, bent over

his slate, was not the first-born, then! _He_ had been drowned in the

dam--that peaceful sheet of walled-in water that reflected the pink

tips of dawn and wherein, at eventide, the cattle waded happily to

drink. This old Karoo farmhouse had known tragedy, even as she had

sensed. Small wonder Bernard van Cannan's eyes wore a haunted look!

Yet his wife, with her full happy laugh and golden locks, lying among

her pillows, seemed curiously untouched by sorrow. Except for that

quiver of the eyelids, Christine had never seen her show anything but a

contented face to life.

Well--the history of Blue Aloes was a sealed book when the girl came to

it, knowing nothing of its inmates beyond their excellent references as

an old Huguenot family. Now the book, slowly opening page by page, was

revealing strange things.

The luncheon-hour always provided fresh material for a reflective mind.

The dining-room was large and lofty, and the table must have dated back

to the early days at the Cape, when every great family had its scores

of retainers and slaves. It was composed of time-stained teak, and

could have seated dozens, being curiously shaped like a capital E with

the middle branch of the letter missing. Only one of the branches was

now in use, and at this Christine presided over her small charges,

fortunately somewhat aloof from the rest, for they had many odd habits

which it was her business to correct without drawing attention. Coral

did not like pumpkin, and would keep dropping it on the floor. Rita

loved to kill flies with a spoon. Roddy's specialty was sliding bits

of meat into the open jaws of a pointer--there were always several

under the table--then briskly passing his plate for more. Once or

twice, looking up from correcting these idiosyncrasies, the girl found

the blue eyes of Richard Saltire fixed upon her as if in ironic

inquiry, and though she felt the slow colour creep into her face, she

returned the glance coldly. How dare he be curious about her, she

thought rather angrily. Let him confine himself to making the lids of

his hostess droop and her cheeks dimple. Not that Christine believed

there to be any harm in their open flirtation--Mrs. van Cannan was

plainly devoted to her husband; perhaps it was natural that she should

enjoy admiration. She possessed the kind of beauty only to be achieved

by the woman who makes the care of her appearance an art, and spends

hours in absolute repose of mind and body. Her face had not a line in

it of strain or sorrow. Faint pink tinted her cheeks. Her pink-linen

gown, open in a low V, showed the perfect contour and creaminess of her

breast. The restless, adoring eyes of her husband came back to her

always with that glance, vigilant and sombre, that was peculiar to them.

With some assumption of state, he always sat in the centre of the body

of the table, with his wife beside him. Saltire sat at her right, and

Saxby, the overseer, was placed beside his host. Opposite them, on the

other side of the table, were the two young Hollanders and a cheerful

Scotch colonial called McNeil.

These six men were expected to take both luncheon and dinner at the

farm, but only the Hollanders turned up in the evening, perhaps because

the excellence of the fare was outbalanced by the long prayers and

hymns with which the meal was prefaced and ended. Even at lunch-time,

there was a Bible at the host's elbow, from which he read a number of

texts before pronouncing a long grace, while the visitors listened with

expressions that varied from embarrassment to impatience. Richard

Saltire always looked frankly bored, but sometimes he and Mrs. van

Cannan exchanged a smile of sympathy at having to listen to the

maledictions of Job while the roast was getting cold. Hymns for lunch

were mercifully omitted. Bernard van Cannan, though plainly a

religious fanatic, was also the owner of one of the wealthiest farms in

the colony, and no doubt he realized that the working-hours of his

employees might be more profitably engaged than by chanting hymns.

Saxby, the overseer, a dark, burly man of unusual height, was marked by

the thick lips and general fulness of countenance that suggests to

those who have lived long enough in Africa "a touch of colour." He had

the soft voice, too, and full, deep laugh of those who have a dash of

native blood in their veins. His manner was melancholy, though

charming, and he imposed his society upon no man, but attended strictly

to his business. He was the best manager the farm had ever known.

After being there for less than a year, he had so improved the stock

and the land that Bernard van Cannan looked upon him as a little god,

and his word was law on the farm. His private history, a rather sad

one, Christine had already heard from Mrs. van Cannan. It appeared

that his wife had been terribly disfigured in a fire and was not only a

semi-invalid but a victim of melancholia. She lived with him in an

isolated bungalow some way off, and he did everything for her with his

own hands as she shrank from being seen by any one, and particularly

detested natives. While her husband was away at his duties, she

remained locked in the bungalow, inaccessible to any one save Mrs. van

Cannan, who sometimes went to sit with her.

"But I can't bear to go often," Isabel van Cannan told Miss Chaine.

"She depresses me so terribly, and what good can I do her, poor soul?"

Unnecessary for her to add that she hated being depressed. It was bad

for the complexion, she laughed. Laughter was never far from her lips.

But, at the moment, there really seemed some trace of the morning's

pain on her as she looked at her husband.

"Bernard's shoulder is giving him so much trouble," she said

appealingly to Saltire. "He wants to go to East London to see his old

specialist, but I don't believe in that man. I think rest in bed is

the cure for all ills. Don't you agree with me, Mr. Saltire?"

"Bed has its uses no doubt," laughed Saltire, with the cheerful

carelessness of the thoroughly healthy man, "but a change of scene is

better sometimes, for some people."

Van Cannan, his shoulder and left eye twitching perpetually, turned a

searching gaze upon the deeply tanned face of the forestry expert, as

though suspecting some double meaning in the words. Saltire bore the

scrutiny undisturbed. Immaculate in white linens, his handsome fairish

head wearing a perpetually well-groomed look, perhaps by reason of a

bullet which, during the Boer War, had skimmed straight through his

hair, leaving a perfect parting in the centre, he was a striking

contrast to the haggard master of the house, who muttered morosely:

"There is some Latin saying--isn't there?--about people 'changing their

skies but not their dispositions.'"

"_In_disposition is a different matter," remarked Saxby sagely, "and

with neuritis it is a mistake to let the pain get too near the heart.

I think you ought to see a doctor, Mr. van Cannan, but East London is a

long way off. Why not call in the district man?"

"He would prescribe a bottle of pink water and charge me a couple of

pounds for it. I need better treatment than that. I could not even

ride this morning--had to leave my horse and walk home. The pain was

vile."

Saxby looked at him sympathetically.

"Well, try a couple of weeks' rest in bed, as Mrs. van Cannan suggests.

You know that I can keep things going all right."

"And Mr. Saltire will continue to turn the prickly-pears into ogres and

hags," said his wife, with her childlike smile. "When you get up

again, he will have a whole army of shrivelled monsters ready for you."

It is true that this was Richard Saltire's business on the farm--to rid

the land of that bane and pest of the Karoo, the prickly-pear cactus.

The new governmental experiment was the only one, so far, that had

shown any good results in getting rid of the pest. It consisted in

inoculating each bush with certain poisons, which, when they entered

the sap of the plant, shrivelled and withered it to the core, making

its large, pale, flapping hands drop off as though smitten by leprosy,

and causing the whole bush to assume a staggering, menacing attitude

that was immensely startling and grotesque. Many of the natives were

now afraid to go about on the farm after dusk. They said the

prickly-pears threatened them, even ran after them, intent on revenge.

Christine had heard Mr. van Cannan say that his father knew the man

whose grandfather was the first Dutchman to introduce the prickly-pear

into the Karoo. It was a great treasure then, being looked upon as

good fodder for beast and ostrich in time of drought, and the boy used

to be beaten if he did not properly water the leaves which were being

laboriously preserved on the great trek into the desert.

Unfortunately, the preservation had been so complete that it was now

the ruin of many a fine Karoo estate, springing up everywhere,

smothering other growths and destroying, with its tiny multitudinous

thorns, the stomachs of the cattle, who love too much its watery

leaves. Mr. van Cannan was one of the farmers rich enough to take

drastic steps to save his farm. Saltire was doing it for him very

thoroughly and efficiently.

"How much longer do you expect to be?" asked van Cannan.

"Oh, another three weeks ought to finish the job," said Saltire. "But,

as you know, they are most persistent things. When you think they are

done for, you find them sprouting green again below the wound, and have

to give them another dose."

"Three weeks!" muttered van Cannan, with moody eyes. He looked to

Christine like a man suffering with sickness of the soul. Everyone

supposed the rest-cure definitely settled on, but, with the

contrariness of an ailing child, he suddenly announced determinedly, "I

shall leave for East London this afternoon."

The children were called to kiss him good-bye, and they clustered round

him.

"Take care of them for me," he said, with a piercing wistfulness, to

Christine. "Take care of my boy."

Then he turned brusquely to Saxby, making arrangements for a mule-cart

to be ready at two o'clock to drive him into Cradock, the nearest large

town, where he would have to spend the night before proceeding farther

by rail.

Christine could not but be struck by the words he had used, and mused

over them wonderingly while she tucked Rita and Coral under their

mosquito-curtains. It was her habit to spend this hour with Roddy and

a story-book. But today he hovered restlessly, showing no inclination

to settle down, and seeming full of some suppressed excitement. At

last, he whispered in her ear:

"Don't forget where you said you would come with me--to see Carol and

the others." Christine wondered if old Sophy was one of the others,

and, even in the noontide heat, she felt a chill.

"All right, Roddy," she agreed slowly. "Wait till I get a sunshade,

though. It is dreadfully hot."

She shaded him as much as herself while they threaded their way through

the shrubs that seemed to simmer in the grey-brown heat.

Almost every South African farm has its private cemetery. It is the

custom to bury the dead where they have lived, and often the graveyard

is in the shadiest corner of the garden, where the women sit to sew,

the men bring their pipes, and children spread their playthings upon

the flat, roughly hewn tombstones.

At Blue Aloes, the place of the dead was hidden far from the haunts of

the living, but the narrow, uncertain path led to it at last--a bare,

sun-bleached spot, secluded but unshaded by a gaudy-blossomed hedge of

cactus. A straight, single line of graves, less than a dozen in

number, lay blistering in the sunshine. Some were marked with slabs of

lime-worn [Transcriber's note: time-worn?] stone, upon whose faded

lettering little green rock-lizards were disporting themselves. The

last two in the line had white marble crosses at their heads, each

bearing a name in black letters, and a date. The preceding one, too,

was fairly new, with the earth heaped in still unbroken lumps upon it,

but it bore no distinguishing mark of any kind. Death appeared to have

been fairly busy in recent times at Blue Aloes. The date on the end

grave was no older than six months.

Little Bernard Quentin van Cannan lay there, sleeping too soon at the

age of three and a half. Roddy pronounced his brief but sufficiently

eloquent epitaph.

"He was Coral's twin. A tarantula bit him--one of the awful big

poisonous ones out of the aloe hedge."

The next cross registered the resting-place of Carol Quentin van

Cannan--drowned a year back, at the age of nine. Christine's sad gaze

travelled to the third and unmarked mound.

"Is that Sophy's grave?" she asked softly, for shrivelling on the lumps

of earth lay a bunch of poppies that she had seen Roddy gathering the

day before, and now remembered wondering where he had disappeared to

afterward. Roddy did not answer. He was staring before him with

manful eyes that winked rapidly but shed no tears. His lips were

pursed up as if to whistle, yet made no sound. At the sight of him and

the withered poppies in the place where never a flower of memory

blossomed, hot tears surged to the girl's eyes. It was wistful to

think of a child remembering when all others forgot.

"No one ever comes here but me," he said, at last.

Christine got rid of her tears by turning her back on him and pressing

them away with her fingers, for she knew that emotion embarrasses and

pains children, and she wanted to help this small, brave man, not hurt

him.

"You and I will come here often, Roddy. We will turn it into a garden,

and make it blossom like the rose--shall we?"

"Yes, yes!" he cried eagerly. "'Blossom like the rose'--that comes out

of the Bible! I have heard daddy read it. But we must not talk about

it to mamma. It makes her too sad to come here, or even talk about it.

Mamma doesn't like sad things."

Suddenly, the strange quietude of the place was invaded by the sound of

voices. They were far-off voices, but both the girl and the child

started as though caught in some forbidden act, and instinctively took

hands. A moment later they were hurrying away from the lonely spot,

back by the way they had come. Half-way home they came upon Richard

Saltire and the squad of Kafirs who carried his implements and liquids.

Theirs were the voices that had been heard. Work had begun on the

territory so thickly sewn with prickly-pears that lay between farm and

cemetery.

Saltire, with sleeves rolled up, was operating with a syringe upon the

trunk of a giant bush, but he turned round to throw a smile to Roddy.

"Hello, Rod!"

"Hello, Dick!" was the blithe response. "Gr-r-r! You giving it to

that old bush?"

"Rather! He's getting it where the chicken got the ax. Like to have a

go at him?"

"Oh--oh--yes!"

Roddy delightedly grasped the syringe, and was instructed how to fill

and plunge it into the green, dropsical flesh of the plant. The Kafirs

stood looking on with grave, imperturbable faces. Christine sat down

on a rock and, from the rosy shadow of her parasol, observed the pair.

She was astonished at this revelation of intimacy. Saltire's satirical

blue eyes were full of warm affection as he looked at the boy, and

Roddy's manner toward him contained a loving familiarity and trust she

had never seen him exhibit to any one. It was interesting, too, to

watch the man's fine, capable hands manipulating his instruments and

his quick eye searching each bush to select a vulnerable spot for the

virus of death. His movements had the grace and energy of one whose

every muscle is trained by service and in perfect condition. Only men

who hail from cold climates retain this characteristic in Africa.

Those born in its disintegrating heats are usually overtaken in the

early thirties by physical weariness or, as some choose to call it,

"slackness" that only fine moral training can overcome.

He was good to look at, too, this man in spotless white clothes, the

blueness of his eyes throwing up the clear tan of his face, his

burnished hair lying close to his head. Christine thought rather sadly

that the presence on the farm of any one so sane and fearless-looking

would have been a great comfort to her, if only he had not been one of

the people whose ways troubled her most.

It was with difficulty that she at last got Roddy away, he was so

evidently under the forestry man's spell. Almost she felt that spell

herself when he began talking to her, looking deep into her eyes while

he explained his work; but suddenly it seemed to her that those blue

eyes were explaining something quite different, and, flushing

furiously, she made haste to take Roddy's hand and end the interview by

walking away.

There was considerable trouble during the afternoon with Rita and

Coral. If Christine turned her back for a moment, they flew out into

the sunshine, hatless, disporting themselves like baby ostriches.

Reproaches were received with trills of laughter, warnings of

punishment with trusting, happy eyes.

When, at last, Christine had them safely absorbed in a table-game, it

was to realize that Roddy had suddenly disappeared. Calling Meekie to

take charge of the little girls, she hastened, with beating heart, in

search of the boy. Instinct took her in the direction of the dam, and

she caught him up just as he had reached its brink. He looked at her

brightly, no sign of shamefacedness or sulkiness on him, but would give

no further explanation than that he "only wanted to peep in."

"But, Roddy, how could you be so disobedient, dear? And you remember

what your mother said this morning?"

"Yes, I remember; but I did not promise. If I had promised, I would

not have gone."

"Well, will you promise me, darling?"

But at that he broke away from her and ran toward the house, singing,

"Just a little peep-in--just a little peep-in."

She felt more than slightly dispirited. There were three bad nights

behind her, and the day had been particularly tiring. Though young and

energetic, and with an extraordinary sense of love and responsibility

toward these naughty, attractive children, she wondered, for a weary

moment, whether she could stand the racket. The work of governessing

was new to her. Any work was new to her, and governessing in Africa is

as different to governessing in England (which is bad enough) as

plowing cultivated land is to opening up virgin soil. But life had

unexpectedly laid the burden of work upon Christine Chaine, and having

put her hand to the plow, she did not mean to turn back. Only, for

once, she was glad when nightfall brought the hour when she could leave

her charges for a while in someone else's care.

Once the children were safely in bed, it was Meekie's task to sit

beside them until Christine had dined and rested, and chose to come to

bed. Meekie belonged to the kraal people, but she had white blood in

her, like so many natives, and spoke very good English.

That all the men on the farm should turn up to dinner that evening did

not seem to Christine so much a cause for surprise as for contempt. In

her short but not too happy experience of life, she had, like a certain

great American philosopher, discovered that the game of life is not

always "played square" when there is a woman in it. Of course, it was

comprehensible that all men liked a good dinner, especially when it was

not marred by hymns and long prayers, fervent to the point of

fanaticism. Equally, of course, the pretty hostess, with a charming

word of welcome for everyone, was an attraction in herself. But,

somehow, it sickened the clear heart of Christine Chaine to see this

jubilant gathering round a dinner table that was usually deserted, and

from which the host had just departed, a sick and broken man. She

thought the proceedings more worthy of a lot of heartless schoolboys

delighting in a master's absence than of decent, honest men.

And whatever she thought of the Hollanders and colonials, whose

traditions were unknown to her, it was certain that her scorn was

redoubled for the one man she knew to be of her own class and land.

Yet there he sat at the elbow of his hostess, calm and smiling, no whit

removed from his usual self-contained and arrogant self. Christine

gave him one long look that seemed to turn her violet eyes black; then

she looked no more his way. She could not have told why she hated this

action in him so bitterly. Perhaps she felt that he was worthy of

higher things, but, if questioned, she would probably have laid it at

the door of caste and country. All that she knew, for a poignant

moment, was an intense longing to strike the smile from his lips with

anything to hand--a wine-glass, a bowl, a knife.

Mercifully, the moment passed, and all that most of them saw was a

young girl who had come late to dinner--a girl with a rather radiant

skin, purply black hair that branched away from her face as though with

a life of its own, and violet eyes that, after one swordlike glance all

round, were hidden under a line of heavy lashes. The black-velvet

dinner gown she wore, simple to austerity, had just a faint rim of

tulle at the edges against her skin. Only an artist or connoisseur

would have observed the milkiness of that skin and the perfect lines

under the sombre velvet. Small wonder that most eyes turned to the

lady who tonight took the place of ceremony at the table, and who, as

always, was arrayed in the delicate laces and pinkish tints that seemed

to call to notice the gold of the hair, the rose of her cheek, and the

golden-brown shadows of her eyes.

The little cloud of sadness and loss that hovered over her, yet never

descended, was like the rain-cloud that sometimes threatens a June day.

It seemed everyone's business to drive that cloud away, and everyone

but Christine applied themselves nobly to the task. At the end of the

long dinner, all were so properly employed in this manner that

apparently no one noticed the departure of the silent, scornful-lipped

governess, and she was able to make her exit without notice or

remonstrance.

For a little while she walked up and down in the garden under the rays

of a new and early-retiring slip of moon. Then, with a pain at her

heart that she had hoped it was for ever out of the power of life to

deal her, she retired to the nursery, relieved the coloured nurse from

her watch, and went quietly to bed.

For fully an hour afterward she heard the echo of laughter and voices

in the front veranda--sometimes the chink of glasses. Later, Mrs. van

Cannan sang and played waltz-music to them in the drawing-room. At

last the men departed, one by one. Mrs. van Cannan was heard calling

sharply for her night lemonade and someone to unlace her frock. Next,

the servants shuffled softly homeward through the dusk. The old Cape

cook, who had quarters somewhere near the kitchen, went the rounds,

locking up. The clang of the iron bar falling into its bracket across

the great front door echoed through the house. Then all was still.

In the sinister, brooding peace of the desert that ensued, the night

noises presently began to make themselves heard.

A cricket somewhere in the house set up a sprightly cheeping. Far, far

away, an animal wailed, and a jackal distressfully called to its mate.

Then something laughed terribly--rocking, hollow laughter--it might

have been a hyena.

Christine Chaine was a Catholic. She crossed herself in the darkness

and softly repeated some of the prayers whose cadences and noble

phrases seem to hold power to hush the soul into peace. She hoped at

this time they would hush her mind into sleep, but for a long while

many impressions of the day haunted her. Sometimes she saw the

twitching shoulders and tormented gaze of a sick man, then the smiling

blond-and-pink beauty of a woman. Sometimes a pair of blue eyes, with

riddles in them that she would not read, held her; then graves--graves

in a long arid line. At last she slept, the sleep of weariness that

mercifully falls upon the strong and healthy like a weight, blotting

out consciousness.

Then--taps on the shutter, and words:

"_Mind the boy--take care of the boy!_"

They were soft taps and whispered words, but, like the torment of

dropping water, they had their effect at last. The girl sat up in bed

again, her fingers pressed to her temples, her eyes staring, listening,

listening. Yes--they were the same eternal taps and words. With the

dull desperation of fatigue, she got out of bed and approached the

window.

"Who are you? What are you? Tell me what to do," she said quietly.

In the long silence that followed, there was only one answer--the

subtle odour of rottenness stole into the room.

She never knew afterward what possessed her to take the course she did.

Probably if she had not gone to sleep in the strength and peace of

prayers, and awakened with the protection of them woven about her, she

would have taken no course at all. As it was, she knew she had got to

do something to solve the mystery of this warning. It did not occur to

her to get out of the window. The right thing seemed to be to make her

way very quietly through the house, let herself out by the front door,

and come round to the window where the warning thing waited. It would

not hurt her, she knew. It was a hateful Thing, but that its

intentions were benevolent was a conclusion that had forced itself upon

her soul.

Groping for her dressing-gown, she found it and put it on without

striking a light. And though she carried a box of matches in her hand,

she believed she would not need them, for the way was perfectly simple

and well known to her--a long passage that led to the dining-room, at

one end of which was the great, iron-barred front door.

Her feet and hands found the way quietly, and she reached the front

door without incident, but when she felt for the great bar whose

strident clanging in its bracket had been a last signal of night within

the house, her hand encountered nothing. Wonderingly she slid her

fingers up and down the polished oak. At last she realized that the

bar hung loose; the door was merely on the latch. Someone beside

herself who dwelt within the house had business without its portals

that night and was still abroad!

For the first time, the girl's purpose faltered. A slow fear pierced

her, and her feet refused to take her farther. The thought flashed

into her mind that, if she passed the door, she might find herself

locked out, with the night--and she knew not what beside.

Even as she stood there hesitating, trying to collect her courage, a

sound--the soft tread of a foot on gravel--told her that some other

being was close by. There came the same stealthy tread in the porch.

Swiftly she shrank back into the embrasure of one of the long windows,

thankful for the green blinds against which her dark dressing-gown

would give no sign. With one full sleeve, she shrouded her face. She

had suddenly become terribly aware of being nothing but a slight girl

in a nightgown and wrap, with bare feet thrust into straw slippers.

She remembered stories she had heard of struggles in the darkness with

powerful natives, and her heart turned to water.

It seemed to her the most horrible moment of her life while she stood

shrinking there in the shadow, listening to the door open and close,

the bar being replaced, the quiet, regular breathing of that other

person. Whoever it was, his movements were calm and undisturbed, but

Christine could see nothing, only a large, dim outline that moved

sure-footedly across the room, opened another door on the far side,

closed it, and was gone.

There were so many other doors, so many other passages. All Christine

could be certain of and thankful for was that it was not her door and

her passage that had swallowed up the mysterious night-walker. It was

some little time before she collected sufficient fortitude to creep

back whence she had come, her plan unfulfilled, her courage melted.

She was bitterly ashamed, yet felt as if she had escaped from some

great evil. Once in the nursery, she locked the door, lighted a

candle, and, after she had looked to ascertain that the children were

sleeping soundly, she opened her dressing-case and took out a little

box of cachets that had been prescribed for her a year before when

bitter trouble had stolen sleep for many a night. She felt, and with

some reason, that this was an occasion when it would not be too

cowardly to resort to artificial means of restoring her nerves by

sleep. For though fright and surprise had bereft her, for the time

being, of her nerve, her firm spirit was neither beaten nor cowed. She

meant to see this thing through, and her last waking thought was a

murmured prayer for help to steel her heart against terrors that walked

by night, and to resist to the utmost any menace of evil that should

approach the little children in her charge.

PART II

There followed some tranquil days of which nothing broke the peaceful

monotony. The children were extraordinarily tractable, perhaps because

Mrs. van Cannan seemed too preoccupied to lay any injunctions upon

them. True, Roddy made one of his mysterious disappearances, but it

was not long before Christine, hard on his heels, discovered him

emerging from an outhouse, where she later assured herself that he

could have come to no great harm, for it was merely a big barn stacked

with grain and forage, and a number of old packing cases. Nothing

there to account for the expression he wore--that same suggestion of

tears fiercely restrained which she had noticed when they were looking

at the unmarked grave in the cemetery. It wrung her heart to see his

young mouth pursed up to whistle a tune that would not come, the look

of longing in eyes where only happiness and the divine contentment of

childhood should dwell; but the boy volunteered no information, and she

did not press him. She wanted his confidence, not to have him regard

her as a sort of jailer.

Every day, in the cool of the early morning, while the others were

still sleeping, he and she visited the graveyard, starting the good

work of making it blossom like the rose, as Christine had promised.

They planted lilies and geraniums over the little brothers, and edged

the lonely, unmarked grave with a species of curly-leaved box common to

that part of the country and which grew rapidly. It was Roddy's fancy,

too, to cover this grave with portulaca--a little plant bearing starry

flowers of vivid hues that live for a day only. He chose plants that

bore only scarlet and golden blossoms.

"She liked those two colours," he told Christine, smiling. "She said

that when we were babies we were all like that--very red, with yellowy

golden hair."

Christine, looking at the bright head and the fresh cheeks so rare in a

South African child, readily understood. But she could not help

wondering, as before, at the loyal little heart that remembered so well

the words and fancies of a dead woman--when all others forgot!

Nearly always on returning from these morning excursions they met

Saltire, rapidly wreaking destruction upon the district. Already,

scores of the prickly-pears through which they must wend their way were

assuming the staggering attitude characteristic of them as the sap

dried and they died of their wounds. Sometimes, one side of a bush

would shrivel first, causing it to double up like a creature agonizing.

Some crouched like strange beasts watching to spring. Others thrust

themselves ominously forward with projected arms, as if ready to

grapple. Some brandished their flat leaves as the painter Wiertz, in

his famous picture of _Napoleon in Hell_, made wives and mothers

brandish their menacing fists at the man who had robbed them of their

loved ones. All wore a look that suggested both agony and revenge.

Christine understood, at last, why the Kafirs hated to go about the

land after dark, averring that the afflicted bushes threatened and

chased them. She began herself to experience an inexplicable feeling

of relief, as though at the overcoming of an enemy, when a great spire

of smoke betokened the final uprooting and burning of a clump of bush.

For fire was the ultimate element used to transform the pest from a

malignant into a beneficent factor, and, as aromatic ash, it became of

service to the land it had ruined so long. Almost, the process seemed

an exposition of Job's words: "When thou hast tried me with fire, I

shall come forth as gold."

It was a curious thing how the "personality" of the bushes appeared to

affect them all. Saltire at his work gave the impression of a fighter

concentrating on the defeat of an enemy. Roddy would dance for joy

before each staggering bush. The impassivity of the natives departed

from them when they stood about the funeral pyres, and clapping of

hands and warlike chanting went heavenward with the smoke. Christine

and Roddy often lingered to watch these rejoicings; indeed, it was

impossible at any time to get the boy past Saltire and his gang without

a halt. The English girl, while standing somewhat aloof, would

nevertheless not conceal from herself the interest she felt in the

forestry man's remarks, not only on the common enemy, but his work in

general.

"They have a great will to live, Roddy--much stronger than you and I,

because we dissipate our will in so many directions. I've met this

determination before in growing things, though. There are plants in

the African jungle that you have to track and trail like wild beasts

and do murder upon before they will die. And this old prickly-pear is

of the same family. If a bit of leaf can break off and fly past you,

it hides itself behind a stone, hastily puts roots into the ground, and

grows into a bush before you can say 'Jack Robinson.' Your farm will

be a splendid place when we've got rid of all these and replaced them

with the spineless plant. Prickly-pear without spines is a perfect

food for cattle and ostriches in this climate."

Thus he talked to Roddy, as if the latter were already a man and in

possession of his heritage--the wide lands of Blue Aloes; but always

while he talked, he looked at and considered the girl who stood aloof,

wearing her air of world-weariness like a veil over the youth and bloom

of her.

And she, on her side, was considering and reading him, too. She liked

him better, because, since that first night of Mr. van Cannan's

departure, he had absented himself from the dinner-table. That showed

some glimmer of grace in him. Still, there was far too much arrogance

in his manner, she thought, and decided that he had probably been

spoiled by too facile women. Nothing blunts the fine spiritual side of

a man's character so rapidly as association with women of low ideals.

The romance of her own life had been split upon that rock. She had

known what it was to stand by and see the man she loved with all the

pure idealism of youth wrecked by the cheap wiles of a high-born woman

with a second-rate soul. Perhaps her misfortune had sharpened her

vision for this defect in men. Certainly, it had tainted her outlook

with disdain. She sometimes felt, as Pater wrote of _Mona Lisa_, that

"she had looked upon all the world, and her eyelids were a little

weary." At any rate, when she found Dick Saltire's blue eyes looking

into hers so straightly and significantly that it almost seemed as if

an arrow came glancing from him to her, she merely told herself, with

an inward-smiling bitterness, that no doubt the same phenomenon

occurred when he spoke to Mrs. van Cannan.

Some days after the departure of the master of the farm for the coast,

the post-bag arrived from Cradock, and, as Mrs. van Cannan was still

sleeping, it fell to Christine, as it had sometimes done before, to

distribute the mail. Among her own large batch of home letters it was

so unusual to find a South African one that she opened it immediately,

and was astonished to discover it to be from Bernard van Cannan. It

had been written from Cradock on the evening of the day he left the

farm.

"DEAR MISS CHAINE:

"I want once more to commend to you the very special care of my

children while I am away. My wife, not being very strong, is unable to

see as much of them as she would wish, and I do not like her to be

worried. But there are many dangers on a farm, and I have already, by

most unhappy chance, lost two young sons. Both deaths occurred during

absences of mine and were the result of accident, though, at the time,

they were surrounded by every loving care and security. Perhaps,

therefore, you will understand the kind of superstitious apprehension I

feel about Roderick, who is the last and only one left to come after me

in the old place. He has always needed special looking-after, being

extremely curious and impulsive while, at the same time, nervous and

reticent.

"Perhaps it is only my illness that makes me full of fears, but _I can

assure you that had it not been for the great confidence you have

inspired in me from the first_, I should not have left the farm, so

anxious do I continually feel about the welfare of my third and last

son. However, I trust in God I shall be back soon, better in health,

to find that all is well.

"Do not worry my dear wife with this matter. She is of a disposition

that cannot cope with sorrow and trouble, and I would not for the world

cloud her happy outlook with my morbid fancies. Keep my confidence,

and remember that I rely on you with all my heart to guard my little

ones.

"Sincerely yours,

"BERNARD VAN CANNAN.

"P. S.--I append my last London address, and if I am detained for any

time, I shall be glad to hear from you."

A vision of the gloomy-eyed man, twitching with pain and nerves, rose

up before her eyes as she folded the letter, and she resolved to write

to him at once, allaying his fears as much as possible by an assurance

of her devotion. She was sitting in the summer-house at the time, the

children beside her, bent over their morning lessons. Through the

creeper-framed doorway, she could see the walls and veranda of the old

farm, glaring white in the fierce sunlight, but with every line

expressing such harmony as only the old Dutch architects seem to have

had the secret of putting into the building of South African

homesteads. Before the front door stood three gnarled oaks, which yet

bore the marks of chains used by the early van Cannans to fasten up the

cattle at night, for fear of the hostile Kafirs who at set of sun came

creeping over the kopjes. Scores of fierce, man-eating dogs were kept

to deal with the marauders, and there were still loopholes in the white

walls from which those within had watched and defended.

But those days were long past. Nothing now in the gracious building,

with its shady stoeps and high, red roof, toned melodiously by age, to

betoken battle, murder, and sudden death. It seemed strange that

sinister forebodings should attach themselves in any mind to such

harmony of form and colour. Yet Christine held in her hand the very

proof of such thoughts, and, what was more, knew herself to be obsessed

by them when darkness took the land. For a moment even now, looking

out at the brilliant sunshine, she was conscious of a falter in her

soul, a moment of horrible loneliness, a groping-out for some human

being stronger than herself of whom to take counsel. A thought of

Saltire flashed across her. He looked strong and sane, kind and

chivalrous. But could he be trusted? Had she not already learned in

the bitter school of life that "Ye have no friend but resolution!"

A shadow fell across the doorway. It was Saxby, the manager. He gave

her his pleasant, melancholy smile.

"I wonder if Mrs. van Cannan is up yet," he said, in his full, rich

voice. "There are one or two farm matters I want to consult her about."

Christine looked at the watch on her wrist and saw that it was past

eleven.

"Oh, I should think so, Mr. Saxby. The closing of all the shutters is

usually a sign that she is up and about."

It is, in fact, a practice in all Karoo houses to close every window

and shutter at about ten o'clock each morning, not throwing them open

again until sunset. This keeps the interiors extraordinarily cool,

and, as the walls are usually whitewashed, there is plenty of light.

"I expect I shall find her in the drawing-room," Saxby remarked, and

passed on. Christine saw him leave again about half an hour later.

Then the sound of waltz-music within the closed house told that Mrs.

van Cannan was beguiling away the rest of the long, hot morning in a

favourite fashion. At noon, the heat, as usual, made the summer-house

untenable, and its occupants were driven indoors.

Lunch introduced the only excitement the quiet monotony of the day ever

offered, when the men came filing into the soft gloom of the

dining-room, bringing with them a suggestion of a world of work that

still went on its way, come rain, come shine. All of them took

advantage of the custom of the climate to appear coatless. Indeed, the

fashion of shirts was sometimes so _decolletee_ as to be slightly

embarrassing to English eyes. Only Saltire paid the company the

compliment of unrolling his sleeves, buttoning the top button of his

shirt, and assuming a tie for the occasion.

Everyone seemed of opinion that the summer rains were brewing and that

was the reason of the insufferable heat.

"We'll have a couple of days of this," prophesied Andrew McNeil, "then

down it will come with a vengeance."

"The land wants it, of course, but it will be a confounded nuisance to

me," remarked the forestry expert.

"Oh, Mr. Saltire, you are insatiable in your work of murder," smiled

his hostess. "Are you as merciless in all your dealings?" She looked

at him with provoking eyes. Christine hardened herself to hear an

answer in the same vein, but was as agreeably relieved as surprised.

"I want to get the work done," said Saltire briefly.

"I never knew any one so anxious to leave us before," grumbled Mrs. van

Cannan prettily. "You must be terribly bored with us all."

"Never less in my life."

The answer was so impersonal as to be almost a sign of boredom in

itself, and Mrs. van Cannan, little accustomed to have her charming

advances met in such fashion, turned away with a pucker on her brow to

a more grateful audience. At the same moment, an irresistible impulse

drew Christine's glance to Saltire in time to receive one of those

straight, significant looks that indescribably disturbed her. Nothing

there of the impersonality his words had betrayed! It was a clear

message from a man to a woman--one of those messages that only very

strong-willed people who know what they want have the frankness,

perhaps the boldness, to send. Even an indifferent woman would have

been stirred to a knowledge of dangerous sweetness, and she knew that

she had never been quite indifferent to the personal magnetism of Dick

Saltire. As it was, she was shaken to the very soul of her. For a

moment, she had the curious illusion that she had never lived before,

never had been happy or unhappy, was safe at last in some sure, lovely

harbour from all the hurts of the world. It was strange in the midst

of everyday happenings, with the talk and clatter of a meal going on,

to be swept overwhelmingly away like that to a far place where only two

people dwelt--she and the man who looked at her. And before the

illusion was past, she had returned a message to him. She did not know

what was in her look, but she knew what was in her heart.

Almost immediately it was time to take the children and go. Mrs. van

Cannan delayed them for a moment, giving some directions for the

afternoon. If Christine could have seen herself with the children

clinging to her, she would have been surprised that she could appear so

beautiful. Her grace of carriage and well-bred face had always been

remarkable, but gone were disdain and weariness from her. She passed

out of the room without looking again at Dick Saltire, though he rose,

as always, to open the door for her.

An afternoon of such brazen heat followed that it was well to be within

the shelter of the shuttered house. But outside, in the turmoil of

dust and glare, the work of the farm went on as usual. Christine

pictured Saltire at his implacable task, serene in spite of dust and

blaze, with the quality of resolution in his every movement that

characterized him, the quality he had power to put into his eyes and

throw across a room to her. The remembrance of his glance sent her

pale, even now in the quiet house. Only a strong man, sure of himself

and with the courage of his wishes, would dare put such a message into

his eyes, would dare call boldly and silently to a woman that _she_ was

his _raison d'etre_, that, because of her, the dulness and monotony of

life had never bored him less, that he had found her, that she must

take of and give to him. She knew now that he had been telling her

these things ever since they had met, but that she had turned from the

knowledge, until, at last, in an unguarded moment, it had reached and

overwhelmed her, flooding her soul with passionate joy, yet filling her

with a peace and security she had never known, either in the old

farmhouse or since the long-ago day when all her brave castles of youth

and love had crashed down into the dust. Gone now was unbelief, and

disdain, and fear of terror that stalked by night; a rock was at her

back, there was a hand to hold in the blackest darkness. Never any

more need she feel fear and spiritual loneliness. Withal, there was

the passionate joy of adventure, of exploration in sweet, unknown lands

of the heart, the launching of a boat upon a sea of dreams. Life sang

to Christine Chaine like a nightingale under the stars.

How tenderly and patiently she beguiled the heat-weary children

throughout that long afternoon! There was no feeling of haste upon

her. She knew that sweetness was travelling her way, that "what is for

thee, gravitates toward thee," and is vain to seek before the appointed

hour. It might come as even-song to a seemingly endless day, or dawn

following a fearsome night. But it was coming. That was all that

mattered!

The directions Mrs. van Cannan had given, as they left the luncheon,

were to the effect that, when the siesta hour was over, the children

were to have possession of the drawing-room until it was cool enough

for them to go for their accustomed walk. This plan was to continue as

long as the hot weather lasted.

"I think it is not very healthy for any of you," she said amiably, "to

stick all day in a room you have to sleep in at night."

Christine could not help being surprised at her giving up the coolest

and quietest room in the house, and one that had hitherto been

forbidden ground to the children. However, here they were, installed

among gaily cretonned furniture, the little girls dashing about like

squirrels in a strange cage, Roddy, apparently more at home, prowling

softly around, examining things with a reverent yet familiar air.

"I remember when we used to come here every day," said Rita suddenly,

and stood stock-still with concentrated eyes, like one trying to catch

the memory of a dream. "When was it, Roddy?"

He looked at her steadily.

"When our old nannie was here."

Rita fixed her blue eyes on his.

"There was someone else here, too," she insisted.

"Sophy always brought us here," he repeated mechanically.

"I remember old Sophy," murmured Rita thoughtfully. "She cried

dreadfully when she went away. She was not allowed to kiss us because

she had turned all silver colour." She trilled into gay laughter.

"Mamma told me that it might have turned us all silver, too."

"I kissed her before she went, anyway!" burst from Roddy fiercely.

"And I would not have cared if it had turned me to silver."

Christine glanced wonderingly at him, astonished at this new theme of

silver.

"But if she went away, how is it that she is buried here, Roddy?"

"She isn't."

"But the grave we covered with portulaca--" She stopped abruptly, for

the boy's face had assumed the look she could not bear--the look of

enduring that only those hardened to life should know. "Come and

listen to this story of a magic carpet on which two children were

carried over strange lands and cities," she said gently, and drew them

all round her, with an arm through Roddy's.

The windows and shutters were thrown open at sunset, and the children

had their tea in the dining-room. Afterward, they went for a long walk

across the sands toward the kopjes, which had receded into distance

again and in the west were turning purple with mauve tops. But the

rest of the sky was coloured a threatening greenish bronze, with

monstrous-shaped clouds sprawled across it; and the air, though

sunless, was still sand-laden and suffocating, with the promise of

storm.

It would have been easy for Christine to take the children toward the

vicinity in which Saltire was occupied and where he would now be

putting up his instruments and dismissing his workers for the night,

but some instinct half modest, half self-sacrificing made her postpone

the happiness of seeing him again, and guided her feet in an opposite

direction. She was certain that, though he had refrained from dining

at the farm except for the one night of Mr. van Cannan's departure, she

would see him there that evening, and she dressed with special care and

joy in the beauty of her hair, her tinted, curving face, and the subtle

glamour that she knew she wore as the gift of happiness.

"How sweet it is to be young and desirable--and desired by the one man

in the world!" was the half-formed thought in her mind as she combed

her soft, cloudy black hair high above her face and fixed it with a

tall amber comb. But she would not converse too clearly with her

heart. Enough that she had heard it singing in her breast as she had

never thought to hear it sing again. She was glad of the excuse of the

heavy heat to discard her usual black gown and be seen in a colour that

she knew belonged to her by right of her black hair and violet eyes--a

deep primrose-yellow of soft, transparent muslin.

Saltire was late for dinner, but he came, as she had known he would,

taking his usual place next to Mrs. van Cannan and almost opposite

Christine, who, for the evening meal, was always expected to sit at the

main body of the table. She was busy at the moment hearing from Mr.

McNeil all about the process of ostrich-feather plucking which was to

begin next day, but she did not miss a word of the late comer's

apologies or the merry raillery with which they were met by his

hostess. The latter, as usual, gathered unto herself every remark

uttered at the table, and the attentions of every man, though she never

bothered much about old Andrew McNeil. But if she had the lip-service,

Christine was very well aware to whom was accorded, that night, the

service of the eyes.

Every man there had become aware of the youth and beauty which, till

that day, she had worn as if veiled, and they were paying the tribute

that men will proffer until the end of time to those two gifts of the

gods. She knew it without vanity, but also without embarrassment, for

she had tasted triumph before in a world more difficult to please than

this, surrounded by opponents worthier of her steel than Isabel van

Cannan. The little triumph only pleased her in that she could offer it

as a gift to the man she loved. For here is another eternal truth,

that all men are one in pride of possession of that which excites envy

and admiration in other men. All women know this with a gladness that

is salted by sorrow.

Saltire's eyes were the only ones she could not meet with serenity.

She felt his glance on her often, but always when she tried to lift

hers to meet it, her lids seemed weighted by little heavy pebbles.

She meant to overcome this weakness, though, and look at him even as

she had answered at noon; but, in the middle of dinner, while she yet

strove against the physical inability, her resolution was disturbed by

a strange occurrence. A wild scream of fear and horror came ringing

from the nursery. Without a thought for anything but that it was

Roddy's voice, Christine sprang from the table. Down the long passage

and into the nursery she ran, and, almost bursting into the room,

caught the boy in her arms. He was not screaming now, but white as

death and staring with fearful eyes at the bed, on which the bedclothes

were pulled back, with Meekie peering over it. The two little girls,

round-eyed and frightened, were sitting up in their cots. For a

moment, Roddy stayed rigid in her arms; then he hid his face against

her arm and broke into convulsive sobs.

"It's a big spider--all red and black--like the one that bit Bernard!"

And, in fact, from where she stood, Christine could see the monstrous

thing, with its black, furry claws, protruding eyes, and red-blotched

body, still crouching there in a little hollow at the end of the bed.

Only, the person leaning over examining it now was not Meekie but

Saltire, who had reached the nursery almost on her heels.

"I put my foot against it and touched its beastly fur!" cried Roddy,

and suddenly began to scream again.

"Roddy! How dare you make that abominable noise?"

Mrs. van Cannan's voice fell like a jet of ice-cold water into the

room. Behind her in the doorway loomed the tall figure of Saxby, the

manager, with McNeil and the others. Christine's warm heart would

never have suggested such a method of quieting the boy, but it had its

points. Roddy, though still shaking and ashen, stood up straight and

looked at his mother.

"All about a silly spider!" continued the latter, with cutting scorn.

"I am ashamed of you! I thought you were brave, like your father."

That flushed Roddy to his brows.

"It has fur--red fur," he stammered.

"You deserve a whipping for your cowardice," said Mrs. van Cannan

curtly, and walked over to the bed. "The thing is half dead, and quite

harmless," she said.

"Half dead or half drunk," McNeil jocosely suggested. "I never saw a

tarantula so quiet as that before."

"The question is how long would it have stayed in that condition?" said

Saltire significantly. "For you are mistaken about its harmlessness,

Mrs. van Cannan. It is one of the most poisonous and ferocious of its

tribe."

They had got the strangely sluggish beast off the bed by knocking it

with a stick into an old shoe, and were removing it. Christine only

vaguely heard the remarks, for Roddy hid his eyes while it was being

carried out, and was trembling violently against her. It seemed

amazing to her that Mrs. van Cannan did not realize that there was more

than mere cowardice in his behaviour. The trouble was so plainly

psychological--the memory of the loss of a loved little brother subtly

interwoven with horror of that particular species of venomous insect.

Christine herself had a greater hatred of spiders than of any creeping

things, and well understood the child's panic of disgust and fear. It

filled her with indignation to hear Mrs. van Cannan turn once more and

lash the boy with a phrase before she swept from the room.

"Miserable little coward!"

In a moment, the girl was kneeling on the floor beside the unhappy

child, holding him tight, whispering words of love and comfort.

"No, no, darling; it is only that she does not understand! We will

explain to her--I will tell her later why you hated it so. Wait till

your daddy comes back. I am sure he will understand."

So she strove to comfort him, while Meekie coaxed the little girls back

to the horizontal attitude under their sheets.

"Don't make me go back into that bed," whispered Roddy fearfully.

"No; of course not. Don't worry; just trust me, darling!" She turned

to Meekie. "I will stay with them now, Meekie. You may go."

"But has the missy had her dinner?" asked the Cape woman politely.

"I have had all I want, thank you, Meekie."

The thought of going back to the dinner-table--to eat and join in the

talk and laughter while this small boy whom she loved stayed alone with

his wretchedness revolted her. Perhaps later, when he slept, she might

slip out into the garden for a while. In the meantime, she beguiled

him over to her own bed, and having taken off the coverlet to show him

that it held no lurking horrors, she made him get in and curl up, and

she knelt beside him, whispering softly so as not to disturb the

others, reassuring him of her belief in his courage whilst

understanding his horror, confessing her own hatred of spiders, but

urging him to try and fight against his fear of them. She told him

stories of her own childhood, crooned little poems to him, and sang old

songs softly, hoping and praying that he would presently fall asleep.

But time slipped by, and he remained wide-eyed, gripping her hand

tightly, and only by the slightest degrees relaxing the nervous rigour

of his body under the coverlet. Suddenly, he startled her by a strange

remark:

"If I could only get into the pink palace with Carol, I'd be all right."

The girl looked down into the distended pupils gazing so wistfully at

her, and wondering what new psychological problem she had to deal with.

She knew she must go very warily, or defeat her own longing to help

him. At last, she said very tenderly,

"The world is full of pink palaces, Roddy, but we do not always find

them until we are grown up."

He looked at her intently.

"Carol found one at the bottom of the dam," he whispered slowly. "He

is there now; it's only his body that is buried in the graveyard."

She smoothed his hair gently with her hand.

"Carol is in a more beautiful palace than any we find here on earth,

darling."

The secret, elfin expression crossed his face, but he said nothing.

"And you must not believe that about the dam," she warned him gravely.

"There is nothing at the bottom of it but black mud, and deep water

that would drown you, too, if you went in."

"I _know_ the palace is there," he repeated doggedly. "I have seen it.

The best time to see it is in the early morning or in the evening. All

the towers of it are pink then, and you can see the golden wings of the

angels shining through the windows."

"That is the reflection of the pink-and-gold clouds in the sky at dawn

and sunset that you see, dear silly one. Will you not believe me?"

He squeezed her hand lovingly.

"Mamma has seen it, too," he whispered. "You know she was with Carol

when he fell in, and she saw him go into the door of the palace and be

met by all the golden angels. She tried to get him back, but she

cannot swim, and then she came running home for help. Afterward, they

took Carol's body out and buried him, but, you know, he is really there

still. Mamma has seen him looking through the windows--she told

me--but you must not tell any one. It is very secret, and once I

thought I saw him, too, beckoning to me."

Christine was staggered. That so dangerous an illusion had been

fostered by a mother was too bewildering, and she hardly knew how to

meet and loyally fight it. It did not take her long to decide. With

all the strength at her command, she set to work to clear away from his

mind the whole fantastical construction. He clung to it firmly at

first, and, in the end, almost pleaded to be left with the belief that

he had but to step down the dam wall and join his brother in the fair

pink palace. She realized now what tragedy had been lurking at her

elbow all these days. Remembering the day when she had caught him up

at the brink of the dam, she turned cold as ice in the heat-heavy room.

A moment later, she returned to her theme, her explanations, her

prayers for a promise from him that never, never would he go looking

again for a vision that did not exist. At last he promised, and almost

immediately fell asleep.

As for Christine Chaine, she stayed where she was on the floor, her

head resting on the bed in sheer exhaustion, her limbs limp. All

thought of going into the garden had left her. Sitting there,

stiff-kneed and weary, she thought of Saltire's eyes, and realized that

there had come and gone an evening which she must count for ever among

the lost treasures of her life. Yet she did not regret it as she rose

at last and looked down by the dim light on the pale, beautiful, but

composed little face on the pillow.

She lay long awake. Roddy's bed was too short for her, and there was

no ease in it, even had her mind and heart been at rest. All the

fantasies she had beguiled from the boy's brain had come to roost in

her own, with a hundred other vivid and painful impressions. The

night, too, was fuller than usual of disquietude. The wind, which had

been rising steadily, now tore at the shutters and rushed shrieking

through the trees. There was a savage rumble of thunder among the

hills, and, intermittently, lightning came through the shutter-slats.

When, above it all, she heard a gentle tapping, and sensed the

whispering presence without, her cup of dreadful unease was full. But

she was not afraid. She rose, as she had done one night before, and

put on her dressing-gown. For a while, standing close to the shutters,

she strained her ears to catch the message whose import she knew so

well. The idea of speaking to someone or something as anxious as

herself over Roddy had banished all horror. She longed for an

interview with the strange being without. There was nothing to do but

attempt, as before, to leave the house by the front door.

Down the long passage and through the dining-room she felt her way,

moving noiselessly. When she came to the door, she found it once again

with the bar hanging loose. More, it was ajar, and stirring

(sluggishly, by reason of its great weight) to the wind. But her hand

fell back when she would have opened it wide, for there were two people

in the blackness of the porch, bidding each other good-night with

kisses and wild words. Clear on a gust of wind came Isabel van

Cannan's voice, fiercely passionate.

"I hate the place. Oh, to be gone from it, Dick! To be gone with you,

my darling! When--when?"

He crushed the question on her lips with kisses and whisperings.

Christine Chaine stole back from whence she came, with the strange and

terrible sensation that her heart was being crushed between iron

fingers and was bleeding slowly, drop by drop, to death. Once more,

life had played her false. Love had mocked her and passed by on the

other side.

Some of the men wondered, next day, how they could have had the

illusion that Miss Chaine was a beautiful girl. The two Hollanders,

who were great friends, discussed the matter after lunch while they

were clipping feathers from the ostriches. One thing was quite clear

to them both: she was just one of those cold Englishwomen without a

drop in her veins of the warmth and sparkle that a man likes in a

woman. Mrs. van Cannan now--she was the one! Still, it was a funny

thing how they should have been taken in over Miss Chaine. Someone

else had been taken in, too, however, and with a vengeance--that fellow

Saltire, with his "sidey" manners. _He_ had got a cold douche, if you

like, at the hands of the proud one. They had all witnessed it. Thus

and thus went the Dutchmen's remarks and speculations, and they

chuckled with the malice of schoolboys over the discomfiture of

Saltire. For it was well known to them and to the other men that the

Englishman had ridden off, in the cool hours of the dawn, to Farnie

Marais' place about ten miles away, to get her some flowers. He wanted

to borrow an instrument, he said, but it was funny he should choose to

go to Marais', who was more famous for the lovely roses he grew for the

market than for any knowledge of scientific instruments. Funny, too,

that all he had been seen to bring back was a bunch of yellow roses

that must have cost him a stiff penny, for old Farnie did not grow

roses for fun.

No one had seen Saltire present the roses (that must have happened in

the dining-room before the others came in); but all had marked the

careless indifference with which they were scattered on the table and

spilled on the floor beside the governess's chair. She looked on

calmly, too, while the little girls, treating them like daisies, pulled

several to pieces, petal by petal. Only the boy Roderick had appeared

to attach any worth to them. He rescued some from under the table, and

was overheard to ask ardently if he might have three for his own. The

answer that he might have them all if he liked was not missed by any

one in the room, though spoken in Miss Chaine's usual quiet tones. It

might have been an accident that she walked over some of the spilled

roses as she left the room, but certainly she could not have shown her

mind more plainly than by leaving every single one behind her. Roddy

only, with a pleased and secret look upon his face, carried three of

them away in a treasured manner.

Whatever Saltire's feelings were at the affront put upon him, he gave

no sign. He was not one who wore his emotions where they could be read

by all who ran, or even by those who sat and openly studied him with

malice and amusement. His face was as serene as usual, and his envied

gift of turning events of the monotonous everyday veld life into

interesting topics of conversation remained unimpaired. He had even

risen, as always, with his air of careless courtesy, to open the door

for the woman who walked over his flowers.

The fact remained, as the manager said to the foreman after lunch, that

he had certainly "caught it in the neck," and must have felt it

somewhere. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he merely congratulated himself

that the little scene when he had given the roses to Miss Chaine had

been lost by everyone except the children, who were too young and

self-engrossed to value its subtlety.

Either by accident or design, he had come to lunch a little earlier

than usual, and as Miss Chaine and the children were always in their

seats a good ten minutes before the rest of the party, it was quite

simple for him, entering quietly and before she even knew of his

presence, to lay the bunch of fragrant roses across her hands. A sweep

of heavy delicious perfume rose to her face, and she gave a little

rapturous "Oh!"

"I thought you might like them," said Saltire, with a sort of boyish

diffidence that was odd in him. "They are just the colour of the dress

you wore last night."

In an instant, her face froze. She looked at him, with eyes from which

every vestige of friendliness or liking had completely disappeared, and

said politely, but with the utmost disdain:

"Thank you, I do not care for them. Pray give them where they will be

appreciated."

She pulled her hands from under the lovely blooms and pushed them away

as if there were something contaminating in their touch. Some fell on

the table, some on the floor. For a moment, Saltire seemed utterly

taken aback, then he said carelessly:

"Throw them away if you like. They were meant for you and no one else."

She gave him a curiously cutting glance, but spoke nothing. As the

sound of voices told of the approach of the other men, he walked to his

place without further remark, and had already taken his seat when Mrs.

van Cannan, followed by Saxby, entered. They were talking about

Saxby's wife, and Mrs. van Cannan looked infinitely distressed.

"I am so sorry. I will go and sit with her this afternoon and see if I

can cheer her up," she said.

"It will be very kind of you," said Saxby gratefully. "I have never

known her so low."

"It must be the weather. We are all feeling the heat terribly. If

only the rains would break."

"They are not far off," said Andrew McNeil cheerfully. "I prophesy

that tonight every kloof will be roaring full, and tomorrow will see

the river in flood."

"In that case, the mail had better go off this evening at six," said

Mrs. van Cannan. "It may be held up for days otherwise. I hope

everyone has their letters ready? Have you, Miss Chaine?"

"I have one or two still to write, but I can get through them quickly

this afternoon."

Christine avoided looking directly at her. She felt that the woman

must see the contempt in her eyes. It was hard to say which she

detested more of the two sitting there so serenely cheerful--the

faithless wife and mother, or the man who ate another man's salt and

betrayed him in his absence. It made her feel sick and soiled to be in

such company, to come into contact with such creeping, soft-footed,

whispering treachery. She ached to get away from it all and wipe the

whole episode from her mind. Yet how could she leave the children,

leave Roddy, desert the father's trust? She knew she could not. But

very urgently she wrote after lunch to Mr. van Cannan, begging him to

return to the farm as soon as his health permitted and release her from

her engagement. She expressed it as diplomatically as she was able,

making private affairs her reason for the change; but she could not and

would not conceal the fervency of her request.

There was a brooding silence in the room where she sat writing and

thinking. Roddy, for once, tired out from the night before, slept

under his mosquito-net, side by side with the little girls, and

Christine, looking at his beautiful, classical face and sensitive

mouth, wondered how she would ever be able to carry out her plan to

leave the farm. Who would understand him as she did, and protect him?

Even the father who loved him had not known of the secret, fantastic

danger of the dam. And the woman who should have destroyed the fantasy

had encouraged it! But God knew what was in the heart of that strange

woman; Christine Chaine did not--nor wished to. All she wished was

that she might never see her again. As for Saltire, her proud resolve

was to blot him from her memory, to forget that he had ever occupied

her heart for a moment. But--O God, how it hurt, that empty,

desecrated heart! How it haunted her, the face she had thought so

beautiful, with its air of strength and chivalry, that now she knew to

be a mockery and a lie!

She sat in the shuttered gloom, with her hands pressed to her temples,

and bitter tears that could no longer be held back sped down her

cheeks. In all the dark hours since she had stolen back to the

nursery, overwhelmed by the discovery of a hateful secret, she had not

wept. Her spirit had lain like a stricken thing in the ashes of

humiliation, and her heart had stayed crushed and dead. "Cold as a

stone in a valley lone." Now it was wakened to pain once more by the

scent of three yellow roses carefully placed by Roddy in a jug on the

table. The scent of those flowers told her that she must go wounded

all her life. She could "never again be friends with roses." He had

even spoiled those for her. How dared he? Oh, how dared he come to

her with gifts of flowers in his hands straight from a guilty intrigue

with another man's wife?

The children stirred and began to chirrup drowsily, and she hastily

collected herself, forcing back her tears and assuming the

expressionless mask which life so often makes women wear. She was only

just in time. A moment later, Isabel van Cannan came into the room

with a packet of letters in her hands.

"Oh, Miss Chaine," she said, with her pretty, child-like air, "would it

be too much to ask you to take down these letters to the store

presently? The mail is to leave about four o'clock. I have to go out

myself by and by, but the Saxbys' house is in the opposite direction,

as you know, and I am really not able to knock about too much in this

heat."

"Certainly I will take them," said Christine. "But the children?"

"They must not go, of course. Indeed, I would not ask you to go out in

this blaze, but I don't like to trust letters with servants. There is

no hurry, however. Finish your own letters first, then bring the

children to my room. They will amuse themselves there all right."

By the time Christine had donned a shady hat and gloves, Mrs. van

Cannan had made out a long list of articles she required at the store.

The household things were to be sent in the ordinary way, but she

begged Christine to choose some coloured cottons that she required for

new pinafores for the little girls and bring them along, also to look

through the stock of note-paper for anything decently suitable, as her

own stock had given out. It was the type of errand Christine was

unaccustomed to perform and plainly foreign to her recognized duties;

but it was difficult to be unobliging and refuse, so she took the

letters and the list and departed.

The store was a good half-mile off and the going (in hot weather) not

very fast. Then, when she got there, the storekeeper was busy with his

own mail, and she was kept waiting until various goods had been packed

into the cart before the door and driven away with the mail behind four

prancing mules. Looking out cottons and writing-paper occupied some

further time. Stores on farms are poky places, and the things always

hidden away in inaccessible spots. At any rate, the best part of an

hour had passed before Christine was again on her way home, and she had

an uneasy feeling that she had been too long away from the children,

especially from Roddy. Suddenly, her haste was arrested by an

unexpected sight. A tiny spot of colour lay right in her pathway on

the ground. It was only a yellow rose-leaf, but it brought a catch in

Christine's breath and her feet to an abrupt halt. How had it come

there? If it had fallen from one of Roddy's roses, it meant that he

had been out of doors since she left! That set her hurrying on again,

but, as she walked, she reflected that of the many roses left in the

dining-room, some might easily have been carried off by the servants

and leaves dropped from them. Still, she was breathless and rather

pale when she reached the house, wasting not a moment in finding her

way to Mrs. van Cannan's room.

Rita and Coral were amusing themselves happily, winding up a tangle of

bright-coloured silks. But Roddy was gone! Neither was Mrs. van

Cannan there.

Christine sat down rather suddenly, but her voice gave no sign of the

alarm she felt.

"Where is Roddy?"

"He went out," answered Rita, perching herself upon Christine. "Mamma

is going to give us each a new dolly if we get this silk untangled for

her."

"How long ago did Roddy go?"

"Just after you went. But you mustn't be cross with him; Mamma gave

him permission."

"Mamma is gone, too, to see poor Mrs. Saxby," prattled Coral.

Christine put them gently away from her.

"Well, hurry up and earn your new dollies," she counselled, smiling;

"I'll be back very soon to help you."

In the dining-room, she looked for the discarded roses and found them

gathered in a dying heap on a small side-table. In the nursery, she

found two of Roddy's roses in the jug. The third was missing!

Of one thing she felt as certain as she could feel of anything in the

shifting quicksands of that house, and that was that Roddy had not gone

to the dam, for he had promised her earnestly, the night before, that

never again would he go there without her. Could he, then, have gone

to the cemetery? Even that seemed unlikely, for he loved her to go

with him on his excursions thither. Where else, then? The rose-leaf

she had passed on the road stuck obstinately in her memory, and now she

suddenly remembered that the place she had seen it was near the barn

from whence she had once found Roddy emerging. Perhaps he had gone

there to amuse himself in his own mysterious fashion. He might even

have been there when she passed. Oh, why had she not looked in? But

the omission was easily rectified. In two minutes she was out of doors

again, walking rapidly the way she had come.

Roddy was not in the barn, however, and it seemed at a glance as

harmless a place as she had thought it before. An end of it was full

of forage, and one side piled high with old farm-implements and empty

cases. Rather to the fore of the pile stood one large packing case,

sacking and straw sticking from under its loose lid. Christine had

just decided there was nothing here to warrant her scrutiny when, lying

in front of this case, she saw something that drew her gaze like a

magnet. It was another yellow rose-leaf.

"Roddy!" she cried, and was astonished at the sharp relief in her

voice, for she had suddenly made up her mind that the boy was there

hiding from her. There was no answer to her call. Very slowly then

she went over and lifted the lid of the case. It was quite loose, and

edged with a fringe of strong nails that had once fastened it to the

box, but which now were red with rust. A quantity of sacking, of the

kind used for winding about fragile goods, lay heaped at the top and

came away easily to her hand, exposing that which lay firmly wedged at

the bottom. What she had expected to find she did not know. What she

did find astonished her beyond all things. It was a beautifully

chiselled white marble tombstone in the shape of a cross. The whole of

the inscription was clear of dust or any covering save one fading

yellow rose. Awed, deeply touched, and feeling herself upon the verge

of a mysterious revelation, Christine lifted Roddy's yellow rose and

read the simple gold-lettered inscription:

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED WIFE,

CLARICE VAN CANNAN

(BORN QUENTIN),

WHO DIED AT EAST LONDON, JUNE 7, 19--, AND WAS

BROUGHT BACK TO REST NEAR HER SORROWING

HUSBAND AND CHILDREN.

(AGED 27)

The date of death was two years old.

Much that had been dark became clear to Christine. She understood at

last. The woman whose sad fate was here recorded, cut off at

twenty-seven--that fairest period in a happy woman's life--was Roddy's

mother, the mother of all the little van Cannan children, living and

dead. The woman who had ousted her memory from all hearts save loving,

loyal Roddy's was the second wife and stepmother.

Much in the attitude of the big, blond, laughing woman who reigned now

at Blue Aloes, false to her husband, careless of the fate of his

children, was accounted for, too. The sorrows of the van Cannans had

never touched her. How should they? Had not Christine heard from her

own lips, the night before, the confession of her love for another, and

her hatred of Bernard van Cannan's home. How, then, should she love

Bernard van Cannan's children?

The cruel taunt of cowardice she had flung at Roddy was explained. The

boy's sensitive, loyal nature was a book too deep for her reading, the

memory of his loved ones too sweet and tenacious for her to tamper

with. Nevertheless, she had understood him well enough to set a bond

on his honour never to speak of the dead woman who slept in the

unmarked grave while her tombstone lay in the rubble of an outhouse.

The spell by which she had won the man to forgetfulness and neglect was

not the same as that by which she had induced silence in the boy. A

promise had been wrung from him--perhaps even under duress! Suddenly,

terror swept over Christine Chaine. It was revealed to her, as in a

vision, that the pink-and-white woman who laughed with such childlike

innocence by day and whispered so passionately to her lover by night

could be capable of many things not good for those who stood in the way

of her wishes.

Why had two of the van Cannan sons died sudden deaths? Why was the

lure of a pink palace at the bottom of the dam fostered in the third?

How had the tarantula come into his bed, and why had someone said that

it acted like a thing drugged or intoxicated, and that, when it woke

up, it would have been a bad lookout for Roddy?

"God forgive me!" cried the distracted girl to herself. "Perhaps I am

more wicked than she, to harbour such thoughts!"

Then, as if at a call that her heart heard rather than her ears, she

found herself running out of the barn and across the veld in the hot,

stormy sunshine, in the direction of the Saxbys' bungalow.

She had never been there before, though often, in their walks, she and

the children had passed within a stone's throw of the little

wood-and-iron building. The door was always shut, and the windows

hidden by the heavy creeper that covered in the stoep. She had often

thought what a drab and dreary life it must be for a woman to live

hidden away there, and even the children never passed without a

compassionate allusion to "poor Mrs. Saxby, always shut up there alone."

A dread of seeing the sad, disfigured creature seized her now, as she

reached the darkened stoep, and held her back for a moment. She stood

wondering why she had come and how she could expect to find Roddy there

where the children had never been allowed to penetrate. But, in the

very act of hesitation, she heard the boy's voice ring out.

"No, mamma; _please don't make me do it!_"

In a couple of swift steps she was in the stoep and her hand on the

knob of the door. But the door would not open. There were two narrow

windows that gave onto the stoep, and, without pause, she flew to the

one that she judged to be in the direction of the child's voice and

laid hands upon it. It was closed and curtained with thick blue

muslin, but there were no shutters, and to her forceful push the lower

part jerked up, and the curtains divided. She found herself standing

there, the silent spectator of a scene in which all the actors were

silent, too amazed or paralyzed by her unexpected appearance.

PART III

The room was a common little sitting-room with a table in the centre,

at either end of which sat Mrs. van Cannan and Mr. Saxby. Roddy was

between the table and the wall, and Christine's first glance showed him

white-faced and staring with fascinated, fearful eyes at a large

cardboard box, with a flat-iron on its lid, which stood on the table.

The two elder people were each holding small knobkerries, that is,

stout sticks with wired handles and heavy heads made by the natives. A

revolver lay at Saxby's elbow.

The little tableau remained stationary just long enough for Christine

to observe all details; then everyone acted at once. Roddy flew round

the table and reached her at the window, sobbing:

"Oh, Miss Chaine! Miss Chaine!"

Saxby laid his knobkerrie on the table and lit a cigarette, and Mrs.

van Cannan, rising from her seat with an air of dignity outraged beyond

all bounds, addressed Christine.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion, Miss Chaine? How dare you come

bursting into Mr. Saxby's house like this?"

"I heard Roddy call out," was the firm answer, "and I consider it my

duty to protect him." She had the boy well within her reach now, and

could easily have lifted him out of the low window, but it seemed an

undignified thing to do unless it became absolutely necessary.

"Protect him! From what, may I ask?" The woman's voice was like a

knife.

"I don't know from what. I only know that he was in grave fear of

something you were about to do."

Saxby interposed with a soft laugh.

"You surely cannot suppose Roddy was in any danger from his mother,

Miss Chaine--or that I would harm him?"

He certainly did not look very harmful with his full, handsome features

and melancholy smile.

"Your action is both ridiculous and impertinent," continued Mrs. van

Cannan furiously. "And I can tell you that I will not stand that sort

of thing from any one in my house," she added, with the air of one

dismissing a servant: "You may go. Roddy, come here!"

Roddy gave a wild cry.

"Don't leave me, Miss Chaine. They've got a snake in that box, and

they want me to let it out."

There was blank silence for a moment; then Christine spoke with

deliberation.

"If this is true, it is the most infamous thing I have ever heard."

Even Isabel van Cannan was silenced, and Saxby's deprecating smile

passed. He said gravely:

"Mrs. van Cannan has a right to use what methods she thinks best to

cure her boy of cowardice."

"Cowardice!" Christine answered him scornfully. "The word would be

better applied to those who deliberately terrify a child. I am

astonished at a man taking part in such a vile business."

She was pale with indignation and pity for the boy who trembled in her

arms, and in no mood to choose her words.

Saxby shrugged his shoulders with a sort of helpless gesture toward his

companion as if to say he had only done as he was told. Mrs. van

Cannan gave him a furious glance before returning to Christine.

"Can't you see," she said violently, "that we have sticks here ready to

kill the thing, and a revolver if necessary? Not that it is

poisonous--if it had bitten that miserable little worm!" She cast a

withering glance at Roddy. He shrank closer to Christine, who judged

it time to pull him safely from the room to her side on to the veranda.

"There is nothing miserable about Roddy," she said fiercely, "except

his misfortune in having a step-mother who neither loves nor

understands him."

That blenched the woman at the table. She turned a curious yellow

colour, and her golden-brown eyes appeared to perform an evolution in

her head that, for a moment, showed nothing of them but the eyeball.

"That will do," she hissed, advancing menacingly upon Christine. "I

always felt you were a spy. But you shall not stay prying here another

day. Pack your things and go at once."

"Come, come, Mrs. van Cannan," interposed Saxby soothingly; "I am sure

you are unjust to Miss Chaine. Besides, how can she go at once? There

is nothing for her to travel by until the cart returns from Cradock."

But the woman he addressed had lost all control of herself.

"She goes tomorrow, cart or no cart!" she shouted, and struck one

clenched fist on the other. "We will see who is mistress at Blue

Aloes!"

Christine cast at her the look of a well-bred woman insulted by a

brawling fishwife, and with Roddy's hand tightly in hers, walked out of

the veranda without deigning to answer.

But though her mien was haughty as she walked away from Saxby's

bungalow holding Roddy's hand, her spirits were at zero. She had

burned her boats with a vengeance, and come out into the open to face

an enemy who would stick at nothing, and who, apparently, had everyone

at the farm at her side, including the big, good-natured-seeming Saxby.

It would be difficult to stay on at Blue Aloes and protect Roddy if his

stepmother insisted on her departure, and she did not see how she was

going to do it. She only knew that nothing and no one should budge her

from the place. Something dogged in her upheld her from dismay and

determined her to take a stand against the whole array of them. She

was in the right, and it was her plain duty to do as Bernard van Cannan

had besought, and not go until she could place Roddy in his father's

hands with the full story of his persecutions.

"Tell me about it, Roddy," she said quietly, as they walked away.

"Don't hide anything. You know that I love you and that your father

has trusted you to my care."

"Yes," he assented eagerly; "but how did you know about my real mammie

being dead?" His natural resilience had already helped him to surmount

the terror just past, and he was almost himself again. "I wanted to

tell you, but I had promised mamma not to tell any one."

It was as Christine had supposed. She explained her finding of the

tombstone and the yellow rose, but not the rest of her terrible

conclusions.

"I put it there," he said shyly. "She always loved yellow and red

flowers. I was keeping the other two for her and Carol in the

graveyard."

Christine squeezed the warm little hand, but continued her questions

steadily.

"What happened after you had been to the outhouse?"

"Mamma was waiting for me on the stoep. She said she wanted me to come

with her to see Mrs. Saxby." He added, with the sudden memory of

surprise: "But we _didn't_ see Mrs. Saxby. I wonder where she was."

The same wonder seized Christine. Where could the unhappy, distraught

creature have been hiding while the trial of Roddy was in process?

"What happened then?"

"We just went into the sitting-room, and Mr. Saxby got the box and the

knobkerries and his revolver, and mamma said, 'Now, Roddy, there is a

snake in that box, and I want you to prove you are not a coward like

last night by taking off the lid.'" He shuddered violently. "But I

couldn't. Oh, Miss Chaine, am I a coward?" he pleaded.

"No, darling; you are _not_," she said emphatically. "Nobody in their

senses would touch a box with a snake in it. It was very wrong to ask

you to."

He looked at her gratefully.

"Then you opened the window. Oh, how glad I felt! It was just like as

if God had sent you, for my heart felt as if it was calling out to you

all the time. Perhaps you heard it and that made you come?"

"I did, Roddy," she said earnestly, "I ran all the way from the

outhouse, because I felt you were in need of me."

They were nearly home when they saw Saltire and his boys close beside

their path. Roddy was urgent to stop and talk, but Christine made the

fact that heavy rain-drops were beginning to fall an excuse for

hurrying on, and indeed in Saltire's face there was no invitation to

linger, for, though he smiled at Roddy, Christine had never seen him so

cold and forbidding-looking.

"He knows that I know," she thought, "and, base as he is, that disturbs

him." The bitter thought brought her no consolation. She felt

desolate and alone, like one lost in a desert, with a great task to

accomplish and no friend in sight or sign in the skies. In the house,

she collected the little girls, and they spent the rest of the

afternoon together. The storm had broke suddenly, and the

long-threatened rain came at last, lashing up the earth and battering

on the window-panes amid deafening claps of thunder and a furious gale

of wind.

When bath-time came for the children, Christine stayed with them until

the last moment, superintending Meekie. She would have given worlds to

avoid going in to dinner that night. No one could have desired food

less, or the society of those with whom she must partake of it. Yet

she felt that it would be a sign of weakness and a concession to the

enemy if she stayed away, so she dressed as usual and went in to face

the dreary performance of sitting an hour or so with people whom she

held in fear as well as contempt, for she knew not from moment to

moment what new offence she might have to meet. Only great firmness of

spirit and her natural good breeding sustained her through that trying

meal.

Saltire did not put in an appearance, for which small mercy she was

fain to thank God. Deeply as he had wounded and offended her, she

hated to see his face as she had seen it that afternoon. Mrs. van

Cannan, oddly pallid but with burning eyes, absolutely ignored the

presence of the governess, and her lead was followed by all save Andrew

McNeil, who was no man's man but his own, and always treated the girl

with genial friendliness. As a matter of fact, there was but little

conversation, for the sound of the rain, swishing down on the roof and

windows and tearing through the trees without, deadened the sound of

voices, and everyone seemed distrait.

Christine was not the only one who finished her meal hurriedly. As she

rose, asking to be excused, Mrs. van Cannan, rising too, detained her.

"I wish to make arrangements with you about your departure tomorrow,

Miss Chaine," she said, loudly enough for everyone's hearing. "Kindly

come to my room."

There was nothing to be gained by not complying. Christine did not

mean to leave the next day, and this seemed a good opportunity for

stating her reasons and intentions; she buckled on her moral armour as

she followed the trailing pink-and-white draperies down the long

passage, preparing for an encounter of steel on steel.

"Close the door," said Isabel van Cannan, and went straight to a table

drawer, taking out a small bag full of money.

"I shall give you a month's salary instead of notice," she announced,

counting out sovereigns, "though, as a matter of fact, I believe you

are not entitled to it, considering the scandalous way you have

behaved, plotting and spying and setting the children against me."

Christine disdained to answer this lying charge. She only said quietly:

"It is useless to offer me money, Mrs. van Cannan. I have no intention

of leaving the farm until Mr. van Cannan returns."

"What do you mean? How dare you?" began the other, with a return of

her loud and insolent manner.

"Don't shout," said Christine coldly. "You only degrade yourself and

do not alarm me. I mean what I have said. Mr. van Cannan engaged me,

and entrusted his children to my care, not only when I came but by

letter since his departure. I do not mean to desert that trust or

relegate it to any hands but his own."

"He never wrote to you. I don't believe a word of it."

"You are at liberty to believe what you choose. I have the proof, and

shall produce it if necessary. In the meantime, please understand

plainly that I do not intend to be parted from Roddy."

A baffled look passed over the other's features, but she laughed

contemptuously.

"We shall see," she sneered. "Wait till tomorrow, and we shall see how

much your proofs and protests avail you."

"As we both know each other's minds and intentions, there is no use in

prolonging this very disagreeable interview," answered Christine

calmly, and walked out.

The dining-room was silent and dim. The men had evidently braved the

rain for the sake of getting early to their own quarters, and no one

was about. In the nursery, the lamp by which she sometimes read or

wrote at her own table had not been lighted. Only a sheltered candle

on the wash-hand stand cast a dim shadow toward the three little white

beds under their mosquito-nets. Meekie had gone, but the quiet

breathing of the children came faintly to the girl as she sat down by

her table, thankful for a little space of silence and solitude in which

to collect her forces. She saw violent and vulgar scenes ahead. Mrs.

van Cannan, now that her true colours were unmasked, and it was no

longer worth while to play the soft, sleepy role behind which she hid

her fierce nature, would stick at nothing to get rid of Christine and

set the whole world against her. Though the girl's resolution held

firm, a dull despair filled her. How vile and cruel life could be!

Friendship was a mockery; love, disillusion and ashes; nothing held

sweet and true but the hearts of little children. An arid conclusion

for a girl from whom the gods had not withdrawn those two surpassing

and swiftly passing gifts--youth and beauty.

"To be a cynic at twenty-two!" she thought bitterly, and looked at her

white, ringless hands. "I must have loved my kind even better than

Chamfort, who said that no one who had loved his kind well could fail

to be a misanthrope at forty. And I thought I had left it all behind

in civilized England! Cruelty, falseness, treachery! But they are

everywhere. Even here, on a South African farm in the heart of a

desert, I find them in full bloom."

She bowed her head in her hands and strove for peace and forgetfulness,

if for that night only. In the end, she found calmness at least, by

reciting softly to herself the beautiful Latin words of her creed.

Then she arose and took the candle in her hand for a final look at the

children before she retired. The day had been terrible and full of

surprises, but fate had reserved a last and staggering one for this

hour. Roddy's bed was empty!

The shock of the discovery dazed her for a moment. It was too horrible

to think that she had been sitting there all this time, wasting

precious moments, while Roddy was--where? O God, where, and in what

cruel hands on this night of fierce storm and stress? When was it that

he had gone? Why had not Meekie been at her post as usual? She caught

up the light and ran from the nursery into one room after another of

the house.

All was silent. The servants were gone, the rooms empty. No sound but

the pitiless battering of the rain without. At last she came to Isabel

van Cannan's room and rapped sharply. There was no answer, and she

made no bones about turning the door-handle, for this was no time for

ceremony. But the bedroom, though brightly lighted, was empty. She

did not enter, but stood in the doorway, searching with her eyes every

corner and place that could conceivably hide a small boy. But there

was no likely place. Even the bed stood high on tall brass legs, and

its short white quilt showed that nothing could be hidden there. One

object, however, that Christine Chaine had not sought forced itself

upon her notice--an object that, even in her distress of mind, she had

time to find extraordinary and unaccountable in this house of

extraordinary and unaccountable things. On the dressing-table was a

wig-stand of the kind to be seen in the window of a fashionable

_coiffeur_. It had a stupid, waxen face, and on its head was arranged

a wig of blond curly hair with long golden plaits hanging down on each

side, even as the plaits of Isabel van Cannan hung about her shoulders

as she lay among her pillows every morning. The thing gave Christine a

thrill such as all the horrors of that day had not caused her. So

innocent, yet so sinister, perched there above the foolish, waxen

features, it seemed symbolical of the woman who hid cruel and terrible

things behind her babylike airs and sleepy laughter.

Atop of these thoughts came the woman herself, emerging _en deshabille_

from her adjoining bathroom. The moment she saw Christine, she flung a

towel across her head, but too late for her purpose. The girl had seen

the short, crisp, almost snowy curls that were hidden by day under the

golden wig, and realized in an instant that she was in the presence of

a woman of a breed she had never known--mulatto, albino, or some

strange admixture of native and European blood. The golden hair,

assisted by artificial aids to the complexion, and her large

golden-brown eyes had lent an extraordinary blondness to the skin. But

the moment the wig was off, the mischief was out. The thickness of

eyelids and nostril, and a certain cruel, sensuous fulness of the lips

and jaw told the dark tale, and Christine wondered how she could ever

have been taken in, except that the woman before her was as clever as

she was cruel and unscrupulous. A tingling horror stole through her

veins as she stood there, sustaining a malignant glance and listening

dumfounded to an insolent inquiry as to what further spying she had

come to do.

"I beg your pardon," she stammered. "I knocked, and, getting no

answer, opened the door, hardly knowing what I did in my distress.

Roddy is missing from his bed, and I don't know where to look for him."

The other had turned away for a moment, adjusting the covering on her

head before a mirror. She may still have believed that her secret

remained unrevealed.

"I haven't the faintest notion of Roddy's whereabouts," she said, "and

if he is lost out in this storm, perhaps drowned in one of the kloofs,

yours will be the blame, and I will see you are brought to book for

it." She spoke with the utmost malice and satisfaction. "Now, get out

of my room!"

Christine went. Indeed, she was convinced that for once the woman

spoke truth and that Roddy was not there or anywhere in the house. It

was out-of-doors that she must seek him. So back to her room on winged

feet to get a waterproof and make her way from the house. For once,

the front door was barred! Outside, the rain had ceased as suddenly as

it had burst from the heavens. Only the wind swished and howled wildly

among the trees, tearing up handfuls of gravel to fling against the

doors and windows. Afar off was a roaring sound new to her, that,

later, she discovered to be the rushing waters in the kloofs that were

tearing tumultuously to swell the river a few miles off. Clouds had

blotted out moon and stars. All the light there was came

intermittently from whip-like lightning flashes across the sky. It

helped Christine a little as she stumbled through the darkness, crying

out Roddy's name, but she found herself often colliding with trees, and

prickly-pear bushes seemed to be rushing hither and thither, waving

fantastic arms and clutching for her as she passed. The idea had come

to her suddenly to seek Andrew McNeil and ask for his help. He was the

only friendly soul of all those on the farm that she could turn to.

True, another face presented itself to her mind for one moment, but she

banished it with scorn, despising herself for even thinking of Dick

Saltire.

She fancied that McNeil lodged at the storekeeper's place, and set

herself to find the route she had taken that afternoon--no easy task in

the darkness that surrounded her. But at last she saw a twinkle of

light, and, approaching closer, found that, by great good luck, she had

indeed happened on the store. The door stood open, and she could see

the man behind the counter talking to McNeil, who, seated on an

upturned case, was smoking peacefully. Someone else was there

too--someone whose straight back and gallant air was very familiar to

her. Saltire was buying tobacco from the storekeeper. But Christine

had no word for him. She went straight to McNeil with her story.

"Roddy is lost!" she cried. "You must please come and help me find

him."

The men stared, electrified at her appearance. White as a bone, her

beautiful violet eyes full of haunting fear; her hair, torn down by the

wind and flickering in long black strands about her face, far below her

waist, she looked like a wraith of the storm.

"Roddy lost!" McNeil and the storekeeper turned mechanically as one

man to Saltire. It was only the girl who would not turn to him.

"Come quickly!" she urged. "He may be drowning somewhere, even now, in

one of the swollen streams." She imagined the tragedy to herself as

she spoke, and her voice was full of wistful despair.

"Get her a hot drink." Saltire, flinging the command to the

storekeeper, spoke for the first time. "I'll round up the boys and get

lanterns for a search." In a few moments there was a flicker of

lanterns without, and the murmur of voices.

"Come along, Niekerk!" commanded Saltire, and the storekeeper began to

put his lights out. "McNeil, you take Miss Chaine back to the farm."

"No, no; I must come, too!" she cried.

"Impossible," he said curtly. "You will only be a hindrance."

"Then I will go home alone," she said quietly, "and free Mr. McNeil to

accompany you."

"Very well--if you think you can find your way. Here is a lantern."

She took it and went her way while they went theirs. Long before she

reached the garden round the house, the lantern in her unskilful hands

had gone out and she was groping by instinct.

All the weariness and strain of the day had suddenly descended upon her

in a cloud. She knew she was near the end of her tether. This life at

Blue Aloes was too much for her, after all; she must give it best at

last; it was dominating her, driving her like a leaf before the wind.

These were her thoughts as she crept wearily through the garden, but

suddenly she heard voices and was galvanized into hope, tinged with

fear. Perhaps Roddy was found! Perhaps her terror and suffering had

been unnecessary. She listened for a moment, then located the speakers

close to her in the stoep.

"Dick," a voice she knew was saying, "I am sick of it. Bernard _may_

die down in East London, but we shall never get rid of the boy while

that English Jezebel is here. And she knows too much now. We had

better go. Blue Aloes will never be ours to sell and go back to our

own dear island. Everything has gone wrong."

"Nonsense, Issa. You are too impatient. Van Cannan will never come

back. He is too full of antimony. As for Roddy, poor kid, he is

probably drowned in one of the kloofs and speeding for the river by

now--just the sort of adventure his queer little mind would embark on.

No one can blame us for _that_, at least. You are far too easily

discouraged, my darling. Wait till the morning." The voice was the

soft, sonorous voice of Saxby, and a lightning flash revealed to the

girl cowering among the trees that it was he who held Isabel van Cannan

in his arms.

There were two "Dicks" at Blue Aloes, and Christine, not knowing it,

had been guilty of a grave injustice to Richard Saltire! Aghast as she

was by the revelation, all her love and faith came tingling back in a

sweet, overwhelming flood. For a moment or two she forgot Roddy,

forgot where she was, forgot all the world but Saltire, and her

attention was withdrawn from the pair in the stoep--indeed, she had no

desire to hear their words, now that she was sure they knew no more of

the boy's whereabouts than she herself. But the muffled clang of the

bar across the front door broke through her thoughts, and she became

aware that Saxby had left and Mrs. van Cannan gone in. She was alone

in the gaunt darkness, barred out, and with no means of getting into

the house; all other doors were locked, as well she knew, and all

shutters firmly bolted, including those of the nursery. However, the

fact did not worry her greatly, for the thought of being snug and safe

while poor Roddy roamed somewhere in the blackness had no appeal for

her. Out here, she seemed, somehow, nearer to him, and to the man whom

she now knew she had deeply wronged. Lanterns, twinkling like

will-o'-the-wisps in every direction, told of the search going forward,

and she determined to stay in the summer-house and wait for what news

might come. It was very obscure there, and she knew not what loathly

insects might be crawling on the seats and table, but, at any rate, it

was shelter from the rain, which now again began to fall heavily.

It seemed to her hours that she sat there while the storm swept round

her and the rushing of many waters filled her ears. As a matter of

fact, it was less than half an hour before she determined that

inactivity was something not to be borne another moment and that she

must return and join in the search for Roddy. So out she stumbled

across the veld again, in the direction of the lanterns, evading as

best she could the prickly-pear bushes, stubbing her feet against rocks

and boschies, drenched and driven by the storm. It was old Andrew

McNeil whom she found first, and he seemed an angel from heaven after

the vile and menacing loneliness, although he was but ill pleased to

see her.

"You should be in your bed, lassie," he muttered. "The poor bairn will

never be found this night. We've searched everywhere. There's nothing

left but the water."

"Oh, don't say that!" she cried woefully, and peered, fascinated, at

the boiling torrent rushing down a kloof that but yesterday was an

innocent gully they had crossed in their walks, in some places so

narrow as to allow a jump from bank to bank. Now it was a turbulent

flood of yellow water, spreading far beyond its banks and roaring with

a rage unappeasable. While they stood there, staring, Saltire came up.

"You, Miss Chaine! I thought I asked you to return to the farm." His

tones, were frigid, but his eyes compassionate. No one with any

humanity could have failed to be touched by the forlorn girl, pale and

lovely in the dim light.

"I had to come. I could not stay inert any longer."

"We have searched every inch of the land inside the aloes," he said.

"He has either fallen into one of the streams or got out beyond the

hedge into the open veld--which seems impossible, somehow. At any

rate, we can do no more until it is light." He dismissed the natives

with a brief: "Get home, boys. _Hamba lalla!_" then turned to McNeil.

"Take Miss Chaine's other arm, Mac; we must see for ourselves that she

goes indoors."

She made some sound of remonstrance, but he paid no attention, simply

taking her arm, half leading, half supporting her. There was a long

way to go. They walked awhile in a silence that had hopelessness in

it; then Christine asked:

"Did you search every outhouse and barn?"

"Every one, and the cemetery, too," answered Saltire. "There's not a

place inside or out of the farm-buildings we haven't been over--except

Saxby's bungalow, and he's hardly likely to be there."

"He was there this afternoon," said Christine slowly. It seemed to her

time to let them into the truth.

"What!"

Both men halted in amazement. Such a thing as any one but Mrs. van

Cannan going to Saxby's was unknown. Briefly she recounted the

incidents of the afternoon. The men's verdict was the same as hers had

been.

"Atrocious!"

"Infamous! After that, we will certainly visit Saxby's," decided

Saltire. "But, first, Miss Chaine must go home."

"No, no; let me come," she begged. "It is not far. I _must_ know."

So, in the end, she got her way, and they all approached the bungalow

together. It was in utter darkness, and the men had to rap loud and

long before any response came from within. At last Saxby's voice was

heard inquiring who the deuce, and what the deuce, etc., etc., at that

time of the night--followed by his appearance in the doorway with a

candle.

"We want to come in and look for Roddy," said Saltire briefly, and,

without further ado, pushed the burly man aside and entered, followed

by McNeil. Christine, too, entered, and sat down inside the door. She

was very exhausted. Saxby appeared too flabbergasted to move for a

moment. Then he remonstrated with considerable heat.

"What do you mean by this? You don't seem to know that you are in my

house!"

But the other two had already passed through the empty sitting-room to

the one beyond, and were casting lantern-gleams from side to side,

examining everything.

"You must be crazy to think the boy is here," Saxby blustered, as they

re-emerged. They paid not the slightest attention to him, but

continued their search into the kitchen, the only other room of the

house.

"No," said Saltire, very quietly, as he came back into the room and set

the light on the table; "the boy is not here. But where is Mrs. Saxby?"

Saxby's face had grown rather pallid, but his jaw was set in a dogged

fashion.

"That is _my_ business," he said harshly.

It was Saltire whose face and manner had become subtly agreeable.

"Oh, no, Saxby; it is all of our business at present. What I find so

strange is that nowhere in the house is there any sign or token that a

woman lives here, or has ever lived here. It seems to me that needs a

little explaining."

"You'll get no explanation from me," was the curt answer.

"I think you had better tell us something about it," said Saltire

pleasantly. He held the lantern high, and it lighted up a shelf upon

which stood some curious glass jars with perforated stoppers. "I see

you have a fine collection of live tarantulas and scorpions. I

remember now I have often seen you groping among the aloes. Curious

hobby!"

"Get out of my house!" said Saxby, with sudden rage.

"And is the snake still in the box?" asked Saltire, approaching the

table where the cardboard box still occupied its central position, with

the heavy iron on top of it.

"Don't touch it, for God's sake!" shouted Saxby, lunging forward to

stop him, but the deed was already done, though Saltire himself was

unprepared for what followed on his lifting the iron. The lid flew up,

and, with a soft hiss, something slim and swift as a black arrow darted

across the air, seemed to kiss Saxby in passing, and was gone through

the open door into the night.

The big man made a strange sound and put his hand to his throat. He

swayed a little, and then sank upon a long cane lounge. Christine

noticed that his eyes rolled with the same curious evolution as the

eyes of Mrs. van Cannan had performed that afternoon. It was as though

they turned in his head for a moment, showing nothing but the white

eyeball. She wondered why the other men rushed to the sideboard and

opened a brandy-bottle, and while she stayed, wondering, Saxby spoke

softly, looking at her with his beautiful, melancholy brown eyes.

"I shall be dead in half an hour. Fetch Isabel. Let me see her face

before I die."

She knew him for a bad man, false friend, one who could be cruel to a

little child; yet it seemed he could love well. That was something.

She found herself running through the darkness as she had never run in

her life, to do the last behest of Richard Saxby.

When she and Isabel van Cannan returned, they found him almost gone.

Saltire and McNeil had worked over him until the sweat dripped from

their faces, but he who has been kissed by the black mamba, deadliest

of snakes, is lost beyond all human effort. The light was fast fading

from his face, but, for a moment, a spurt of life leaped in his eyes.

He held out his aims to the woman, and she fell weeping into them.

Christine turned away and stared out at the darkness. Saltire had been

writing; a sheet of paper upon which the ink was still wet lay upon the

table, and in his hand he held a packet of letters.

"I have told everything, Issa," muttered the dying man. "I had to

clean my soul of it."

She recoiled fiercely from him.

"'Told everything?'" she repeated, and her face blanched with fury and

despair. It seemed as if she would have struck him across the lips,

but McNeil intervened.

"Have reverence for a passing soul, woman," said he sternly. "Black as

his crimes are, yours are blacker, I'm thinking. He was only the tool

of the woman he loved--his lawful wife."

"You said that?" she raved. But Saxby was beyond recriminations. That

dark soul had passed to its own place. She turned again to the others,

foaming like a creature trapped.

"It is all lies, lies!"--then fell silent, her eyes sealed to the newly

written paper on the table under Saltire's hand. At last, she said

quietly: "I must, however, insist upon knowing what he has said about

me. What is written on that paper, Mr. Saltire?"

"If you insist, I will read it," he answered. "Though it is scarcely

in my province to do so."

"It is only fair that I should hear," she said, with great calmness.

And Saltire read out the terse phrases that bore upon them the stamp of

Death's hurrying hand.

"I am a native of the island Z---- in the West Indies. Isabel Saxby,

known as van Cannan, is my wife. While travelling to the Cape Colony

on some business of mine, she met van Cannan and his wife and stayed

with them at East London. When she did not return to Z----, I came to

look for her and found that, Mrs. van Cannan having died, she had

bigamously married the widower and come to live at Blue Aloes. I loved

her, and could not bear to be parted from her, so, through her

instrumentality, I came here as manager. The eldest boy was drowned

before my arrival. The youngest died six months later of a bite from

one of my specimen tarantulas. The third boy is, I expect, drowned

tonight. I take the blame of all these deaths and of Bernard van

Cannan's, if he does not return. It was only when all male van Cannans

were dead that Blue Aloes could be sold for a large sum enabling us to

return to Z----. We would have taken the little girls with us.

"With my dying breath, I take full blame for all on my shoulders. No

one is guilty but I.

"[Signed.] RICHARD SAXBY."

"Poor fellow!" said the listening woman gently. "Poor fellow to have

died with such terrible delusions torturing him!" She passed her hands

over her eyes, wiping away her tears and with them every last trace of

violence and anger. Subtly her face had changed back to the babylike,

laughing, sleepy face they all knew so well--the face that had held the

dead man in thrall and made Bernard van Cannan forget the mother of his

children.

"You will please give me that paper, Mr. Saltire," she pleaded, "and

you will please all of you forget the ravings of poor Dick Saxby. It

is true that I knew him in the past, and that he followed me here, but

the rest, as you must realize, are simply hallucinations of a poisoned

brain."

Andrew McNeil's dour face had grown bewildered, but softened.

Christine--if she had not seen a little too much, if she had not known

that lovely golden hair hanging in rich plaits about the woman's

shoulders covered the crisped head of a white negress, if she had not

overheard impassioned words at midnight, if she had not loved Roddy so

well--might have been beguiled. But there was one person upon whom the

artist's wiles were wasted.

"I'm afraid it can't be done, Mrs. Saxby," said Saltire gravely. "The

testimony of a dying man is sacred--and Saxby's mind was perfectly

clear."

"How could it have been? And do not call me 'Mrs. Saxby,' please."

She still spoke patiently, but a smouldering fire began to kindle in

her eyes.

"You see," he continued, exhibiting the packet of letters to which he

now added the testimony, "I have here the certificate of your marriage

to Saxby six years ago in the West Indies--and also proof of the

possession by you of a large amount of antimony. You may, of course,

be able to explain away these things, as well as Saxby's testimony, but

you will understand that I cannot oblige you by handing them over." A

silence fell, in which only her rapid breathing could be heard. "There

is one thing, however, you can do, that will perhaps help a little.

Tell us where Roddy is--if you know."

The smouldering fires leaped to flame. She glared at him like a

tigress.

"Oh, you, and your Roddys!" she cried savagely. "If I knew where he

was, I would kill him! I would kill any one I could who stood in my

way--do you understand? That is how we are made in my land. Oh, that

I ever left it, to come to this vile and barren desert!"

She gave one swift, terrible look at the dead man and swept from the

house. That was the last time any one of them ever saw her.

When, a little later, Saltire, McNeil, and Christine came out of the

dead man's house and left him to his long silence, the black wings of

night were lifted, the storm was past, and a rose-red dawn veiled in

silver bedecked the sky. The hills were tender with pearl and azure.

The earth smelled sweet and freshly washed. A flock of wild duck rose

from the dam and went streaking across the horizon like in a Japanese

etching. All the land was full of dew and dreams. It was almost

impossible to despair in such an hour. Christine felt the wings of

hope beating in her breast, and an unaccountable trust in the goodness

of God filled her.

"Joy cometh in the morning," she said, half to herself, half to the men

who walked, sombre and silent, beside her, and the shadow of a smile

hovered on her lips. They looked at her wonderingly. The night of

terror had taken toll of her, and she was pale as the last star before

dawn. Yet her white beauty framed in hanging hair shone like some rare

thing that had passed through fire and come out unscathed and purified

in the passing. "_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle_" is a frivolous

French saying, but, like many frivolous phrases, has its basic roots in

the truth. It was true enough of Christine Chaine in that hour. She

had suffered and was beautiful. Dour old Andrew McNeil gave a sigh for

the years of life that lay behind him, and a glance at the face of the

other man; then, like a wise being, he said,

"Well, I'll be going on down."

So Christine and Dick Saltire walked alone.

"Let us hurry," she said suddenly, quickening her pace. "I feel as

though something may have happened."

But all was silent at the farm. It was still too early even for the

servants to be astir, and the big front door stood open as she and the

other woman had left it an hour or so agone.

She left Saltire in the stoep and went within. The little girls slept

peacefully, ignorant of the absence of their brother.

All seemed unchanged, yet Christine's searching eye found one thing

that was unusual--a twist of paper stuck through the slats of the

shutter. In a moment, she had it untwisted and was reading the words

printed in ungainly letters upon it.

"Do not worry. Roddy quite safe. Will come back when his father

returns."

"I knew," she whispered to herself, "I knew that joy cometh." She

looked in the mirror and was ashamed of the disarray she saw there, yet

thought that, even so, a man who loved her might perhaps find her fair.

As a last thought, she took Roddy's two yellow roses and stuck them in

the bosom of her gown. Then she went back to the stoep and, showing

Saltire the paper, told him the story of the whispering thing that had

sighed so often for Roddy's safety outside her window.

"I feel sure, somehow, that, after all, he is safe, and with that

friend who knew more than we did, who knew all the tragedy of the

mother and the other two little sons, and feared for Roddy from the

first."

Saltire made no answer, for he was looking at the roses and then into

her eyes; and when she tried to return the look, the weight of the

little stones was on her lids again, and her lips a-quiver. But he

held her against his heart close, close--crushing the yellow roses,

kissing the little stones from her lids and the quiver from her lips.

Then he left her swiftly; for it is a sweet and terrible thing to kiss

the lips and crush the roses and go, and a better thing to hasten the

hour when one may kiss the lips and crush the roses--and stay.

So she did not see him again for three days. But from the faithful

McNeil she heard that the flooded river had been forded and a telegram

sent recalling Bernard van Cannan, that a search had been instituted

for the mistress of Blue Aloes, who was missing, that a party of

farmers had been collected to "sit" upon the body of Richard Saxby, and

had pronounced him most regrettably dead from the bite of a black

mamba. Whereafter he was buried in a quiet spot near the hedge of blue

aloes, from which he had collected so many rare specimens of poisonous

reptiles and insects.

On the third day, one of the kloofs on the farm gave up a wig of golden

hair, all muddy and weed-entangled. The natives hung it on a bush to

dry, and there was much gossip among them that day, hastily hushed when

any European person came by.

At nine o'clock the same evening, Roddy was found peacefully sleeping

in the bed with Meekie carefully adjusting the mosquito-curtains over

him as though he had never been missing. In the morning, he told

Christine he had had an awfully funny dream.

"I dreamed I was with my old 'nannie' again--you know--Sophy. She was

all covered up, and I could only see her eyes looking through holes in

a white thing. She was living all by herself in a hut. I didn't stay

with her, but with another old woman, but she used to come and see me

every day, and sometimes Meekie used to come, too, and Klaas and Jacoop

and all the farm-boys to talk to me. The old woman kept giving me some

tea made of herbs that made me feel very quiet and happy, and Sophy

told me I should come back soon to the farm when daddy was home again.

She was always covered up with white clothes, and I could only see her

eyes, and I love Sophy very much, Miss Chaine, but I can't say she

smelled very nice in my dream. It was a very funny dream, though, and

lasted an awful long time."

It had indeed lasted three days, but Roddy would never know that,

during those three days, he had been incarcerated in the Kafir kraal on

the hillside, outside the aloe hedge. It was only when the golden wig

was washed up from the river that the mysterious kraal people, silent

and impassive, seemingly ignorant of all but their duties, yet knowing

every single thing that passed at the farm, even down to the use of the

false hair (though Bernard van Cannan himself had never suspected

this), gave him back to those who awaited.

If Dick Saltire had not so thoroughly understood the native mind and

inspired the confidence of his boys, the truth might never have been

known. As it was, it lay in his power to relate to those whom it

concerned that a certain woman named Sophy Bronjon, formerly nurse to

the van Cannans, and sent away by them to be conveyed to Robin Island

because she had developed leprosy, had never left the precincts of the

farm, but stayed there, brooding over the little ones she loved. The

kraal people to whom (though a mission-educated woman) she belonged had

hidden and sheltered her. Through Meekie's instrumentality, she

undoubtedly knew all that passed on the farm, and as surely as she had

noted the fate of the van Cannan heirs, she recognized Christine as an

ally and friend, and had warned her as best she could of the dangers

that beset Roddy. It was she who had sighed and whispered through the

closed shutters, frightening Christine at first, but in the end

engendering trust, and it was she who, on hearing of the narrow escape

of Roddy from the tarantula, had made up her mind to spirit him, with

the aid of Meekie and the storm, from the farm and its dangers until

the return of his father.

With the disappearance of Mrs. van Cannan and the death of Saxby, the

menace was removed and the child brought back as silently as he had

been taken away. Even he knew no more than that he had dreamed a

strange dream.

Saltire went to meet Bernard van Cannan at Cradock, taking with him the

papers left in his care by Richard Saxby. There was not so much to

explain to the owner of Blue Aloes, as might have been expected. The

doctor who treated him for neuritis and found him dying of slow

poisoning by antimony had lifted the scales from his eyes, and a little

clear thought, away from the spell of the woman known as Isabel van

Cannan, had done much to show him that the sequence of tragedies in his

home was due to something more than the callousness of fate. Thus he

was, in some measure, prepared for Saxby's confession, though not for

the fact that the woman he had adored to fanaticism had never been his

wife, or more to him than might have been an adder gathered from his

own aloe hedge, with all the traits and attributes peculiar to adders

who are gathered to the bosom and warmed there.

He came back to a home from which the spell of the golden, laughing

woman was lifted. The evil menace that had hung for so long over the

old farm was lifted for ever. Part was buried by the blue-aloe hedge;

part of it, plucked from the dregs of an ebbing river, lay in a far

grave with no mark on it but the plain words, "Isabel Saxby." While

the sad watcher in the kraal had no more need to walk and whisper

warnings by night.

It was the children who laughed now at Blue Aloes, merry and free as

elves in a wood. There was a glow came out of Christine Chaine that

communicated itself to all. She and Saltire were to be married as soon

as a Quentin aunt, who was on her way, had settled down comfortably

with the children. Afterward, Roddy would live with them at the Cape

until his schooldays were over. In the meantime, they walked in a

garden of Eden, for the rains had made the desert bloom, and life

offered them its fairest blossoms with both hands.

The Leopard

PART I

It was nine o'clock, and time for the first waltz to strike up. The

wide, empty floor of the Falcon Hotel lounge gleamed with a waxen glaze

under the brilliant lights, and the dancers' feet were tingling to

begin. Michael Walsh, who always played at the Wankelo dances, sat

down at the piano and struck two loud arresting bars, then gently

caressed from the keys the crooning melody of the _Wisteria Waltz_.

Two by two, the dancers drew into the maze of music and movement, and

became part of a weaving rhythmic, kaleidoscopic picture.

There was not an ill-looking person in the room. The men were of a

tanned, hard-bitten, adventurous brand; the women were nearly all

pretty or attractive or both, and mostly young. These are the usual

attributes of women in a new country like Rhodesia; for men do not take

ugly, unattractive women to share life with them in the wilds, and

girls born in such places have a gift all their own of beauty and charm.

Many of them were badly dressed, however, for that, too, is an

attribute of the wilds, where women mostly make their own clothes,

unless they are rich enough to get frequent parcels from England.

There was this to be noted about the gowns: When they were new, they

were patchy affairs, made up at home from materials bought in Rhodesian

shops; but when well cut, they were battered and worn. Take, for

instance, Mrs. Lisle's gown of pale-green satin and sequins. She had

been an actress before she married Barton Lisle and came out to the ups

and downs of a mining speculator's life, and all her clothes were

_rechauffees_ of the toilettes in which she had once dazzled provincial

audiences. Gay Liscannon's frock of pale rose-leaf silk, with a skirt

that was a flurry of delicious little frills and a bodice of lace, sewn

with little paste dew drops that folded around her fresh young form

like the filmy wings of a butterfly, had Bond Street stamped all over

it, as they who ran might read; but it had not been paid for, although

it was already tumbling into little tears and tatters. For Gay was no

Penelope to sit patiently at home and ply the nimble needle. She had

worn it to six dances already, and would probably wear it another six

before she summoned up the nerve to present her father with the bill.

Berlie Hallett possessed a London godmother in the shape of an aunt who

sent her an occasional frock, and her white-tulle-and-forget-me-nots

was all that it should have been except that it had turned to an ashen

creamy hue, possessed a long tear down the back (unskilfully concealed

by a ribbon sash), lacked about six yards of lace (accidentally ripped

off the flounces), and was minus a few dozen posies of forget-me-nots

(now in the possession of various amorous young men). Berlie no more

than her friend Gay was a sit-by-the-fire-and-mend creature. They were

real, live, out-of-door, golfing, hard-riding girls, full of spirits

and gaiety and _joie de vivre_.

Berlie, at that moment, was dancing with all her soul as well as her

feet, melted in the arms of Johnny Doran, a rich rancher who had

proposed to her eight times and whom she intended should propose

another ten before she finally refused him. But Gay, the best dancer

in Rhodesia, was not dancing. Her feet were tingling, and the music

was in her brain like wine, and her heart was burning, and her eyes,

though not turned that way, were watching, with impatient wrath, the

door across the room. But with her lips she smiled at the little group

of clamouring, protesting men about her, and gave out one brief

statement.

"My shoe hurts me."

"Which one?" they clamoured, like a lot of school-boys. "And why?

It's the same pair you danced to the dawn in last week--why should it

hurt you now? And why does one hurt you? Why not two? Who will bet

that it won't stop hurting after this dance?" they inquired of one

another, "and who is the man it is hurting for?"

Gay surveyed them dispassionately with her misty, violet eyes.

"Don't be silly," said she serenely; "my shoe hurts."

They gave her up as hopeless and faded away, one by one, bent on

finding someone to finish the waltz with. Men out-numbered girls by

about four to one in Wankelo. Only Tryon stayed, lounging against the

wall, smiling subtly to himself.

"There's Molly Tring just coming in," said Gay to him. "You'd better

go and get a dance from her, Dick."

"By and by," said Tryon, with his cryptic smile. "I'm waiting for

something."

Even as he spoke, Gay saw across the room the face she had been

watching for. A tall man had come into the doorway and stood casting a

casual but comprehensive eye about him. He was not in evening dress,

but wore a loose grey lounge suit of rather careless aspect, and his

short, fairish, curly hair was ruffled as though he had been running

his fingers through it. Accompanying him was a small black dog with a

large stone in its mouth, which came into the ballroom and sat down.

Gay gave one look at the pair of them, and the colour went out of her

face. There was more than a glint of passion in the eyes she turned to

Tyron, who was smiling no longer.

"I'll finish this dance with you, if you like, Dick."

"My shoe hurts," said Tryon.

She flung away from him in a rage and a moment later, was lost among

the rest of the dancers in the arms of one Claude Hayes, a man not too

proud to take the goods the gods offered, even if they were short

ratio. Tryon sauntered over to the doorway tenanted by the man in

grey, who appeared to be delightfully impervious to the fact that he

was the only person on the scene not in evening dress.

"Hello, Tryon!" said he.

"Hello, Lundi! Thought you meant to turn up and dance tonight?"

"Yes, so I did," said Lundi Druro, looking at Tryon with the blithe and

friendly smile that made all men like him. "But I forgot."

"I won't ask what you were doing, then," was Tryon's dry comment. To

which Druro responded nothing. He was one of those who did before the

sun and moon that which seemed good unto him to do, with a sublime

indifference to comments. Everyone knew what he was doing when he

"forgot," and he didn't care if they did.

"Lundi meant to get married, but he forgot," was a household jest in

Rhodesia, founded on a legend from home that, at a certain

supper-party, a beautiful actress had inveigled him into making her an

offer of marriage, and the ceremony had been fixed for the following

day. But, though bride and wedding-party turned up at the appointed

hour, the bridegroom never materialized. He had gone straight from the

supper-party at the Savoy to the Green Room Club and fallen into a game

of poker that lasted throughout the night and all the next day, with

the result that all memory of the proposed wedding had faded from his

mind. The lady, very much injured in her tenderest feeling

(professional and personal vanity), had sued him for a large sum of

money, which he had paid without blinking and returned to South Africa,

heart-free, to make some more.

"Did you pull in the pot?" asked Tryon, who was a poker player himself.

"No," said Druro regretfully; "hadn't time. I left the game and came

away as soon as I remembered this blessed dance."

Just then the waltz came to an end, its last notes trailing off into

nothingness and blowing away like a handful of leaves on a breeze. The

kaleidoscopic patterns sorted themselves and turned into a circle of

perambulating couples, and Gay and her partner passed the two men in

the doorway.

"Hi! I want to speak to you," said Druro, whose manners were unique,

making an imperious sign at Gay. She looked at him with eyes like

frozen violets and walked on. Druro, looking after her, observed that

she and her partner passed out of a door leading to the east veranda.

"H'm!" said he, reflective but unperturbed. Then he turned to Tryon.

"Go and get Hayes away from her, Tryon."

"That's a nice job!" commented Tryon.

"Go on, old man!" said Druro, kindly but firmly. "Tell him there's a

man in the bar wants to see him on a matter of life and death. He'll

thank you for it afterward."

Tryon went grumbling through the ballroom, and Druro stepped back out

of the front hall into the street and made a circuit of the hotel. By

the time he had reached the east veranda, Tryon was gently leading away

the unresisting Hayes, and a rose-leaf shoe, visible between two pots

of giant croton, guided the stalker to his prey. He sat down on a seat

beside her.

"Did you mean it when you cut me in that brutal manner just now--or was

it an accident?" he asked reproachfully.

Gay did not answer or stir. His manner changed.

"Gay, I am most awfully sorry and ashamed of myself. Will you forgive

me?"

The girl sat up straight in her chair at that, and looked at him. She

was too generous to ignore a frank appeal for pardon, but she had that

within which demanded propitiation.

"Have you any explanation to offer?" she asked, and he answered:

"I clean forgot all about it."

She stared at him in exasperation and scorn, her eyes sparkling with

anger, and he returned her gaze with his frank and fearless smile.

"_M'Schlega_," the natives called him--"the man who always laughs

whether good or bad comes to him."

Gay at last withdrew her face into the shadows where he could no longer

see it clearly.

"I suppose you think that disappointing a girl and making her lose a

dance is nothing," she said quietly.

"You misjudge me. If I had thought about it at all, it would never

have happened. But the whole thing went clean out of my mind until it

was too late to dress and get down here in time. Do you think I would

_purposely_ miss such a keen pleasure as it is to dance with you--and

the honour of having your first waltz given me?"

She did not answer, but slowly her anger began to fade.

"I came down here as hard as I could belt, as soon as I remembered."

More anger melted away.

"I haven't even had my dinner yet."

Gay sprang up like a whirlwind.

"Oh, how detestable you are," she said, in a low, furious voice, "with

your dinner and your wretched excuses! Do you think I don't know what

you were doing that you forgot? Everyone knows what you are doing when

you forget your engagements--playing poker and drinking with a lot of

low gambling men, wasting your money and your time and all that is fine

in you!"

Druro had stood up, too, and faced her with the first bolt she flung.

They were quite alone, for the trilling notes of a two-step had swiftly

emptied the veranda. He still wore a smile on his lips, but its

singularly heart-warming quality had gone from it. His red-brown face

had grown a shade less red-brown, and his grey, whimsical, good-natured

eyes looked suddenly hard as rock. He addressed her as if she were

someone he had never met before.

"You are very plain-spoken!"

"You need a little plain-speaking," she said passionately.

"It is a pity to waste wit and wisdom on an object so unworthy.

Obviously, I am past reforming"--his smile had a mocking turn to it

now--"even if I wanted to be reformed."

"_Of course_ you don't want to be reformed," said Gay. "No drunkard

and gambler ever does."

Her voice was hard, but there was a pain in her heart like the twist of

a knife there. She pressed her hand among the laces of her dress, and

all the little paste jewels twinkled. Druro noticed them. They

engaged his attention, even while he was swallowing down her words like

a bitter dose of poison. He was deeply offended. She spoke to him as

if he were some kind of a pariah, and it was unpardonable. If she had

been a man, he would have known what to do, and have done it quick.

But what could be done with a slip of a girl who stood there with a

folded lace butterfly around her and looked like a passionate tea-rose

twinkling with dewdrops? Nothing, except just smile. But only the

self-control gained in many a hard-won and ably bluffed game of life

(and poker) enabled him to do it, and to say, with great gentleness:

"I'm afraid that I am as I am. You must take me or leave me at that."

"I'll leave you, then," she said burningly, and slipped past him. At

the door of the ballroom she looked back and flung him a last word,

"Until you are a different man from the present Lundi Druro."

Druro, entirely taken aback by her decisive retort and action, stood

staring long after she had disappeared.

"Well, by the living something or other!" he muttered at last, and

walked away from the hotel, filled with wholesale rage and indignation.

"The little shrew! Who asked her to take me, I wonder? Or for her

opinions on my ways of living? Of all the cheeky monkeys! Pitching

into me like that--just because she missed her blessed waltz!

_Certainly_ it was rotten of me--I don't say it wasn't. _But I

forgot_. I _told_ her I forgot. Didn't I come straight down here and

tell her? Left those fellows--left a jack-pot! O my aunt! And that's

all I get for it--a decent and reasonable fellow like me to be called

such names just because I distract myself with the only one or two

things that can delude one into believing that life is worth living in

this rotten country! Drunkard and gambler--fine words to fling at a

man like bomb-shells!"

Thus it was with Druro, whom all men hailed as "well-met," and all

women liked, and all Rhodesia called "Lundi," though his Christian

names were really Francis Everard. No one had ever called him anything

but Lundi since the day he jumped into the Lundi River to save his

dog's life. He was on a shoot with half a dozen other men, and they

had heavily dynamited a portion of the river to bring up some fresh

fish for dinner. Druro's dog, thinking it was a game he knew, jumped

in after one of the sticks of dynamite to bring it out to his master,

and Druro, like a flash, was in after him and out again, just in time

to save himself and the dog from being blown to smithereens. "The

bravest action he had ever seen in his life," one of the witnesses

described it--and he had been through several native wars and knew what

he was talking about, just as Druro, who was a mining expert, knew the

risk he was taking when he jumped in among the dynamite.

This was the man who was filled with rage and desolation of heart at

the words of "a little monkey of eighteen or nineteen--old dissipated

Derek Liscannon's daughter, I thank you! Nice school to come to for

temperance lectures! Not that she can help being Derry's daughter, and

not that old Derry is a bad sort--far from it--but as hard a drinker as

you could find in a day's march. And young Derry hits it up a bit,

too, though one of the nicest boys in the world. I've always said that

Gay was the sweetest, prettiest little kid in Rhodesia--in Africa, if

it comes to that--and now she turns on me like this--blow her buttons!"

He strode along the soft, dusty roads that still had a feel of the veld

in them, neither looking nor listing whither he went. It was a soft,

plaintive voice that brought him to a standstill, and the realization

that he was close to the Wankelo railway station.

"Oh, _can_ you tell whether the Falcon Hotel is far from here?"

"The Falcon Hotel, madam?" His hand went instinctively to his head,

but there was no hat upon it. "There is surely a bus here that will

take you to it," he said, looking about him.

She gave a little laugh.

"Yes; but I don't want my poor bones rattled to pieces in a bus if it

is not too far to walk."

Dimly he could see a slight figure swathed in velvety darkness of furs

and veils that gave out a faint perfume of violets, and the suggestion

of a pale, oval face. Her voice was low and sweet.

"It is not very far," said Druro. "I will gladly show you the way, if

you will allow me."

"That is so very kind of you," she answered softly, and fell into step

by his side.

As they walked, she told him, with the simple aplomb of a well-bred

woman of the world, that she had just arrived by the train from

Buluwayo and was going on to a place called Selukine for a week or two.

It was not necessary for her to tell him that she was recently from

home, for he knew it by her air, her voice, her accent, her rustly

garments, the soft perfume of fur and violets, and a dozen little

intangible signs and symbols that all had an appeal for him. For Druro

was one of those Englishmen who love England from afar a great deal

better than they do when at home. He had lived in Rhodesia, off and

on, for ten years, and the veld life was in the very blood and bones of

him. Yet he always spoke of it as a rotten country, and gravely

affirmed that it was bad luck to have to live away from England.

"Give me London lamp-posts," he was in the habit of saying, "and you

can have all the veld you want for keeps." And he went home every

year, declaring that he was finished with Africa and would never come

back. Yet he came back. Also, he had built himself a lovely little

ranch-house in the midst of five thousand acres of Sombwelo Forest,

where there were no lampposts at all, only trees and a silent, deep

river full of crocodiles. It is true that he had never lived there.

He only went there and mooned by himself sometimes, when he was "out"

with the world. It had occurred to him, since his _rencontre_ with

Gay, that he would go there very shortly. But now this rustling,

softly perfumed lady made him remember his beloved lampposts. It was a

year since he had been home, and she meant home.

She was London; she was Torment; she was Town.

Curiosity to see her face consumed him. He felt certain that she was

beautiful. No plain woman could be so self-possessed and sure of

herself, could give out such subtle charm and fascination. After the

brutal and unexpected treatment he had received at the hands of Gay

Liscannon, he felt himself under some sweet, healing spell.

They reached the hotel all too soon. The bus, with her luggage on it,

had passed them by the way, and host and porters were awaiting her at

the front door. In the light she turned to thank him with a charming

smile, and he saw, as he expected, that her face was subtly beautiful.

"I hope we shall meet again, Mr.----" She paused smiling.

"Druro," he supplied, smiling too, "and this is Rhodesia. I'm afraid

you can't miss meeting me again--if you try."

He, too, as she very well observed, was good to behold, standing there

with the light on his handsome head. She did not miss the potency of

his smile. Nor, being a woman who dealt in lights and shades herself,

was the flattering significance of his words wasted upon her.

"_Tant meiux!_" she said, and, in case he was no French scholar,

repeated it in English, as she held out her slim gloved hand--"All the

better!"

Gay and a man she had been dancing with came out and passed them as

they stood there smiling and touching hands--a handsome, debonair man

and a subtly beautiful woman. Gay took the picture of them home with

her, and stayed long thinking of it when she should have been sleeping.

Long she leaned from her bedroom window, gazing at the great grey

spaces of veld that she loved so much, but seeing them not. All she

could see was Druro's face turned cold, the rocklike expression of his

eyes when he stared at her as though she had been some stranger--she,

who had loved him for years, ever since, as a girl of sixteen, straight

from England and from school, she first saw him and found in his clear,

careless face and fearless ways the crystallization of all her girlish

dreams. Lovely and spirited, decked in the bloom of youth, she had

more, perhaps, than her fair share of admirers and adorers. Every man

who met her fell, to some extent, in love with her. "Gay fever" it was

called; and they all went through it, and some recovered and some did

not. But Gay's fever was for Lundi Druro, though she hid it well

behind locked lips and a sweet, serene gaze. She could not see him

riding down the street, or standing among a group of his fellows (for

other men always clustered about Druro), or even catch a glimpse of his

big red Argyle car standing outside a building, without a tingling of

all the life in her veins.

But she was neither blind nor a fool. Her spirit brooded over Druro

with the half-mystical and half-maternal love that all true women

accord to the beloved; but she knew very well that he had never looked

her way and that the chances were he never might. He was a man's man.

He liked women, and his eyes always lit up when he saw one, but he

forgot all about them when they were not there, forgot them easily in

cards and conviviality and the society of other men. Once, when

someone had attacked him about his indifference to women, he had

answered:

"Why, I adore women! But I prefer the society of men--there are fewer

regrets afterward."

There was no doubt that he exercised a tremendous personal magnetism

upon other men--attracted them, amused them, and influenced them, even

obsessed them. The way he could make them do things just out of sheer

liking for him almost amounted to mesmerism. It must be added that,

though they were often unpractical, crazy, unwise, even dangerous

things he influenced others to do, they were never shameful or in any

way shady. There wasn't a shameful instinct or thought in the whole of

Lundi Druro's composition. Gay, however, divined in him that his power

of obsessing the minds of other men had become, or was on the way of

becoming, a temptation and obsession to himself. She was wise enough

to realize that hardly any man in the world can stand too much

popularity, also to see the rocks ahead for Druro in a country where

men drink and gamble far too much, and are fast in the clutches of

these vices before they realize them as bad habits. It was not for

nothing that she was Derek Liscannon's daughter and Derry Liscannon's

sister.

She had her worries and anxieties, poor Gay, though she carried them

with a stiff lip and never let the world guess how often her heart was

aching behind her smile. But, of late, the worst of them had come to

be in the fear that Lundi Druro was going the way so many good men go

in Rhodesia--full-tilt for the rocks of moral and physical ruin.

This was the reason for her attack on him. She had long meditated

something of the kind, though quite certain that he would take it

badly. But she had thought that his friendship with her family and

herself warranted (she knew that her love did) her doing a thing from

which her soul shrank but did not retreat--hurting another human soul

so as to help it to its own healing. And it had all ended in

disappointment and despair. Nothing to show for it but the picture of

him standing happy and gay, his eyes admiringly fixed on another woman!

Perhaps the beautiful stranger would solace him for the wound Gay's

hand had dealt? Who could she be? the girl wondered miserably.

But, by the next afternoon, everyone in Wankelo knew that Mrs. Hading,

beautiful, unattached, and travelling for her pleasure, was staying at

the "Falcon"; and Beryl Hallett, who was also staying there, had

already met her and prepared a complete synopsis of her character,

clothes, and manners (not to mention features, complexion, and hair)

for the benefit of her friend, Gay Liscannon.

"My dear, she has lovely, weary manners and lovely, weary eyes, with an

expression as if she doesn't take any interest in anything; but you bet

she does!" said Beryl, whose language always contained a somewhat

sporting flavour. "You bet she takes an interest in clothes and men

and everything that's going! Nothing much gets past those weary eyes.

And she is as _chic_ as the deuce. Never have we seen such clothes up

here. She smells so delicious, too--not scented, you know, but just

little faint puffs of fragrance. I wish I knew how to do it. But I

don't think you _can_ do it without sachets in your corsets and a maid

to sew them into all your clothes, and salts and perfumes for your

bath, and plenty of tin to keep it all going! Blow! How can

poverty-stricken wretches like us contend with that kind of thing, I'd

like to know?"

"We don't have to contend with it," said Gay indifferently.

The two girls were sitting in Berlie's mother's private sitting-room

upstairs. Gay was in riding-kit and had come to beguile Berlie to go

for a canter.

"Oh, don't we?" said the latter emphatically. "You should just see the

pile of men that came in to lunch here today--just to have a look at

her. The story of her glory has gone forth. She came over to our

table and asked if we minded if she sat with us, and then she wound her

lovely manners all around mother so that mum thinks she's a dream and

an angel. But _I_ don't cotton to her much, Gay--and I can feel she

doesn't like me, either, though she was as sweet as honey. My dear,

she will nobble all our men--I feel it in my bones."

"Let her," said Gay listlessly.

"She even has old Lundi Druro crumpled up--what do you think of

_that_?" Gay's charming face turned to a mask. "That gives you an

idea of her power," continued Beryl dolorously, "if she can keep Lundi

Druro amused. She is sitting in the lounge with him now. They've been

there ever since lunch, and he was to have gone out to his mine early

this morning."

Gay jumped up from her chair.

"Are you coming for that ride or not, Berlie? I'm sick of scorching

indoors." There were, indeed, two spots of flame in her cheeks.

"Oh, Gay, I can't; I am too G. I. for anything." "G. I." is Rhodesian

for "gone in," a common condition for both men and women and things in

that sprightly land of nicknames and nick-phrases.

"I'm off, then," said Gay hurriedly.

"Wait a minute--I'll come down with you!" said Beryl, and, rushing to

the mirror over the mantel, began to pat her pretty _cendre_ hair flat

to her head, in unconscious imitation of Mrs. Hading's coiffure.

The two girls went downstairs together. Beryl's arm thrust through her

friend's. Gay's horse stood at the side entrance, facing the

staircase. She instinctively quickened her pace as they reached the

lounge door, but, before she could pass, it opened, and Mrs. Hallett

came out.

"Oh, I was just coming to look for you girls. Mrs. Scott is in from

Umvuma, Gay, and dying to see you."

Gay gave an inward groan. Mrs. Scott was an old friend of her dead

mother's, and about the only woman in the world for whom the girl would

have entered the lounge at that moment. As it was, she followed

Beryl's mother swiftfoot through the swing door, very upright and smart

in her glossy tan riding-boots, knee-breeches, and graceful long coat

of soft tan linen. In the matter of riding-kit, Gay always went nap.

A ball or day gown she might wear until it fell off her back, but when

it came to habits, she considered nothing too good or too recent for

her.

For a moment, Marice Hading looked away from the man who sat opposite,

amusing her with apt and cynical reflections on life in Rhodesia, and

shot a soft, dark glance at the straight back of the girl in

riding-kit. Her cleverly appraising eye took in, with the

instantaneousness of photography, every detail of Gay's get-up, and her

brain acknowledged that she had seldom seen a better one either in

Central Park or Rotten Row. But no expression of any such opinion

showed in her weary, disdainful eyes or found its way to her lips, for

in the art of using language to conceal her thoughts, Marice Hading had

few rivals. What she said to Druro, whose glance had also wandered

that way, was:

"One cannot help noticing what a hard-riding, healthy-looking crowd the

women of this country are."

The words sounded like a simple, frank statement; but somehow they

robbed Gay of some of the perfection of her young and charming

ensemble, and made her one of a crowd in which her distinction was

lost. Druro felt this vaguely without being able to tell exactly how

it happened. He knew nothing of the subtleties of a woman's mind. He

had thought that Gay looked rather splendidly young and sweet, and,

because of it, a fresh pang shot through him at the remembrance of her

scornful dismissal of him the night before. But, with Mrs. Hading's

words, the impression passed, and he got a quick vision of Gay as just

an ordinary girl who had been extremely rude to him. This helped him

to meet with equanimity the calm, clear glance she sent through him.

"Don't you know the little riding girl?" asked Mrs. Hading softly, but

something in Druro's surprised expression made her cover the question

with a faintly admiring remark: "She's quite good-looking, I think.

Who is she?"

"The daughter of an old friend of mine--a Colonel Liscannon," said

Druro, speaking in a low voice and rapidly. He would have preferred

not to discuss Gay at all, but his natural generosity impelled him to

accord her such dignity and place as belonged to her and not to leave

her where Mrs. Hading's words seemed to place her--just the other side

of some fine, invisible line.

"Ah, one of the early pioneers? They were all by way of being captains

and colonels, weren't they?" murmured Marice Hading, still weaving

fine, invisible threads.

Druro frowned slightly. "Colonel Liscannon is an old service-man----"

"May I beg for one of those delicious cigarettes you were smoking after

lunch?" she said languidly. "And do tell where to get some like them.

I find it so difficult to get anything at all smokable up here, except

from your clubs."

Thus, Colonel Liscannon and his daughter were gracefully consigned to

the limbo of subjects not sufficiently interesting to hold the

attention of Mrs. Hading. If she could not, by reason of Druro's

natural chivalry, put Gay just over the wrong side of some subtle

social line she had drawn, she could, at least, thrust her out of the

conversation altogether and out of Druro's mind. This was always a

pastime she found fascinating--pushing someone out of a man's mind and

taking the empty place herself--and one at which long practice had made

her nearly perfect. So it is not astonishing that she succeeded so

well with Druro that, when Gay left her friends and slipped out to her

waiting horse, he did not even notice her going. He was busy trying to

persuade Mrs. Hading to come for a spin around the Wankelo kopje in his

car, and he was not unsuccessful. Only, they went further than the

kopje. About six miles out they got a glimpse of a solitary rider

ahead, going like the wind. A cloud of soft, ashen dust rising from

under the horse's heels floated back and settled like the gentle dew

from heaven upon the car and its occupants. Druro was on the point of

slackening speed, but Mrs. Hading's pencilled brows met in a line above

her eyes, and one of her little white teeth showed in her underlip.

"Get past her, please," she said coldly. "I object to other people's

dust."

Druro was about to object in his turn, though, for a moment, he

philandered with the delightful thought of getting even with Gay by

covering her with dust and petrol fumes. Unfortunately, his gallant

resistance to this pleasant temptation would never be known, for Gay

suddenly and unexpectedly wheeled to the left and put her horse's head

to the veld. The swift wheeling movement, with its attendant extra

scuffling of dust, sent a further graceful contribution of fine dirt on

to the occupants of the car. It would have been difficult to accuse

Gay of doing it on purpose, however, for she appeared blandly

unconscious of the neighbourhood of fellow beings. She gave a little

flick of her whip, and away she went over a great burnt-out patch of

veld, leaving the long, white, dusty road to those who had no choice

but to take it.

Mrs. Hading did not love Gay Liscannon any better for her score, but

she would have disliked her in any case. Because she was no longer

young herself, youth drove at her heart like a poisoned dagger. One of

the few keen pleasures she had left in life was to bare her foils to

the attack of some inexperienced girl, to match her wit and art and

beauty against a fresh cheek and ingenuous heart, and prove to the

world that victory was still to her. But when she had done it, victory

was dust in her palm and bitter in her mouth as dead-sea apples. For

she knew that the wolf of middle age was at her door.

Marice Hading was one of those unhappy women who have drained to the

dregs every cup of pleasure they can wrench from life and fled from the

healing cup of pain. Now, with the chilly and uncompromising hand of

forty clutching at her, pain was always with her--not ennobling,

chastening pain, but the pain of those who, having been overfull, must

henceforth go empty.

Small wonder that, weary-eyed and dry-souled, she roamed the earth in

feverish search of solace and refreshment. Her husband, a generous,

affectionate man, condemned by her selfishness to a waste of arid years

empty of wife-love or children, had died of overwork, dyspepsia, and

general dissatisfaction some eight years before, leaving his widow with

an income of two thousand pounds a year, a sum she found all too small

for her requirements.

In her fashion, she had been in love several times during her

widowhood, but never sufficiently so to surrender her liberty. Horror

of child-bearing and a passion for the care and cultivation of her own

beauty were further reasons for not succumbing to the temptation to

take another man slave in marriage. She had contented herself with

holding the hearts of the men who loved her in her hands and squeezing

them dry of every drop of devotion and self-sacrifice they could

generate.

But the harvest of hearts was giving out, and the wolf was at the door.

She had had very bad luck in the last year or two. The hearts that had

come her way were as selfish as her own, and knew how to slip elusively

from greedy little hands, without yielding too much. For a long time

it had seemed to her that the world had become bankrupt of big,

generous-giving hearts, and that there were no more little games of

life worth playing. Now, suddenly and unexpectedly, she happened upon

Wankelo, a green spot in the desert. Here were girls to act as

counters in the game she loved to play, and here, too, unless she were

grievously mistaken, was a man who had the best of sport to offer.

With the hunter's sure instinct for the prey, she recognized unerringly

the big, generous qualities of Druro's nature. Here was a heart that

could be made to suffer and to give. Besides, he was extremely

good-looking. She felt a kind of hopeful certainty that he could offer

her jaded heart something new in the way of emotions.

In consideration of these things, she decided to pitch her tent for a

while in Wankelo. Selukine could wait. Her projected visit there was,

in any case, only one of speculation and curiosity. She had heard of

the place as being thick with small gold mines closed down for want of

capital, and it had occurred to her that the possibility of finding a

gold mine cheaply, and a capitalist for nothing at all, was quite on

the cards. Besides, discreet inquiry, or, rather, discreet listening

to the frank discussion of other people's affairs, which is one of the

features of Rhodesian life, had elicited the happy information that

Druro was on the way to becoming a very wealthy man. The Leopard reef,

report said, was making bigger and richer at every blast, and the

expectation was that it would be the richest thing in the way of mines

that Rhodesia had yet known. Luck, like nature, has her darlings.

The Leopard mine was Druro's own property and the darling of his heart,

next to his dog Toby. He had taken forty thousand pounds sterling from

it in one year and spent it in another. That was the time he stayed

away a whole year among the lamp-posts, "forgot" to get married, and

came back without a bean. He declared there were plenty more forty

thousands to be got out of the Leopard, and perhaps there were, but,

unfortunately, during his absence the reef had been lost. As he was

the only man who believed it would ever be found again, he had

encountered some difficulty in getting together sufficient capital to

restart the mine, for, of course, it had been shut down on the loss of

the reef. But, on the strength of his personality, he had succeeded

where most men would have failed. After many months, operations were

in full swing. It was said that the mine was panning three ounces over

a width of four-six, and a strike of a thousand feet proved, with the

reef at the bottom of the shaft, richer and stronger than ever. But

Druro himself gave away little information on the subject, beyond

admitting sometimes in the bitters-time before dinner at the club, that

the mine was looking all right. Rumour did the rest.

For a few days after Mrs. Hading's arrival, Lundi Druro disappeared

from every-day life in Wankelo. It was a way he had of doing, and

everyone who sought him at such times would find him at the Leopard in

pants embroidered with great holes burned into them by cyanide and

acids, a disreputable shirt without any buttons or collar, and face and

hands blackened beyond recognition with the machine-oil and grime

inseparable from a large mining plant. He always did his own assaying,

taking both time and trouble over it. It must certainly be admitted

that, if he knew how to play when he played, he also worked some when

he worked.

During this time, Mrs. Hading was busy in many ways, but chiefly in

winding her lovely manners about people whom she decided would be

useful to her, and prosecuting a further acquaintance with Beryl

Hallett and Gay Liscannon. It was quite unavoidable that she and Gay

should meet, however averse they might be to one another, and each

accepted the fact with an outward calm that gave no indication of

inward fires. Mrs. Hading was charming to Gay, as was her invariable

practice while searching for chinks in the opponent's armour. Her

hands blessed, even while her fingers were busy feeling for the soft

spots in the victim's skull. Gay, on her side, was pleasant, polite,

and interested, while guarding her heart behind a barrier as fine as a

shirt of steel mail. For, though of a frank and generous disposition,

she was not a fool, and life had taught her a few things about the

attitude of mind of most pretty unattached women toward young girls in

the same case.

At eleven o'clock one morning, they were all gathered round Mrs.

Hallett's tea-table--Gay, Berlie, Mrs. Hading, and several men, for 11

A.M. is the "off" hour in Rhodesia, when everyone leaves his business,

if he has any, to take tea in the pleasantest society he can find. At

Wankelo, most people sallied forth to the lounge of the "Falcon," the

club-room of the town, where morning tea was a ceremony, almost a rite.

Someone had just remarked on the prolonged absence of Lundi Druro when

his car rolled up to the door, and, a moment later he strolled in and

came over to the circle of tea-drinkers, cool and peaceful in their

white clothes and shady hats. Unfortunately, his dog, Toby, chose this

as a suitable occasion for saying a few pleasant words to Gay's dog,

Weary. In a moment chairs were being pushed out of the way; teacups

and scones and buttered toast were flying in every direction; men were

tangled up with a revolving, growling mass of black and brown fur, and

half a dozen feminine voices were crying pitifully:

"Oh, save Toby!" "Don't let Weary kill him!" "Poor little Toby, he

has no teeth!"

Toby was not the dog Druro had fished out of the Lundi River--to that

bull-terrier there had been many successors, and all had come to bad

and untimely ends. Druro, indeed, had sworn that he would never

acquire another dog; but Toby had sprung from none knew whence and

acquired him. He was a little black, limping fellow of no breed at

all, whose eyes had grown filmy from long gazing at Lundi Druro as if

he were a sun-god or something that dazzled the vision. He usually

carried a sacrificial offering in the shape of an enormous stone culled

on his travels, and, with this in his mouth, would sit for hours,

gazing at his god playing poker or otherwise engaged. The only time he

relinquished this stone was when he had a fight on hand, a rather

frequent occurrence, as his perpetual limp and partially chewed-off

ears testified. For, though his teeth were worn away by the

stone-habit, he had a soul of steel and was afraid of nothing in the

dog line. Gay's dog was one of those from whom he would stand no

nonsense, and they never met without attempting to settle their feud

for once and all. Druro usually settled it by banging Weary on the

nose until he let go, for the latter was a powerful beast, and if

allowed to work his wicked way, Toby would not have had a hope. But

today, for some reason known to himself, Druro had an objection to

hitting Gay's dog and contented himself with wrenching Weary's jaws

apart, a dangerous and not very easy feat to accomplish. Weary,

however, came in for several sound kicks and cuffs from other

directions, and his mistress was in by no means an angelic frame of

mind by the time she had her champion safe back between her knees, held

by his collar.

"Why don't you keep your wretched little mongrel at home?" she inquired

bitterly of Druro.

"It's a free country," responded Lundi blandly, wiping his damp brow

and Toby's bloody ear with the same handkerchief. "You should train

your bully to go for dogs of his own size."

"You know Toby always starts it."

"Well, I don't say he doesn't," admitted Druro. "But he does it on

principle. He's a born reformer--aren't you, Tobe? Picks a scrap with

any one he considers a disreputable, dissipated character." Toby's

master smiled mockingly at Weary's mistress.

"Reformation, like charity, should begin at home," she flashed back,

and the instant she had uttered the words could have bitten off her

tongue. For everyone was smiling delightedly. A few quarrels and

scandals give a zest to life in Rhodesia, and are always warmly

welcomed. No one knew the real foundation of Gay's and Druro's

misunderstanding, but it had been plain for some time that there was

one.

"We were talking about getting up a picnic," said peace-loving Mrs.

Hallett. "Mrs. Hading must be shown a real Rhodesian picnic."

"I want it to be a moonlight one!" cried Berlie. "They are twice as

much fun."

"Yes; but there won't be a moon for nearly a month," someone complained.

"Well, we must have a day picnic now, and a moonlight one next month.

We shall want your car, Lundi."

"You can have it any time. Where do you think of going?"

"Either to Sombwelo Forest or Selukine."

Everyone agreed that Mrs. Hading must see both of these lovely places.

"I have to go to Selukine anyway, on business," said Mrs. Hading, who

had no idea of letting her plan to motor through that district in

Druro's company be interfered with by picnics, "so please let it be

Sombwelo."

"You can have my ranch there as a base of operations," proffered Lundi,

"and make my boys do the work."

They all applauded this except Gay, who submitted that a picnic was not

a picnic unless conducted on alfresco lines, with all the cooking and

eating done out of doors by the picnickers themselves. Druro

understood that she objected to his ranch and was sorry he had spoken,

especially as some of the others looked at her with understanding eyes

also. However, she was outvoted, everyone crying that if she liked

hard work and out-door cooking, and spiders and ants running over the

table-cloth and mosquitoes biting her ankles, she could have them, but

they would have the ranch. To Druro's surprise and relief, she laughed

and gave in quite pleasantly. Being a man, he could not know that, at

that very moment, she was dismally deciding that, considering all that

had passed, she could not possibly go to Druro's ranch.

"I shall have to be taken ill at the last moment," she reflected, and

could have wept, for she loved picnics, and Druro's ranch had a secret

call for her heart. But she laughed instead, and helped, with a

cheerful air, to draw up the lists of those who were to supply cars,

chickens, cakes, crockery, and all the other incidentals that go to the

making of a successful picnic. The tea-party had by this time become

enlarged to the size of a reception, and with everybody talking and

arguing at once, no one (except Gay) noticed that, after a little quiet

conversation, Mrs. Hading and Druro withdrew and disappeared. It

transpired later that they had ordered an early lunch and started for

Selukine in the Argyle.

And that was only the beginning of it. In the week that followed, it

became more usual to see Mrs. Hading in Lundi Druro's car than out of

it.

Gay, staunch to her resolve, absented herself from the festivity at

Sombwelo. It was no great exaggeration to plead that she was ill, for

her spirit was sick if her body was not. But no one spared her the

details of a successful and delightful day. It seemed that Druro had

been a perfect host and Mrs. Hading a graceful and gracious guest.

And, from that time forward, never a day passed in which the two did

not spend some, at least, of its hours together. When Marice was not

by Druro's side in the big red car, sometimes learning to drive,

sometimes just tearing through the air, _en route_ to some mine or

other which she wanted to see, they might be found in the "Falcon"

lounge, playing bridge with another couple or just sitting alone,

talking of London lamp-posts. Sometimes they played two-handed poker,

for Marice not only sympathized but shared with Druro his passion for

cards. Perhaps this drew their hearts as well as their heads together.

At any rate, to lookers-on they seemed absorbed in one another.

Mrs. Hading essayed skilfully and very winningly to draw Gay into her

intimate circle, and it vexed her to realize how she evaded her plans.

Berlie, she had already subjugated and made a tool of; but Gay stood

aloof and would not be beguiled. While perfectly courteous to Mrs.

Hading and whole-heartedly admiring her beauty, she had yet distrusted

and disliked her from the first. Now her dislike deepened, for she saw

that the widow was harming Druro. She kept him from his work, and

sympathized and pandered to the passions that already too greatly

obsessed him. There were always cocktails and cards on the table

before them. Druro was drawing closer round him the net of his

weaknesses from which Gay had so longed to drag him forth. Between the

latter and Lundi Druro there now existed a kind of armed peace which

appeared to be based, on his side, in indifference, and, on hers, in

pride. There was often open antagonism in their eyes as they faced

each other. She despised him for lingering and lagging at the heels of

pleasure, and he knew it. Sometimes, when he was not actively angry

with her, he thought she had grown older and sadder in a short while,

and wondered if she were having trouble about young Derry, who was

up-country, or whether old Derek was going the pace more than usual at

home. It must be these secret troubles, he thought, that had suddenly

changed her from the laughing girl he knew into a rather beautiful but

cold woman. Cold, yes, cold as the east wind! Sometimes her clear

eyes chilled him like the air of a certain little cold hour of the dawn

that he very much dreaded; it was a relief to turn away from them to

the warm and subtle scents and frondlike ways of Marice Hading.

For weeks now, he had divided his time so carefully between Mrs. Hading

and poker at the club, that there was nothing at all left for the

Leopard mine. His partner, M. R. Guthrie, commonly known as "Emma,"

sometimes came from the mine to look for him, pedalling moodily into

Wankeloon a bicycle, and always pedalling away more moodily than he

came. He was a shrivelled-up American with a biting tongue, and the

only man in the country from whom Druro would take back talk.

"What is this wine-woman-and-song stunt you are on now, Lundi?" he

inquired, late one night, when he had cornered Druro in the club with a

small but select poker-party of the hardest citizens in the country.

Druro gave him a dark glance.

"That's my business," he said curtly.

"Have you any other business?" asked Emma bitterly. "You don't happen

to own a mine, I suppose?"

"What are mines compared to jack-pots?" inquired Druro gravely.

"Besides, what are you on that mine for, Emma? A decoration? Or do

you think you are my wet-nurse? I don't remember engaging you in that

capacity."

Guthrie rose, offended.

"All right, my boy--go to blazes your own way!"

"I can get there without leading-strings, anyway," Lundi retorted

cheerfully.

"But not without apron-strings," muttered his partner, departing on the

faithful bicycle. "I dunno what's come to the fellow!"

In truth, Druro hardly knew himself. A kind of fever had taken

possession of him, a fever of unrest and discontent with himself and

all things. He couldn't remember how it began or when, but it seemed

to him that life, in one moment, from being interesting and vivid, had

turned old and cold and tasted like a rotten apple in his mouth. And

he did not care how many drinks he took to wash the flavour away. He

knew that he was drinking too much and neglecting his work, and

jeopardizing other people's money as well as his own by so doing, but

his soul was filled with a bitter carelessness and indifference to

these facts. He was anxious not to inquire too deeply within himself

on the matter of what ailed him, being dimly aware of a something at

the back of his mind that could inform him only too well. He wished to

avoid all discussion with that something, sitting like a veiled,

watching figure, waiting for some unoccupied hour. Up to now, he had

been very successful in dodging the appointment, but he had premonition

that he would be caught one of these days soon--in some little cold

dawn-hour perhaps.

There came a day when Mrs. Hading decided to return the hospitality

shown her in Wankelo by giving an entertainment of her own. She

mentioned her intention lightly to Druro.

"I really must try and arrange to give a little jolly of my own in

return for all the big jollies people here have given me."

In reality, she had determined on something in the nature of "a

surprise to the natives" that would put all their little picnics and

dinner-parties entirely in the shade, and duly impress not only Wankelo

but Rhodesia and, incidentally, Lundi Druro. For, after several weeks

of close intercourse with the latter, she had come to the conclusion

that she might do very much worse than marry him. More, she actually

desired to do so. The stimulus of his insouciant gaiety and

originality, good looks and unfailingly good spirits had come to be a

necessary part of her existence. She needed him now, like a bracing

cocktail she had grown used to taking so many times a day and could no

longer do without. Besides, the Leopard was panning out well, at the

rate of a thousand pounds sterling per month, and had the prospect of

doing far better.

These were good enough reasons for Mrs. Hading's decision that Druro,

as well as Wankelo, should be impressed by the finished splendour and

grace of her "little jolly." She intended to show him that, when it

came to choosing a wife who could spend his thousands graciously and to

the best effect, he could never do better than Marice Hading. To which

end, she concentrated her whole mind on the purpose of making her

entertainment a complete and conspicuous success.

A little group of those people whom she favoured with her intimacy were

called into council, theoretically to help her with advice, though in

practice she needed little of them but admiring applause. They met

every morning in a corner of the lounge which, by introducing her own

flowers, books, and cushions, she had made peculiarly hers. Here over

morning tea the plans for her "jolly" were projected and perfected, and

here were always to be found Berlie Hallett and her mother, Cora Lisle,

Johnny Doran, Major Maturin, and one or two lesser but useful lights.

Druro, though he did little more than decorate the assembly with his

good-tempered smile, was a most necessary feature of it, and Dick Tryon

was more often than not to be found there also, though whether he came

to scoff or bless, no one was quite certain. His position in the

circle of Mrs. Hading's satellites had never been clearly defined. He

was supposed by some people to be hopelessly in love with Gay

Liscannon, and that supposition alone was enough to make Marice Hading

anxious to attach him to her personal staff. Besides, he was an

interesting man and a clever lawyer--always a useful combination in a

friend. At any rate, he was one of those who helped to applaud the

programme of Mrs. Hading's jolly, which she eventually decided was to

take the form of a bridge tournament followed by supper and a dance.

This sounds a simple enough affair, but, under Mrs. Hading's treatment,

it became rarefied. A chef for the supper had been commanded from

Johannesburg, a string orchestra for the dance from Salisbury, and

exquisite bridge prizes were being sent from a jeweller's at the Cape.

The hotel dining-room was to be transformed into a salon for the card

tournament, the lounge decorated as a ballroom, and an enormous marquee

erected for the supper.

The day dawned at last when, all these arrangements being completed,

there was nothing for the select council to do but congratulate each

other on the prospect of a perfect evening. Druro, however, who had

for some days been showing (to the initiated eyes of his male friends,

at least) signs of restlessness, not to say boredom, marred the harmony

of this propitious occasion by absenting himself, thereby causing the

president of the meeting palpable inquietude and displeasure. She

missed her laughing cavalier, as she had a fancy for calling him, from

her retinue. Plainly _distraite_, she sat twisting her jewelled

fingers and casting restless glances toward the door until certain

emissaries, who had been sent forth, returned with the news that no one

had seen Druro since eleven o'clock the night before, when he had gone

off in a car with some mining men. The widow hid her annoyance under a

pretty, petulant smile and the remark:

"He must be given a penance this afternoon." After which she abruptly

dismissed the audience until tea-time.

When tea-time came, however, with its gathering in Mrs. Hallett's

sitting-room (the lounge being in preparation for the evening's

festivities), there was still no Druro. Further inquiry had elicited

the fact that the men he had gone off with were from the Glendora. The

Glendora was a mine owned by an Australian syndicate and run entirely

by Australians, a hard-living, hard-drinking crowd, who, by reason of

their somewhat notorious ways and also because none of them had wives,

were left rather severely alone by the Wankelo community. One or two

of the managers, however, belonged to the club, and it was with these

that Druro had disappeared.

Mrs. Hading, whose petulance was not quite so pretty as in the morning,

rather gathered than was told these things, and she saw very plainly

that she had not gathered all there was to tell. Men have a curious

way of standing back to back when women want to find out too much. But

she did not need a great deal of enlightening, and when a man said with

careless significance, "I expect he has forgotten all about tonight,"

and the other men's eyes went blank, she guessed what was at the bottom

of it all. She had learned by now what were the occasions on which

Druro so poignantly _forgot_, and she was furious, not because gambling

might be bad for his bank account or his immortal soul, but that he

should dare to have a more burning interest than herself.

"What about sending someone to remind him?" suggested Maturin. Marice

Hading regarded him coldly.

"He is engaged to open the ball with me this evening. I do not think

he is likely to forget." There was more than a ring of arrogance in

her tone, and, looking straight past him into the eyes of Gay

Liscannon, she added acridly, "Whomsoever he may have thus

distinguished in the past."

Gay, who, by some mischance, had happened accidentally upon the

meeting, was taken off her guard by this direct attack, as the ready

flush in her cheek clearly told. A moment later, she was her pale,

calm self. But Mrs. Hading saw that her arrow shot at a venture had

drawn blood. She really knew nothing of Gay's quarrel with Druro, and

her venture was based on a remark Berlie had let fall. But she was

aware of a shadow between Gay and Druro that her sharp and curious eyes

had never been able to penetrate, and that infuriated her. Tryon,

lazily examining his shoes, here interposed a casual remark.

"I am willing to prophesy that what has happened once can happen

again--in spite of William De Morgan."

It was Marice Hading's turn to flush.

"If I do not dance with Mr. Druro tonight, it will not be because he is

absent," she said, with cold arrogance.

"_Nous verrons,_" he answered agreeably. She gave him an insolent

look. He had declared sides at last, and she knew where she stood.

Gay dressed for the dance with but little enthusiasm. Pride made her

put aside her longing to stay at home with her own wretchedness--pride

and bitter curiosity, but, above all, a haunting fear of what the

evening might bring forth. She had a strange premonition that

something final and fatal was going to happen to her love for Druro.

It was to be given its death-thrust, perhaps, by the announcement of an

engagement between him and the widow. Surely, Marice Hading's

significance had meant that if it had meant anything! This fete was to

be the scene of her triumph. She meant to brandish Druro as a

trophy--fastening him publicly to the wheels of her chariot. Strangely

enough, what Gay dreaded still more was that Druro would not turn up at

all. She felt a miserable foreboding about the gang at Glendora. And

it was based on good grounds. They had once lured her brother Derry

out to that camp, and what he had told her of his experiences there had

left her with a wholesome dread and detestation of the Australians.

"I wonder I got out with my skin," said Derry. "They rooked me right

and left. There isn't a finer set of sharpers outside of Mexico

City--and the whole gang ready to eat you up alive if you show by the

twitch of an eyelash that you are 'on' to them. There's one pirate

there--Capperne--who's worse than all the rest. Nothing can beat him.

You know he's sharping you all the time, but he's so slick you can

never catch him out. And it wouldn't be wise to, either."

These were the men that Druro had gone out to play poker with--Lundi

Druro, with his love of fair play and easily roused temper and

carelessness of consequences. It was a heavy and apprehensive heart

that the girl hooked up inside her ball gown.

The "Falcon" was a fairy-land of softly shaded lights and flowers of

every shade of yellow and gold. Few flowers except those of the

hardiest kinds could be got in any quantity at Wankelo, so Mrs. Hading

had cleverly decided to use only those of one colour, choosing

sunflowers, marigolds, and all the little yellow children of the Zinnia

family. These, mingled with the tender green of maidenhair fern, of

which quantities had been obtained from Selukine, massed against walls

draped with green, made an exquisite setting for her entertainment and

her own beauty. She glided here and there among the amber lights,

welcoming her guests and setting them at the little green-clad card

tables, a diaphanous vision of gold-and-orange chiffons, her perfect

neck and shoulders ablaze with diamonds, and her little flat-coiffed

black head, rather snakelike on its long throat, banded by a chain of

yellow topazes.

Everything blended in the picture she had made for herself, and the

picture was perfect to behold. But, unfortunately, the person whom it

had been created chiefly to impress was missing. Druro had not come.

The bridge tournament waned to an end, and the dainty and expensive

prizes were awarded; the guests flowed in a gentle, happy tide to the

supper marquee and partook of such a collation of aspics and salads,

and souffles and truffles, and such a divine brew of cup and amazing

brand of cocktails as Wankelo had never before dreamed of in its

philosophy; then back they ebbed, more happily and hilariously than

they had flowed, to the ballroom, where, on the stroke of midnight, the

special string orchestra from Salisbury strung out sweet, tremolo

opening bars of the first waltz. And Druro had not come!

Mrs. Hading gracefully surrendered herself to the arms of a great man

who had been obliging enough to drop in accidentally by the evening

train from Buluwayo, and, floating down the room, opened the ball. Her

partner was a very great man indeed, both in South African and English

politics, and it was a feather of no small jauntiness in Marice

Hading's cap that she had been able to secure him for the vacant seat

at her supper-table and afterward beguile him to the ballroom and into

asking her to dance. His presence lent a final note of distinction to

an extraordinarily successful evening, and she had every reason to be

proud and triumphant--except one! But it was that one thing that

poisoned all. No triumph could quench her rage and humiliation at

Druro's defection.

"He shall pay! He shall pay!" were the words that beat time in her

brain, all the while she was floating and gliding among her guests,

full of graceful, weary words and charming, tired smiles, the only

colour in her face showing on her bitter lips.

"He shall pay me my price for this," she promised herself softly, "and

it shall not be a light one."

(Hugh Hading had paid his price for her girlhood; Lundi Druro should

pay for the rest of her life!)

Only one thing could put her right with her own pride and before the

little world which had witnessed the slight, and that she would

exact--the announcement that he was hers, body and soul, to do with as

she pleased. That the honour would be an empty one, this evening's

_deroute_ would seem to have demonstrated; he had proved once more that

he was no man's man, and no woman's man, either; he belonged to his

sins, and his weaknesses, and his failings. But, for the moment, it

would be enough for Marice Hading that he should propose to her and be

accepted. Her time would come later--afterward. There were many modes

of recompense of which she was past mistress, many subtle means of

repayment for injuries received. Such a mind as hers was not lacking

in refined methods of inflicting punishment. It would be proved to

him, in bitter retribution, that Marice Hading could not be trifled

with and neglected--_forgotten for a game of cards_!

In the meantime, she eased her anger a little by snubbing Tryon, when

he came to claim a waltz she had given him early in the week. Looking

at him with cool and lovely disdain as she leaned on the arm of the

great politician who still lingered with her, she disclaimed all

recollection of any such engagement.

"You should be careful not to make such mistakes, Mr. Tryon," she said

haughtily.

"_Soit_! The mistake is mine as well as the loss," he murmured

gracefully, knowing very well what was his real crime. "But prophets

must be prepared for losses. In olden days they have even been known

to lose their heads for prophesying too truly." And on that he made a

bow, and returned to Gay, whom he had left in their sitting-out place,

which was his car. She had danced but little all the evening and

seemed lost in dark thoughts.

"Tired?" he asked, leaning on the door beside her.

"No; but I'm sick of this dance," she said fiercely. "Take me for a

spin, Dick."

"Right. But the roads are pretty bad in the dark, you know."

Gay pondered a moment.

"The Selukine road isn't bad"--she paused a moment, then slowly added,

"and the road to Glendora."

It was Tryon's turn to ponder. The road to the Glendora was the worst

in the country, but it didn't take him long to read the riddle.

"Come on, then!" he said abruptly. "Shall I get your cloak?"

"No; let me wear your things, Dick." She took up a big motor-coat and

deer-stalker from the driving-seat and slipped into them. The

rose-pink gown disappeared and was lost under the darkness of tweed,

and the cap covered her bright hair. She sat well back in the shadows

of the tonneau.

Tryon set the car going, climbed moodily into the lonely driving-seat,

and steered away into the darkness just as the music stopped and a

crowd of dancers came pouring out of the ballroom.

The Glendora lay west of the town, and the road to it ran past the

club. As luck would have it, a man coming from the latter place, and

pushing a bicycle before him, almost collided with them, causing Tryon

to pull up short.

"Is that you, Emma Guthrie?" he called irritably.

"Yep!" came the gloomy answer.

"Seen anything of Lundi?"

"Nope!" on a deeper tone of gloom. Gay touched Tryon's shoulder.

"Make him come, too," she whispered.

"I'm just taking a run out to the Glendora," announced Tryon. "Want to

come?"

"I do," said Guthrie, with laconic significance, and climbed in beside

the driver. They flipped through the night at thirty miles an hour,

which was as much as Tryon dared risk on such a road. The Glendora was

about ten miles off. Gay, furled in the big coat and kindly darkness,

could hear the two men exchanging an occasional low word, but little

was said. It was doubtful whether Guthrie knew who Tryon's other

passenger was.

In time, the clanking and pounding of a battery smote their ears, and

the twinkling myriad lights of a mining camp were spread across the

darkness. One large wood-and-iron house, standing alone on rising

ground, well back from the road, was conspicuously brilliant. The

doors were closed, but lights and the sound of men's voices raised in

an extraordinary uproar streamed from its open, unblinded windows and

fanlights. Abruptly Tryon turned the car so that it faced for home,

halted it in the shadow of some trees, and jumping out, strode toward

the house, followed by Guthrie and Gay.

Almost as they reached it, the door was flung open, and a man came out

and stood in the light. He was passing his hand over his eyes and

through his hair in an odd gesture that would have told Gay who he was,

even if every instinct in her had not recognized Druro. The

pandemonium in the house had fallen suddenly to a great stillness, but

as Guthrie and Tryon reached the house, it broke forth again with

increased violence, and a number of men rushed out and laid hands on

Druro as if to detain him. He flung them off in every direction; a

couple of them fell scrambling and swearing over the low rail of the

veranda. Then, several spoken sentences, terse, and clean-cut as

cameos, fell on the night air.

"Come on home, Lundi; we have a car here."

"I tell you he has killed Capperne! Capperne is dead as a bone!"

"All right!" came Druro's voice, cool and careless. "If he's dead,

he's dead. I am prepared to accept the consequences."

The Australians stood off, grouped together, muttering. Guthrie and

Tryon moved to either side of Druro, and between them he walked calmly

away from the house. When they reached the car, he took the seat

beside Tryon, Guthrie climbed in next to Gay, and they drove away

without a word being spoken. The whole nightmare happening had passed

with the precision and ease of a clockwork scene played by marionettes.

Now the curtain was down, and nothing remained but the haunting,

fateful words still ringing in the ears of them all. Small wonder they

sat silent as death. As the car entered the precincts of the town,

Druro said to Tryon:

"I must go to the police camp and report this thing, Dick. But, first

drive to the 'Falcon,' will you? I've just remembered that I had an

appointment there and must go and apologize."

They drew up at a side entrance of the hotel and Druro stepped out and

turned almost mechanically to open the door for those behind. So far

he had shown no knowledge of Gay's presence, but he now looked straight

into her eyes without any sign of surprise. He held out his hand to

help her to descend, and, in the same instant, swiftly withdrew it.

"I forgot," he said, and, for an instant, stood staring at his palm and

then at her in a dazed, musing sort of way. "There is blood upon it!"

Gay could not speak. Her heart felt breaking. It seemed to her that,

in that moment, with the shadow of crime on him, he had suddenly

changed into a bright-haired, innocent, wistful boy. She longed, with

an infinite, brooding love that was almost maternal, to shelter and

comfort him against all the world. But she could do nothing. Even if

she could have spoken, there was nothing to say. Only, on an impulse,

she caught the hand he had drawn back, and, for a moment, held it close

between her warm, generous little palms. Then she slipped away into

the darkness, and he went into the hotel, walking like a man in a dream.

PART II

Cold-blooded nerve, otherwise intrepid cheek, is a much admired quality

in that land of bluffs and _blagues_ called Rhodesia. Therefore, when

Lundi Druro walked into Mrs. Hading's ballroom in his old grey lounge

suit, with ruffled hair and the distrait eyes of a man dreaming of

other things, and proceeded, in casual but masterly fashion, to detach

his hostess from the tentacles of a new admirer, Wankelo silently

awarded him the palm of palms. But no one who saw Mrs. Hading's face

as she walked out of the ballroom by his side envied him his job of

conciliation.

However, they could not know that her cold looks were for their benefit

rather than Druro's. Banal upbraidings would not bring off the _coup_

she had planned, and she did not intend to employ them. When she and

Druro were out of earshot in a far corner of the veranda, the face she

turned to him wore nothing on it but an expression of lovely and tender

pain that he found much harder to contend with than anything she could

possibly have said.

Contritely he proffered his profound apologies and regrets. But when

all was said and done, it boiled down to the same old lame duck of an

excuse that was yet the simple and shameful truth.

"I forgot all about it."

Like Gay under similar circumstances, she was infuriated by the

combined flimsiness and sincerity of the plea. But, unlike Gay, she

was too clever to give herself away and ruin her plans by an outburst

of indignation. She only fixed her sad and lovely dark eyes on his and

said quietly:

"Is that all you have to say to me, Lundi? With everyone laughing at

my humiliation and disappointment--my foolishness!"

He flushed at the use of his name, the tone of her voice, the inference

in her words.

"I am most frightfully sorry," he repeated, deeply embarrassed. "It

was unutterably caddish of me. I can never forgive myself, or expect

you to forgive me."

"I think you know by now that I can forgive you anything," she

answered, in a low voice.

His embarrassment increased.

"I'm not worth a second thought from any woman," he asseverated firmly.

"But if I think you are?" There was a little break in her voice, and

suddenly she put out her hands toward him. "If I cannot help----"

"Mrs. Hading," he interposed hastily, "you don't know what you are

saying. I am a blackguard--a scamp, unfit to touch a woman's hand."

"Let me be judge of that," she said.

"I have not even told you everything about tonight. When you hear what

has happened, you won't want to speak to me again." She suddenly took

out a little lace handkerchief and began to cry. He stared at her with

haggard eyes. "Do you know that I have killed a man tonight?" he said

sombrely.

That gave her pause. Her nerves went taut and her face rigid behind

the scrap of lace. Even _her_ cold soul balked at murder, and her

plans of mingled revenge and self-advancement rocked a little. She

looked at him direct now, with eyes full of horrified enquiry.

"I did not mean to distress you with the story," he said. "But I

struck a man over the card-table, and they say he is dead."

It seemed to her that she caught a sound of relief, even triumph in the

statement--almost as though he was glad to have such a reason for

stemming the tide of her words, and not taking the clinging hands she

put out to him. Her keen mind was on the alert instantly. What was at

the bottom of it all? Perhaps the man was not dead. Perhaps this was

just a little trick of Druro's to slip the toils he felt closing round

his liberty--her toils! Being a trickster herself, she easily

suspected trickery in others. Rapidly she turned the thing over in her

mind. She had no intention of involving herself with a man who had got

to pay the penalty for committing a crime--but nothing simpler for her

than to repudiate him if anything so unpleasant should really arise.

On the other hand, in case he was juggling with the truth, she must

establish a hold, a bond that, being a man of honour, he would not be

able to repudiate. The situation called for the exercise of all the

finesse of which she was mistress. She put away her handkerchief and

looked at him gravely.

"There must be some dreadful mistake."

He shrugged his shoulders rather wearily.

"I don't think so." His manner inferred, "And I don't much care,

either."

"But you must care," she said urgently. "You must fight it, Lundi. If

you won't do it for your own sake"--she came a step nearer to him--"I

ask you to do it for mine." He was staring moodily into the gloom of

the night and the deeper gloom of his own soul. "To make up to me for

the humiliation you have put upon me tonight," she said, almost in a

whisper, "I think I have a right to claim so much."

That jerked him from his dreams. He looked her straight in the eyes.

"If anything I can say or do will make up to you for that, you will

have no need to claim it," he said firmly, and, bowing over her hand,

took his leave. People who saw him go thought he looked more haggard

than when he came. But this was accounted for when, within the hour,

news of the happenings at Glendora sped like wildfire through the town.

Before morning, however, there were certain hopeful tidings to mingle

with the bad, and Marice Hading had cause to congratulate herself on

her foresight in establishing her bond. Capperne was not dead. And

there was hope of saving him. Half his teeth were knocked down his

throat; in falling he had struck his head and cut it open; his heart,

weakened by dissipation, had all but reached its last beat, and lung

complication had set in. But the chances were that, being a worthless,

useless life, precious to no one but himself, he would pull through and

live to "sharp" another day. The doctors, at any rate, worked like

tigers to insure this end. For there was no doubt that, if he died,

the consequences must be extremely unpleasant for Druro. It was highly

improbable that the latter would pay the penalty with his life, but a

verdict of manslaughter against him could scarcely be avoided. He had

struck Capperne down after a violent dispute in which the Australian,

accused of sharping, had given him the lie, and Capperne's friends, the

only witnesses of the fracas, were prepared, if Capperne died, to swear

away Druro's life and liberty. As it was, they moved heaven and earth

to have him put under arrest--"in case of accidents"--but their efforts

were crowned with neither appreciation nor success, and Druro went

about much as usual, careless, amusing, and apparently not unduly

depressed. Still, it was a dark and doubtful period, and that his

future hung precariously in the balance, he was very well aware, and so

were his friends.

The only thing noticeably unusual in his habits was a certain avoidance

of the Falcon Hotel and the society of womankind; and this, of course,

was very well understood. It was natural that a man under a

storm-cloud that might burst any moment and blot him out should wish to

keep out of the range of women's emotional sympathy. Men's sympathy is

of a different calibre. Even when it is a practical, living thing that

can be felt and built on, it is often almost cold-bloodedly

inarticulate and undemonstrative, which is the only kind of sympathy

acceptable to a man in trouble, especially a man of Druro's type, who

did not want to discuss the thing at all, but just to take what was

coming to him with a stiff lip.

One good result of it all was that now, at last, his mine was getting a

little attention. Once more he donned blue overalls and a black face

and embroidered his pants with cyanide burns. And Emma Guthrie was

content, or as content as Emma Guthrie could be. Rumour now said that

crushing would be commenced on the mine in two months' time, and that

ten stamps were to be added to the milling-plant already existing.

This looked good for Druro's financial prospects, however gloomy his

social ones might be. But he never talked. Emma Guthrie was the man

who did all the bucking about the mine and its future. Rumour did the

rest handsomely, and it was unanimously accorded that fate would be

playing a shady trick indeed on Lundi Druro if, just when his future

was painting itself in scarlet and gold with purple splashes, he was to

be put out of the game by the death of a waster like Capperne.

On the day, then, that Capperne was at last pronounced to be out of the

wood, there was almost general rejoicing in Wankelo. The little

township threw its hat up into the air, and everyone burst into bubbles

of relief and gaiety. In the club and hotels men valiantly "breasted

the bar," vying with each other in the liquid celebration of Druro's

triumph and the defeat of the enemy at Glendora, and all the women

rushed to tea at the "Falcon" to discuss the news and, incidentally, to

see how Mrs. Hading took it, and whether any further developments would

now arise with regard to herself and Druro.

As soon as Mrs. Hading realized that Druro meant to absent himself from

the felicity of her society during his period of uncertainty, she had

thought out a pose for herself and assumed it like a glove. It was the

pose of a woman who withdraws a little from the world to face her

sorrows alone--or almost alone. A few admiring friends were admitted

into her semi-devotional retreat. Mrs. Hallett was allowed to read to

her awhile every day, and Berlie to arrange her flowers. Major Maturin

brought her the English papers and any news that was going. A quiet

game of bridge was sometimes indulged in, but Marice spent much of her

time reading and writing, and a straight-backed chair with a cushion

before it and a beautifully bound book of devotions lying on it hinted

at deeper things. A certain drooping trick of the eyelids lent her an

air of subdued sadness and courage that was attractive. A pose was

always dearer to Marice Hading than bread, and this one gave her

special pleasure--first, because it was becoming; secondly, because it

was a restful way of getting through the hot weather, and, thirdly,

because it conveyed to people the idea to which she wished to accustom

them--that she and Druro were something to each other. She was no

longer to be seen in the lounge. Having successfully impressed Mrs.

Hallett with her sorrowful mien, that lady had placed her sitting-room,

the only private one in the hotel, at Marice's disposal, and it was

there, surrounded by flowers and books of verse, that she received the

few friends she allowed to see her and wrote a daily letter of great

charm and veiled tenderness to Druro. He nearly always responded with

about three lines, making one note answer three letters, sometimes

more. Druro was no fancy letter-writer. He could tell a woman he

loved her, fervently enough, no doubt, either on or off paper, if the

spirit moved him. But he never told Marice anything except that he was

all right, and chirpy, and pretty busy at the mine, and hoped to see

her one of these days when the horizon looked a little clearer. Brief

and frank as were these missives, she studied them as closely as if

they had been written in the hieroglyphics of some unknown language,

and had often nearly bitten her underlip through by the time she

reached the end of them.

With the growing conviction that Capperne would recover, her letters to

Druro grew more intimate and perhaps a shade insistent on his

over-sensitiveness in absenting himself for so long from the society of

his best friends. It was natural that, when the good news was

definitely confirmed, she should expect him to present himself, and

perhaps that was why she came down to the lounge that day for tea,

instead of having it served in the private sitting-room as usual.

She was looking radiant. The systematic rest-cure, combined with the

services of her maid, a finished _masseuse_, had done wonders for her,

and a gown of chiffon shaded like a bunch of pansies and so transparent

that most of her could be seen through it successfully crowned her

efforts.

Druro felt the old charm of lamp-posts stealing like a delicate,

narcotizing perfume over his senses as he took her hand and listened to

her soft murmurs of congratulation. After all, it is true that almost

any woman can marry any man if she has a few looks, a few brains, and

the quality of persistence. Besides, Marice had him safely bonded.

The shrouded figure at the back of his mind that was waiting for some

quiet hour in which to discuss the mess he was making of his life would

have to be narcotized, too, or denied and driven forth.

Gay Liscannon came in with a riding party of noisy people, who

clattered over, clamouring for tea and clapping Druro on the shoulder

with blithe smiles. She gave him a friendly hand-clasp and said:

"Glad to see you're all right again, Lundi."

That was the spirit of all their welcomes. No one said openly:

"Hooray! You're out of the jaws of the law." But they welcomed him

like a long-lost brother turned up from the dead, and immediately began

to talk about getting up some kind of "jolly" for him. It must be

admitted that Rhodesians are always on the look-out for an excuse for a

jolly, but this really seemed a reasonable occasion. They told him he

looked gloomy and needed a jolly to cheer him up.

"A picnic is the thing for you," said Berlie Hallett, who loved this

form of diversion better, even, than flirting. "Let us give him a

picnic in his own district, Selukine."

A thoughtful look crossed Marice Hading's face.

"What about his own mine?" she said. "Can't we come and picnic there,

Lundi? I have never seen the Leopard."

The idea was ardently welcomed.

"Yes--the Leopard mine! We'll take our own champagne and baptize the

new reef and Lundi's future fortunes. It shall be the great Leopard

picnic--the greatest ever!"

It was furthermore suggested that, as there was a moon, it should be a

moonlight picnic with a midnight supper at the mine.

Lundi was fain to submit, whether he liked, it or not. He wondered a

little what Emma Guthrie would say at having the mine invaded, but

personally he did not care a toss. The narcotizing spell had fallen

suddenly from him again, and life and his future fortunes looked

uninterestingly grey. He became aware of the shrouded figure tapping

for attention at the back of his brain. Gay was the cause of it,

somehow. He abruptly got up to go, saying he must get back to the mine.

"Emma will want some talking over before he will allow any picnicking

around there," he said. "I think I had better go and start on him

right away."

"Oh, don't go yet!" they cried, and Marice Hading looked at him

chidingly. But he had no heart for their gay arrangements, and took

himself off after finally hearing that the date was fixed for two

nights later, all cars to be at the "Falcon" at eight o'clock in the

evening and the start to be made from there.

Only a legitimate reason would have kept Gay away from a jolly given in

Druro's honour. But she expected to have that reason in the

indisposition of her father, who had been ailing for some time. She

was not sorry, for she felt a shrinking from what the picnic might

bring forth, just as she had felt on the night of Mrs. Hading's dance.

However, fate was not inclined to spare her anything that was due to

her. Colonel Liscannon was so much better that he could easily be

left, and, moreover, an old crony had come in from the country to spend

a couple of days with him. So there was no chance of Gay's evasion

without a seeming rudeness to Druro. But she was very late in arriving

at the "Falcon," where she was to be a passenger in Tryon's car.

At the last, it was a matter of ordering something at the chemist's for

her father and sending off a telegram that detained her, and she did

not reach the hotel until nearly a quarter to nine. Long before she

got there, she saw that all the cars were gone except one which she

easily recognized as Tryon's.

"Dear old Dick! He is always to be relied on," she said, and had a

half-finished thought that she would rather be with him that night than

any one, except----

Then she went quickly into the lounge, where, no doubt, he would be

waiting, and found him indeed, but sitting around a little table with

coffee and liqueurs in the company of Druro and Mrs. Hading, the latter

looking none too pleased.

"Ah," said she, with acerbity, as Gay came in, "at last! We were

beginning to think you were never coming."

"But why did you wait for me?" inquired Gay, politely bewildered. "I

thought Dick----"

"Some idiot has walked off with my car," explained Druro. "So Tryon is

taking us all."

"And we are waiting for petrol as well as you," smiled Tryon; "so sit

down." He put a chair for her next to Mrs. Hading, but that lady,

after a swift glance into a mirror on the wall, skilfully manoeuvred

her seat until she was opposite instead of next to the girl. Gay, in a

little white frock of soft mull, with a cascade of lace falling below

her long, young throat, resembled a freshly-gathered rose with all the

fragrance and dewiness of the garden of Youth upon her. When Marice

looked at her, she felt like a Borgia. She would have liked to press a

cup of poison to the girl's curved red lips and force her to drink. In

that glimpse in the mirror, she had seen that her own face, above a

delicate shroudy scarf with long flying ends, rose like some tired

hothouse orchid, beautiful still, but fading, paling, passing; and she

hated Gay's youth and freshness with a poignant hatred that was like

the piercing of a stiletto. She wondered why she had been such a fool

as to wear that gown of purplish amethystine tulle tonight. It was a

colour that made her face look hard and artificially tinted. True, her

bare neck and shoulders, which were of a perfection rarely seen outside

of an art gallery, showed at their best through the mazy shroudings,

and her throat looked as if it had been modelled by some cunning

Italian hand and sculptured in creamy alabaster. Her throat, indeed,

was Marice Hading's great beauty, and her pride in it the most sinful

of all her prides. She spent hours in her locked room massaging it and

smoothing it with soft palms, working snowy creams into it, modelling

it with her fine fingers, as though it were of some plastic material

other than flesh and blood. She watched for the traces of time on it

and fought them with the art and skill of a creature fighting for its

life. Indeed, when a woman makes a god of her beauty, it is her life

for which she is fighting in the unequal battle with time.

Night was naturally the time at which this reverenced beauty of hers

shone most effectively to the dazzlement of women and the undoing of

men. Day was not so kind. The South African sun is ruthless to

exposed complexions, and has an unhappy way of showing up the presence

of thick pastes and creams which have been worked into contours in

danger of becoming salients. So, although Marice never wore a collar,

but always had her gowns cut into a deep V both back and front, she

invariably shrouded herself with filmy laces and chiffons. She drew

these about her now and rose wearily. It seemed to her she had noticed

Druro looking at Gay with some strange quality in his glance.

"If we don't make a move, we shall never get there at all," she said

sharply.

Everything was going wrong tonight. Here she was stuck with two people

whom she detested, after specially planning to make the drive alone

with Druro!

"Come along; I expect the car is fixed up by now," said Tryon, and they

all moved out. A black porter was patrolling the stoep.

"Has my boy been here with petrol for the car?" asked Tryon.

"Yas, sar."

"And filled it?"

"Yas, sar."

They approached to get in, and a fresh annoyance for Mrs. Hading arose.

Druro said casually:

"How are we going to sit?"

"You are driving, of course," stated Marice, in an authoritative tone.

"No," said Tryon dryly; "I never let any one handle my car but myself."

Now, nothing would make Marice renounce the comfort of the front seat.

Even if she would have done it for the sake of sitting with Druro, she

knew that the jarring and jolting so unavoidable on African roads would

put her nerves on edge for the evening. So there was nothing further

to be said, but she felt, as she flung herself into the seat beside

Tryon, that this was verily the last straw. For a time she showed her

displeasure with and disdain of Tryon by sitting half turned and

conversing with Druro, who was obliged to lean forward uncomfortably to

answer her remarks. But she soon tired of this, for the strong wind

caused by the car cutting through the air tore her flatly arranged hair

from its appointed place and blew it over her eyes in thin black

strings. This enraged her, as the dishevelment of a carefully arranged

coiffure always enrages a fashionable woman. She loathed wind at any

time; it always aroused seven devils in her. She longed to box Tryon's

ears. But the best she could do was to sit in haughty silence at his

side, while the wind took the long ends of her scented tulle scarf and

tore it to rags, fluttering them maliciously in the faces of the two

silent ones behind. Every now and then Druro mechanically caught hold

of these ends, crumpled them into a bunch, and stuffed them behind Mrs.

Hading's shoulders, but a few minutes later they would be loose again,

whipping the wind. Once, when he was catching the flickering things

from Gay's face, his hand touched her cheek, and once, when they both

put out their hands together, they clasped each other's fingers instead

of the fragile stuff. But they never spoke. And their silence at last

began to weigh on the two in front. They found themselves straining

their ears to hear if those two would ever murmur a word to each other.

And if they did not, _why didn't they_?

"Has he got his arm round her?" wondered Tryon savagely. (He too had

counted on tonight and the long, lonely drive with Gay, and was in none

too pleasant a mood with life.)

"Is he holding her hand?" thought Marice Hading, and ground her teeth.

"Has there ever been anything between them?"

But Druro and Gay were doing none of these things--only sitting very

still, and thinking long, long thoughts. And whatever it was they

thought of, it put no gladness into their eyes. Any one who could have

peered into their faces in the pale moonlight must have been struck by

the similarity in the expression of their eyes, the vague, staring

misery of those who search the horizon vainly for something that will

never be theirs, some lost city from which they are for ever exiled.

The African horizon was wonderfully beautiful that night. As they came

out from the miles of bush which surround Wankelo into the

hill-and-valley lands of Selukine, the moon burst in pearly splendour

from her fleecy wrappings of cloud and showed long lines of

silver-tipped hills and violet valleys, and, here and there, great open

stretches of undulating space with a clear view across leagues and

leagues to the very edge, it seemed, of the world. As one such great

stretch of country rolled into view from a rise in the road, Druro

spoke for the first time, in a low voice, vaguely and half to himself.

"There is the land I love--_my_ country!"

With his hand he made a gesture that was like a salute. After all, he

was a Rhodesian, and this was his confession of faith. The story of

the lamp-posts was only a bluff put up to disguise the hook Africa had

put in his heart, the hook by which she drags all those who love her

back across the world, denying, reviling, forswearing her even unto

seventy times seven, yet panting to be once more in her adored arms.

All Rhodesians have this heart-wound, which opens and bleeds when they

are away from their country, and only heals over in the sweet veld air.

Gay did not answer. He had hardly seemed to address the remark to her;

yet it went home to her heart because she, too, was a Rhodesian, and

this was the land she loved.

Suddenly they swept down once more into a tract of country thick with

bush and tall, feathery trees. Here the rotting timbers of some old

mine-head buildings and great mounds of thrown-up earth inked against

the sky-line showed that man had been in these wilds, torn up the earth

for its treasure, and passed on. Near the road an old iron house, that

had once been a flourishing mine-hotel, was now almost hidden by a

tangle of wild creepers and bush, with branches of trees thrusting

their way through gaping doorways and windows.

"This was the old Guinea-Pig Camp. It is 'gone in' now, but once it

was a great place--this old wilderness," said Tryon to Mrs. Hading, and

misquoted Kipling.

"They used to call it a township once,

Gold-drives and main-reefs and rock-drills once,

Ladies and bridge-drives and band-stands once,

But now it is G. I."

He stopped, and the car having reached the foot of the hill that led

out of the valley stopped, too, as if paralysed by its owner's efforts

at parody. It had been jerking and bucking like a playful mustang for

some time past, and behaving in an altogether curious manner, but now

it was stiller than the dead. Tryon waggled the levers to no avail,

then flung himself out of the car and got busy with the crank. Not a

move. Druro then got out and had a go at the crank. No good.

Thereafter, the two made a thorough examination of the beast, but

poking and prying into all its secret places booted them nothing. As

far as the eye of man could see, nothing was wrong with the thing but

sheer obstinacy. It was more from habit than a spirit of inquiry that

Druro finally gave a casual squint into the reservoir. Then the

mischief was out. It was empty; the boy had never filled it. It was

doubtful whether he had put in any petrol at all. The two men stared

at each other aghast.

"Well, of all the rotten niggers in this rotten country!" breathed

Tryon, at last, and, with the words, expressed all the weight of the

white man's burden in Africa, mingled with rage at his present

powerlessness to smite the evil-doer. Druro grinned. It was not his

funeral, and, to the wise, no further words were necessary. But Mrs.

Hading had not been long enough in Africa to be wise. This final

calamity seemed all part and parcel of the mismanagement of the

evening, and she did not care to conceal her annoyance.

"I cannot imagine any one but a fool allowing himself to be placed in

such a predicament," she said, looking at Tryon with the utmost scorn.

He shrugged his shoulders, dumb with mortification. Druro, smiling

with his usual native philosophy, now got his portion.

"Is there anything to do besides standing there smirking?" she inquired

acridly.

"I should think we had better foot it to the Guinea-Pig." To do him

justice, he had been thinking as well as smirking, but Marice was in no

mood to be just. "A fellow called Burral lives there and has a

telephone. He may have some petrol. All may not yet be lost!" He

continued to smile. Not that he felt cheerful--but the situation

seemed to him to call for derision rather than despair.

"Foot it? Do you mean walk through this wild bush? Good Heavens! How

far is it?"

"Only about a mile or so, and there is quite a good path. Still, if

you think it better to stay here in the car with Tryon while I go----"

"No; I'll go," said Tryon hastily.

"No you don't," persisted Druro. "I know the way better than you do."

But Mrs. Hading put an end to the argument as to who should escape her

recriminations.

"I refuse to be left in this wild spot with any one," she declared, and

flung one last barb of hatred at Tryon. "How could you be such a fool?"

But Tryon's withers could be no further wrung. He merely felt sorry

for Druro. The widow was showing herself to be no saint under

affliction. Not here the bright companion on a weary road who is

better than silken tents and horse-litters!

They started down the path to Burral's, Druro and Mrs. Hading ahead.

Gay and Tryon following at a distance too short not to hear the widow's

voice still engaged in acrid comment.

"What a fuss to make about nothing!" said Gay, a trifle disdainfully.

"I'm afraid Africa won't suit her for long, if that's how she takes

incidents of every-day life."

"I don't think she'll suit Africa," rejoined Tryon savagely. "Still,

I'm not denying that I am a first-class fool to have trusted that

infernal nigger. I could kick myself."

"Kick the nigger instead, tomorrow," laughed Gay, adding in the

Rhodesian spirit, "what does it matter, anyway?"

The path now became narrower and overhung with wandering branches and

creepers. The brambles seemed to have a special penchant for Mrs.

Hading's flying ends of tulle and lace, and she spent most of her time

disengaging herself while Druro went ahead, pushing branches out of the

way. Poor Marice! Her feet ached in their high-heeled shoes, and her

French toilette was created for a salon and not out-of-door walking.

Truly, she was no veld-woman. What came as a matter of course to Gay

was a tragedy to her.

"How stupid! How utterly imbecile!" she muttered bitterly. "A hateful

country--and idiots of men!"

"Cheer up!" said Druro, with an equability he did not feel. Nothing

bored him more than bad temper. "We'll soon be dead--I mean, we'll

soon be at Burral's."

"I find your cheerfulness slightly brutal," she remarked cuttingly,

"and the thought of Burral's does not fill me with any delight."

"I'm sorry," he began, but his apology and the stillness of the night

were both destroyed by a sudden loud crack of a rifle.

"By Jove! Who's that, I wonder?" exclaimed Druro. "There's nothing

much to shoot about here." Then, to Mrs. Hading, "Stand still a

minute--will you?--while I reconnoitre." He went a few yards ahead and

gave a halloo. They all stood still, listening, until the call was

returned in a man's voice from somewhere not far off. At the same

time, a soft cracking of bushes was heard near at hand.

"It must be Burral out after a buck!" called out Tryon. He and Gay

were still some way behind. Marice half-way between them, and Druro

was apparently trying to disentangle her flickering, fluttering

chiffons from a fresh engagement with the bushes when the terrible

thing happened. The lithe, speckled body of a leopard came sailing,

with a grace and swiftness indescribable, through the air and, leaping

upon the fluttering figure, bore her to the ground. A scream of terror

and anguish rent the night, and Gay and Tryon, galvanized by horror,

powerless though they were to contend with the savage brute, rushed

forward to the rescue. But Druro was there before them. They saw him

stoop down and catch the huge cat by its hind legs, and, with

extraordinary power, swing it high in the air. Snarling and spitting,

it twisted its flexible body to attack him in turn, and, even as it

went hurtling over his head into the bush behind, it reached out a paw

and clawed him across the face. At the same moment, a man with a gun

came crashing through the undergrowth, followed the flying body of the

leopard into the bush, and with two rapid shots gave the beast its

quietus. Reeking gun in hand, he returned to the party in the pathway.

"Got the brute at last," he panted. "Only wounded him the first shot;

that's why he came for you people. My God! Who's hurt here?"

No one answered. Mrs. Hading lay moaning terribly on the ground, with

Tryon and Gay bending over her. Druro was stumbling about like a

drunken man. "Is it you, Lundi Druro? Did that devil get you, too?

Where are you hurt?"

"It's Burral, isn't it?" said Druro vaguely. "Yes; I got a flick

across the eyes. Never mind me. Get that lady to your place, Burral,

and telephone to Selukine. Tell them to send a car and a doctor and to

drive like mad."

"My throat--oh, my throat!" keened Marice Hading. Tryon supported her.

Gay was tearing her white skirt into strips and using them for

bandages. Druro came stumbling over to them.

"For God's sake, get her to Burral's place, Dick!" said he. "Burral's

wife is a nurse and will know what to do. Can you two fellows carry

her? I would help you--but I can't see very well. I'll come on

behind."

Gay helped to lift Marice into the two men's arms, and they went ahead

with their moaning burden; then she came back to Druro, who was

staggering vaguely along.

"Let me help you, Lundi. Lean on me."

He put out an arm, and she caught it and placed it around her shoulders.

"I can't see, Gay," he said, in a voice that was quite steady yet had

in it some quality of terrible apprehension. She peered into his face.

The moon had become obscured, but she could see that his eyes were wide

open with torn lids. There was a great gash down his cheek.

"Come quickly!" she cried, her voice trembling with tears. "Oh, come

quickly, Lundi! We must bathe and dress your wounds as soon as

possible. Leopard wounds are terribly poisonous."

"All right," he said. "Sure you don't mind my leaning on you? I hope

they get a doctor at once for Mrs. Hading."

They went forward slowly, he taking curiously uneven steps. She was

tall, but he had to stoop a little to keep his hold on her.

"There hasn't been a leopard in these parts for nearly two years," he

mused. "The last was shot on my mine the day we struck the reef--that

is why we called it the Leopard. You remember, Gay? Do you think Mrs.

Hading is badly wounded?"

"Her throat and chest are very much torn, but I don't think the wounds

are deep."

"Poor woman! Good Lord; what bad luck!"

"Try and hurry, Lundi."

"But I can't see. Perhaps if I could wipe the blood out of my eyes,

Gay--where the deuce is my handkerchief?"

"Here is mine--let me do it for you. Sit down for a moment on this

ant-heap."

She knelt by his side and gently wiped away the blood. By the sweat

that was pouring down his face, she knew that he must be suffering

intense pain, and was almost afraid to touch the wounded eyes.

"Is that better? Can you see now?" she asked fearfully.

"No," he said quietly. There was a moment of anguished silence between

them, then he laughed.

"Cheerful if I am going to be blind!"

The words tore her heart in two, appealing to all that was tender and

noble in her nature, and to that brooding maternal love that was almost

stronger in her than lover's love. She seemed, as once before when

trouble was on him, to see him as a bright-haired boy with innocent

eyes, whom life had led astray, but who was ready with a laugh on his

lips to face the worst fate would do. And she cried out, with a great

cry, tenderly, brokenly:

"No, no, Lundi; you shall not be blind!"

She put her arms round him as if to ward off the powers of darkness and

evil, and he let his bloody face rest against the soft sweetness of her

breast. Leaning there, he knew he was home at last. Her warm tears,

falling like gentle rain upon his wounded eyes, slipped down into his

heart, into his very soul, cleansing it, washing away the shadows that

had been between them. Now he knew what the shrouded figure at the

back of his mind had waited for so long to say to him--that he loved

this girl and should make his life worthy of her. He had always loved

her, but had been too idle and careless, too fond of the ways and

pleasures of men to change his life for her. Now that he held her in

his arms, and could feel the blaze of her love burning through the

walls of her, meeting the flame in his own heart, it was too late.

Fate, with lightnings in her hand, had stepped between them, and a

woman who held his promise intervened.

"Gay," he said gently, her name felt so sweet on his lips, "by a

terrible mistake I have destroyed your happiness and mine. Forgive me."

"There is no question of forgiveness, Lundi," she whispered; "I will

help you to stand by it."

He held up his blurred eyes and torn, bleeding lips, and she kissed him

as one might kiss the dead, in exquisite renouncement and farewell.

Only that the quick are not the dead--and cannot be treated as such. A

more poignant misery waked in both their hearts with that kiss. He

could not see her--that was terrible--but the satiny warmth of her

mouth was so dear, so exquisitely dear! He suddenly remembered her as

she was that night in her little rose-leaf gown with all the dewdrops

twinkling on her. He wondered if he would ever see her again in all

her beauty.

"You were so sweet that night of the dance, Gay," he said, "in your

little pinky gown, with the dewdrops winking on you!"

She understood that he was wondering if he should ever see her again.

"You shall--you shall!" she cried. "Oh, hurry! Come quickly! Let us

get to the house and to help."

The serene and careless philosophy characteristic of him came back.

"If I am to be blind, all right," he said quietly. "I'll accept it

without a kick, because of this hour."

Once more they stumbled deviously and slowly on. A light showed nearer

now, in a house window, and presently the other two men were on their

way to meet them with lanterns and a brandy-flask. In a short time,

Druro was established in Mrs. Burral's sitting-room, having his eyes

bathed and bandaged by her skilful hands.

"What about Mrs. Hading?" had been his first question. Marice's low

moans could be plainly heard from behind the curtain which divided the

one room of the little iron house.

"Her throat and shoulders are very much lacerated," said Mrs. Burral.

"I think we have avoided the danger of blood-poisoning for you both, as

I was able to clean the wounds so quickly with bichloride. But she

will be dreadfully scarred, poor thing! And you, Mr. Druro, I'm

afraid--I'm afraid your eyes are badly hurt."

It seemed years to them all, though it was scarcely more than half an

hour before assistance came from Selukine. All tragedies take place in

the brain, it has been said, and poignant things were happening behind

several foreheads during that bad half-hour of waiting. Marice Hading,

lying on Mrs. Burral's bed, hovered over by that kind woman, was

suffering more acutely in the thought of her ravaged beauty than from

the pain of her wounds. Druro's bandaged eyes saw with greater

clearness down the bleak avenues of the future than they had ever seen

in health. Tryon was afraid to look at Gay. He was outwardly

attentive to Burral's tale of the leopard's depredations--chickens torn

from the roost, a mutilated foal, a half-eaten calf--and of the final

stalking and unlucky wounding of the beast, rendering it mad with the

rage to attack everything it met; but his brain was occupying itself

with a thought that ran round and round in it like a squirrel in a

cage--the thought that Gay was lost to him for ever. He had seen her

looking at Lundi Druro with all her tortured soul in her eyes. Now she

stood at the window, staring into the night.

When, at last, the whir of motor-wheels was heard on the far-off road,

each of them hastened to recapture their wretched minds and drag them

back from the lands of desolation in which they wandered, to face once

more the formalities of life behind life's mask of convention. There

came a sound of many voices--subdued, deploring, anxious, inquiring.

The picnickers had heard of the accident and were returning in force to

succour the lost ones. It was a sorry ending to the great Leopard

picnic.

Mrs. Hading and Druro were driven to the Wankelo Hospital, and doctors

and nurses closed in on them. Specialists came from Buluwayo and the

Cape, and, after a time of waiting, it was known that the danger of

blood-poisoning was past for both of the victims. But whether Lundi

Druro was to walk in darkness for the rest of his days could not be so

quickly told or what lay behind the significant silence concerning Mrs.

Hading's injuries. It was known that her condition was not dangerous,

but she saw no one, and, in the private ward she had engaged, she

surrounded herself with nurses whose business it was not to talk, and

doctors, even in Rhodesia, do not gratify the inquiries of the merely

curious. So, for a long period of waiting, no one quite knew how the

tragedy was all to end.

In another part of the hospital, Druro sat in his room with bandaged

eyes and Toby on his knees, gossiping with the friends who came to

beguile his monotony, giving no outward sign that hope had been dragged

from his heart as effectively as light had been wiped from his eyes.

From the black emptiness in which he sat, he sent Marice Hading a daily

message containing all the elements of a mental cocktail--a jibe at

fate, a fleer at leopards in general, and a prophecy of merrier times

to come as soon as they were out of their present annoyances. In

reply, she wrote guarded little notes (that were read to him by his

nurse), making small mention of her own injuries but seeming feverishly

anxious concerning his sight. All he could tell her was that he

awaited the arrival and verdict of Sir Charles Tryon, the famous

eye-specialist, now somewhere on his way between Madeira and Wankelo.

It was Dick Tryon, who, knowing that his brother was taking a holiday

at Madeira, had cabled asking for his services for Druro.

Poor Dick Tryon! He blamed himself bitterly for the whole catastrophe

on the grounds that, if he had only looked into the petrol-tank instead

of taking a Kafir's word, the car would never have been held up or the

encounter with the leopard occurred. It was no use Lundi Druro's

telling him that such reasoning manifested an arrogant underrating of

the powers of destiny.

"You are a very clever fellow, Dick, but even you can't wash out the

writing on the wall," philosophized the patient, from behind his

bandage, "nor scribble anew on the tablet of Fate, which is hung round

the neck of every man. If the old hag meant me to be blind, she'd

fixed me all right without your assistance."

But Tryon could not be reasoned with in this wise. Perhaps it was the

shipwreck in Gay's eyes that would not let him rest. Druro could not

see that; but it was part of Dick Tryon's penance to witness it every

day when he fetched Gay and her father in his car to visit the

hospital. She always came laden with flowers and cheery words, and

left an odour of happiness and hope behind her. But Tryon had seen

what was in her eyes that night at Burral's, and behind all her hopeful

smiling he saw it there still. He realized that she and Druro had

found each other in the hour of tragedy, and that for him there was no

role left but that of spectator--unless he could prove himself a friend

by helping them to each other's arms, in spite of Marice Hading. As

for Druro and Gay, they had never been alone together since that

night--and never meant to be. They had had their hour.

Another of Tryon's self-imposed jobs was to motor to Selukine and bring

back Emma Guthrie to see his partner. For there were moments when

Druro could stand no one's society so well as the bitter-tongued

American's.

"Go and bring in Emma to say a few pleasant words all round," he would

enjoin, and Emma would come, looking like a wounded bear ready to eat

up everything in sight. But, strange to say, after the first two or

three visits, his words were sweeter than honey in the honeycomb, and

all his ways were soothing and serene. He had nothing but good news to

dispense. The novelty first amused then exasperated Druro, and he

ended up by telling Guthrie to clear out of the hospital and never come

back.

Emma did come back, however, and every time he showed his face, it was

to bring some fresh tale of the sparkling fortunes hidden in the bosom

of his Golconda. The mine was a brick, a peach, a flower. Zeus

dropping nightly showers of gold upon Danae was nothing to the miracles

going on at the Leopard.

One evening after dinner, while Druro was sitting alone with his own

dark thoughts, a message was brought to him--a message that Mrs. Hading

would be glad to see him. It appeared that she had been up and about

her room for some days, and was as bored as he with her own society.

Leaning on the arm of his nurse, he walked down the long veranda and

came to her big, cool room, delicately shaded with rose lights and full

of the scent of violets and faint Parisian essences. He could not see

her of course, or the rose lights, but he sensed her sitting there in

her long chair, looking languorous and subtle, with colours and flowers

and books about her. The nurse guided him to a seat near her and left

them together.

"Well, here we are, Lundi--turned into a pair of wretched, broken-down

crocks!"

The words were light, but the indescribable bitterness of her voice

struck at him painfully.

"Only for a little while," he said gently. "We'll both be back in the

game soon, fitter than ever."

"Never!" There was the sound of a shudder in the exclamation. "How

can one ever be the same after _that_----"

"You've been a brick! You mustn't give way now, after coming through

so bravely."

"How I hate Africa!" she exclaimed fiercely.

Druro could not help smiling.

"Poor old Africa! We all abuse her like a pickpocket and cling to her

like a mother."

"I don't cling. All I ask is never to see her again."

"I don't wonder. She has not treated you too well."

The smile faded from his lips, leaving them sombre. It was like

looking into a dark window to see Lundi Druro's face without the gaiety

of his eyes. At the same time, their absence threw up a quality of

strength about his mouth and jaw that might have gone unobserved. He

was conscious of her attention acutely fixed upon him, but he could not

know with what avid curiosity she was searching his features, or guess,

fortunately for him, at the cold, clear thought that was passing

through her mind.

"How awful to have to drag a blind husband about the world! Still--the

money will mitigate. I can always pay people to----" Then a thrill of

pleasure shot through that bleak and desert thing which was her heart.

"He will never see me as I am now."

Yes; this reflection actually gave her pleasure and content in Druro's

tragedy. He, of all the world, would still think of her as she had

been before the leopard puckered her throat and scarred her cheek with

terrible scars. At the thought, her vanity, which was her soul,

suddenly flowered forth again. Her voice softened; some of the old

glamour came back into it.

"Will you take me away from this cruel country, Lundi--as soon as we

are both better?"

To leave Africa, and that which Africa held! All Lundi Druro's blood

called out, "No," but his firm lips answered gently:

"Yes; if you wish it," then closed again as if set in stone.

"And never come back to it again?"

"That is a harder thing to promise, Marice," he said. "One never knows

what life and fate may demand of one. My work might call me back here."

"Yes, yes; that is true," she said peevishly. "The main thing is that

you will never expect me to come back. But, of course, if you are

blind, it will not be much use your coming either."

The blow was unexpected, but he did not flinch.

She was the first person who had taken such a probability for granted;

but he had long faced the contingency himself.

"If I am to be blind, we must reconstruct plans and promises, Marice.

They are made, as far as I am concerned, conditionally."

"No; no conditions!" she cried feverishly. "I am going to marry you,

whether your eyes recover or not. Promise me you won't draw back, if

the worst comes?"

She could not bear to lose him--this one man in all the world who would

still think her beautiful. All her soul which was her vanity cried out

passionately to him.

"Of course I will promise you, dear, if you think it good enough," he

said, "if you still want me and think a blind man can make you happy."

"Yes; I want you blind," she answered strangely. "You can make me very

happy." Then she reached for the bell-button and pressed it. Her

nerves were giving out, and she needed to be alone. But the future was

arranged for now, and she could rest. She made a subtle sign to the

entering nurse, and Druro never guessed that he was being evicted by

any one but the latter in her professional capacity. To be deceived is

doubtless part of the terrible fate of the blind.

She had succeeded in deceiving Druro in more than this. Confirmed now

in the belief that he was necessary to her happiness and that to fulfil

his promises to her was the only way of honour, he knew that he must

thrust the thought of Gay out of his mind for ever. Even in the grey

misery of that decision, he could still feel a glow of gratitude toward

the woman who loved him enough to face the future with a blind man.

Because his mind was a jumble of emotions fermented by the humility

born of sitting in darkness and affliction, for many days he spoke a

little of it to Tryon, who came, as was now his custom, to help pass

away the evening. So Tryon was the first person in Wankelo to hear of

Marice Hading's greatness of heart--and the last person in the world to

believe in it. But he did not say so to Druro. He had long ago sized

up Marice Hading's subtle mind and shallow soul, and it was not very

difficult for him to read this riddle of new-born nobility. Druro and

his rich mine were to pay the price of her lost beauty. What booted it

if he were blind? So much the better for the vanity of a woman who

worshipped her beauty as Mrs. Hading had done. It was certain that,

blind or whole, she meant to hold Druro to his bond, and that she would

eventually make hay with his life, Tryon had not the faintest doubt.

Destruction for Druro--shipwreck for Gay! A woman's cruel, skilful

little hands had crumpled up their happiness like so much waste paper,

and Tryon, with the best will in the world, saw no clear way to save it

from being pitched to the burning. The best he could do, for that

evening at least, was to shake Druro's hand warmly at parting and tell

him that he was a deuced lucky fellow.

Two days later, Sir Charles Tryon arrived, a short, square man with

most unprofessional high spirits and a jolly laugh that filled everyone

with hope. It was late in the afternoon when he got to Wankelo, and,

after a cursory test of Druro's eyes, he announced himself unable to

give a decisive verdict until after a more complete examination the

following day. He then departed to his brother's house for dinner and

a good night's rest after his long journey.

No sooner had Dick tucked him safely away than he was back again at the

hospital, for he had a very shrewd notion of the brand of misery Druro,

condemned to a night's suspense, would be suffering. And he guessed

right. Emma Guthrie, just arrived, was in the act of "cheering him up"

with an account of the mine's output from the monthly clean-up that day.

"How many ounces?" asked Druro indifferently. The prosperity of the

mine bothered him far less than the fate of his eyes, for he knew

himself to be one of those men who can always find gold. If one mine

gave out, there were plenty of others.

"Five hundred, as usual," said Guthrie jubilantly. "Here it is--feel

it; weigh it."

From a sagging coat pocket he abstracted what might, from its size and

shape, have been a bar of soap but for the yellow shine of it, and

placed it in Druro's right hand. The latter lifted it with a weighing

gesture for a moment and handed it back.

"That's all right."

"All right! I should say!" declaimed the bright and bragful Emma.

"Two thousand of the best there, all gay and golden! I tell you,

Lundi, we've got a peach. And she hasn't done her best by a long

chalk. She's only beginning. You buck up and get your eyes well, my

boy, and come and see for yourself." He began to hold forth in

technical terms that were Greek to Tryon concerning stopes, cross-cuts,

foot-walls, stamps, and drills. Every moment his voice grew gayer and

more ecstatic. He seemed drunk with success and unable to contain his

bubbling, rapturous optimism, and that Druro sat brooding with the

sinister silence of a volcano that might, at any instant, burst into

violent eruption did not appear to disturb him. Fortunately, some

other men came in and relieved the situation; when Guthrie took his

leave, a few moments later, Tryon made a point of accompanying him to

the gate. He was getting as sick as Druro of Emma's perpetual gaiety

and came out with the distinct intention of saying so as rudely as

possible.

"What do you mean by bringing your devilish good spirits here? Have

you no bowels? Kindly chuck it for once and for all."

Guthrie, squatting on his haunches, feeling his bicycle tyres, turned

up to him a face grown suddenly rutted and haggard as a Japanese

gargoyle.

"That drum-and-fife band is only a bluff, Dick," he said quietly. "The

Leopard is G. I., and if that boy loses his eyes as well, neither of us

will ever climb out of the soup again."

Tryon came out of the gate and stared at him interestedly.

"What do you mean? How can the Leopard----"

"I mean that the reef is gone--for good, this time."

"The reef gone?" reiterated Tryon stupidly. "Why--good Lord, I thought

you'd found it richer and stronger than ever!"

"So we did. But, my boy, mining is the biggest gamble in the world.

It pinched out, sudden as a stroke of apoplexy, a few days after

Lundi's accident. We've got a month's crushing in hand now, and when

that's gone, we'll have to shut down. We're bust!"

"But what about that five-hundred-ounce clean-up you handed him?"

"All bluff! I drew two thousand quid for native wages and threw it

into the melting-pot. That lovely button goes back to the bank

tomorrow. They've got to be bluffed, too, until Lundi's able to stand

the truth."

"I don't know if he'll thank you for it, Emma," said Tryon, at last.

"I don't say he will; I don't say Lundi can't take his physic when he's

got to, as well as any man. But I can reckon he's got an overdose

already. I'll wait."

Tryon stared a while into the shrewd, wizened face, then said

thoughtfully:

"I think you're quite right. There are moments when enough is too

much, and I haven't a doubt but that a little extra bad luck would just

finish what chance he has of seeing again. Keep it up your sleeve

anyway, until we hear my brother's verdict."

"Oh, I'll keep it," said Emma grimly. "Once his bandages are off,

we'll let the hornets buzz, but not before."

"Meantime," remarked Tryon, "if you like to make me a present of the

information, I will promise to use it carefully and for nothing but

Druro's benefit."

Guthrie gave him a long, expressionless glance.

"There are worse things than having your eyes clawed out by a leopard,"

continued Dick enigmatically.

"What worse?"

"You might, for instance, have your heart plucked out by a vulture

while you're lying helpless."

"Poison the carcass!" Emma elegantly advised. "That'll finish the

vulture before it has time to gorge full." And, as he straddled his

battered bicycle, he added a significant remark, which showed that he

very well knew what he was talking about. "Lundi'll always be blind

about women, anyway."

Tryon did not return to Druro's room, but went thoughtfully toward that

wing of the hospital in which he knew the quarters of the young and

pretty matron to be situated. Having found her, he put before her so

urgent and convincing an appeal for an interview with Mrs. Hading that

she went herself to ask that lady to receive him. A clinching factor

was an adroit remark about his brother's interest in Druro's chances.

He guessed that such a remark repeated would bring him into Marice

Hading's presence quicker than anything else, and he was right. Within

five minutes, he was in the softly shaded, violet-scented room where

Druro had groped his way some nights before--the difference being that

he could see that which Druro had mercifully been spared.

The beauty of the woman sitting in the long chair had been torn from

her like a veil behind which she had too long hidden her real self.

Now that she was stripped, a naked thing in the wind, all eyes could

see her deformities and read her cold and arid soul. The furies of

rage and rancour were grabbling at her heart, even as the leopard had

scrabbled on her face. It was not the mere disfigurement of the angry,

purplish scars that twisted her mouth and puckered her cheeks. A

shining spirit, gentle and brave in affliction might have transformed

even these, robbing them of their hideousness. But here was one who

had "thrown down every temple she had built," and whose dark eyes were

empty now of anything except a malign and bitter ruin. It was as

though nothing could longer cover and conceal her cynical dislike of

all things but herself. The face set on the long, ravaged throat, once

so subtly alluring, had turned hawklike and cruel. It seemed

shrivelled, too, and, between the narrow linen bandages she still wore,

it had the cunning malice of some bird of prey peering from a barred

cage.

Tryon looked once, then kept his eyes to his boots. He would have

given much to have fled, and, in truth, he had no stomach for his job.

It seemed to him uncommonly like hitting at some wounded creature

already smitten to death. But it was not for himself he was fighting.

It was for Gay's sweet, upright soul, and the happiness of a man too

good to be thrown to the vultures of a woman's greed and cruelty. That

thought hardened his heart for the task he had in hand.

Marice came to the point at once. It seemed that, with her beauty, she

had lost or discarded the habit of subtle attack.

"What does Sir Charles think of his chances?"

It was Tryon who had to have recourse to subtlety. Juggling with his

brother's professional name was a risky business, and he did not mean

to get on to dangerous ground.

"He can't tell yet--he was afraid to be certain, tonight--is going to

have another go at them tomorrow. But----"

"But?" She leaned forward eagerly. "There is not much hope?"

There was no mistaking her face and voice. It was as he had guessed;

_she did not want Druro to recover_. Tryon had no further qualms.

"_I_ am not going to give up hope, anyway," he said, with that air of

dogged intent which is often founded on hopelessness. She gave a

little sigh and sat back among her cushions, like a woman who has taken

a refreshing drink.

"Dear Druro, it is very sad for him!" said she complacently, and

presently added, "but I shall always see that he is taken care of."

Something in Tryon shuddered, but outwardly he gave no sign, only

looked at her commiseratingly.

"It is that we are thinking of--Guthrie and I. Are you strong enough

physically and well-enough off financially to undertake such a burden?"

She regarded him piercingly, a startled look in her eyes. "Doubtless

you are a rich women--and, of course, no one could doubt your

generosity. Still, a blind man without means of his own----"

"_What?_" She fired the word at him like a pistol-shot.

"He does not know," said Tryon softly. "We are keeping it dark for

some days yet. The two shocks together might----" He paused.

"What--_what_?" she panted at him, like a runner at the end of his last

lap.

"The mine is no good. They are dropping back into it every penny they

ever made, and the reef has pinched out. Guthrie told me this tonight

on his oath." The woman gave a long, sighing breath and lay back

painfully in her chair. But Tryon had a cruel streak in him. He would

not let her rest. "He is a ruined man, and may be a blind man, but,

thank God, he has you to lean on!"

"You are mad!" said she, and burst into a harsh laugh. Tryon's face

was full of grave concern as he rose.

"Shall I send your nurse?"

She pulled herself together sharply.

"Yes, yes; send her--but, before you go, promise me, Mr. Tryon, never

to let Druro know you told me."

("Is it possible that she has so much grace in her?" he pondered.)

"Never!" he promised solemnly. "He shall find out the greatness of

your love for himself."

Like fate, Tryon knew where to rub in the salt. As he went down the

veranda, he heard the same harsh, cruel laugh ringing out, somewhat

like the laugh of a hyena that has missed its prey.

After Sir Charles had gone, Druro sat for a while silent, elbows on the

table, thinking. He had insisted upon getting up as usual, though they

had tried to keep him in bed. He was not going to take it lying down,

he said. So now he sat there, alone, except for Toby, who sat on his

knee and, from time to time, put out a little red tongue and gently

licked his master's ear.

The nurses who came softly in to congratulate him slipped away softlier

still, without speaking. They could understand what it meant to him to

know that he would see the sunshine again, the rose and primrose dawns,

the great purple shadows of night flung across the veld. What they did

not know was that, in spirit, he was looking his last on the land he

loved and seeing down a vista of long years greyer than the veld on the

greyest day of winter. His lips were firmly closed, but they wore a

bluish tinge as he sat there, for he was tasting life colder than ice

and drier than the dust of the desert between his teeth; and the

serpent of remorse and regret was at his heart.

But not for long. Presently he rose and squared his shoulders, like a

man settling his burden for a long march, and said quickly to himself

some words he had once read, he knew not where.

"'A man shall endure such things as the stern women drew off the

spindles for him at his birth.'"

His nurse, who had been waiting in the veranda, hearing his voice, now

came in and greeted him gaily. "Hooray, Mr. Druro! Oh, you don't know

how glad we all are! And the whole town has been here to wish you luck

and joy on the news. But Sir Charles made us drive them all away. He

says you may see no more than two people before you have lunched and

rested, and he has selected the two himself."

"What cheek!" said Druro. "And what a nice soft hand you've got,

nurse!"

"Be off with you now!" laughed the trim Irish nurse. "And how can I

read you the letter I have for you with one hand?"

"Try it wid wan eye instid," said he, putting on a brogue to match her

own. She laughed and escaped, and, later, read the letter, at his wish.

LUNDI DEAR:

I grieve to hurt you, but it is no use pretending. I can never live in

this atrocious Africa, and I feel it would be cruel to tear you away

from a country you love so much. Besides, after deep consideration, I

find that my darling husband's memory is dearer to me than any living

man can be. Forgive me--and farewell.

MARICE.

"She left by the morning's train," said the nurse. "You know she has

been well enough to go for more than a week."

As Lundi did not answer, she went away and left him once more sitting

very still. But with what a different stillness! The whole world

smelled sweet in his nostrils and spoke of freedom. His blood chanted

a paean of praise and hope to the sun and moon and stars. An old cry

of the open surged in him.

"Life is sweet, brother! There is day and night, brother, both sweet

things, sun, moon, and stars, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind

on the heath!"

The voice of Tryon broke in on his communings.

"How do you feel, old man?"

"That you, Dick?" Druro stooped down and felt for Toby once more. "I

feel inclined to run out into the street and throw my hat into the air,

and yell out that I'll fight any one, play poker against any one, and

match my girl and my dog against all comers."

"Indeed! Then I'll leave you, for you're certainly suffering from a

dangerous swagger in the blood."

Tryon's smile had more than a tinge of sadness in it as he turned to

go. This action of his was one of those that smell sweet and blossom

in the dust, but, as yet, he was too near it to savour much more than

its bitterness. The path is narrow and the gate is straight for those

who serve faithfully at Love's high altar. As he went from the room,

he looked with tender eyes at the flower-like girl who had come in with

him and stood now with smiling lips and eyes full of tears looking at

the man and the dog.

"You ought to give him a lecture, Gay. It isn't good for a man to be

so puffed up with pride."

"Gay!" said Druro, standing up and letting Toby down with a rush.

"Yes, Lundi. Dick fetched me. I had to come and tell you how glad----"

She slid a hand into his, and he drew her into his arms and began to

kiss her with those slow, still-lipped kisses that have all the meaning

of life and love behind them.

Toby, having trotted out into the garden, now returned with a large

stone which he had culled as one might gather a bouquet of flowers to

present upon a triumphant occasion.

Rosanne Ozanne

PART I

Although the Ozannes kept an hotel in Kimberley, they were not of the

class usually associated with hotel-running in rough mining-towns. It

was merely that, on their arrival in the diamond fields, they had

accepted such work as came to their hands, in a place where people like

Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit were washing blue ground for diamonds in

their own claims, and other men, afterward to become world-famous

millionaires, were standing behind counters bartering with natives or

serving drinks to miners.

John Ozanne, the honest but not brilliant son of an English clergyman,

did not disdain to serve behind his own bar, either, when his barman

was sick, and his wife, in servantless days, turned to in the hotel

kitchen and cooked the meals, though such work was far from her taste

and had not been included in her upbringing as a country doctor's

daughter. In fact, the pair of them were of the stuff from which good

colonials are made, and they deserved the luck that gradually came to

them.

In time, the little hotel grew into a large and flourishing concern.

John Ozanne was seen no more in his bar, and his wife retired into the

privacy of her own wing of the building, though her capable hand was

still felt in the hotel management. It was at this period that the

little twin daughters were born to them, adding a fresh note of

sweetness to the harmony that existed between the devoted and

prosperous couple.

They were bonny, healthy children, and very pretty, though not at all

alike--little Rosanne being very dusky, while Rosalie was fair as a

lily. All went well with them until about a year after their birth,

when Rosanne fell ill of a wasting sickness as inexplicable as it was

deadly. Without rhyme or reason that doctors or mother could lay

finger on, the little mite just grew thinner and more peevish day by

day, and visibly faded under their eyes. Every imaginable thing was

tried without result, and, at last, the doctors grown glum and the

mother despairing were obliged to admit themselves beaten by the

mysterious sickness.

Late one afternoon, Mrs. Ozanne, sitting in her bedroom, realized that

the end was near. The child lay on her lap, a mere bundle of skin and

bone, green in colour and scarcely breathing. The doctor had just left

with a sad shake of his head and the conclusive words:

"Only a matter of an hour or so, Mrs. Ozanne. Try and bear up. You

have the other little one left."

But what mother's heart could ever comfort its pain for the loss of one

loved child by thinking of those that are left? Heavy tears fell down

Mrs. Ozanne's cheek on to the small, wasted form. Her trouble seemed

the more poignant in that she had to bear it alone, for her husband was

away on a trip to the old country. She herself was sick, worn to a

shadow from long nursing and watching. But even now there was no

effort, physical or mental, that she would not have made to save the

little life that had just been condemned. Her painful brooding was

broken by the sound of a soft and languorous voice.

"Baby very sick, missis?"

The mother looked up and saw, in the doorway, the new cook who had been

with them about a week, and of whom she knew little save that the woman

was a Malay and named Rachel Bangat. There was nothing strange in her

coming to the mistress's room to offer sympathy. In a South African

household the servants take a vivid interest in all that goes on.

"Yes," said the mother, dully. The woman crept nearer and looked down

on the little face with its deathly green shadows.

"Baby going to die, missis," she said.

Mrs. Ozanne bowed her head. There was silence then. The mother, blind

with tears, thought the woman had gone as quietly as she came, but

presently the voice spoke again, almost caressingly.

"Missis sell baby to me for a farthing; baby not die."

The mother gave a jump, then dashed the tears from her eyes and stared

at the speaker. In the dusky shadows of the doorway the woman, in her

white turban and black-and-gold shawl, seemed suddenly to have assumed

a fateful air. Yet she was an ordinary enough looking Malay, of stout,

even course, build, with a broad, high cheek-boned face that wore the

grave expression of her race. It was only her dark eyes, full of a

sinister melancholy, that differed from any eyes Mrs. Ozanne had ever

seen, making her shiver and clutch the baby to her breast.

"Go away out of here!" she said violently, and the woman went, without

a word. But within half an hour the languorous voice was whispering

once more from the shadow of the doorway.

"Missis sell baby to me for a farthing; baby get well."

The mother, crouching over the baby, straining her ears for its

faltering heart-beats, had no words. In a sort of numb terror she

waved the woman off. It was no more than fifteen minutes later that

the Malay came again; yet it seemed to Mrs. Ozanne that she waited

hours with cracking ear-drums to hear once more the terms of the

strange bargain. This time, the words differed slightly.

"Missis sell baby to me for two years; baby belong all to me; missis no

touch, no speak." In the dark palm she proffered lay a farthing.

"Take it quick, missis; baby dying."

Sophia Ozanne cast one anguished glance at the face of her child, then

gave it up, clutched the farthing and fell fainting to the floor.

An hour later, other servants came to relate that the baby was still

alive and its breathing more regular. In another hour, they reported

it sleeping peacefully. The heart-wrung mother, still weak and

quivering from her collapse, crept through the hotel and came faltering

to the kitchen threshold, but dared not enter. Near the fire, on a

rough bed formed of two chairs and a folded blanket, the child lay

sleeping. Even from the door she could see that its colour was better

and the green shadows gone. The atmosphere of the kitchen was gently

warm. Rachel Bangat, with her back to the door, was busy at the table

cutting up vegetables. Without turning round, she softly addressed the

mother.

"You keep away from here. If you not remember baby my baby for two

years, something happen!"

That was all. But under the languor of the voice lay a dagger-like

menace that struck to the mother's heart.

"Oh, I'll keep the bargain," she whispered fervently. "Only--be kind

to my child, won't you?"

"Malays always kind to children," said Rachel Bangat impassively, and

continued peeling vegetables.

It was true. All Malay women have a passion for children, and consider

themselves afflicted if they have never borne a child. Illegitimate

and unwanted babies will always find a home open to them in the Malay

quarter of any South African town. The mother, comforted in some sort

by the knowledge, stole away--and kept away.

Within two weeks the child was sitting up playing with its toes.

Within a month it was toddling about the kitchen, though the little

sister did not walk until some weeks later. The story got about

Kimberley, much as Mrs. Ozanne tried to keep it secret. For one thing,

the child's extraordinary recovery could not be hidden The doctor's

amazement was not less than that of the friends who had watched the

progress of the child's sickness and awaited its fatal termination.

These, having come to condole, stayed to gape at the news that Rosanne

was better and down in the kitchen with the cook. Later, Mrs. Ozanne's

nurse appeared regularly in the Public Gardens with only one baby,

where once she had perambulated two. Little Rosanne was never seen,

and, indeed, never left the back premises of the hotel except on Sunday

afternoons, when Rachel Bangat arrayed her in gaudy colours and took

her away to the Malay Location. The child's health, instead of

suffering, seemed to thrive under this treatment, and she was twice the

size of her twin sister. Mrs. Ozanne had means of knowing, too, that,

though Rosanne gambolled round in the dust like a little animal all

day, she was well washed at night and put to sleep in a clean bed.

That was some comfort to the poor mother in her wretchedness. She knew

that Kimberley tongues were wagging busily and that, thanks to the

servants, the story had leaked out and was public property. There were

not wanting mothers to condemn her for what they variously termed her

foolishness, ignorant supersitition, and heartlessness. But there were

others who sympathized, saying that she had done well in a bad

situation to trust to the healing gift some Malays are known to possess

together with many other strange powers for good and evil. The doctor

himself, after seeing little Rosanne with a pink flush in her cheeks,

had said to her mother:

"It's a mystery to me--in fact, something very like a miracle. But, as

it turns out, you did quite right to let the woman have the child. I

should certainly advise you to leave it with her for a time."

Even if he had not so advised and had there been no sympathizers, in

the face of all opposition Mrs. Ozanne would have stuck to her bargain.

She knew not what dread fear for her child's safety lay shuddering in

the depths of her heart, but this she knew: that nothing could make her

defy that fear by breaking bond with Rachel Bangat.

Even her husband's anger, when he returned from England, could not make

her contemplate such a step. She had written and told him all about

the matter from beginning to end, describing the gamut of emotions

through which she had passed--anxiety, suffering, terror, and dreadful

relief; and he had sympathized and seemed to understand, even

applauding her action since the sequel appeared so successful.

But, apparently, he had never fully realized the main fact of the

bargain until he returned to find that, while one little daughter was

dainty and sweet under a nursemaid's care, the other, dressed in the

gaudy bandanas and bangles of a Malay child, gambolled in the back yard

or crawled in the kitchen among potato peelings and pumpkin pips.

First aghast, then furious, he brooded over the thing, held back by his

terrified wife from making a move. Then, at the end of three days, he

broke loose.

"It's an outrage!" he averred, and stamped to the back regions with his

wife hanging to his arm trying to stay him. In the kitchen no sign of

Rachel Bangat, but the child was sitting in a small, rough-deal

sugar-box, which served for waste and scraps, using it as a go-cart.

Amidst the debris of vegetable and fruit peelings, she sat gurgling and

banging with a chunk of pumpkin, while the other chubby hand held a

half-eaten apple. John Ozanne caught her up.

"Leave her, John; for God's sake, leave her!" pleaded his wife,

white-faced. At her words a sound came from the scullery, and the cook

bounded into the doorway and stood looking with a dark eye.

"You take my baby?" she asked. Perhaps it was the gentleness of her

tone that made John Ozanne stop to explain that it was not fitting for

an Englishman's child to be dragged up in a kitchen, and that the thing

could not go on any longer.

"I quite understand that you've been very good, my woman, and I shall

see that you are well re----"

"You take her; she be dead in twenty-four hours," said Rachel Bangat

impassively. Her deep languorous voice seemed to stroke its hearers

like a velvety hand, yet had in it some deadly quality. To John

Ozanne, unimaginative man though he was, it was like hearing the click

of a revolver in the hand of an enemy who is a dead shot. His grasp

slackened round the child, and his wife took her from him and set her

back in the box. They went out alone. Never again was an attempt made

to break the two years' compact.

At the end of the allotted time, Mrs. Ozanne returned the farthing to

the Malay, who received it in silence but with a strange and secret

smile. Little Rosanne, healthy and strong, was taken into the bosom of

her family, and John Ozanne, with scant ceremony or sentiment, paid

Rachel Bangat handsomely for her services and dismissed her.

Presumable the Malay Location swallowed her up, for she was seen no

more at the hotel, and the whole strange episode was, to all outward

appearance, finished.

These happenings having been overpast for some fifteen years, many

changes had come, in the meantime, to the Ozanne family. The head of

it--that good citizen, husband, and father, John Ozanne--after amassing

a large fortune, had severed his connection with the hotel and retired

to enjoy the fruits of his industry. Fate, however, had not permitted

him to enjoy them long, for he was badly injured in a carriage accident

and died shortly afterward, leaving everything to his wife and

daughters. The latter, having enjoyed the advantages of education in

England and France, were now returned to their mother's wing, and the

three lived together in a large, cool stone residence which, pleasantly

situated in Belgravia (even then the most fashionable part of

Kimberley), was known as Tiptree House.

Both girls were extremely pretty, with all the bloom and grace of their

eighteen years upon them, and moved in the best society the place

afforded--a society which, if not more cultured, was at least more

alive and interesting than that of the average English country town.

For Kimberley continued to be the place where the most wonderful

diamonds were to be picked out of the earth, as commonly as shells off

the beach of a South Sea Island, and the adventurous and ambitious

still circulated there in great numbers. There was no lack of gaiety

and excitement, and the Ozanne girls joined in all that went on, and

were extremely popular, though in different ways and for different

reasons. Rosalie, blond, with a nature as sunny as her hair, and all

her heart to be read in her frank, blue eyes, was beloved by her

friends for her sympathy and sweetness; while the feelings that Rosanne

excited were more in the nature of admiration and astonishment at her

wit and fascination, and the verve with which she threw herself into

life. She was always in demand for brilliant functions, which she made

the more brilliant by her presence; but, though she had the art of

attracting both men and women, she also possessed a genius for searing

and wounding those who came too close, and she was not able to keep her

friends as Rosalie did. Her dark beauty was touched with something

wild and mysterious that repelled even while it charmed, and her ways

were as subtle and strange as her looks. Indeed, though she lived

under the same roof with her mother and sister, and to all outward

appearance seemed to be one with them in their daily life and

interests, she was really an exile in her own family, and all three

were aware of the fact. Rosalie and Mrs. Ozanne, being single-hearted,

simple people, were in complete accord with one another; but there was

no real intimacy between them and Rosanne, and though they had (for

love of the latter) tried for years to break down the intangible

barrier that existed, all efforts were vain and usually resulted in

pain to themselves. It was as though Rosanne dwelt within the

fortified camp of herself, and only came glancing forth like a black

arrow when she saw an opportunity to deal a wound.

Mrs. Ozanne, in brooding over the matter--as she often did--silently

and sadly, assigned this secret antagonism in Rosanne to the strange

episode of the girl's babyhood, and bitterly blamed the Malay woman for

stealing her child's heart and changing her nature. Sometimes she

actually went so far as to wonder if it would not have been better to

have let Rosanne die than have made the uncanny bargain that had

restored her to health. Once she had even pondered over the

possibility of the Malay having tricked her by exchanging the real

Rosanne for another child, but it was impossible to entertain such an

idea long; Rosanne bore too strong a resemblance to her father's side

of the family, and there were, besides, certain small birthmarks which

no art could have imitated.

Still, indubitably a _something_ existed in Rosanne that was foreign to

her family. And the cruel streak in her character which betrayed

itself in cutting comments, as bright as they were incisive, and tiny

acts of witty malice were incomprehensible to her kindly-natured mother

and sister. Furthermore, her hatred, when it was aroused, seemed to

possess the mysterious quality of a curse. For instance, it appeared

to be enough for her to give one dark glance at someone she intensely

disliked or who had crossed her wishes, for that person to fall sick,

or suffer accident or loss or some unexpected ill. Mrs. Ozanne had

noticed it times out of number; in fact, she secretly kept a sort of

black list of all the things that had happened to people who had been

so unfortunate as to offend Rosanne. At first, it had seemed to the

mother impossible that there could be anything in the thing, but the

evidence had gradually mounted up until now it was almost overwhelming.

Besides, Mrs. Ozanne was not alone in remarking it. Rosalie, too,

knew, and conveyed her knowledge in round-about ways to her mother, for

they would never speak openly of this strangeness in one they dearly

loved. But it was through Rosalie that the mother heard that the same

thing had gone on at school. There, the other girls had

superstitiously but secretly named Rosanne "The Hoodoo Girl," because

to have much to do with her always brought you bad luck, especially if

you fell out with her. In fact, whenever you crossed her in any way,

"something happened," the girls said.

"_Something happen!_" Those had been the Malay cook's words that had

haunted and intimidated Mrs. Ozanne. And that was what it all amounted

to. Rosanne had, in some way, acquired the power of her foster-mother

for making things of an unpleasant nature happen to people she did not

like. Kind-hearted Mrs. Ozanne, with mind always divided between stern

conviction and a wish to deride it, suffered a mental trepidation that

grew daily more unbearable, for what had been serious enough when

Rosanne was younger began to be something perilously sinister now that

she was turning into a woman and her deeper passions and emotions began

to be aroused. In fact, the thing had come home to Mrs. Ozanne with

renewed significance lately, and she was still trembling with

apprehension over several strange happenings.

This was one of them: Pretty Mrs. Valpy, an intimate of the family, and

by way of being one of the only two close friends Rosanne could boast,

had fallen out with the latter at a ball where she was chaperoning the

two girls. From a little misunderstanding about a dance, a serious

quarrel had arisen. Rosanne, considering herself engaged for the

seventh waltz to Major Satchwell, had kept it for him only to find that

Mrs. Valpy, having in error written his name down for the same dance

instead of the next, had kept him to it, with the result that Rosanne

was obliged to "sit it out," a proceeding not at all agreeable to her

as the best dancer in Kimberley. She had been in a fury, and, when the

two came to her at the end of the dance, she did not disguise her

annoyance. Major Satchwell apologized and explained the error away as

best he could, knowing himself in the wrong for having been prevailed

upon by Mrs. Valpy; but the latter aggravated the offence by laughing

merrily over it and saying, with a touch of malice:

"After all, you know, Rosanne, I'm the married woman, and if there

_was_ a doubt I should have the benefit of it before a mere girl.

Besides, I'm sure it did you good to see, for once, what it feels like

to be a wall-flower."

Rosanne gave her a look that quenched her merriment, and, she declared,

made her feel queer all the evening; and when, in the dressing-room

later, she tried to make it up with Rosanne, she was coldly snubbed.

She then angrily remarked that it was the last time she would chaperon

a jealous and bad-tempered girl to a dance, and left the sisters to go

home with another married friend.

The next day her prize Pom, which, because she had no child, she

foolishly adored, disappeared and was never seen again; and a few days

later her husband fell very ill of pneumonia. On the day of the

biggest race-meeting of the season, he was not expected to live, and on

the night of the club ball he had a serious relapse, so that Violet

Valpy, who adored racing and dancing, missed both these important

fixtures. In the meantime, Major Satchwell was thrown from his horse

and broke a leg.

Of course it was foolish, even blasphemous, to point any connection

between Rosanne and these things--Mrs. Ozanne said so to herself ten

times an hour--but, in their procedure, there was such a striking

similarity to all Rosanne's "quarrel-cases," that the poor woman could

not help adding them to the black list. Just as she could not help

observing that, after the three events, Rosanne cheered up wonderfully

and came out of the gloomy abstraction which always enveloped her when

she was suffering from annoyance at the hands of others and left her

when the offence had been mysteriously expiated by the offenders. Mrs.

Ozanne was indeed deeply troubled. The disappearance of the Pom was

bad enough; but, after all, George Valpy had nearly died, while poor

Everard Satchwell would limp for life. It had once been supposed that

he and Rosanne were fond of each other and might make a match of it.

Mrs. Ozanne herself had believed that the girl liked him more than a

little; but evidently this was not so, or--the worried woman did not

finish the thought, even in her own mind, which was now busy with

further problems connected with her beautiful, dark daughter.

Rosanne had always shown a great love for jewels. As a child, coloured

stones were most popular with her, but since she grew up she had

transferred her passion to diamonds, and, though her mother pointed out

that such jewels were not altogether suitable to a young girl, she had

gradually acquired quite a number of them and wore them with

extraordinary keenness of pleasure. Some she had obtained in exchange

for jewels that had been gifts from her mother or birthday presents

from old friends of the family, her devouring passion for the white,

sparkling stones apparently burning up all sentimental values. Even a

string of beautiful pearls--one of two necklaces John Ozanne had

invested his first savings in for his twin daughters--had gone by the

board in exchange for a couple of splendid single-stone rings. An

emerald pendant that had come from Mrs. Ozanne's side of the family,

and been given to Rosanne on her seventeenth birthday, had been parted

with also, to the mother's intense chagrin, Rosanne having thrown it

into a collection of jewels which she exchanged, with an additional sum

of money, for a little neck-circlet of small but very perfect stones

that was the surprise and envy of all her girl friends.

She possessed, also, a fine pendant and several brooches, and was,

moreover, constantly adding to her stock. It was her mother's belief

that most of her generous allowance of pocket-money went in this

direction, and more than once she expostulated with her daughter on the

subject. But, as may have been already guessed, Rosanne was not made

of malleable clay, or the mother's hands of the iron that moulds

destinies. So the strange, dark daughter continued to do as she chose

in the matter of jewels and, indeed, every other matter.

Not the least of the reasons for Mrs. Ozanne's disapproval of her

daughter's jewel transactions was the fact that they took the girl into

all sorts of places and among odd, mean people. She was hand and glove

with every Jew and Gentile diamond-dealer in the place, but she also

knew a number of other dealers of whom reputable dealers took no

cognizance, and who dwelt behind queer, dingy shops whose windows

displayed little, and where business was carried on in some gloomy

inner room. Certainly, Mrs. Ozanne neither guessed at the existence of

such people nor her daughter's acquaintance with them. It was enough

for the poor woman that the sight of Rosanne sauntering in and out of

jeweller's shops, leaning over counters, peering at fine stones or

holding them up to the light, was a well-known one in Kimberley, and

that many people gossiped about the scandal of such proceedings and

blamed Mrs. Ozanne for letting the headstrong girl do these things.

However, it was not the thought of people's criticism on this point

that was now troubling Mrs. Ozanne, but a matter far more disquieting.

She had begun to realize that Rosanne, though she had long since

exchanged away all her earlier jewels for diamonds, was still

increasing her stock of the latter in a way that could not possibly be

accounted for by her dress allowance; for she was fond of clothes, and

her reputation as the best-dressed girl in Kimberley cost heavily. But

even if she had spent the whole year's allowance in lump at the

jewellers', it would not have paid for the beautiful stones she had

lately displayed.

On the night of the club ball, for instance, in a room packed with

pretty women beautifully gowned and jewelled, Rosanne blazed forth, a

radiant figure that put everyone else in the shade. In a particularly

rare golden-red shade of orange tulle, her faultless shoulders quite

bare, her long throat and small dark head superbly held and ablaze with

jewels, she was a vision of fire. She looked like a single flame that

had become detached from some great conflagration and was swaying and

dancing through the world alone. She shone and sparkled and flickered,

and was the cynosure of all eyes. Mrs. Ozanne had never been so proud

of her--and so perturbed. For where had that new diamond spray of

maidenhair fern come from, that shone so gloriously against the glossy

bands and curls of dark hair; and whence the single stone, that, like a

great dewdrop, hung on her breast, suspended by a platinum chain so

fine as to be almost invisible? Other people were asking these

questions also, and once the distracted mother, lingering in a cool

corner of the balcony while her daughters were dancing, heard the voice

of an acquaintance saying acidly:

"What a fool the mother is! She must be ruining herself to buy that

girl diamonds to trick herself out in--like a peacock!"

Rosanne did not look like a peacock at all, but like fire and water

made incarnate. The diamonds she wore seemed as much a part of her

natural element as her hair and eyes and the tinted ivory flesh of her.

Mrs. Ozanne knew it, and so did the speaker, who was also the mother of

three plain daughters. But that did not bring balm to Sophia Ozanne's

heart, or did it comfort her soul that Sir Denis Harlenden, the

distinguished traveller and hunter, after some weeks of apparent

dangling at Rosanne's heels, was now paying such open and unmistakable

court that all other mothers could not but sit up and enviously take

notice. Rosalie, too, it was plain, had a little hook in the heart of

Richard Gardner, a promising young advocate and one of the best matches

in Kimberley. But what booted it to Sophia Ozanne to triumph over

other mothers when her mind was filled with forebodings and unhappy

problems? She tried solving one of these on arriving home after the

ball, but with no very great success.

In the dim-lit hall of Tiptree House--a lofty, pleasant room arranged

as a lounge--they all lingered a few moments. Rosalie, with a dreaming

look in her blue eyes, stood sipping a glass of hot milk. Rosanne had

thrown off her white velvet cloak and flung herself and her crushed

tulle into a great armchair. Mrs. Ozanne, with a cup of chocolate in

her hand, looked old and weary--though in point of years she was still

a young woman.

"Rosanne," she ventured, "a lot of people were remarking on your

diamonds tonight."

"Yes?" said the girl carelessly. Her thoughts seemed elsewhere, and

she did not look happy, in spite of the success that had been hers that

evening.

"Yes; even Dick--" put in Rosalie timidly, then corrected

herself--"even Mr. Gardner noticed them, and rather wondered, I think,

how you came to be wearing such beautiful stones."

Rosanne sat up swiftly.

"Dick Gardner had better mind his own business," she said quickly, "or

he will be sorry. I never liked that man."

Rosalie turned pale. Mrs. Ozanne braced herself to the defence of her

gentle, little, fair daughter.

"But, my dear, it is not only Mr. Gardner; I heard many people saying

things--that I must be ruining myself to buy you such jewels, and

that----"

"Well, you're not, mother, are you?" Rosanne had risen and stood,

smiling her subtle, ironical smile.

"No, dear, of course not; but I feel very uneasy, and I should like to

know----"

"You need never feel uneasy about me, mother. I am well able to take

care of myself and mind my own affairs"--she began to move out of the

room--"and I also know how to deal with interfering people who try to

mind them for me. Don't worry, mother dear, but go to bed. You look

tired."

The door closed behind her. Rosalie threw herself into her mother's

arms.

"Oh, mother, she meant that for Dick!" she cried, and burst into tears.

Mrs. Ozanne, trembling herself, strove to comfort her child.

"Nonsense, darling, she's only cross and tired. She did not mean

anything. Besides, what can--" She faltered and broke off.

"What can't she do?" sobbed Rosalie. "And Dick did, he _did_ say that

everyone was amazed at her diamonds--and so they were."

"But what is all this about Dick, dear?" asked her mother, with a

tender little smile. The subject was changed, as she meant it to be.

"Oh, mummie, we're engaged! I was only waiting for Rosanne to go to

tell you; and I was so happy."

"And you will go on being happy, darling. He is a splendid fellow--and

a good man, too. Nothing shall happen to prevent your being the

happiest pair alive," comforted Mrs. Ozanne, and, with crooning,

motherly words, herded Rosalie to bed. But she herself stayed

sleepless for many hours.

"Rosanne," she said, at lunch the next day, before Rosalie came in, "I

think you ought to know that your sister is engaged to Richard Gardner."

Rosanne started and stared at her mother in silence for a moment. It

even seemed to Mrs. Ozanne that a little of the bright colour left her

cheek.

"It happened last night, and he is coming to see me this afternoon."

Then Rosanne said a queer thing.

"I can't help that." Her face had a brooding, enigmatic look, and she

seemed to be staring at her mother without seeing her. "I'm sorry, but

I can't help it," she repeated slowly.

"Help it!" Mrs. Ozanne's eyes took on a haggard look. "What do you

mean, dear?"

"Nothing," said the girl abruptly, and began to talk about something

else as Rosalie came into the room. No more was said about the

engagement, and Rosanne, after hurrying through her lunch and barely

eating anything, jumped up and hurried away with the announcement that

she was going down to Kitty Drummund's and would not be back to tea.

Kitty Drummund was that other close friend of whom mention has already

been made. A young married woman, her husband was manager of one of

the big compounds belonging to the De Beers Company. A compound is an

enormous yard fenced with corrugated iron, inside which dwell several

hundreds of natives employed down in the mines. These natives are kept

inside the compounds for spells of three to six months, according to

contract, and during that time are not allowed to stir out for any

purpose whatsoever, except to go underground, the shaft-head being in

the enclosure. At the end of their contracts, they are allowed to

return to their kraals, after having been rigorously searched to make

certain that they have no diamonds on them. Scores of white men are

employed in the business of guarding, watching, and searching the

natives, and it was over these men and, indirectly, over the natives,

also, that Leonard Drummund was manager, his job obliging him and his

wife to live far from the fashionable quarter of Kimberley.

Their house, in fact, though outside the compound, was close beside it

and within the grounds of the company, being fenced off from the town

by a high wire fence. The only entrance into this enclosure was an

enormous iron gate through which all friends of the Drummunds or

visitors to the compound had to pass, under the scrutinizing stare of

the man on guard, who had also the right to challenge persons as to

what business took them into the company's grounds. It was thus that

De Beers guarded, and still do guard to this day, the diamond industry

from thieves and pirates, and would-be members of the illicit

diamond-buying trade.

Through this big gate, on the afternoon after the club ball, Rosanne

passed unchallenged, as she was in the habit of doing four or five

times a week, being well known to all the guards as a friend of Mrs.

Drummund's. Many of the guards were acquaintances of hers, also, for,

when they were not in the act of guarding, they were young men about

town, qualifying for bigger positions in the company's employ. The

young fellow on guard that day had danced with Rosanne the night

before, and when she went through she gave him a smile and a friendly

nod. He thought what a lovely, proud little face she had, and that

that fellow Harlenden would be a lucky man to get her, even if he were

a baronet.

Kitty Drummund, among cushions and flowers, behind the green blinds of

her veranda, was waiting in a hammock for her friend. For a very happy

reason she had been obliged to forego gaieties for a time; but her

interest in them remained, and she was dying to hear all about the

ball. Rosanne, however, seemed far from being in her usual vein of

quips and quirks and bright, ironical sayings about the world in

general. Indeed, her conversation was of the most desultory

description, and Kitty gleaned little more news of her than she had

already found in the morning newspaper. Between detached snatches of

talk, the girl fell into long moments of moody silence, and even tea

and cigarettes did not unknit her brow or loose her tongue. Kitty, who

not only expected to be entertained about the dance but had also

excellent reasons for supposing she should hear something very exciting

and important about Rosanne herself, was vaguely troubled and

disappointed. At last she ventured a gentle feeler.

"What about Sir Denis, Nan?"

Rosanne turned a thoughtful gaze on her, and this time a little of her

old mockery glimmered in it.

"He still survives."

"Don't be silly, darling. Len heard this morning at the club--what

everyone is saying--_you_ know--how much he is in love with you, and

that he's sure to propose soon."

"He proposed last night, Kit. We are engaged."

Kitty sat up with dancing eyes.

"And you've been keeping it back all this time! Oh, Rosanne, how could

you? Such a darling man! You are lucky. What a lovely bride you'll

make! You must put it off until I can come. Shall you be married in

bright colours, as you always said you would? And you'll be Lady

Harlenden!"

Kitty was not a snob, but titles didn't often come her way and she

couldn't help taking a whole-hearted delight in the fact that Rosanne

would have one.

"I shall never be Lady Harlenden. I don't mean to marry him, Kit."

"Don't mean to marry him!" Kitty Drummund's lips fell apart and all

the dancing excitement went out of her eyes. She sat and stared. At

last she said wonderingly but with conviction:

"But you care for him, Rosanne!"

"I know," said the other sombrely. "I love him. I love him, and I

can't resist letting him know and taking his love for a little while.

It is so wonderful. Oh, Kit, it is so wonderful! But I can never

marry him. I am too wicked."

"Wicked!"

Kitty stared at her. The lovely dark face had become extraordinarily

distorted and anguished, and seemed actually to age under Kitty's eyes.

The girl put up her hands and pressed them to her temples.

"Oh, I am so unhappy," she muttered, "and I can't tell any one! Mother

and Rosalie don't understand----"

Kitty Drummund was only frivolous on the surface. At core she was

sound, a good woman and a loyal friend. She took the girl's hands.

"Tell _me_, dear," she said gravely; "I'll try and help."

But Rosanne shook her head. The agonized, tortured look passed slowly

from her features, and her face became once more composed, though white

as ashes. Her eyes were dull as burnt-out fires.

"I can't," she said heavily. "I can't tell any one; I don't even

understand it myself."

She fell into silence again, but presently turned to Kit with a stern

look, half commanding, half imploring.

"Swear you'll never tell any one what I've said, Kit--about the

engagement or anything else."

Kitty promised solemnly.

"Not even Len," insisted Rosanne.

"Not even Len. But, oh, Nan, I shall pray that it will all come right!"

"Prayers are no good," said Rosanne, with abrupt bitterness. "God

knows I've given them a fair chance!"

"Darling, one never knows when a prayer may be answered, but it _will_

be--sometime."

Rosanne began suddenly to talk of something else, and the strange

incident ended; for when Rosanne wished to drop a subject she dropped

it, and put her foot on it in such a way that it could not be picked up

again. Besides, this was scarcely one on which Kitty, however much she

desired to help, could press her friend. So she did the wisest thing

she could think of under the circumstances--made the girl go indoors to

the piano and play to her. She knew that Rosanne gave, and was given

to, by music in a way that is only possible to deep, inarticulate

natures such as possess the musician's gift. One had only to listen to

her music, thought Kitty, to know that there were depths in her that no

woman would ever fathom, though a man might, some day. Denis Harlenden

might--if she would let him.

Listening, as she lay in her hammock, to the wild, strange chords flung

from under Rosanne's fingers, and again the plaintive, tender notes

that stole out like wounded birds and fluttered away on broken wings to

the sunlight, Kitty realized that she was an ear-witness to the

interpretation of a soul's pain. Though she had never heard of Jean

Paul Richter's plaint to music--"_Thou speakest to me of those things

which in all my endless days I have found not, nor shall

find_"--something of the torment embodied in those exquisitely bitter

words came to her through Rosanne's music, and she was able to realize

some tithe of what the girl was suffering.

Yet, in the end, Rosanne came out of the drawing-room with the shadows

gone from her face and all the old mocking, glancing life back in it.

If she had given of her torment to music, music, whether for good or

ill, had restored to her the vivid and delicate power which made up her

strangely forceful personality. She was hurriedly drawing on her

gloves.

"I've just remembered the Chilvers' dinner-party tonight and must fly.

You know how Molly Chilvers nags if one is late for her dull old

banquets."

She kissed Kitty, tucked a rug round her, for the cool of evening was

beginning to fall, and went her ways. But as she followed the path

that led through the blue-ground heaps, past the iron compound, and

down to the big gate, she was thinking that if Molly Chilvers' banquets

were dull, the banquet of life was not, and it was the banquet of life

she had put her lips to since she knew and loved Denis Harlenden. She

was to meet him tonight! That thought had power enough to drive out

the little snakes of despair and desolation that had been eating her

heart all day. Let the morrows, with their pain of parting, take care

of themselves! Today, it was good to be alive! That was her

philosophy as she went, light-foot, through the blue-ground heaps.

There was no one about in the big outer enclosure. The monotonous

chanting of Kafir songs came over the iron walls of the compound, the

murmuring of many voices, clank of pot and pan, smell of fires, and the

soft, regular beat of some drumlike native instrument. The day-shift

boys had come up from the mines and were preparing their evening meal.

Passers-by were never supposed to go near to the walls of the compound,

but in one place the path wound within a yard or two of it, and, as it

happened, this spot was just out of eye-reach of the towers which stood

at the four corners of the compound (unless the guards popped their

heads out of the window, which they rarely did). True, the guard at

the gate commanded a full view of the spot, but if he had been looking

when Rosanne reached it, he would only have seen her stooping to tie up

her shoe. He was not looking, however. It was not his custom, even

though it might be his duty, to spy on Mrs. Drummund's visitors,

especially such a visitor as Miss Ozanne. Therefore, no one saw that,

when she had finished tying up her shoe, she leaned forward from the

path and slid out her hand to a tiny mound of earth that lay near the

compound wall--a little mound that might very well have been pushed up

by a mole on the other side--dived her fingers into the earth, and

withdrew a small package wrapped in a dirty rag. Then, swiftly she

thrust something back into the earth, smoothed the little heap level,

rose from tying her shoe, and lightly sauntered on her way. The next

time she had occasion to use her handkerchief she slipped the little

package into her pocket, and so, empty-handed except for her sunshade,

she passed through the big gate.

At seven o'clock that evening, the carriage stood before the door of

Tiptree House, waiting to convey the Ozanne family to the Chilvers'

dinner-party, and Mrs. Ozanne, in black velvet and old lace, waited in

the hall for her two daughters. She sat tapping with her fan upon a

little Benares table before her, turning over in her mind, as she had

been doing all the afternoon, two sentences from a letter Richard

Gardner had sent her. It was an honourable and manly letter, putting

forward his feelings for Rosalie and the fact that he had already asked

her to be his wife. He had meant, he wrote, to call that afternoon on

Mrs. Ozanne and ask verbally for her consent to the engagement, but

something had happened to prevent his coming. However, he hoped, all

being well, to call instead on the following day and put his position

before Mrs. Ozanne.

"_Something has happened!_" "_All being well!_"--those were the

phrases that repeated themselves in Sophia Ozanne's mind over and over

again, rattling like two peas in an empty drum. It was on account of

them that she had refrained from showing Rosalie the note; but her

precaution was wasted, for the girl had also received a letter from her

lover, and, curiously enough, it contained the two sentences which were

so vividly present in Mrs. Ozanne's consciousness. Rosalie had

repeated them to her mother at tea-time, and in the quiet drawing-room,

as the two women sat looking at each other with apprehensive eyes

across the teacups, the seemingly innocent words sounded strangely

pregnant of trouble.

Perhaps that was why Rosalie looked less pretty than usual as she came

in and joined her mother. Her white satin gown gave her a ghostly air,

and the forget-me-not eyes had faint pink rims to them that were

unbecoming. The mother had barely time to make these mental

observations when Rosanne entered. To their surprise, she was still in

her afternoon gown and hat.

"I'm not going to the Chilvers' tonight," she said rapidly. "I've

already sent Molly a message, but please make her my further excuses,

mother."

"But, my dear," exclaimed Mrs. Ozanne reproachfully, "you'll spoil her

party! I think you ought to make an effort, even if you are late."

"Oh, no, mother; I can't. Besides, it was silly of her to give a party

the night after a ball, when everyone is fagged out." She looked the

picture of glowing health as she said it--more like some bright wild

mountain-flower than a girl.

"I'm quite sure you are not so tired as either Rosalie or myself,"

pursued her mother warmly, "and I think that at least you might have

let me know of your decision earlier."

"Yes, mother; I suppose I might, though I don't quite know what

difference it would have made. I beg your pardon, anyway. But I don't

see why you go, either, if you are tired. Rosalie looks dead beat."

She was looking at her sister in an oddly tender way.

"Nothing wrong, I hope, Rosie?" she asked, in a voice so soft and

appealing that Mrs. Ozanne would not have been astonished if the gentle

and easily moved Rosalie had responded by pouring out her heart. But,

instead, she turned away, biting a trembling lip, and put on her wraps

without speaking. Rosanne shrugged her shoulders and went out of the

room in her rapid, silent way.

"Mother, I feel I hate her!" Rosalie muttered, with burning eyes. Her

mother was profoundly shocked.

"Oh, hush, my darling!" she whispered. "You don't know what you are

saying."

Linking her arm in her daughter's, she led the way in silence to the

carriage.

Rosanne, meanwhile, went into the dining-room and had something cold

brought to her there by Maria, the old Cape cook. All the other

servants were out for the evening, as was the rule on the rare

occasions when the family did not entertain. Having dined, the girl

went to her bedroom. The house was of the bungalow type--everything on

the ground floor and no upper stories. All the bedrooms gave on to the

great veranda that ran round the house, but Rosanne's room, being at

the corner, had two French windows, one facing the front garden with a

full view of the tennis-courts and drive, the other, shaded by creepers

and a great tree-fern, looked out to the clustered trees and winding

paths of the side gardens. It was from this door that Rosanne emerged,

half an hour later, dressed in something so subtly night-coloured that

she looked like a grey moth flickering through the trees of the garden.

Softly she let herself out of the little side gate chiefly used by the

servants, and, slipping from shadow to shadow in the dim lights of

quiet back streets, she made her way toward the commercial part of the

town. The main street--that same Du Toit's Pan Road where John

Ozanne's hotel had once flourished--was brightly lighted by large

arc-lamps, but never once did Rosanne come within range of these. It

was in a dingy lane giving off from the big thoroughfare that she at

last stopped before a shop whose shuttered window bore the

legend--"Syke Ravenal: Jeweller." Upon an undistinguished looking side

door she knocked gently, distinctly, three times. It opened as if by

magic, and, like a shadow, she slipped into the darkness behind it.

Harlenden was a little early. Rosanne had said nine o'clock, and it

wanted, perhaps, twenty minutes to the hour when he rang at Tiptree

House and was told by Maria, after a few moments' waiting, that she

could not find Miss Rosanne anywhere.

"Very well; I'll wait here," he said, and, lighting a cigar, sat down

in one of the deep chairs in the dimly lighted veranda.

He was a lean, fair, well-groomed man, with a hard-cut face that told

nothing. You had to make your own deductions from a pair of stone-grey

eyes, a mouth close-lipped without being cold, and a manner not wanting

in indications of arrogance that yet pleased by a certain careless

grace and sureness. As Emerson says, "Do as you please, and you may do

as you please, for, in the end, if you are consistent you will please

the world." Perhaps it was his unfailing habit of following out this

rule that made the world respect Denis Harlenden, even if it were not

pleased with him. Certainly, his people would not be very pleased that

he had chosen a Kimberley hotel-keeper's daughter to carry on the line

of one of the oldest baronetcies in England. But, to speak with truth,

he had given neither his people nor the Kimberley Hotel a thought in

the matter. He loved Rosanne for her wit, her beauty, her courage, a

certain sportsmanlike daring which showed in all her actions, and her

unlikeness to any other woman he had ever known. Moreover, he was

certain that she was the one woman who could keep his love without

boring him. He, like Kitty Drummund, was aware of unfathomed depths in

her, and he was not at all sure that he should like everything he found

in those depths if he ever fathomed them. But, in any case, he

preferred them to shallows. A shallow woman could not have kept Denis

Harlenden's heart for a week--or a day. He also valued surprises, and

Rosanne was full of surprises.

She gave him one now. At the sound of a slight, crushing of gravel

underfoot, he had risen and stepped toward the end of the veranda, and,

standing there beside the great tree-fern, he saw her coming from the

side garden into the faint rays of light from the house. She had her

two hands folded over her breast as though holding something precious

there, and her face was rapt. He had never before seen her in that

odd, sheathlike garment of silver-grey velvet. It gave her, he

thought, with that brooding look on her face and her faintly smiling

mouth, an air of moon-like mysteriousness. Almost as silently as a

moonbeam, she slid into the veranda and would have passed on into her

room but that he put his arms round her and drew her to his heart.

The thought had come over him suddenly to test her courage and coolness

thus, and she did not disappoint him. For a moment he felt her heart

fluttering like a wild bird against his; then she gave a little low

laugh.

"Oh, Denis!" she whispered, against his lips. But when he let her go

he saw that her face was white as milk.

"You _were_ frightened, then?" he questioned.

"No, no; I knew at once it was you--by the scent of your dear coat."

She stroked it with one hand, then made to move away, but he still held

her. What had made her turn white, then, if she were not afraid?

"Let me go away and change my gown," she said, trying to edge away into

the dark.

"But why? I love it. You are like a witch of the moon in it."

"No; it isn't a nice gown," she insisted childishly and still tried to

escape, but he could be obstinate, too.

"I want you to keep it on--and, darling, darling, don't waste any of

the moments we may be together! You told me yourself it could only be

an hour."

She gave a deep sigh. It was true. Moments spent with him were too

precious to waste. There might not be so many more. Still, she did

not abandon her plan to get away from him to her room, if only for a

minute. Gently she resisted his half-movement to lead her to a chair.

He knew, by now, that she was holding something in her left hand which

she did not wish him to see. They remained standing by the tree-fern,

each will striving for supremacy. In the meantime, he went on speaking

in his extraordinary charming voice that had power to make her heart

ache with even the memory of its dear sound.

"Not that I can see why I should only have an hour."

"Mother will be back by ten," she said.

"Why shouldn't she know at once? I don't like this hole-and-corner

business, Rosanne. It is not good enough for you." He kissed her on

the lips, and added, "Or me."

Her face was in shadow, but his was not, and she could see that fires

were lighted in the stone-grey eyes that banished all its masklike

impassivity and brought a wonderful beauty into it. She stood

trembling to his kiss and his voice and the magic of her love for him.

Almost it seemed as if she must do as he wished. But she knew she must

not. If her mother once knew, everyone would have to know, and how

brutal that would be to him when she had to tell him that it must all

come to an end, that she could not and would not marry him!

"You must let me tell her tonight," he was saying, with quiet firmness.

"No, no!" she faltered.

"Yes. And there is another thing; give me your left hand, Rosanne."

She did not give it so much as that he drew it from behind her. It was

tightly clenched. Holding it in his own, he drew her to a chair at

last. She seemed to have no more strength to resist. Then, sitting

down before her, he gently unclenched one finger after another until

what she had hidden there lay sparkling in the night. Almost as if it

had been something evil, he shook it from her palm into her lap, and

taking her hand to his lips, kissed it, then placed upon the third

finger a ring.

"You must only like the jewels I give you, Rosanne," he said, with

unveiled meaning.

They sat there for a long, aching, exquisitely silent moment, her hand

in his, the great square emerald set in a wonderful filigree and

scrolling of gold on her finger, the other thing gleaming with a

baleful light between them. Then the spell broke with the roll of

carriage wheels on the drive. A minute later, Mrs. Ozanne came into

the veranda, Rosalie clinging to her arm. Harlenden was on his feet

instantly, and, before Rosanne could intervene, had proffered his

request to speak to her mother. The latter looked as much dazed by his

words as his presence.

"Not tonight, Sir Denis, please."

"It is rather important," he pleaded, looking very boyish. But she

seemed to notice nothing, and shook her head.

"Some other time--my poor Rosalie is ill--in trouble; she has heard

some distressing news."

He drew back at once, apologizing, and a few minutes later was gone.

Rosanne followed her mother and sister into the house, a strangely

yearning, sorrowful look upon her face. Nothing was said. Rosalie

seemed half-fainting, and her mother, still supporting her, led her to

the door of her bedroom. They disappeared together. Rosanne stared

after them, but made no attempt to help. When they had gone, she sat

still in the hall, waiting. Sometimes she looked at the sparkling

thing in her hand (she had caught it up from her lap when her mother

came into the veranda), a slim, flexible string of diamonds for weaving

in the hair--glowing and glimmering like spurts of flame imprisoned

within frozen dewdrops. Sometimes she looked at the great emerald

Denis Harlenden had set on her finger. But her eyes had something of

the fixed, unseeing stare of the sleep-walker. At last Sophia Ozanne

came back and stood beside her. Neither looked at the other.

"What is it mother?" she asked, in a low voice.

"Richard Gardner is very ill. They hoped it was only a sore throat

that would soon yield to treatment; but he went to a specialist

today--that Doctor Stratton who came out to see the Cape governor's

throat--and he seems to think--" Poor Mrs. Ozanne halted and choked as

if she herself were suffering from an affection of the throat. Rosanne

still sat silent and brooding.

"He seems to think it is something malignant--and, in that case, he and

poor Rosalie--" She broke down.

"Will never be able to marry, mother?" asked Rosanne, not curiously,

only sadly, as if she knew already. Her mother nodded.

"Who told you?"

"Richard's brother was at the Chilvers'; he thought we had better know

at once."

Mrs. Ozanne sat down by the little Benares table and, resting her face

on her hands, began to cry quietly. Rosanne stared before her with an

absorbed stare. She seemed in a very transport of grave thought. When

Mrs. Ozanne at length raised her eyes for an almost furtive glance, she

thought she had never seen anything so tragic as her daughter's face.

Her own was working horribly with misery and some urgent necessity.

"Rosanne!" she stammered at last, afraid of the sound of her own words.

"Couldn't you do something?"

The girl removed her dark gaze from nothingness and transferred it to

her mother's imploring, fearful eyes.

"Oh, mother!" she said quietly. "Oh, mother! I am more unhappy than

you or Rosalie can ever be!"

PART II

Rosalie Ozanne kept her bed for a week or more. She had sunk into a

sort of desolate lethargy of mind and body from which nothing could

rouse her. Her mother was in despair. Richard Gardner was too ill to

come to see the girl he loved, and he did not write. The blow that had

fallen upon his promising and prosperous life seemed to have shattered

his nerves and benumbed his initiative. He had no words of hope for

Rosalie; so he said nothing. Thus, in silence and apart, the two were

suffering their young agony of wrecked hopes and love laid on its bier.

Rosanne, meanwhile, to all appearances, went on her way rejoicing. For

a moment, in the shock of mutual grief over Rosalie's trouble, she and

her mother had drawn nearer in spirit, and strange words of sorrow and

sympathy, as though dragged from her very depths, had come faltering

from the girl's lips. But the next day all trace of such unaccustomed

softness had disappeared. She was her gay, resilient self once more,

bright and hard as the stones she loved to wear, and more reserved and

withdrawn from her family than ever. She avoided both her mother and

sister as much as possible, spending most of her time in her own room

or with her friend Kitty Drummund. As usual, too, she was often out

riding and driving--but no longer with Denis Harlenden. Major

Satchwell had been received back into the favour of her intimate

friendship, and it was he who was always to be found riding or limping

at her side.

Harlenden had not called at Tiptree House since the night when, after

the Chilvers' dinner-party, he had requested an interview with Mrs.

Ozanne and been asked to wait until a more propitious moment. Indeed,

the latter, with mind full of foreboding and sorrow for her stricken

child, had almost forgotten that he had ever made such a request. But

Rosanne had not forgotten. And Rosanne knew why her lover stayed away

from Tiptree House. He had made his reason sufficiently clear in a

letter she had received the morning after their last meeting in the

veranda. The terse sentences of that letter were like himself--cold

and quiet without, but with the burn of hidden fires beneath the

surface.

"Until you are prepared to let the world know how things are with us, I

shall not come again. And another thing, Rosanne: I love you. Your

kiss is on my lips, and no other woman's lips shall ever efface its

exquisite memory You love me, too, I think. But do you love me more

than certain other things? If not, and if you cannot be the Rosanne I

wish you to be, caring only for such things as are worthy of your

beauty and my pride, this love of ours can never come to its perfection

but will have to be rooted out and crushed as a useless, hopeless

thing. When you see this as I do, send for me. I shall not be long in

coming."

Curiously enigmatic words if read by any but the eyes for which they

were intended. But Rosanne knew what they meant, and read them with

her teeth dug into her lip and cheeks pale as a bone. The first time

she read them she burst into a furious, ringing laugh, and crushing the

letter into a ball, flung it into the waste-paper basket and went out.

That was the afternoon on which she renewed her friendship with Everard

Satchwell. But when she came home she sought the waste-paper basket,

and taking out the letter, uncrumpled it and read it again. Thereafter

she read it many times. Sometimes she went to bed with it crushed to

her breast. But she never answered it. Instead, she wrote to Everard

Satchwell and completed the work, already begun, of beguiling him back

into her life just as he was beginning to hope he could do without her.

One day, when she was out riding with him, they met Harlenden riding

alone. He had a moody, lonely look that wrenched at her heart for a

moment until she saw the civilly indifferent smile with which he

returned her half-appealing glance and Satchwell's cheery greeting. As

their eyes met, his were so empty of what she knew they could contain

for her that her heart turned cold in her breast. For the first time,

the well-bred impassivity of his face irked and infuriated her. She

doubted, almost hated him. She could have struck him with her

riding-whip because he gave no sign of the hurt she had dealt him, but,

instead, her face grew almost as smilingly masklike as his own; only

when she got home, within the refuge of her bedroom walls, did it

change and become distorted with pain and rage, its beauty marred and

blotted out with tears.

That he should ride coolly by and give no sign, while _her_ heart ached

as if a knife were in it, while she drained to the dregs the cup of

lonely love! That was bitter. But bitterer still the knowledge that

within herself lay the reason of their separation, as well as the power

to end it. She could bring him back this very hour if she wished, was

her thought. Yet, could she? Were not those other bonds that held her

soul in slavery stronger than herself--stronger (as he had suggested in

his letter) than her love for Denis Harlenden?

Miserably, her face lifeless and pale as the face of one who has lain

among the ashes of renouncement and repentance, she rose from the bed

where she had flung herself weeping, and creeping to an old-fashioned

oak bureau of heavy make, sat down before it and began to unlock its

many drawers and take therefrom a number of little jewel-cases. One by

one she opened these and spread before her the radiant, sparkling

things they contained with their myriad points of light and dancing

colour. She ran the things through her fingers and bathed her hands in

them like water. Then she curved her palms into a cup and held them

filled to the brim with such a sparkling draught as only a god could

drink--a draught with fire and ice in it, blood and crystal water,

purity and evil. The roses of life and the blue flowers of death were

all intermingled and reflected in that magic draught of frozen fire and

liquid crystal. As the girl gazed into it, colour came back to her

pale face, and her eyes caught and returned the flashing beams of

light. It almost seemed as if she and the stones, able to communicate,

were exchanging the signals of some secret code.

One jewel was more beautiful than all the rest, the lovely, flexible

chain of stones she had been holding to her breast that night when

Harlenden surprised her coming from the garden into the veranda--the

thing he had shaken from her hand into her lap as if it had been a

toad. She remembered Harlenden, now, as she gazed into the iridescent

shapes of light, seeming to see in their brilliant, shallow depths

worlds of romance that every-day life knew not of. At last she caught

the thing up and kissed it burningly, then pressed it against her heart

as if it possessed some quality of spikenard to ease the pain she still

felt aching there. The sound of the dinner-gong shook her from her

strange dreams, and hastily, yet with a sort of lingering regret, she

began to gather up the jewels and lay them once more into their downy

nests of white velvet. Her fingers caressed and her eyes embraced

every single stone as she laid it away.

"I must get some more," she murmured feverishly to herself; "I must get

some more--soon!"

She had forgotten Denis Harlenden now. Her lips took on a hungry, arid

line, and her eyes were suddenly hard and more brilliant than the

stones she handled. The lust of diamonds, which is one of the greatest

and most terrible of all the lusts, had got her in its scorpion-claws

and was squeezing love from her heart and beauty from her soul.

"Rosanne, your sister is worse," her mother said, at dinner. They had

reached dessert, but these were the first words that had passed between

them. Rosanne's shoulders moved with the suggestion of a shrug.

"I think she gives way," she remarked coldly. "She could shake off

that illness with the exercise of a little self-control."

"It is easy to talk like that when you are not the sufferer, dear. You

forget that her whole heart is wrapped up in Dick. I believe that if

he dies, she will--." The mother's words ended in something very like

a sob. She looked utterly worn out and wretched. Her eyes wistfully

searched Rosanne's, but the latter's mood appeared to be one of

complete _sang-froid_.

"You always look on the worst side of things, mother," she said calmly.

"If Dick dies, and I daresay he will--cancer of the throat is nearly

always fatal, I believe--Rosalie will get over it in time and marry

some other man."

"Rosanne, I never thought you could be so heartless!"

"Nonsense, mother; it isn't heartlessness but common sense, and I think

you ought not to encourage Rosalie by being sympathetic. A little

bracing brutality is what she needs to pull her out of her misery."

Mrs. Ozanne rose, her eyes shining with anger as well as tears.

"I forbid you to speak to me of your unhappy sister unless you can

speak kindly," she said, and added harshly; "I sometimes think,

Rosanne, that you are either not my child or that that Malay woman

bewitched and cast some evil spell over you when you were a baby."

Rosanne looked at her with musing eyes.

"I have sometimes thought so myself," she said slowly, "and that,

instead of you reproaching me, it is I who have the right to reproach

you for bartering me away to witchcraft rather than letting me die an

innocent little child."

Sophia Ozanne's lips fell apart, and the colour died slowly out of her

handsome, wholesome-looking face. She said nothing while she stood

there gazing for a long minute at her daughter; but her breath came

laboriously, and she held her hand over her heart as if she had

received a blow there. At last, in silence, she walked heavily from

the room.

Rosanne helped herself daintily to fruit salad, but when she had it on

her plate she did nothing but stare at it. After a few moments she

rang the bell and sent out a message to the stables that she would

require the carriage for an hour.

"And tell my mother, if she asks, that I have gone to Mrs. Drummund's,"

she directed old Maria, as she went away to her room to put on a hat

and wrap.

"It is pretty awful at home now," she complained to Kitty Drummund,

some twenty minutes later. "The whole house is wrapped in gloom

because Dick Gardner has a sore throat. One might as well live in a

mausoleum."

"Dearest, it is a little more than a sore throat, isn't it? Len saw

Tommy Gardner today, and he says Dick is in awful pain and can't speak.

They are sending him away to the Cape tonight, as a last hope. Doctor

Raymond, there, is supposed to be wonderfully clever with affections of

the throat, though I must say I don't believe it will be much good,

since Stratton has condemned him."

"Oh, talk about something else, Kit, for heaven's sake!" cried Rosanne,

with a sudden access of desperate irritation. "I can't bear any more

Dick Gardner."

Kitty stroked the hair and bare shoulders of the girl sitting on the

floor beside her.

"I know you're not really heartless, Nan, but you do sound so

sometimes. I expect all this trouble at home is on your nerves a

little bit. Tell me, how are your own affairs, darling? Is the

engagement still going on?"

"No; the engagement is finished. I told you I never meant to marry

him."

"I think you are making an awful mistake, Nan. He's the only man for

you--the only man who can----"

"Can what?" asked Rosanne, with fierce moodiness. "Save my soul alive?"

"How strange! Those were the very words I was going to use, though I

don't know why. They just came into my head."

"Everyone seems to be hitting the right nail on the head tonight,"

commented Rosanne dryly. "First, my mother; now, you. I wonder who'll

be the third. All good things run in threes, don't they?"

Kitty knew better than to try to cope with her in that mood, so she

remained silent until Rosanne rose and caught up her hat.

"Oh, don't go yet, darling! Do stay and see Len. He had to go out

directly after dinner, but he promised not to be long. Fancy! They're

having such excitement up at the compound. But I don't know whether I

ought to tell you, though," she finished doubtfully.

"Oh, yes, do!" said Rosanne, wearily ironical. "Do tell me something

that will make life seem less of an atrocious joke than it

is--especially if you oughtn't to tell."

"Well, we're not supposed to breathe anything like this outside the

compound walls, you know. Len told me not to mention it to a soul; but

I don't expect he meant to include you, for, of course, you are all

right."

"Of course!" Rosanne smiled mockingly at herself in the mirror before

which she was arranging her hair preparatory to posing her hat upon it.

"Well, my dear, just think! They've discovered a Kafir boy in the

compound who has been stealing thousands of pounds' worth of diamonds

for months, and passing them to someone outside. They caught him in

the act this afternoon."

"How frightfully exciting!" Rosanne had put her hat on now, but was

still manoeuvring to get it at exactly the correct angle over her right

eye. "How did he do it?"

"He made a little tunnel from under his sleeping-bunk to the outside of

the compound wall, about a yard and a half long, and through that he

would push a parcel of diamonds by means of a stick with a flat piece

of tin at the end of it, something like a little rake and exactly the

same length as the tunnel. He always pushed a little heap of earth

through first, so as to cover the diamonds up from any eyes but those

of his confederate outside. When the confederate had removed the

diamonds, he pushed back the earth against the tin rake, which the boy

always left in place until he had another packet of diamonds ready to

put through. In this way the hole was never exposed, except during the

few moments, once a week, when the boy was putting in a fresh packet."

"But how awfully thrilling!" exclaimed Rosanne.

"Yes; isn't it? What they want to do now is to catch the confederate

who is, of course, the real culprit, for encouraging an ignorant Kafir

to steal."

"Who could it possibly be?"

"Goodness knows! Such heaps of people come inside this outer compound,

tradespeople, servants with messages, and so on. But just think of it,

Nan! Thousands of pounds' worth, and the Kafir boy only got ten pounds

for each packet he pushed through."

"Well, what would a Kafir do with thousands of pounds, anyway?" said

Rosanne, laughing irrelevantly. "I think ten pounds was quite enough."

"That's true--too much for the wretch, indeed! However, he has

confessed and told everything he could to help our people to trap the

other wretch. Unfortunately, that is not very much."

"No?"

"No; he says he has never seen the man who fetches the diamonds. The

only one he has ever seen was a man he is not able to describe because

he is so ordinary-looking, who came to his kraal in Basutoland about

seven months ago, and made the whole plan with him to come and work on

contracts of three months at a time as a compound-boy, steal as many

diamonds as he could, and pass them out in the way I have described.

Each parcel was to cost ten pounds and to contain no less than ten

diamonds. No money passed between them, but every time a parcel was

put through the tunnel, the confederate on the other side put a blue

bead in its place among the sand. The boy found the bead and kept it

as a receipt, and when he came out at the end of every three months'

contract he wore a bracelet of blue beads on his wrist. Naturally, the

authorities didn't take any notice of this when they searched him, for

nearly all Kafirs wear beads of some kind. These beads were quite a

common kind to look at; only when they were examined carefully were

they found to have been passed through some chemical process which dyed

the inside a peculiar mauve colour, making it impossible for the Kafir

to cheat by adding ordinary blue beads (of which there are plenty for

sale in the compound) to his little bunch of 'receipts.'"

"How clever!" said Rosanne. "And how are they going to catch the

confederate? Put a trap-parcel, I suppose, and pounce on him when he

comes to fetch it?"

She had seated herself again, opposite Kitty, her arms resting on the

back of the chair, her face vivid with interest.

"Cleverer than that," announced Kitty. "They are going to put the trap

and watch who fetches it. But they won't pounce on him; they mean to

follow him up and arrest the whole gang."

"Gang?"

"Len says there's sure to be a gang of them, and for the sake of

getting them all, parcel after parcel of stones will be put through the

tunnel, if necessary, until every one of them is traced and arrested."

"Rather risky for the diamonds, I should think!"

"They'll only put inferior ones in. Besides, the Kafir boy's contract

is up in a week's time, and if all the gang aren't caught by then,

they're going to let the boy go out and meet his confederate to deliver

his beads, and then the arrest will be made."

"Surely the Kafir was able to describe him, if he had been in the habit

of meeting him every three months?"

"He says he was a young white boy, very thin, who wears a mask and an

overcoat. They have met twice at night, in an old unused house in the

Malay compound, the other side of Kimberley. Can you imagine any one

running such awful risks for the sake of diamonds, Nan? But Len says

it goes on all the time--this illicit diamond-buying business--and the

company loses thousands of pounds every year and is hardly ever able to

catch the thieves. They're as clever as paint! They have to be, for

if they are caught it means ten to twenty years' imprisonment for them,

as they know. Mustn't it be awful to live in such a state of risk and

uncertainty, never knowing when you're going to be found out, for, of

course, there are plenty of detectives on the watch for illicit buying

all the time?"

"Awful--yes, but terribly exciting," Rosanne said musingly. "Don't you

think so?" she added quickly, and began to pull on her gloves.

"Ah, don't go, yet!" cried Kitty. "Len will be dreadfully disappointed

to find you gone."

"Tell him you told me the story," laughed Rosanne. "That will cheer

him up."

"I don't think I shall," said Kitty soberly. "I'm afraid he'd be

awfully mad with me, after all, even though it is only you I've told.

He'll say women can't keep things to themselves, and that you're sure

to tell someone else, and so the whole thing will get about."

"You needn't worry, dear. It will never get about through me," said

Rosanne quietly, and, kissing Kitty good-night, she went her ways.

As she passed through the brightly lit outer compound, stepping briskly

toward the big gate, she was aware of more than one lurking shadow

behind the blue-ground heaps. Also, it seemed to her that various

guards were more alert than usual in their guardhouses. But she gave

no faintest sign of observing these things, greeted the guard at the

gate pleasantly, and, passing out to the street, stepped into the

waiting carriage and was driven home. It wanted a few minutes to

midnight when she stole from the veranda door of her room once more,

dressed in her dim, straight gown of moonlight velvet with a swathe of

colourless veil about her head and, sliding softly through the garden,

went out into the quiet streets of the town until she came, at last, to

a little indistinguished door next to a jeweller's window, whereon was

neatly inscribed the name, "Syke Ravenal." On knocking gently three

times, the door opened mechanically to admit her. Inside all was dark;

but a few paces down a passage brought her to a door that opened into a

small but brightly lighted room. An elderly man was seated at a table

engaged in beautifully illuminating a parchment manuscript. This was

Syke Ravenal.

"You are very late, my child," he said, in a gently benevolent tone.

His voice was rich and sonorous.

"It was not safe to come before."

"Safe?" His dark, hawk-like face did not change, but there was a sound

in his voice like the clank of broken iron.

"They've caught Hiangeli," she said.

"Ah!" He carefully folded the manuscript between two protecting sheets

of blotting-paper and placed it in the drawer of his table. His hands

shook as if with ague, but his voice was as perfectly composed as his

face when he spoke again.

"Tell me all about it, my child."

"They got him in the compound today, as he was putting the parcel

through. He has confessed as much as he knows about your son going to

the kraal, and the blue beads, and the old house in the Malay compound

where he was paid. They have now set a trap-parcel of stones and are

sitting in wait to catch the confederate." She sank down in a chair

opposite to him and leaned her elbows on the table. "To catch me," she

said slowly.

He looked at her keenly. Her face was deadly pale, but there was no

trace of fear in it. Whatever Rosanne Ozanne may have been, she was no

coward. Neither was the man opposite her.

"Ah! They have no inkling, of course, that it was you who met Hiangeli

and paid him?"

"No; he was not able to tell them any more than that it was a white

boy." She added, with the ghost of a smile, "A thin, white boy, in a

mask and an overcoat."

"Well, that's all right. They won't catch you, and they won't catch

me, and Saul is safe in Amsterdam. Luck is on our side, as she always

is on the side of good players. Hiangeli must foot the bill, because

he played badly."

Rosanne sat listening. It was plain that Hiangeli's fate was a matter

of indifference to her, but some storm was brewing behind her

smouldering eyes. Ravenal went on calmly:

"It's been a good game while it lasted. The pity is that it must come

to an end."

Then the storm broke forth.

"But it must not come to an end!" she burst out violently. "I can't

live without it!"

The man looked at her reflectively.

"You're a great sport. I've never known a woman with finer nerve.

But, just the same, the game has got to come to an end."

"Game! You don't understand. It is meat and drink to me. I _must_

have diamonds." She sounded like a woman pleading for some drug to

deaden pain, memory, and conscience. Her voice was wild; she put out

her hands to him in an imploring gesture. "I have given up everything

for them--everything!"

He shook his head.

"We can't do any more of it," he said inflexibly. "Not for a year, at

the outside."

Her hands fell on the table. She shivered as though she already felt

cold and hunger.

"Suffer torment for a year?" she muttered. "It is impossible. I

can't. I have nothing else. I've sacrificed everything to it--_duty,

friendship, love_!" She leaned her head in her hands, and Ravenal did

not hear the last words.

"Pull yourself together, my child. It is not like you to give way like

this. Listen: Go home now and sit tight. Nerve and a quiet going

about your ways are what are needed for the next few weeks. Don't come

near me unless you have anything important to communicate; then come in

the ordinary way to the shop with some jewel to be mended. But

remember: There is no possible channel through which they can connect

either of us with Hiangeli, and nothing in the world to fear."

"It is not fear I feel," she said dully.

"I know. It is disappointment. You are broken-hearted because the

black diamonds cannot be handed over to you."

She did not speak, but if ever a woman's face betrayed hunger and

passionate longing, hers did at that moment. All her beauty was gone.

There was nothing but a livid mask with two burning eyes. A pitying

look crossed Ravenal's face. He was not an unkindly man.

"Poor child," he said gently, "it's hard on you!" For a moment he

seemed to hesitate, then, coming to a swift decision, rose and went

over to a safe embedded in the wall, and unnoticeable by reason of a

piece of Oriental embroidery pinned above it and a chair standing

carelessly before it. Unlocking it, he brought to the table a small

jewel-case.

"I'll tell you what I'll do. I can't let you have it for good, because

it's not earned yet. Twenty more rough stones are wanted from you

before this is yours. That was the bargain. But, considering all the

circumstances, I'll _lend_ it to you for a while."

Before he had finished speaking she had seized the case from his hands

and pressed it open. A magnificent pendant gleamed up at her with all

the smoky, mysterious beauty of black diamonds.

"I know I can trust you with it, for I have trusted you with more than

that. My life is in your hands, just as much as yours is in mine. So

keep the thing, and finish paying for it when you can. If we're never

able to get any more rough diamonds from the mine, you'll have to pay

in money."

She hardly seemed to hear, so wrapped was she in the contemplation of

her new treasure, brooding and crooning over it like a mother with a

child. He watched her for a moment, then rose and fetched the grey

veil she had cast off on entering.

"Come now, my child; it is late, and you must be gone. Be careful. I

know I need not remind you of the oath between us three."

"Silence--and suicide, if necessary," she murmured mechanically. She

had taken the jewel from its case and was threading it on a chain round

her throat, "Death rather than betray the other two."

"That's it," said the other, with cheerful firmness. "Now, good-night."

He lowered the lights and opened the door of the room. She passed into

the dark passage, and he returned to the table and pressed a button

which opened the front door. When he heard it softly close, he knew

that she was out of the house and on her way home.

But her adventures were not yet over. Before she had gone very far she

was aware of being followed. A mirror in a shop window reflected, afar

off, the silhouette of the only other person besides herself in the now

silent street--a tall man in a slouch hat. Apparently he had on shoes

as light as her own, for his feet made no more noise than hers, though

her fine ear detected the steady beat of them behind her. For the

first time, she knew terror. Supposing it were a detective who had

tracked her from Syke Ravenal's door, and was now waiting to arrest her

as she entered her own home! She realized that her courage had lain in

the knowledge of absolute security, for now, at the menace of

discovery, her heart was paralyzed with fright and she could scarcely

breathe. Instinct told her to run, but acquired self-control kept her

from this madness, and, by a great effort, she continued walking

quietly as before. Gradually her nerve returned. She determined, by

feint, to discover whether the man were really following her or if his

presence were due to accident. Having now arrived at the residential

part of the town, where every house stood back from the road and was

sheltered by a garden, she coolly opened a gate at random and walked

boldly in. The man was still some way behind, and she had ample time

to pass through the garden and reach the veranda before he drew near.

It was a house strange to her, and she had not the faintest idea who

lived there. All the windows and doors were closed and shuttered, but

light showed through a fanlight over the hall door. The veranda,

blinded by heavy green mats, contained the usual array of chairs, and

she sank down on one, her heart beating like a drum, her ears strained

to hear her pursuer pass. Instead, to her horror, she heard the gate

briskly unlatched and footsteps on the path. Terrified by this

unexpected move, and sure, now, that the end had come, she sprang to

her feet and stood waiting like a straight, grey ghost for the man to

enter the veranda. The light above the hall door fell full on him, and

it is hard to say whether dismay or horror were strongest in her when

she recognized Harlenden.

"Denis!" she stammered.

"Why are you here, Rosanne?" he asked quietly. "Do you need me?"

Astonishment kept her dumb for a moment, then, with a realization of

the position, came anger.

"How dare you follow me?" she exclaimed, in a low, tense voice.

"I live in this house."

"_You live here?_" she faltered, and sat down suddenly, trembling from

head to foot.

"Yes; and I have just returned from the club."

"Then it was _not_ you following me?"

At that she sprang up and threw herself into his arms in a frenzy of

fear.

"Who was it, then? Oh, Denis, Denis, save me; take me into your

house--hide me!"

"Hush!" he said gently, and, keeping a supporting arm about her, guided

her round the veranda, took a key out of his pocket, and let her and

himself in by a side door. He closed and locked the door behind them,

put her into a chair, then examined the window to make sure it was

closed as well as shuttered. It was a man's sitting-room, full of the

scent of leather and tobacco. Going to a spirit-stand on the table he

poured out some brandy.

"Drink this," he said, in the same firm tone he had used all along, and

mechanically she obeyed him.

"Where are we?" she murmured. "Whose house is this? I thought you

lived at the club?"

"So I did until last week, when this house was lent me. Don't be

afraid. The servants are all in bed, and there is no one about. You

are much safer here than roaming about the streets at one in the

morning."

"Then you _were_ following me?"

"Certainly I was following you. I saw you come out of Syke Ravenal's

shop and I walked behind you, but only because your way and mine

happened to be in the same direction."

She passed her hand over her eyes with a hopeless gesture. It seemed

as though this endless day of terrors and surprises would never be

done, and she was weary, weary. He sat regarding her with grave eyes.

She looked like a little, tired, unhappy child, and his heart was sick

with longing to gather her in his arms and comfort her and take her

sorrows on himself. But he knew that there were things beyond his help

here, unless she gave him her full confidence and cast her burdens into

his hands.

"Rosanne," he said, at last, "I ask you to trust me."

She looked at him with wretched eyes and a mouth tipped at the corners

as though she would weep if she could. In truth, the enchantment of

this man's love and her love for him was on her again, and the poignant

torment of it was almost too exquisite to bear. His voice stole

through her senses like the music of an old dream. His lean, strong

frame, the stone-grey eyes, and close-lipped mouth all spoke of that

power in a man which means safety to the woman he loves. Safety! Only

such a storm-petrel as Rosanne Ozanne, weary, with wings beaten and

torn by winds whose fateful forces she herself did not understand,

could realize the full allure of that word. She felt like a sailor

drowning in a wild sea, within sight of the fair land he never would

reach. That fair land of safety was not for her feet, that had

wandered down such dark and shameful paths. But, oh, how the birds

sang on that sweet shore! How cool were the green pastures! Small

wonder that her face wore the tortured misery of a little child. Denis

Harlenden's heart turned to water at the sight of it, and the blood

thrummed in his veins with the ache to crush her to his breast and keep

her there against the world and against herself, spite of all the

unfathomed things in her which estranged him. But he was strong enough

to refrain from even touching her hands. Only his voice he could not

stay from its caresses.

"Is not love enough for you, Rosanne?"

She trembled under it like leaves in the wind and lifted her eyes to

his. They looked long into each other's souls through those windows

which can wear so many veils to hide the truth. But, in that moment,

the veils were lifted, and both saw Truth in all her naked terror and

beauty. What he saw scorched and repelled but did not daunt him;

instead, a nobler love, chivalrous and pitiful, was born of the sight.

And she saw that love, and knew it great enough to clothe her even if

she came to him stripped of fair repute and the world's honours.

"Yes; it is enough," she said brokenly, and cast a thing she wore about

her neck to the floor. Then, suddenly, she collapsed in her chair and

fell into a fit of dry weeping. Long, bitter sobs shook her frame and

seemed to tear their way out of her body. She was like a woman

wrenched upon the rack. Harlenden could do nothing but stand and wait,

his own face twisted with pain, until the storm was past. Gradually it

died away, with longer and longer intervals between the shuddering

sighs. At last, she uncovered her face, bleached and ravaged by the

tearless storm, yet wearing a gentler beauty than ever it had known,

and rose trembling to her feet.

"Take me home, Denis," she whispered. He wrapped her veil about her

and she felt the thrill of his hands upon her, but he did not kiss her.

They had come closer to each other than any kiss could bring them.

Just as they were passing from the room, she remembered something and

stepped back.

"I must touch that vile thing again," she said, "because it does not

belong to me and must go back to where it came from." She stooped and

picked the black, glittering object from the floor.

A spasm contracted Harlenden's face, but he asked no question.

Silently they went from the house and into the dark streets. There was

no moon. At her gate, he stooped and kissed her lips.

Mrs. Ozanne got up the morning of the following day with the urgent

feeling on her of something to be done. It seemed as if there were

some move to be made that would help her and her children in their

unhappiness, only she didn't know what the move was. But she always

remembered, afterward, with what feverish urgency she dressed, putting

on walking-things instead of a wrapper, and stepping from her room into

the bustling atmosphere of the house with a determined indifference to

the tasks and interests that usually occupied her attention.

Rosalie was as surprised to see her mother dressed for going out as was

the mother to find her daughter at the breakfast-table.

"Why, Rosalie, my darling, this is an unexpected joy!"

"Yes, mother; I thought I would make an effort."

It was the first time that the girl had been out of her room for over

two weeks, and she looked frail as a snowdrop, and nearly as white.

"You can't have two daughters sick abed, you know," she added, with a

wistful smile.

"Is Rosanne still----" Mrs. Ozanne often left questions and remarks

about her other daughter unfinished.

The latter had spent the whole of the previous day in her room, seeming

physically unable to leave her bed.

"Yes; I'm afraid she's really ill. She just lies there, not speaking

or eating, and she looks--oh, mother, she looks so unhappy!"

"I begged her yesterday to see the doctor."

"She says no doctor can do her any good, and that we must just leave

her alone. I fancy she's thinking out something that she's terribly

worried about."

"There is something wrong," said the mother heavily. "Oh, Rosalie, if

she were only like you, and would not hide her heart from those who

love her!"

"We can't all be alike, mother darling! Rosanne has a stronger

character for better or worse than I have. It is easy for me to throw

my troubles on other people's shoulders, but she is capable of bearing

in silence far greater sorrows, and of making far greater sacrifices."

"It is not a happy nature," sighed her mother. "I wonder if Kitty

Drummund can do any good if I send for her?"

"Better not, mother. She says she wants to see no one at present, and

you know she was at Kitty's the night before last."

"I have asked her so often not to go out at night like that--even to

Kitty's. I dare say she caught cold driving."

"Poor Rosanne! It is more than a cold she has!"

Sophia Ozanne looked at her little, fair daughter with tender eyes,

remembering the heartless way Rosanne had spoken of her sister's grief

only two nights before.

"How different you are, my Rosalie--forgetting your own sorrow to think

of others!"

The girl's eyes filled with tears, but she did not shed them.

"I'm afraid it's only another form of selfishness, mummie dear. I want

to be kind and loving to all the world, just so that God will be good

to me and give Dick another chance."

"My poor, poor child!" The mother's arms were round her in a moment,

ready for comfort, but Rosalie pushed her gently away, smiling with

quivering lips.

"Don't pity me, mother. I'm determined to be brave, whatever comes.

But tell me, where are you going, all prinked out in your

walking-things?"

"I--I don't know yet, dear." Mrs. Ozanne looked startled and

embarrassed. "I have various things to do."

"It's a frightful morning. Do you think you ought to go out?"

"I must," was the elder woman's firm answer, and she bustled away

before there was time for further questioning. Not for anything did

she mean to be deterred from the pressing desire in her to go out.

Rosalie had been perfectly right about the weather. It was that arid

time of year when the air swirls in gusts of hot wind, laden with

gritty blue sand from the debris-heaps, and the finer red dust of the

streets. Kimberley dust is notoriously the worst of its kind in a land

plagued with dust. Buluwayo runs it pretty close, and Johannesburg, in

the spring months, has special sand-devils of its own, but nothing in

Africa has ever quite come up to Kimberley at its worst. This was not

one of its worst, however; merely a day on which all who had wisdom sat

at home within closed doors and sealed windows, awaiting a cessation of

the penetrating abomination of filth.

Often, during the morning, Mrs. Ozanne found herself wondering what she

was doing wandering about the town on such a day. Desultorily, and

with an odd feeling that this was not what she should be about, she let

herself be blown along the street and in and out of shops, face bent

down, eyes half closed, bumping blindly into people, her skirts

swirling and flacking, her hat striving its utmost to escape and take

the hair of her head with it. There were no necessary errands to do.

The servants did the shopping, and she rarely went out except to drive

in the afternoons. Vaguely she wondered why she had not used the

carriage this morning.

Lunch-time came, but she could not bring herself to return home. It

seemed to her that there was still something she must do, though she

could not remember what.

In the end, she went into a clean, respectable little restaurant and

lunched off a lamb chop and boiled potatoes, regardless of the

excellent lunch that awaited her at home. Then, like a restless and

unclean spirit, out she blew once more into the howling maelstrom of

wind and dust.

She began to feel, at last, as if it were a nightmare, this necessity

that urged her on, she knew not whither. Dimly, her eyes still blinded

by dust, she was aware that she had left the main thoroughfares and was

now in a poorer part of the town. With the gait of a sleep-walker, she

continued on her way, until suddenly a voice addressing her jerked her

broad-awake.

"You come see me, missis?"

A woman had opened the door of a mean tin house and stood there waiting

in the doorway, almost as if she had been expecting Sophia Ozanne. The

latter stood stone-still, but her mind went racing back to a winter

afternoon seventeen years before, when she had sat in her bedroom with

the little dying form of Rosanne upon her knees, and a voice speaking

from the shadow of her bedroom had said, "Missis sell baby to me for a

farthing; baby not die." The same voice addressed her now, and the

same woman stood in the doorway of the mean house gazing at her with

large, mournful eyes. It was Rachel Bangat, the Malay cook.

"You come see me die, missis?" she questioned, in her soft, languorous

voice.

"Die! Are you sick, Rachel?" said Mrs. Ozanne.

"Yes, missis; Rachel very sick. Going die in three days."

Sophia Ozanne searched the dark, high-boned face with horror-stricken

eyes, but could see no sign of death on it, or any great change after

seventeen years, except a more unearthly mournfulness in the mysterious

eyes.

But she had often heard it said that Malays possess a prophetic

knowledge of the hour and place of their death, and she could well

credit Rachel Bangat with this strange faculty.

"How my baby getting along, missis?"

Such yearning tenderness was in the question that Mrs. Ozanne, spite of

a deep repugnance to discuss Rosanne with this woman, found herself

answering:

"She is grown up now, Rachel."

"She very pretty?"

"Yes."

"And very rich?"

"We are well-off."

"But she? I give her two good gifts that make her rich all by herself.

She no use them?"

"What gifts were those, Rachel?" The mother drew nearer and peered

with haggard eyes at the Malay.

"I tell you, missis. Because I love my baby so much and want her be

very rich and happy, I give her two good things--_the gift of bright

stones_ and _the gift of hate well_."

Sophia Ozanne drew nearer still, staring like a fascinated rabbit into

the mournfully sinister dark eyes, while the soft voice rippled on.

"She no use those gifts I give her? I think so. I think she say, 'I

hate that man,' and he die, sometimes quick, sometimes slow. Or she

not hate too much, and he only get little sick. Or she wish him bad in

his business, and he get bad. That not so?"

Sophia Ozanne thought of the black list she had kept for years of all

the people whom Rosanne disliked and who had come to ill. In swift

procession they passed through her mind, and Dick Gardner, with his

anguished throat, walked at the end of the procession.

"Yes." Her dry lips ejected the word in spite of her wish to be silent.

"Ah!" said the Malay, softly satisfied. "And the bright stones? She

not get all she want without buy?"

This time, Mrs. Ozanne did not answer; only her blanched face grew a

shade whiter. The woman leaned forward and spoke to her earnestly,

imploringly.

"You tell her get rich quick with the bright stones before too late.

Her power going soon. Rachel die in three days, and then gifts go away

from Rachel's baby. No more power hate or get bright stones. Tell her

quick, missis. I make you come here today so you can go back tell her.

All night and all morning I stand here make you come to me. Now, go

back quick, tell my baby. Three days! Eight o'clock on third night,

Rachel die."

As strangely as she had appeared, the Malay withdrew into her wretched

shanty and closed the door.

Sophia Ozanne never knew by what means and in what manner she reached

her home that day, but at about five o'clock she came into the hall of

Tiptree House, and was met by her daughter Rosalie with the news that

Rosanne had got up from her bed and left the house, taking a suitcase

with her.

"And, oh, mother, I could see that she was in a high fever, her cheeks

were so flushed and her eyes like fire! What shall we do?"

Her mother sat down and wiped great beads of moisture from her pallid

face.

"I think we will pray, Rosalie," she said slowly.

It was still broad afternoon when Rosanne walked openly into Syke

Ravenal's shop, bag in hand. The benevolent-faced old man, occupied in

cleaning the works of a watch, looked up with the bland inquiring

glance of a tradesman to a customer. But his face changed when he saw

her eyes.

"You have news?" he asked, in a low tone.

"Take me to the inner room," she ordered curtly. Without demur, he led

the way. The moment the door closed on them she flung the heavy

leather bag on to the table.

"Take them," she cried wildly; "take them back! They are all there.

Not one is missing."

"Hush, my child--hush!" he gently urged. But she would not be hushed.

"I hate you," she said passionately. "I curse the day I entered this

shop, an innocent girl, and was beguiled by you and your son and my mad

passion for diamonds into becoming your tool and accomplice. Oh, how I

hate you! I can never betray you because of my oath, but I curse you

both, and I pray I may never see or hear of you again."

"That's all right, my child," he said soothingly. She threw him one

glance of loathing and contempt and walked from the place.

Rosanne had taken to her bed again, and this time when they brought the

doctor she was too ill to object, too ill to do anything but lie

staring in a sort of mental and physical coma at the ceiling above her.

"Let her be," said the old-fashioned family doctor, who had known her

from babyhood. "She has a splendid constitution and will pull through.

But let her have no worries of any kind."

So they left her alone, except in the matter of ministering occasional

nourishment, which she took with the mechanical obedience of a child.

For two days Rosanne lay there, silent and strange. The third day her

sickness took an acute form. She tossed and moaned and called out in

her pain, her face twisted with torture. Her mind appeared to remain

clear.

"Mother, I believe I am dying," she said, after one such spell, during

the afternoon. "I feel as if something is tearing itself loose from my

very being. Does it hurt like this when the soul is trying to escape

from the body?"

"I have sent for the doctor again, darling."

"It is nothing he can cure. It is _here_, and _here_ that I suffer."

She touched her head and her heart. "But, oh, my body, too, is

tortured!"

She lay still a little while, moaning softly to herself while her

mother stood by, sick with distress; then she said:

"Send for Denis Harlenden, mother. I must see him before I die."

Mrs. Ozanne asked no question. Her woman's instinct told her much that

Rosanne had left unsaid. Within half an hour, Harlenden was being

shown into the drawing-room, where she awaited him. He came in with no

sign upon his face of the anxiety in his heart. This was the fourth

day since he had seen Rosanne, and she had sent him no word.

"Sir Denis, my daughter is very ill. I don't know why she should be

calling out for you----" She faltered. Marks of the last few days'

anxiety were writ large upon her, but she was not wanting in a certain

patient dignity.

Harlenden strode over and took her hands in his as he would have taken

the hands of his own mother.

"It is because we love each other," he said gently, "and because, as

soon as she will let me, I am going to marry her."

A ray of thankfulness shone across her features.

"Marriage! I don't know, Sir Denis; but, if you love her I can tell

you something that will help you to understand her better, and perhaps

you can help her."

Briefly, and in broken words, she related to him the strange incident

of Rosanne's babyhood, its seeming effect upon her character, and the

Malay's extraordinary words of two days before. She did not disguise

from him that she believed Rosanne guilty, whether consciously or

unconsciously, of many dark things, but she pleaded for her child the

certainty that she had been in the clutches of forces stronger than

herself.

"About the diamonds," she finished, at last, "I know nothing, and I am

afraid to think. Did you read of that awful case of suicide in

yesterday's paper--that man, Syke Ravenal, who has been robbing De

Beers? I am tormented with the thought that she may have known

something of him--yet how could she?"

"You must put such a thought out of your mind for ever and never

mention it to a soul," said Harlenden firmly. "That man committed

suicide because his only son had been killed by accident in Amsterdam.

He left a vast fortune and a number of jewels which had been taken from

their settings to De Beers, by way of conscience-money for several

thousand pounds' worth of diamonds in the rough which he had stolen

from them. There is absolutely no evidence to connect any other person

with his crime, except a letter asking the company to deal lightly with

a native boy called Hiangeli, who had been a tool of his."

"Then you think it could have nothing possibly to do with my poor

child?"

"Certainly not," said Denis Harlenden, without flinching.

"Not that I think that she would have done it in her right senses, but,

oh, Sir Denis, she has been under a spell all her life, an evil spell,

which, please God, will be broken when that woman dies! You do not

think me mad, I hope?"

"I do not," he answered gravely. "I am as sure of what you say as you

yourself. What you do not know, Mrs. Ozanne, is that love has already

broken that spell. Rosanne is already free from it."

She looked at him questioningly, longingly.

"I cannot tell you more," he said gently. "But, believe me, it is

true. May I go to her now?"

The mother led the way. Rosanne, who had just passed through another

terrible crisis of anguish, lay on her bed, still and white as a lily.

A crimson-silk wrapper swathed about her shoulders, and the clouds of

night-black hair, flung in a tangled mass above her pillows, threw into

violent contrast the deadly pallor of her face. Her eyes, dark and

wide with suffering, looked unseeingly at Harlenden at first, but

gradually a ray of recognition dawned in them and she put out her hand

with a faint cry.

"Denis!"

He took her hand and held it safe, while, with all the strength in him,

he willed peace and calmness into her troubled mind.

"Denis, I think I am going to die."

"Dearest, I know you are going to live--for me."

"No, no; I am not worthy of life--or of you. I have been too wicked!"

"I want you to rest now," he said.

"I cannot rest till I have told you everything. I wanted to tell you

the other night, you know, but I was too exhausted. Denis, I am a

criminal--a thief! I have stolen diamonds under cover of the

friendship of another woman. I have received them from another thief

in the mines, and taken them to a man, whose son, a merchant in

Amsterdam, sent me my share of the robbery in cut stones set as jewels.

The rough stolen stones meant nothing to me, but the finished ones

dazzled and maddened me. I cannot describe to you what they did to my

senses, but I was mad at the sight and touch of them. They had power

to benumb every decent feeling in me. For them, I forgot duty. My

poor mother, how she has suffered! I betrayed friendship; I debased

love! Yes, Denis, I debased our love! I meant just to take the joy of

it for a little while, then cast it away when it came to choosing

between you and the stones."

"But you did not."

"No, thank God, I could not! It was stronger than my base passion,

stronger than myself. Oh, Denis, I thank you for your love! It has

saved me from a hell in life, and a hell hereafter, for I think God

will not further punish one so deeply repentant as I."

"You are not going to die, Rosanne," he repeated firmly.

"Do you think I would live and let you link your clean, upright life

with my dark one?" she said sadly. "You do not even know all the

darkness of it yet. Listen: I found I had a power through which I

could hurt others by just wishing them ill--and I used it freely. Ah,

I have hurt many people! It tortures me to think of how many. I have

been lying here for two days and nights trying to undo all the harm I

have done, Denis--willing against the evil I have wished for, praying

for happiness to be given back to every one of them." Her voice grew

faint and far-off. "I have even tried to undo the harm I wished would

come to the two people who tempted me into stealing, Denis. But,

somehow, I feel that it is too late for them. That _something_ in

here"--she touched her heart--"which hurts me so much, tells me I

cannot help those two wretched ones."

Her voice broke off; she was shaken like a reed with a terrible spasm

of suffering. It was as though she were in the clutches of some brutal

giant.

"Denis," she cried faintly, "I feel I am being rent asunder! Part of

me is being torn away. Surely, even death cannot be so terrible!"

A clock on the table struck eight. Instantly she raised herself in

bed, fell back again, gave a deep sigh, and lay still.

A few hours later, she woke with a gentle flush in her cheeks and a

wonderful harmony in all her features. Her first glance fell upon her

mother leaning over the foot of the bed, and she gave a happy smile.

"Oh, mother, I have had such a lovely dream! I dreamed Dick was well

and coming back soon to Rosalie."

"And so he is, my darling. She has had a wire to say that Doctor

Raymond has discovered that the throat trouble is not malignant but

quite curable. He will be well in a few weeks."

"Then it _may_ come true, my dream," she said softly and shyly. "My

dream that she and I were being married on the same day, she to Dick,

and I to--oh, Denis, how strange that you should be here when I was

dreaming of you! What brought you here? Have you come to tell mother

that we love each other?"

They began to realize dimly then, as they realized fully later on,

that, by a merciful gift of Providence her mind was a blank concerning

all the dark things of the past.

Memory of them had died with the dying of the Malay woman at eight

o'clock on a summer evening, and no shadow of them ever came back to

dim the harmony of her life with Denis Harlenden.

She is one of the happiest as well as one of the loveliest women in

London today. Wrapped up in her home life and children, she still

finds time to be seen about everywhere with her husband, and they are

looked upon as one of the few ideally happy couples in society.

It has often been remarked, as a curious fact, that she never wears

jewels of any kind, save an emerald ring and some exquisite pearls.

April Folly

PART I

Waterloo Station, greasy underfoot and full of the murky, greenish gloom

of a November day, was the scene of a jostling crowd. The mail-boat

train for South Africa stretched far down the long platform, every

carriage door blocked by people bidding farewell, handing in bouquets of

flowers, parcels of books, boxes of chocolates; bartering jests and

scattering laughter; sending their love to the veld, to Table Mountain,

to Rhodesia, to the Victoria Falls.

Only one first-class reserved compartment had no crowd before it, nor any

further audience than a middle-aged woman, with a wistful Irish face and

the neat and careful appearance peculiar to superior servants of the

old-fashioned type. With her hands full of newly-purchased bookstand

magazines and her eyes full of trouble, she stood gazing at the sole

occupant of the carriage.

"Oh, Miss Diana your Ladyship . . ." he began once more.

"Shut it, Marney," said Miss Diana her Ladyship, elegantly. "I've had

enough. You're not coming with me, and that's that. I'm not a child any

longer never to stir about the world alone."

"Shure, and your aunt, Lady Grizel, will turn in her grave at it," keened

poor Marney. An expression of scampish glee crossed the girl's face.

"Yes, old Grizzly will do some turning," she murmured. "Thank goodness

that's all she can do now."

The maid crossed herself with a shocked air, though it was far from being

the first time she had heard those profanities of the dead upon her

mistress's lips. The latter gave her no time for further argument.

"What's the use of standing there stuffing up my view?" she demanded

crossly. "If you want something to do, go and get me some flowers.

Everyone has flowers but me. It's outrageous. Get heaps."

Marney flurried down the platform, bent on her errand, and Diana

Vernilands immediately issued from the doorstep of the carriage and gazed

eagerly and invitingly at the crowd.

Ordinarily the beauty alone of the sables which muffled her ears and fell

to her heels would have focused attention, not to mention the eager

liveliness of her face. But on this occasion no one returned her vivid

glances. Everyone was busy with their own affairs and friends. The only

person seeming as isolated and lonely as herself was another girl, who,

having made a tour from one end of the train to the other in vain quest

of a seat, was now wearily and furiously doing the return trip. No

porter followed her; she carried her own dressing-case and rugs, and she,

too, was without flowers. This last fact clenched Lady Diana's decision.

A bond of loneliness and flowerlessness existed between them. She hailed

the other girl deliriously.

"Hi! Are you looking for a place?" she cried. "Come in here. I've got

a carriage to myself."

The other was as astonished as relieved.

"Oh, may I? How awfully good of you!" she said warmly, and stepping into

the carriage, bestowed her possessions in such small space as was not

already encumbered. Then she looked at Lady Diana in the doorway with a

pair of lovely but rather sad violet eyes that had smoky shadows beneath

them.

"I shall have to fight about my ticket with the ticket collector when he

comes round. It is only a second-class one. I hope you don't mind?"

"Mind!" said Diana. "I hate everyone in authority, and I love rows and

cocktails and excitement. Still, it might save time to pay."

"It might," said the other "but I'm not going to. There were no

second-class seats left, so the onus is on them. Besides"--her creamy

face flushed faintly and her eyes became defiant--"I can't afford it."

Diana could very well believe it, for she had seldom seen a girl so badly

dressed. However, the deep blue eyes that had all sorts of pansy tints

lying dormant in them, and the winging black satin hair that looked as if

smoke had been blown through it, could not be obscured even by a shabby

hat. Diana's own hair being a violent apricot and her eyes of the same

colour as a glass of sherry with the sun on it, she could admire without

pain this type so different to her own.

The fact was that they were as striking a pair of girls as any one could

hope to meet in a day's march, but the delicate beauty of one was under a

cloud which only a connoisseur's eye could see through--badly-cut

garments and an unfashionable hat! On the other hand, Lady Diana's

highly-coloured and slightly dairymaidish prettiness would have been more

attractive in simpler and less costly clothes. While they were coming to

these conclusions about each other an inspector of tickets entered the

carriage. Diana delightedly braced herself for a row, but there was no

need for it. Whether it was the charm of the strange girl's golden

voice, or the subtle air of luxury and independence combined with a faint

odour of Russian leather and honey that stole from the furs of Lady Diana

Vernilands, none can tell, but the inspector behaved like a man under the

influence of hypnotism. He listened to the tale of the second-class

ticket as to words of Holy Writ, and departed like a man in a dream

without having uttered a single protest, and at Lady Diana's behest,

carefully locking the door behind him. A moment later whistles, shouts,

and the clicking of hundreds of farewell kisses signalled the train's

immediate departure. The devoted Marney, carrying what appeared to be a

bridal bouquet of white lilies and roses, dashed up just in time to make

a last attempt to accompany her mistress. But the door was unyielding,

and the worst she could do was to claw at the window as she panted

alongside the now moving train, crying:

"You'd better let me come with you, now, Miss Diana your Ladyship. . . ."

The latter only waved her hand in kind but firm dismissal.

"Go home and look after papa, Marney, and don't worry about me. I shall

be back soon." As the train took a jump and finally fled from the

station, leaving Marney far behind, she added thoughtfully, "I don't

think!" and burst out laughing.

"Just as though I _would_ hurry back to frowsy old England the first time

I've ever managed to get away from it on my own!"

The other girl looked at her with deep, reflective eyes.

"If you had been on your own as much as I have you wouldn't think it such

a catch," she remarked, with a little dry smile.

"Oh, wouldn't I! I can't imagine anything more heavenly than having no

relations in the world. It must be perfect paradise!"

"It's the paradise I have lived in for three years," said April Poole

sombrely, "and any one who likes it can have it, and give me their hell

instead."

"What!" cried Diana Vernilands, not sympathetic, but astounded and eager.

She stared at the other with envious, avid eyes that filled and

brightened at last with an amazing plan. It burst from her like a shell

from a gun. "_Let's change places: I be you, and you be me!_"

April considered her, and being very weary of her own destiny, considered

the plan also. But though she was as ardent as any one for flyaway

schemes and fantastic adventure, this plan looked to her too

Arabian-nightish altogether, and not likely to hold water for more than

the length of the journey from Waterloo to Southampton.

"How can we? I am a poverty-stricken girl, going out to governess at the

Cape. You, a peer's daughter, I suppose, who will be met on the boat and

surrounded by every care and attention. . . ."

"Yes, surrounded!" Diana interrupted savagely. With sudden fury she tore

off the little sable hat, flung it on the seat beside her and stabbed it

viciously with a great pearl pin. "I'm sick of being surrounded! I wish

to goodness I were Alexander Selkirk, shipwrecked on a desert island."

"That wouldn't be much fun, either," said April. "I don't think there is

much fun anywhere. We have all got what we don't want, and want what we

can't get."

"You couldn't _not_ want a face like yours," said Diana, handsomely. It

gave her no pain, as has been mentioned before, because April was dark.

If she had been addressing a blonde like herself, wild cats could not

have torn such a compliment from Diana Vernilands.

"Couldn't I? Good looks without the surroundings and clothes to put them

in are not much of a gift. Beauty in a third-class carriage and shabby

clothes looks cheap and is fair game for any one's stalking."

"Well, change with me, then," urged Diana. "I'd rather be stalked than

gazed at from afar like a brazen image."

She gave her hat another stab. April quivered all over, like a mother

who sees a child ill-treated.

"Don't do that," she cried at last, in a poignant voice. She had seen

that hat in her dreams for years, but never got so near it before. Diana

Vernilands looked at her thoughtfully, then held it out.

"Put it on," she entreated. "Wear it, and be surrounded instead of me.

Oh, for Heaven's sake do! I see you are just as keen as I am, and just

as sick of being who you are. Try it on."

She may have meant the hat, or she may have meant the plan. April

accepted the hat, and with it the plan. From the moment she saw herself

in the glass her doom was dight. There was a little star-like purple

flower, such as never grew on land or sea, nestling in the golden

darkness of the fur. It seemed to April a flower that might have been

plucked from the slopes of the blue hills of Nirvana, or found floating

on the still waters of Lethe in that land where it is always afternoon.

It brought dreams of romance to her heart, and made starry flowers of its

own colour blossom in her eyes. She crushed the hat softly down upon her

dark, winging hair, crinking and shaping it to frame her face at the

right angle. Her fate was sealed.

"All right," she said, in a slow, dreamy voice. "Let's arrange it."

So while the train swooped on its way to the port whence the great ships

turn their noses towards the Southern Cross, they drew up the plot, and

the roles were cast. Diana Vernilands, for the duration of the voyage

only, was to be the penniless, friendless English girl, who could go her

ways freely and talk and mix with any one she liked without being watched

and criticized. April Poole, in the lovely hats and gowns and jewels of

Lady Diana, would accept the dignity and social obligations that hedge a

peer's daughter, even on a voyage to South Africa. On arrival at the

Cape, each to assume her identity and disappear from the ken of their

fellow-travellers: April to be swallowed up by a Cape suburb, where she

was engaged to teach music and French to the four daughters of a rich

wine-grower; Diana to proceed to her destination--the farm of an

eccentric woman painter, somewhere on the veld.

It all looked as simple and harmless as picking apples in an orchard. No

one would be any the wiser, they said, and no harm would accrue to

anybody, while each girl would have the experience of enjoying herself in

a new and original fashion. The only things they did not take into their

calculations were their personal idiosyncrasies and the machinations of

an old hag called Fate.

"What a time I'll have!" cried Diana. "Though what you will get out of

it as the Earl of Roscannon's daughter beats me. You won't be sick of it

half way and want to change back, I hope?"

"If you only knew how sick I am of being April Poole you wouldn't be

afraid," was the fervent answer. Diana looked at her curiously.

"It can't be only the clothes--though of course I imagine it must be

rotten, not having the right clothes. By the way, there are plenty for

us both, you know. I did myself well in the shopping line, fortunately."

"I should hardly expect you to wear mine," said April drily. "No, as you

rightly suspect, it isn't for the clothes, though they fascinate and lure

me. And it isn't for the honour and glory of being Lady Diana, though

that is fascinating too, and it will be priceless to have the joke on the

rest of the world for once. It is for various subtle reasons which I

don't suppose you would altogether understand. . . ."

"Never mind them, then," interrupted Diana. "I'm not a bit subtle, and

don't care tuppence for reasons. All I care about is having a topping

time for once in my life. Now, listen, I'll tell you a few things about

myself, so that you won't get bowled if any one asks you. My father is

Lord Roscannon, and our place is Bethwick Castle, in Northumberland.

It's a gloomy old place that would give you the creeps. My mother died

twenty-two years ago when I was born, and my father doesn't care about

anything except archaeology, so I have always been in the clutches of my

maiden aunt, Lady Grizel Vernilands, who ruled Bethwick and me as long as

I can remember. Everyone called her the Grizzly Bear.

"Never mind, she's dead now, and I have been able to persuade papa that

my health needs a sea voyage. He suggested the Continent--_of course_

with a companion. But I have been clawed backwards and forwards on the

Continent for years by Aunt Grizel, and have had enough. I chose Africa,

because it sounds so nice and racy in novels, doesn't it? Fortunately

papa's greatest friend, a parson and also an archaeologist, has a

daughter out there. She paints, and lives on a farm somewhere on the

veld in the Cape Colony, so I am allowed to go and stay with her for

three months.

"I even escaped the company of my maid, as you saw, though she tried hard

to persuade papa that I should get into trouble without her. I believe

she would have come at the last, even without luggage, if I hadn't been

too smart for her and had the door locked. Lucky, wasn't it? We should

never have been able to execute our little scheme with her about. Now

tell me your story."

"No need to go too closely into that," said April. "No one will put you

any piercing questions about my family, or be in a position to contradict

your statements."

The Poole family tree, in fact, grew as tall and old as the Roscannon's

upon the pages of heraldry, but drink and riotous living had perished its

roots and rotted its branches long before April was born. Her father,

its last hope, had been a scamp and gamester who broke his wife's heart

and bequeathed the cup of poverty and despair to his child's lips. But

these were things locked in April's heart, and not for idle telling in a

railway carriage.

"I am an orphan without relatives or friends," she went on quietly. "No

assets except musical tastes and a knowledge of languages, picked up in

cheap Continental schools. I am twenty, and rather embittered by life,

but I try not to be, because there's nothing can blacken the face of the

sun like bitterness of heart, is there? It can spoil even a spring day."

Diana looked vague. In spite of tilts and tournaments with the Grizzly

Bear, she had no more knowledge of that affliction of bitterness to which

April referred than of the bitterness of affliction. The fact was patent

in the gay light of her sherry-brown eye and her red mouth, so avid for

pleasure. The book of life's difficulties, well conned by April Poole,

was still closed to the Earl's only daughter.

"Perhaps she will know a little more about it by the end of the voyage,"

thought April, but without a tinge of malice, for in truth she was

neither malicious nor bitter, though she often pretended to herself to be

both. Whatever life had done to her, it had not yet robbed her of her

powers of resilience, nor quenched her belief in the ultimate benevolence

of Fate. Her joy in voyaging to a great unknown land had been a little

dimmed by the prospect of the monotonous drudgery that awaits most

governesses, but here, already cropping up by the wayside, was a

compensating adventure, and her heart, which had been reposing in her

boots, took little wings of delight unto itself and nearly flew away with

excitement.

Eager as Diana, she threw herself into a discussion of clothes, personal

tastes and habits, the exchange of cabins, and ways and means of

circumventing the curiosity and suspicion of their fellow-travellers.

Diana could not do her own hair, but had ascertained that there was a

hairdresser on board whom she could visit every day. The ticket for her

first-class stateroom she cheerfully handed over to April, in exchange

for one which gave possession of a berth in a cheaper cabin to be shared

with another woman.

"We must do the thing thoroughly," she insisted, "and I shan't mind

sharing in the least. It may be amusing if the other woman is pleasant.

I don't think you and I had better know each other too well to begin

with, do you? We can pretend to make friends as the voyage goes on. Or

shall we say that we were at school together?"

"Let us say as little as possible," said April, who had an objection to

telling lies, even little white ones. But Diana did not share her

scruples, and plainly averred her intention of "spinning a yarn" to any

one who asked questions.

In a whirl of excitement they arrived at the docks, and were hustled with

the rest of the crowd up the steep gangway that led to the deck of the

Union Castle Company's latest and most modern liner, the _Clarendon

Castle_. April, who had exchanged her cloth coat for Diana's sables,

felt the eyes of the world burning and piercing through the costly furs

to the secret in her bosom. But Diana felt no such discomfort, jubilant

in her new-found liberty, she paced the decks, inspected the ship, made

friends with the first officer and several passengers, and finally went

down to lunch in the dining saloon. She seated herself at the general

table, and as a number of merry people were toasting each other farewell

in champagne, she thought it only fitting to order a half-bottle for

herself. Some of the women looked at her curiously, but that did not

daunt Diana, especially after she had begun on the champagne.

April, placed at some distance in solitary state, noted and envied the

coolness and composure of her fellow-conspirator. She, too, had meant to

be one of the general crowd, but already the news of her rank and state

had tickled the ears of the chief steward, and she found herself

reverently waylaid and conducted with ceremony to a small table, whence

she could gaze and be gazed upon by the rest of the world without fear of

contamination. A steward, told off for her special service, hovered

about her like a guardian angel, and during the meal a gold-braided

personality approached and, murmuring the Captain's compliments, hoped

that when the voyage had once started she would grace his table by her

presence. Afar off, Diana cast her a grin over the rim of a wine-glass,

but gave no further sign of recognition.

It is a phenomenon well known to travellers, that when the last warning

bell rings on board a departing ship all the pretty women and interesting

men go ashore, leaving only the dull and fusty ones behind. Diana and

April, however, were not depressed by this spectacle, for to the former,

in her position of free-lance, all men looked interesting and all women

superfluous; while April, in full possession of the beautifully appointed

stateroom on the promenade deck, to which she had retired directly after

lunch, was too busy reviewing the position to think about

fellow-passengers just then. She was bothered over the business of

sitting at the Captain's table. She had seen him on the boat deck as she

came aboard, and her heart failed her at the thought of deceiving such a

genial, kindly-looking man. It was plain that the experiment of "taking

people in" was not going to be so pricelessly funny as she had

anticipated. She said so to Diana, who came to her cabin as soon as the

ship started to make a selection of clothes. But Diana would listen to

none of her virtuous backslidings.

"You can't back out now," she said firmly. "A bargain's a bargain, and

I've told everyone I am April Poole, going to Africa to be a governess,

and all the ship knows you are Lady Diana Vernilands. We should be a

spectacle for the gods if we change back now. No one would believe us,

either. We'd only be looked upon with suspicion for the rest of the

voyage, and all our fun and pleasure spoilt. For goodness's sake don't

be an idiot!"

That was all the slightly conscience-stricken April got for her pains,

and Diana stalked off triumphant, lugging a suit-case and an armful of

wraps. April heard her explaining to a stewardess in the corridor that

her baggage had got mixed up with Lady Diana Verniland's, and that it was

very awkward; and then she saw and heard no more of her for several days.

For immediately on emerging from the Solent the _Clarendon_ ran into very

heavy weather, which continued until the Bay of Biscay was passed,

keeping all but the hardiest travellers confined to their cabins. April,

who was among the victims, had plenty of solitary leisure in which to

repent her misdeed if she felt so inclined. But the impulse to repent

soon passed, and workaday wisdom reassured her that what she and Diana

were doing was really very harmless and of no consequence to any one but

themselves. No very great effort was required to make the best of the

situation and enjoy it as much as Diana had evidently determined to do.

It was very pleasant, after all, to be waited on and fussed about as

though she were a person of infinite importance instead of a shabby, trim

governess. She, who had padded the bumps of life for others so long,

could now thoroughly appreciate having the same service performed for

herself.

Being of a nature neither arrogant nor impatient, she soon endeared

herself to the stewardesses and serving-people, who, having some

experience in the tempers and tantrums of fine ladies, were agreeably

surprised by her gentle and charming manner, and could not do enough for

her in return.

After the first few days of frightful illness she began to feel better,

and was able to be moved from her cabin to the ladies' lounge. Wrapped

in one or other of Diana's ravishing boudoir garments of silk and fur,

she was supported there every morning, ensconced on the most luxurious

sofa, and surrounded by attentions from the other semi-invalids. Nothing

was too good for the peer's delightful daughter, and everyone behaved as

if she were an angel dropped from heaven. In fact, with the lovely

spirituelle air her illness had given, and the sea bloom just beginning

to tint her cheeks again and dew her eyes, she looked rather like one.

The ship's doctor, who was young and susceptible, broke it gently to such

of the male passengers who were able to bear the strain that a dazzling

joy awaited their eyes when "Lady Diana" should be well enough to appear

in public. The story of her charming looks and ways circulated softly

round the boat, even as a pleasant wine circulates in the veins.

April knew nothing of these things. She only felt very happy in the

kindness of everybody, in the gradual steadying of the ship, now emerging

from the troubled Bay into smoother, warmer waters, and in the prospect

of soon being allowed to go on deck. Sometimes she wondered why the real

Diana gave no sign, but came to the conclusion that she, too, had been

ill.

It was a natural enough thing to ask the doctor, when they were alone one

day, if Miss Poole was among his patients. He seemed sufficiently

astonished by the query.

"Miss Poole!" he echoed. "Oh, no; she's not ill--far from it. Do you

know her?"

"Certainly I know her," smiled April, astonished in her turn. "I was

wondering why she had not been to see me."

The doctor murmured something cryptic about her having "no doubt been too

busy," and seemed to have nothing further to say. The face of the lounge

stewardess wore a peculiar expression. A quiet, rather austere-looking

woman, she always behaved like a mummy in the doctor's presence, standing

behind him with folded hands and mute lips. But when he had gone she

came to life.

"Do you mean the young lady whose baggage got mixed with yours at the

beginning of the voyage, my lady?" she asked. April remembered the

necessity to walk delicately.

"Yes . . . a pretty, fair girl," she said cautiously. "Very gay and

bright."

"Very," agreed the stewardess laconically. Then the source of her

eloquence dried up even as the doctor's had done. April began to think

it was time to go on deck and see what was doing.

The next day was not only gloriously fine, but the ship came to harbour

by that island which is as a bouquet of fruit and flowers pinned to a

jagged breast. There seems always something sinister lurking behind the

wreathed and radiant beauty of Madeira; but to those who come in ships

from out the bitter fogs of England she is a siren with a blue and golden

smile, and her gift-laden hands are soothing and serene.

April, lying in her deck-chair, thought she had come to fairyland.

Escorted upstairs by the doctor and a retinue of stewardesses, she was

installed in a sheltered corner that commanded the whole brilliant scene.

The purser found her the most comfortable of chairs, the first officer

brought her a bamboo table from his cabin for her books, the Captain

stayed awhile from his duties to congratulate her on her recovery, and

several men loitered near at hand casting reverently admiring glances.

But she had eyes for nothing save the vivid scene before her. The

smiling island, with its head in the mists and its feet in a sapphire sea

still as a painted lake; boats full of flowers, corals, ivories, silken

embroideries and unknown fruits; the burnished bodies of diving boys; the

odour of spices and sandalwood; the clatter of strange tongues; the dark

faces and bright clothes of the invading crowds of natives.

It was a spectacle to enchant the senses. She could not think why so

many passengers were scurrying to and fro anxious to be taken ashore. It

seemed as foolish as to try to get into a picture instead of sitting

before it.

Everyone was wearing light clothes, for summer had come at full bound,

and soon they would be in the tropics. There were beautifully cut white

linen suits, smart skirts, and filmy blouses. A popular saying on the

Cape mail-boats is that passengers to South Africa are all clothes and no

money, while passengers returning are all money and no clothes. April

did not know the epigram, nor the truth of it. But she could plainly

perceive that in the scanty kit of April Poole she would have been very

much out of the running among this smart and jaunty crowd.

As it was, clad in a sleek silken muslin of lovely lines, snowy shoes and

stockings, and a rose-laden hat, she could hold her own with any one. A

longing filled her to see Diana Vernilands. She wanted to talk to her,

exchange confidences, thank her, bless her, and, above all, to find out

what it was she found so attractive in her side of the game. What on

earth could it be that was so much more ravishing than to be at peace

with the world, respected by it, liked by it, and yet independent of it?

To wear lovely clothes in which you could enjoy the knowledge of looking

charming without meeting suspicion in the eyes of women and the

"good-hunting" glance in the eyes of men. This last constituted, indeed,

that "subtle reason" at which she had hinted to Diana. Life had harried

April too much for her few years. Obliged to travel its highways alone

and unprotected, some of the adventures encountered there had cut her to

the quick. While women looked askance at her, men looked too hard, and

too long. Doubtless she had met the wrong kind. Lonely young girls

without money or connections do not always find the knightly and

chivalrous gentlemen of their dreams! Naturally pure-hearted and

high-minded, she had asked nothing of those she did meet save respect and

good-comradeship; but either she was too pretty or peculiarly

unfortunate, for she had seldom been offered either. It was something,

perhaps, that she still kept dreams, and a belief that there were

knightly and chivalrous men somewhere in the world, though they might not

be for her.

She was still, like Omar, wondering "What the vinters buy one half so

precious as the stuff they sell"--lost in cogitations about Diana, when

the subject of her thoughts, accompanied by three men, came down a

companion-way from an upper deck. They were evidently set for the shore,

and making their way to the ship's side as if certain that the best

places in the best boats were preserved for them.

Diana's appearance betrayed the lack of a maid. Her dress was crumpled,

her shoes badly laced, and her hat cocked carelessly upon her head. But

the subtle Italian hand of the ship's coiffeur had touched her hair,

saving the situation. Also, there was a sparkle in her eye and a _joie

de vivre_ in her laughter that made up for many deficiencies. Her

companions appeared to have been picked for their good looks, sleek

heads, and immaculate clothes. One, with whom she palpably stood on the

happiest of terms, was, in fact, strikingly handsome. The other two,

loitering in her wake, seemed content if she tossed them a word over her

shoulder from time to time. They all behaved as if they had bought the

ship, and found the presence of the rest of the passengers an

impertinence. Such of the latter as were still on board returned the

compliment according to sex and the ability that was theirs. The men

plainly admired Diana's nerve, while wondering with their eyebrows what

on earth she could see in those three footling fellows. The women looked

pityingly at the men, and with their noses indicated that Diana was some

kind of dangerous and unpleasant animal escaped from a menagerie. A lady

who had seated herself by April in a chair labelled "Major Sarle," curled

her lip at the passing group in a manner painfully familiar to her

neighbour. Presently, when they were left alone, the rest of the world

having disappeared down the ship's side, she addressed April, but with a

very different expression on her face.

"You are Lady Diana Vernilands, I think?" she said, smiling in a friendly

manner. "I am Mrs. Stanislaw. So glad to see you up."

April was instantly on the alert. Not only did she know the name of Mrs.

Lionel Stanislaw, but had very good cause to remember it as that of the

lady with whom she was to have shared a cabin. The smiling face had once

been a pretty one, but the tide of youth was fast receding, leaving

uncovered a bleak and barren shore, whose chief salients were a

disdainful nose and a mouth which looked as if it might be able to say

bitter things. The eyes, however, were still handsome, if supercilious,

and her manners velvety. No doubt there were claws beneath the velvet,

but they were not for April . . . only for the girl who was using April's

name! They had not talked for five minutes before she realized that in

this woman Diana had an enemy. Not that Mrs. Stanislaw's words were

censorious. She was too clever for that. Her remarks were merely

deprecative and full of pity.

"A most amazing creature," she said gently, "but rather disturbing to

live with. I confess I wish I had been cribbed and cabined with someone

who had more conventional manners and kept earlier hours."

Here was something for April to ponder.

"She is very young," she faltered at length, and was unwise enough to

add, "and pretty."

These being two heinous offences in the eyes of Mrs. Stanislaw, she

proceeded at once to hang, draw, and quarter the criminal. But her voice

was tenderer than before.

"Yes, isn't it a pity? . . . and so foolishly indiscreet. Do you know,

they tell me that she is spoken of by all the men on the ship as the

April Fool, a parody on her name, which is April Poole."

Pleasant hearing for her listener, who flushed scarlet.

"Can you imagine any one who has a living to earn being so unwise? I

find it difficult to believe she is going to the Cape to teach someone's

children. I only hope that the story of her indiscretions will not

precede her, poor girl."

April was dumb. Mrs. Stanislaw came to the conclusion that she was dull

and rather lacking in feminine sweetness, and after a while went away to

bargain with a native for some embroideries. She would have been

delighted to know what a poisoned barb she had implanted and left

quivering in the side of the so-called Lady Diana.

Beneath the folded V of filmy lace on April's bosom her heart was beating

passionately, and the rose-wreathed hat fortunately drooped enough to

hide the tears of mortification that filled her eyes. _Her_ name to be

parodied and bandied about the ship on men's lips! A poor thing, but her

own! One that for all her ups and downs she had striven and contrived to

keep untarnished. How dared Diana Vernilands do this thing to her? What

foolishness had she herself been guilty of to put it in another's power

to thus injure her?

Her eyes were so blurred with tears that she did not notice at what

particular moment another occupant had usurped the chair of Major Sarle.

It was a man this time. April hastily seized a book and began to read.

He must have stolen up with the silence of a tiger, and he reminded her

of tigers somehow, though she could not quite tell why, except that he

was curiously powerful and graceful looking. His hair, which grew in a

thick short mat, was strongly sprinkled with silver, but his skin, though

brick-red, was unlined. She judged him to be a sailor-man, for he had

the clear and innocent eye of one who has looked long on great spaces.

These were her conclusions, made while diligently reading her book. He,

too, was busy reading in the same fashion, but, manlike, was slower in

his deductions. By the time she had finished with his hair he had not

got much further than her charming ankles. Certainly, he had ascertained

that she was a pretty woman before he took possession of his chair, but

that was merely instinct, the fulfilling of a human law. Detail, like

destruction, was to come after. He lingered over the first detail. They

were such very pretty ankles. It did not seem right that they should

be resting on the hard deck instead of on a canvas foot-rest. He

remembered that his own chair had a foot-rest, but it was in his cabin.

Should he go and fetch it? Dared he offer it to her? He was on

hail-fellow-well-met terms with lions and tigers, as April had curiously

divined, but having enjoyed fewer encounters with women, was slightly shy

of them. However, being naturally courageous, he might presently have

been observed emerging from a deck cabin with a canvas foot-rest in his

hand, and it was only the natural sequence of events that while

attempting to hitch it on his chair his guileless gaze should discover

that April's feet were without support. He looked so shy and kind for

such a sun-bitten, weather-hardened creature, that she had no heart to

refuse the friendly offer, even had she felt the inclination. Besides,

the advances made to her in the role of Lady Diana were very different to

those she had so often been obliged to repulse as April Poole.

She felt, too, that here was a man not trying to make friends with any

ulterior motive, but just because on this pleasant, delightful morning it

was pleasant and delightful to talk to someone and share the pleasure.

Vereker Sarle had made the voyage to South Africa so many times that he

had lost count of them, and knew Madeira so well that it bored him to go

ashore there any more.

"We have the best of it from here, in spite of a little coal dust," he

told her, for with a great deal of rattling, banging, and singing on the

lower decks the ship was taking on her voyage ration of coal. "Still,

you should go ashore and see it some time. It is worth a visit for the

sake of the gardens, the breakfast of fresh fish at the hotel on the

hilltop, and the bumping rush down again in the man-drawn sleighs."

He took it for granted that she was a woman travelling for pleasure and

likely to be back this way soon. While she gave a little inward sigh,

wondering whether she would ever have the money to return to England, or

if it would be her fate to live in exile for ever.

Sarle presented her with one of his simple maxims of life.

"All good citizens of the world should do everything once and once only,"

he averred, with his frank and disarming smile. "If we stuck to that

rule life would never go stale on us."

"I'm afraid it would hardly apply to everyday life and all the weary

things we have to do over and over again."

"I was thinking of the big things," he said slowly. "Like potting your

first elephant or falling in love. I don't know what equivalents women

have for these things."

April could not forbear a little ripple of laughter.

"I believe they fall in love, too, sometimes," she said. But Sarle, with

his sea-blue gaze on her, answered gravely:

"I know very little about them."

It was hard to decide whether he was an expert flirt with new methods, or

really and truly a man with a heart as guileless as his eyes. But, at

any rate, he was amusing, and April forgot her tears and anger completely

in the pleasant hour they spent together until the passengers, recalled

by the ship's siren, began to return from ashore.

Diana and her bodyguard were the last to arrive, the men laden with

fruit, flowers, and numerous parcels, and the girl more openly careless

of the rest of the world than before. They took possession of a group of

chairs that did not belong to them, and scattered their possessions upon

the deck. Pomegranates, nectarines, and bananas began to roll in every

direction, to the inconvenience of the passers-by, but what did that

matter? Diana lit a cigarette, declaring that it was too hot for words,

and that she _must_ have a John Collins. They all ordered John

Collinses. The handsome man fanned Diana with a large palm leaf, and she

looked at him with languorous eyes.

April grew hot inside her skin. Conversation interrupted by the noise

around them, both she and Sarle had immersed themselves once more in

their books. But April, at least, was profoundly conscious of everything

said and done by the neighbouring group, and she longed to take Diana

Vernilands by the shoulders and give her a sound shaking. As for the

three men who were encouraging and abetting the little minx, it would

have been a pleasure to push them separately and singly overboard. She

did not know how she could have managed to sit so still, except that

Sarle was there reading by her side, silent and calm, apparently noticing

nothing extraordinary in the behaviour of their neighbours.

A steward brought the John Collinses--four tall glasses of pale liquid

and ice, some stuff red as blood floating on the top. No sooner had

Diana tasted hers than she set up a loud wail that there was not enough

Angostura in it. One of the men hurried away to have this grave defect

remedied, and the moment he was out of sight Diana took up his as yet

untouched glass, and with two long straws between her lips, skilfully

sucked all the red stuff from the top of the drink and replaced the

glass. Above the delighted laughter of her companions, April heard a

woman's scornful remark further down the deck:

"It is only the April Fool!"

That was the little more that proved too much. The real April closed her

book sharply and left her chair. Walking to the deck-rail, she stood

leaning over, thinking hard, trying to decide how best to get hold of

Diana Vernilands and tell her firmly that this folly must stop at once.

She felt very miserable. Madeira, fading in the wake of the ship, with

already the blue haze of distance blurring its outlines, seemed to her

like the dream she had lived in these last few days . . . the golden

dream in which everyone liked and trusted her, and her beauty was a

pleasure instead of a burden. Tomorrow she must return to her destiny of

shabby clothes and second places, with the added bitterness of knowing

her name made the byword of the ship! That was something she could never

live down, if the voyage lasted a year. There would merely be two April

fools instead of one, and she the wretched masquerader in borrowed plumes

not the least of them! Slowly she turned away from the rail and went to

her cabin. A line sent by a steward brought Diana there at the

double-quick. She burst into the cabin, the open note in her hand.

"What do you mean? Is this the way you keep faith? . . . Trying to

slither out of our bargain before it is a week old!"

"It is you who have broken faith," retorted April indignantly. "Surely

it was in the bargain that you should behave with common decency and not

make my name notorious!"

"Rot!" was the airy answer. "A few old pussy cats with their fur brushed

the wrong way, that's all. Who's going to mind what they say?"

"Do you realize that you are known from one end of the ship to the other

as the April Fool?"

Diana burst out laughing.

"I know who started that . . . the poisonous asp I share my cabin with.

Just because I have seen her putting on her transformation, and know how

many kinds of paints she uses to build up her face! If it had been _you_

it would have been just the same. You'd have been the April Fool

instead, that's all. You ought to be jolly grateful, instead of bullying

me."

She sat down on the lounge, smiling and sparkling, and took out a

cigarette. April, in whom laughter was always near the surface, could

have smiled herself had she not been nearer weeping. After all, Diana's

pranks and antics were in no way vicious, but seemed merely the result of

the lifelong drastic restraint hitherto exercised over her. Her vitality

was breaking out like a fire that has been too long covered up. But

there was no knowing where she would stop, and what would not be consumed

in the merry blaze.

"Well, I'm _not_ grateful," she said firmly, "and if you want to be

talked about in future, it will have to be under your own name."

"Oh, April!" Diana's jauntiness left her instantly. "I beg of you,

_don't_ be unkind. I am having such a topping time. I've never been so

happy in my life. If you only knew how dull I've been with old Aunt

Grizel always hounding me to death. Don't go and spoil my first good

time."

"It is you who are spoiling it. You forget that I have to earn my living

and am dependent on the world's good opinion. Where shall I be at the

end of the voyage with the frivolous reputation you are building up for

me?"

"I won't do it any more. I'll be so good. You'll see how I'll change

from now on."

"The mischief is already done, unfortunately."

"All the same, we can't possibly change now," pleaded Diana. "What good

will it do us? . . . and you will get the worst of it, my dear. The

world is a bundle of snobs, and the people on the ship thoroughly

represent it. They will soon forgive me, but your crime will be

unpardonable. They will be simply furious with you for taking them in."

This was the tongue of truth, as April knew well. She looked at the

other girl ruefully.

"How can I trust you any longer? I saw you with those men on deck . . .

playing the fool . . . making yourself cheap. Oh, Diana, how can

you? . . . under my name or any other, you are still a lady with certain

rules to observe."

Diana flushed.

"You don't understand . . . I can't explain to you what it means to me to

break loose from convention for a little while . . . it's something in my

blood that has to come out. But, indeed, April, I swear to you if you

will only go on I will behave. I really will. I can't help what is

past, but there shall be nothing fresh for them to carp at in the future,

anyhow. Do be a sport and consent, won't you?"

In the end, by pleading, beguiling, and piling promise on promise, she

got her way, and thereafter the game went on--with a difference. They

still called her the April Fool, because names like that stick; but as

far as could be seen, she committed no fresh escapades to deserve the

title. Yet the real April Poole sometimes wondered if the last phase of

this folly was not worse than the first. She could not in justice deny

that Diana was much quieter and more orderly, but it seemed a pity that

her quietness should take the form of sitting for long hours at a time in

rapt silence with a certain extremely handsome man. This was Captain the

Hon. Geoffrey Bellew, on his way to South Africa as attache to a Governor

somewhere in the interior. He it was with whom Diana had been on such

happy terms the day of landing at Madeira. The two other men had been

cast forth like Gadarene swine. Bellew and Diana were sufficient unto

themselves. Eternally together, sometimes they walked the deck, or threw

quoits, or played two-handed card games; but ever they avoided large

companionable games, and always they sought the dusky corner in which to

sit undisturbed, gazing into each other's eyes. Strictly speaking, there

was nothing to cavil at in this. Numbers of other couples were doing the

same. These little games of two and two go forward all the time on

voyages to the Cape (especially nearing the Equator), and are the joy of

the genial-hearted. Even those who have no little games of their own are

wont to look on sympathetically, or, better still, to turn away the

understanding eye. The long, lazy, somnolent days and the magic nights,

star-spangled above and lit with phosphorescent seas below, lend

themselves to the dangerous kind of flirtation that says little and looks

much, and if there is any place in the world where Cupid is rampant and

"Psyche may meet unblamed her Eros," it is on the deck of a liner in the

tropics.

But either Diana was one of those unfortunate girls who cannot glance

over the garden wall without being accused of stealing peaches, or else

she had too thoroughly got people's backs up during the first week at

sea, for everyone looked cold-eyed at her romance and called it

unromantic names. There were continual little undercurrents of gossip

going on about her beneath the otherwise pleasant surface of everyday

life. April did not talk gossip nor listen to it, but she was vaguely

aware of it. Except for this, she would have been the happiest girl in

the world, and, indeed, she did not allow it to bother her too much,

having made up her mind to cast care to the winds and enjoy herself while

the sun shone. Destruction might come after--at Cape Town, perhaps, but

if it did, _tant pis_!

Something of Diana's recklessness entered into her, only that it did not

take the form of outraging the convenances, but just of enjoying life to

the full with the permission and approval of the world. She loved the

summer seas, and each blue and golden hour seemed all too short for the

pleasure to be stuffed into it.

Everyone was delightful to her. Gone were the days when all women's

hands were against her and her hand against all men. When she had time

to think about it, she fully recognized that most of the admiration and

kindness tendered to her by the other passengers was entirely worthless,

and merely the result of snobbery.

But she had neither time nor inclination to go too deeply into the matter

with herself. Her heart very ardently desired to believe that some at

least of the people who made such a fuss over her liked her for herself

alone, regardless of the rank and wealth she was supposed to possess.

Sarle, for instance--Vereker Sarle, the shy man of wild places as she

soon learned him to be, "the man who owned the largest and most

up-to-date ranch--Northern Rhodesia," people informed her . . . surely to

him she was a charming girl, as well, or before, she was Lady Diana

Vernilands. She wanted to believe it, and she did believe it. Not a

very difficult task to believe anything on sapphire seas decorated by

golden dawns and rose-red sunsets. Cynical truths have no room to

blossom in such surroundings. It was sheer joy to be alive, and she

threw herself into the merry routine of the days with all the zest of

youth. Her beautiful, athletic figure had been trained in many

gymnasiums, but never before had she known the delight of exercise in the

wild, fresh air of the open sea, where her muscles felt like rippling

music, and her blood seemed full of red roses. Her eyes had changed from

their smoky sadness to the dewy radiance of hyacinths plucked at dawn,

and her skin wore the satiny sheen, rose-tinted, of perfect well-being.

She wished the voyage would last for ever.

Nothing succeeds like success. Because she was brilliant and happy, and

apparently had everything she wanted, Luck smiled, and all good things

came her way. She was acclaimed a champion at deck games, and

unremittingly sought as a partner. In the evenings she never lacked

companions to help her dance the soles off her shoes. She played auction

like a fiend and always held the cards; won all the prizes in the sports

for running, jumping, threading the needle, and holding eggs in spoons;

bowled everyone at cricket. It seemed she could do nothing wrong or

badly. Finally, at the fancy dress ball, when everyone turned out in

wonderful garments planned and prepared long months before, she easily

captured the votes of the crowd as the wearer of the most original and

charming costume created on the spur of the moment.

There had been only one fancy dress in Diana's wardrobe, that of a

Persian lady; and for once she showed herself greedy in the matter of

clothes, and calmly commandeered it without consulting April. Yet the

latter's fanciful imitation of a well-known poster, composed of

inexpensive calicoes (bought from that emporium of all wants and

wonders--the barber's shop), had triumphed over the gorgeous veils and

jewels and silken trousers of the Persian houri and swept the unanimous

vote of the ship into April's lap. Enough in all this to turn any girl's

head, and though natural dignity and a certain attractive quality of

humility that was hers kept April's heart sweet, she was sometimes in

danger of becoming slightly _tete montee_. But she always pinched

herself in time, with the reminder that it was all only a dream from

which she must awaken very soon. For the nineteen halcyon days of the

voyage were speeding by and coming to an end. Hot, hard blue skies

gleamed overhead, and at night came the moon of Africa, pearl-white

instead of amber-coloured, as it looks in Europe. Strange stars

appeared, too, bigger, more lustrous, than the stars of cooler climes,

and seeming to brood very low over the world. The "Milky Way" was a path

of powdered silver. The "Coal Sack" showed itself full of brilliant

jewels. And the Southern Cross! When April first saw it mystically

scrolled across the heavens, like a device upon the shield azure of some

celestial Galahad, its magic fell across her soul, and would not be

lifted.

This is one of the first spells Africa puts upon those whom she means to

make her own. Ever after, with the poignant memory of that Cross of

straggling stars there is a thought of Africa, and the two cannot be torn

apart. For April there was always to be a memory of Vereker Sarle, too,

associated with it, for he it was who first picked out the Cross for her

in the luminant heavens, and he it was who said to her on the night

before they reached Cape Town:

"There seems to be some kind of blessing in that old Cross held out over

us as we come trailing back."

After that first day at Madeira she had not seen a great deal of Vereker

Sarle. He had dropped back quietly from the crowd that ringed her in,

and become a looker-on, sometimes barely that, for he was a great

poker-player, and spent much time in the smoke-room with one or two

hard-looking citizens who were plainly not drawing-room ornaments. April

had missed him, with a little pain in her heart, for instinct told her

that he was one of the men who count in the world. Also, she had divined

that his heart was as clear as his eyes. Though his face was so scarred

and rugged as to inspire in the wit of the ship the jest that it had been

chewed at by one of the lions he had hunted, there was yet something in

it that suggested the gentleness of a child, and that knight-like

chivalry that she had sought but never found in any man. So it hurt her

a little when she thought of it in the night hours, that he should keep

aloof from her, yet in a way she was glad, for she could not so ardently

have enjoyed playing her role if Sarle had looked on too much with his

innocent, yet keen gaze. It was by accident that he found her alone that

night, between dinner and dancing, and they stayed looking at the stars

and talking of the land they were to reach sometime within the next two

days. He was not a great talker, and most of the information April

gathered was in the form of half-scornful, half-wistful remarks. He

spoke of Africa as a man might speak of some worthless woman, whom he yet

loved above all peerless women. Of the lure and bane of her. How she

was the home of lies and flies, the grave of reputation, the refuge of

the remittance man and the bad egg; the land of the unexpected pest, but

never the unexpected blessing; of sunstroke and fever; scandals and

broken careers; snobbery, bobbery, and highway robbery. How, yet, when

one had been away from her for a little while, sometimes for a few months

only, one forgot all these things and remembered only with hunger and

aching the pink-tipped hills of her, the crystal air, royal sunsets and

tender dawns; the unforgettable friends she had given, the exquisite

reveries her wild spaces had inspired; the valiant men who lie buried in

her breast, the sweeping rivers and leagues and leagues of whispering

grasses. How, suddenly, the nostalgia for the burn and the bite of her

bitter lips seizes upon the men who have known her too long and too well,

dragging them from ease and comfort and the soft cushions of life, back

across the seas to her gaunt and arid breast.

"And there seems to be some kind of blessing in that old Cross held over

us as we come trailing back!"

His smile was scoffing and a little weary, but behind it April heard

longing in his voice, and saw the searching of his eyes towards where

land would soon appear. And what he was feeling strangely communicated

itself to her. The subtle hand of Africa was laid upon her heart, and

she trembled. In that moment she sickened suddenly of her false

position. Why was she not coming to this watchful land frankly and with

clean hands, instead of in the coils of a foolish pretence? She looked

at the fine, open face of the man at her side and was ashamed. An

impulse seized her to tell him the truth, but the thought of Diana drew

her up sharply. Had she the right to disclose the secret before first

consulting the other girl, or at least telling her what she meant to do?

There had of late been something about Diana that called for this

consideration. She had grown so quiet and pale. Her gay laughter was

seldom heard, and though she still sat about with Bellew a great deal, no

one ever heard them talking much. They seemed to revel in silence. It

was not difficult to divine what spell was upon them, and April was more

glad than she could tell.

For if it came to pass that Diana should get something out of this

masquerade, something beyond mere frivolous enjoyment, then the means

would have justified the end, and neither would have cause for reproach.

How fitting, too, for Diana and Bellew, both of the same world and social

position, to find each other in such a disinterested way. Really, it

looked as if everything were for the best in the best of all possible

worlds. It was only when Sarle's clear gaze was upon her that April's

soul stirred with a sense of guilt and a longing to discontinue the

deceit, harmless as it was. His simple, candid personality made it

impossible to remain with him and not be sincere. A very panic of haste

seized her to find Diana and arrange some plan of action. Abruptly she

left him, and though dancing had begun and she saw her partner bearing

down on her, she fled in the direction of the music saloon, where Diana

and Bellew might most frequently be found. But they were nowhere in

sight, and their dusky and palm-sheltered corner was in possession of

Mrs. Stanislaw, who instantly pounced on April with a request for her

autograph. Everyone was walking about with birthday and autograph books

that night. Others were carrying about large photographs of the ship and

begging people to sign their names upon it, as a souvenir of the voyage.

These things are done upon every trip to the Cape.

While April stood turning the pages of the autograph album and wondering

what name to put down, she got one of the worst jolts of her life.

"I have found out two very interesting things," said Mrs. Stanislaw, in

her soft and serpentine manner. "The woman whose children Miss Poole is

going to governess at the Cape is Cora Janis, one of my most intimate

friends. And . . ." she paused dramatically. April's fingers still

fluttered the pages, but her heart took a bound and then stood still.

"How very interesting," she stammered, "and what else?"

"Captain Bellew is a married man!"