The day wore slowly away. No one visited the rondavel. Although he
knew the wish to be preposterous, Matheson nevertheless felt a strong
desire to see Honor. He did not want to talk to her; he merely wished
to see her. He would have been satisfied had she entered to confer with
her mother, and left again without paying any heed to him--had she even
passed the open door so that he might, unseen, have watched her go by.
But Honor did not come.
Butter Tom appeared at regular intervals, moving with unnecessary
caution on tip-toe, his bare feet, always noiseless, making no sound on
the smooth floor. He brought food for Mrs Krige, and soup for the sick
baas, and laid and cleared the table with surprising swiftness and care.
Butter Tom's mind was troubled with regard to the baas' accident. He
felt himself blameworthy in having failed to keep guard. But the young
missis with the face that was like a lily in the moonlight had sent him
with a message to the farm. He had not liked to refuse to do her
bidding: now he wished that he had refused. His own baas when he
returned would be displeased with him, and the sick baas would reproach
him; there would be no tobacco and no more good English money for him.
He stole repeated furtive glances towards the bed; but the baas lay with
his gaze fixed on the open doorway and never looked his way. That was
proof enough for Butter Tom that the baas was angry.
Matheson was not thinking of Butter Tom: he had ceased to wonder at the
latter's defection; subsequent events had blotted that out for the time.
All his mind now was intent upon Honor to the obliteration of
everything--Honor, who, apart from her marriage, was lost to him, and
should have ceased to occupy his thoughts. In allowing this obsession
to hold him he knew that he was behaving discreditably; but a man,
though he may control his emotions up to a certain point, cannot always
entirely subdue them: desire confronted with the object which inspires
it can become an overpowering passion. Out of her presence, with
distance and the knowledge of the hopelessness of his love separating
them, he had grown resigned to the inevitable; but the sight of her
again, the sound of the rich soft voice, the touch of her, had been more
than he could bear with stoicism. He was moved to a sick longing for
her, a longing which overlooked another man's prior claim, and the claim
of the girl who loved and trusted him. If occasionally the memory of
Brenda obtruded itself, he thrust it aside with a sick man's irritably
impatience towards disturbing thoughts. Brenda had no place here. This
side of his life was a thing apart, a slice of life detached and
complete in itself. Here in this odd corner of the world he had
experienced all the romance he was to know: it began here, and ended
when he left. He would dig its grave and bury it when he went away.
There was nothing else left to do.
He worked himself into a fever as the day advanced, and, flushed and
restless, turned continually on the pillow and stared out at the hot
sunshine that flooded the world without, and poured in through the
opening of the rondavel and lay, a golden stream, along the shining
floor. No trees surrounded Nel's hut to shade it from the fierce rays
of the sun, and the days were sultry at that time of the year.
Mrs Krige sat beside him and fanned him with untiring patience. The
slow regular movement of her arm worried him; but he was grateful to
her, and he appreciated the faint draught thus created: when she paused
to rest the heaviness of the atmosphere oppressed him so that he felt
almost suffocated. It was a relief when the sun went down, and the sky,
blood-red from the afterglow, reflected luridly upon the darkening veld;
though the dusk, as it closed in slowly, robbed him of his final hope of
seeing Honor. Honor would not come to him... Perhaps it were wiser so.
He fell asleep after a while, and woke later to find the rondavel dimly
illumined by the lamp which, turned low, was screened from the bed. He
was alone. The quiet figure which he had last seen seated at the table
rolling those endless strips of linen, was no longer there. Mrs Krige
had left and had taken with her the result of her long hours of
industry; there was nothing, save the fan lying on the chair beside the
bed, to remind him of her presence. He wondered whether Butter Tom
remained within call, or if he were entirely alone. The thought of
being alone troubled him, why he did not know. He hesitated to call the
Kaffir for fear of receiving no response; doubt, he felt, in the
uncertainty of any one being near, was preferable to knowledge.
For a while he lay and watched the dimly burning lamp, and watching it
lost consciousness of his surroundings in sleep once more.
When he woke again the dawn was breaking, and the cool fresh air of the
early morning stole softly in through door and windows and fanned his
fevered brow. He drank in long breaths of it eagerly, and looking forth
at the increasing brightness, as it forced its way inside the silent
room and slowly dispelled the shadows lurking there, he was made
suddenly aware of another shadow that was not a part of the night, that
did not vanish with the darkness but assumed more definite shape,
appeared, while never moving, to draw nearer to him, to become less
shadowy as the lesser shadows fled. It was a trick of the imagination
he believed that formed out of the shadows in the dusky room the slender
woman's figure which he descried dimly outlined against the reimpe
curtain, with the dawn touching the pale hair, and falling wanly on the
white still face. Was it a dream, he wondered; and feared to move for
fear the dream would fade.
Quietly he lay and watched, feasting his eyes on the vision; and
momentarily the day waxed brighter, and the shadowy form grew more
distinct, took more substantial shape, became instinct with life and
movement.
Slowly the reimpe curtain fell into place. With soft, inaudible
footfall Honor advanced and stood beside the bed and looked down on him,
a gentle solicitude in her steady eyes. He did not speak. He was
afraid still that if he moved or made a sound she might vanish as
unexpectedly as she had come. He could not have borne the
disappointment had she suddenly turned and left him.
And then she spoke. Her voice broke the spell and sent the blood
coursing once more madly through his veins. This was no dream. He was
awake, and Honor stood there in the dawn beside his bed.
"You have slept well," she said. "You are better?"
"I am quite fit," he answered. "It was all I needed, a good sleep. How
did you come? I never heard you enter."
She laughed softly.
"I've been here with you all night."
"You've been here? ... all night?" His tone was eloquent, eyes and
voice bespoke his disappointment. "And I never knew! To sleep like
that... and you here!"
"If knowledge of my presence would have kept you awake, I am glad you
did not know," she said. "You were a little feverish. We did not like
to leave you alone. But you've slept well."
She touched his neck lightly with her hand, the dear soft hand he longed
to hold and kiss--the hand which he had taken and almost flung from him
when he first heard of her marriage.
"The fever has gone," she added. "You will soon be all right."
"I'm all right now," he insisted. "I feel quite fit. It's awfully good
of you to have bothered, but you ought not to have sat up; it wasn't
necessary."
"I wasn't sure," she returned, "how badly you were hurt. I didn't
realise at first that you were hurt. I am sorry... I want you to--
forgive that injury."
"Oh, that!" he said, and thought of the greater injury Holman had
contrived. "I ran that risk with my eyes open. I'm not counting that."
She fell on her knees beside the bed and laid her two hands with swift
impulsiveness upon his breast.
"I know," she said, speaking very quickly and in lowered tones, her face
close to his, the soft eyes holding his eyes filled with an eager
pleading which it was difficult to resist--"I know you and Heinrich are
enemies... For that matter _we_ are enemies--you and I--"
"No," he interrupted sharply... "No... You and I, enemies! ...
Honor..."
"Ah!" she breathed softly, and the hands on his breast pressed more
firmly. "I didn't mean that--not actually. Always in my heart I've
known that couldn't be. You're my--"
"Lover," he interjected hoarsely.
She winced and her face went white.
"Friend--my dear friend," she corrected, but so gently, and with so
little real conviction in her voice that it was rather as though she
admitted his definition of the relationship. "You are my friend. You
must remain my friend... I want to keep--just that."
There were tears in her eyes now. She did not attempt to hide them:
they welled there, priceless diamonds from a mine of ungathered wealth,
welled, and overflowed, and fell on the man's breast. Matheson lay
still, staring at her, and made no response.
"This is the last time we shall meet," she went on quietly, striving
after and regaining something of her old composure. "You must not come
this way again. It would have been better for us both if you had not
come now. Why did you come?"
"I did not expect to see you," he replied, and evaded her eyes.
"I will tell you," she said. "You are seeking Heinrich--to kill him.
You meant to kill him..."
"I don't know." He moved uneasily. "I suppose that was it. He's a
spy. He has been guilty of the worst form of sedition... I didn't
know--how should I?--that--that you--Oh! my God! Honor, I would rather
you had died than married him."
"Hush!" She placed a finger on his lips and silenced him. "You mustn't
say those things to me. All that he has done he has done with my
approval--for me and mine. He has worked for the Dutch cause for
years..."
"And because of that," he interrupted savagely, "you felt it necessary
to reward him with all that you had to give... As though he hasn't been
well rewarded by his country, which pays its spies well for spreading
sedition. And you're no longer Dutch--you are a German subject. You've
renounced your people by your marriage. He'll renounce them too when it
suits him."
She drew back, hurt and angry.
"I am not German," she contradicted proudly. "Heinrich's interest is
identical with mine."
"Oh, well!" he said wearily. "It doesn't matter anyway. At least it
isn't any business of mine. I'm sorry... but being sorry won't undo
things. Your feet are on the road now which they always wanted to
travel. And you can't see whither it is tending..."
"Can you?" she asked scornfully.
"I see it leading to disappointment and sorrow," he returned. "This
pitiful rebellion which you have assisted in bringing about is going to
make a sad difference in this land. And only hurt can come to you. It
is going to throw a still darker shadow across your path. My dear, I'm
grieved about that. If it were possible I would sweep all the shadows
out of your life and leave it fair and untroubled; but that is a power
no human will can compass. Why couldn't you leave the bitterness of
strife to men, and turn your thoughts to gentler things? It's unnatural
for women to cherish hate. Hate never accomplished anything but
destruction. In this case it will be the destruction of your hopes and
ambitions."
"We _must_ win," she asserted doggedly. "This is our chance. We are
bound to seize it. Your country can't send big armies to fight us now:
you have bigger armies against you. You will lose this war, and we
shall come again into our own. If only all the Dutch were with us! ...
I can't understand those Boers who go over to the British. It isn't
loyal; it is abject servility."
"You are altogether mistaken," he said. "You don't understand the
position. It isn't a question of going over to the British, but of
protecting this country from a serious menace. These men lode deeper
than you do; they have the welfare of the country at heart; they have
bigger stakes to occupy themselves with than nursing a spirit of
revenge. They think for the future generations--for their children,
whose heritage this country is. You are thinking only of your
grievances: you live in the past. The maker of history must live in the
future. Can't you see, Honor, that you are fighting for your generation
to the hurt of the generations to come? The statesman may not reckon
for his own brief span; he has to look ahead."
She made no verbal response, but looked at him with quickening interest,
her dark eyes glowing, the breath coming quickly from between her parted
lips. Matheson caught her wrist and held it firmly while he talked.
"What will it benefit you," he asked, "to hoist your flag over the body
of your brother, and the bodies of the sons and husbands of women who
think with you? Life is too good a thing to spill it wantonly at the
feet of a bloodless ideal. And you are too good and fine and gentle to
waste your life in hate."
"Not hate," she corrected, the hot tears welling afresh. "Patriotism is
not hate. Aren't you ready to spill your blood for your country?"
"You've got me there," he said, and smiled. "I'm going to defend this
country from German avidity, anyhow."
"Ah!" she cried. "You preach against hate, yet you hate the Germans.
That isn't consistent. You do hate the Germans?"
"Yes," he admitted; "I suppose that's true. But I never hated a German
before their bestial ravishment of Belgium. I never imagined anything
so brutal could defame the prestige of a great nation. They will never
live that down. The things they've done... And the spying and
underhand work... Yes, I hate them all right."
"You hate Heinrich," she persisted.
"I hate the things he has done."
"I know," she said. "But what he has done, he has done for me. Always,
when I was still a child, he loved me. Can you wonder that I feel
grateful to him? I am sorry you hate him. I don't want harm to come to
him through you... not through you. Promise me that you will go away
and never seek to harm him in the future... Promise me that--for my
sake."
Had Matheson not already realised that the punishment of Holman was no
longer work for him he must have yielded to the earnest entreaty in
Honor's voice and eyes, as with nervous insistence she urged her request
that he would spare her husband; but her pleading stabbed him, and
excited afresh his enmity towards the man.
"There is no need to wring promises from me," he said, a hardness he
could not prevent steeling his voice. "The fact that he is your husband
is sufficient. Had I known that sooner I should not be here now. As it
is, more harm has come to me than to him. It was not compassion on his
side that prevented him from murdering me."
"He was desperate," she pleaded; "he feared you. He fears you still."
"Perhaps," he exclaimed with angry suspicion, "he sent you to intercede
for him?"
"No," she cried quickly--"not that I came because--because--" Her voice
broke on a sob. "You are so hard," she said. "I cannot touch you.
Have you no pity--for me?"
"Pity!--for you?" he cried, and raised himself sharply in the bed. "My
God! I love you, and you know it... What need have you to ask for
pity? Rather should your compassion go out to me. I give everything...
and take nothing away with me--nothing."
Suddenly she bent over him, her eyes alight, her face transformed with a
tender spiritual beauty that held him spellbound, breathless, drinking
in her beauty with his eyes. Leaning towards him she pressed her lips
to his.
"Something," she whispered--"not much--but something to take away, and
to keep, from me..."