The leafy summer day was at its close--and Horlestone Manor was in one
of the leafiest parts of leafy England. Through its cool gardens in the
cloudless sunset strolled two people.
"I wonder if you'll ever long for the good old wild surroundings among
all this tameness, darling," one of them was saying.
"Tameness! Why, it's Paradise!"
"Paradise! Wait until you see it in winter. You'll yearn for the
Lumisana when you're shivering with three feet of snow piled up round
the house."
"No, I won't. If I do I'll go and stare at the big koodoo head and the
_indhlondhlo_. Let's have another look at them now."
They strolled through the passage that led to Denham's large and
spacious museum. The great head looked down upon them from a prominent
space, where it was throned all by itself. Beneath hung an
inscription--
"Shot by Verna Denham,
Lumisana Forest, Zululand."
Then the date.
"We shall have to turn that inscription face to the wall if James or
Hallam or Downes come to give us their promised look-up," laughed
Denham.
"Oh, we'll tell them to look the other way." Then, growing serious:
"Strange how so many of the things here should have been instrumental in
bringing us our life's happiness. It was through them we came
together."
"It was, thank God," he rejoined, equally serious.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finis.