on the window-sill
was a white and rosy fuchsia. The Victorianism of the room almost
talked; and in her clinging frock Irene seemed to Jolyon like Venus
emerging from the shell of the past century.

"If the proprietor had eyes," he said, "he would show you the door; you
have broken through his decorations." Thus lightly he smothered up an
emotional moment. Having eaten cold beef, pickled walnut, gooseberry
tart, and drunk stone-bottle ginger-beer, they walked into the Park, and
light talk was succeeded by the silence Jolyon had dreaded.

"You haven't told me about Paris," he said at last.

"No. I've been shadowed for a long time; one gets used to that. But then
Soames came. By the little Niobe--the same story; would I go back to
him?"

"Incredible!"

She had spoken without raising her eyes, but she looked up now. Those
dark eyes clinging to his said as no words could have: 'I have come to
an end; if you want me, here I am.'

For sheer emotional intensity had he ever--old as he was--passed through
such a moment?

The words: 'Irene, I adore you!' almost escaped him. Then, with a
clearness of which he would not have believed mental vision capable, he
saw Jolly lying with a white face turned to a white wall.

"My boy is very ill out there," he said quietly.

Irene slipped her arm through his.

"Let's walk on; I understand."

No miserable explanation to attempt! She had understood! And they walked
on among the bracken, knee-high already, between the rabbit-holes and
the oak-trees, talking of Jolly. He left her two hours later at the
Richmond Hill Gate, and turned towards home.

'She knows of my feeling for her, then,' he thought. Of course! One
could not keep knowledge of that from such a woman!

CHAPTER IV--OVER THE RIVER

Jolly was tired to death of dreams. They had left him now too wan and
weak to dream again; left him to lie torpid, faintly remembering far-off
things; just able to turn his eyes and gaze through the window near his
cot at the trickle of river running by in the sands, at the straggling
milk-bush of the Karoo beyond. He knew what the Karoo was now, even if
he had not seen a Boer roll over like a rabbit, or heard the whine of
flying bullets. This pestilence had sneaked on him before he had smelled
powder. A thirsty day and a rash drink, or perhaps a tainted fruit--who
knew? Not he, who had not even strength left to grudge the evil thing
its victory--just enough to know that there wer