soul? Well, I will
convey your offering to our chaplain, Father Wix, since you desire it."

"I do desire it--or, rather, poor Mildare would."

An awful sensation as of sinking down through the solid floors, through
the foundations of the Convent, into unfathomable deeps possessed her. Her
eyes closed; she forced them open, and made a desperate rally of her
sinking forces. Unseen she put out one hand behind her, and leaned it for
support against the iron-studded oak timbers of the chapel door. But his
eyes were not upon her as he went on, unconsciously, to deal the last,
worst blow.

"I said, ma'am, that my dead friend ... the name is Richard Mildare,
Captain, late of the Grey Hussars.... You are ill, ma'am. I have been
inconsiderate, and over-tired you." He had become aware that great dark
circles had drawn themselves round her eyes, and that even her lips were
colourless. She said, with a valiant effort:

"I assure you, with thanks, that you have been most considerate, and that
I am perfectly well. Are you at liberty to tell me, sir, the date of
Captain Mildare's death? For I know one who was also his friend, and
would"--a spasm passed over her face--"take an interest in hearing the
particulars."

"Ma'am, you shall know what I know myself. About twenty years ago Captain
Mildare, owing to certain unhappy circumstances, social, and not pecuniary
ones, sent in his papers, sold his Commission, and left England."

She waited.

"I heard of him in Paris. Then, later, I heard from him. He was with her
here in South Africa. She was a woman for whom he had given up everything.
They travelled continually, never resting long anywhere, he, and she,
and--their child. She died on the trek and he buried her."

"Yes?"

The voice was curiously toneless.

"Where he buried her has only recently come to my knowledge. It was at a
kind of veld tavern in the Orange Free State, a shanty in the
grass-country between Driepoort and Kroonfontein, where travellers can get
a bad lodging, and bad liquor, and worse company. 'Trekkers Plaats' they
call the place now. But when my friend was there it was known as the 'Free
State Hotel.'"

Her lips shut as if to keep out bitter, drowning waters; her face was
white as wax within the starched blue-white of the nun's coif; his slow
sentences fell one by one upon her naked heart, and ate their way in like
vitriol. Quite well, too well, she knew what was coming.

"He dug her grave with his own h