htly prayers, made a special
petition for the reformation of poor misguided Owen upon her
wedding-night.

"Because we are so happy," she told David, who had found her kneeling,
white and exquisitely virginal in her lace and cambric draperies by the
bedside. "And _he_ must be so miserable. And you know, though I never
_really_ cared for him, he was perfectly devoted to me."

"Who could help it?" cooed enamoured David, and knelt and kissed his
bride's white feet. The white feet would show no ugly stains, although to
reach the bridal bed, towards which her husband now drew her, they must
tread upon his brother's bleeding heart.

XVIII

The Dop Doctor lifted his head as the bell of the front door rang loudly
at the back passage-end. Two mounted officers of the Military Staff at
Gueldersdorp had trotted up the street with an orderly behind them a
moment before. The elder of the two had pulled sharply up in front of the
green door whose brass-plate flamed in the last rays of sunset. He had
dismounted lightly and gone up the steps and rung, saying something to his
companion. The other officer had saluted and ridden on, as though to carry
out some order: the orderly had come up and got off his horse and taken
the bridle of the officer's, as the Dutch dispensary-attendant, Koets, had
plodded heavily along the passage and opened the door, and now slouched
heavily back, ushering in a presumable patient.

"Light the lamp," said the Dop Doctor in Dutch to the factotum, as he rose
up heavily out of his chair. "It will be dark directly."

"There is no need of more light, I am obliged to you," said the stranger,
cool, alert, brown of face as of dress: a thin man, distinct of speech,
quiet of manner, and with singularly vivid eyes of light hazel. "In the
actual dark I can see quite clearly. A matter of training and habit,
because I began life as a short-sighted lad. Do we need your assistant
further?"

In indirect answer to the pointed question, the Dop Doctor turned to the
Dutch dispensary-assistant, and said curtly:

"Ga uit!"

Koets went, not without a scowl at the visitor.

"A sulky man and a surly master," thought the stranger, scanning with
those observant eyes of his the gaunt figure in the shabby tweed suit.
"Has seen trouble and lived hard," he added, mentally noting the haggard
lines of the square face under the massive forehead, over which a plume of
badly-brushed hair, black with threads of grey in it, fe