Superior, taking in the situation and the need of her at a glance,
called a brief order down the ladder stairway, and went swiftly over to
Saxham, whipping a blue apron out of a big pocket, tying it about her, and
pulling on a pair of sleeves of the same stuff as she went. Lynette turned
to take the basin of hot water that the arm of Sister Tobias extended from
below, and the jaws of W. Keyse snapped together. Until he twigged the
bronze-red coils of hair under the broad, rough straw hat, he had thought
... Cripps!

We know how the dancing, provoking mischievous blue eyes and adorable
wrist-thick golden pigtail of Greta du Taine dwelt in his love-stricken
remembrance. Her worshipped image had got a little rubbed and dimmish of
late to be sure, but breathe on the colours, and you saw them come out
clear, and oh! bewilderingly lovely.

Billy Keyse had never even beheld the enchantress since that
never-to-be-forgotten morning when he had seen her pass at the head of the
serpentine procession of pupils, slowly winding across the Market Square.
But he knew she was still in Gueldersdorp. He felt her, for one thing. We
know that in his case Love's clairvoyant instinct had got its nightcap on.
We saw Greta depart on the train bound North and branch off East for the
Du Taine homestead near Johannesburg. But if she were not in Gueldersdorp,
why did the left breast-pocket of the now soiled and heavily-patched khaki
tunic bulge so? There were six letters inside there, tied up with a frayed
bit of blue ribbon. Hers? 'Strewth, they were! And each what you might
call a Regular One-er of a love-letter. Never mind the paper being
thumb-marked as well as cheaply inferior, one cannot expect all the
refinements of civilisation in a beleaguered town. It was the spelling
that--although we know W. Keyse to be no cold orthographist--occasionally
gave him pause as he perused and re-perused the greasy but passionate
page. And why did she sign herself "Fare Air?" The sense of ingratitude
pierced him even as he wondered. Why shouldn't she if she chose? What a
proper beast he was to grumble! Him, that ought to be proud of her
demeaning herself to stoop to a young chap in a lower station, so to call.
And her a Regular Swell.

He hugged the letters against him with the arm belonging to the hand that
held the concertina. Beloved missives, where was the worshipped writer
now? Sitting by a tapestry-frame, for he could not imagine her peeling
potatoes,