g of her young man, bulked larger every day? She was not one to 'ave
the world's 'eel upon 'er without turning like a worm. No Fear, and Chance
it! Her bosom heaved under the soiled two-and-elevenpenny peek-a-boo
"blowse" as she registered her vow. That there Keyse--the conduct of the
faithless Mr. Green appeared almost blonde in complexion beside the sable
villainy of the other--That There Keyse should Rue the Day!

How to make him?--that was the question. Then came the dazzling flash of
inspiration--but not until they had met again.

She was circulating hungry-hearted about the brick-built case that held
her jewel--the man who had held out that vista of a home, and called her
his good little Boer-wife to be. We know it was a mere bait designed to
allure and dazzle--the Boer spy had caught many women with it before. Do
you despise her and those others for the predominance of the primal
instinct, the sacred passion for the inviolate hearth? Not so much they
yearned for the man as for the roof-tree, whose roots are twined about the
heart-strings of the natural woman, the spreading rafter-branches of which
shelter little downy heads.

She encountered the traitor, I say, and her eyes darted fire beneath a
bristling palisade of iron curling-pins. She had not the heart in these
days to free her imprisoned tresses. The villain had the perishing nerve
to accost her, jauntily touching the smasher hat.

"'Day, Miss! 'Aven't seen you since when I can't think."

She replied with a ringing sniff and a glance of infinite scorn that she
would trouble him not to think; and that she regarded low, interfering,
vulgar fellows as the dirt under her feet. So there!

"Cripps!" He was took aback, but not to the extent of taking hisself off,
which he ought to. "You're fair mad with me, an' no mistyke." His pale
eyes were unmistakably good-natured; the loss of the yellow freckles,
swamped in a fine, uniform, brick-dust colour, was an improvement, she
could not help thinking. "But I only did my duty, Miss, same as another
chap would 'ave 'ad to. Look 'ere! Come and 'ave a split gingerade."

The delicious beverage was three shillings the bottle. She frowned, but
hesitated. He persisted; she ended by giving in. Weeks and weeks since she
had walked with a young man! The Dutchman's saloon was closed and
barricaded; its owner had made tracks to his Transvaal friends at the
beginning of the siege. But the aromatic-beer cellar was one of the plac