t project. She wondered now at
that impulse of confidence. Perhaps she had yielded to it to convince
herself that her enthusiasm was as strong, her purpose still as clear, as
ever, in the mirror of the Future; that no gay, youthful reflection had
ever risen up of late days between it and her wistful eyes when she peeped
in. The remembered image of the handsome face that had laughed, even as
Beauvayse had declared:

"Even if I die to-day, it won't end there. I shall think of you, and long
for you, and worship you wherever I am."

The thought of Beauvayse's dying was horrible, intolerable. His name came
after the Mother's in her prayers. He had asked her to keep the
secret--his and hers--and called her such exquisite, impossible things for
promising that the mere remembrance of his words and his eyes as he said
them in that low, passionate, eager voice, took her breath deliciously.

"_Sweetest, kindest, loveliest...._" She whispered them to herself as she
hurried back to comfort worried Mrs. Greening with the news that the
doctor was coming.

Meanwhile Saxham went on his accustomed way between the long line of
waggons and the corrugated-iron lined huts on the other hand, in a
cross-fire of appeals, requests, complaints. Nothing escaped him. He would
pass by, with the most casual glance and nod, women who volubly protested
themselves dying, and single out the face that bore the dull, scorched
flush of fever or the yellow or livid stamp of rheumatism, or ague, or
liver-trouble, with a beckon of his hand, and the owner of such a face,
invariably declaring herself a well woman, would be summarily dealt with,
and dosed with tabloid or tincture out of the inexhaustible wallet he
carried, slung about his shoulders by its webbing band.

"Dokter," screeched a portly Tante in a soiled cotton bedgown and flapping
kappje, appearing, copper stewpan in hand, from between the canvas
tilt-curtains of a living-waggon. "You are come at last; the Lord be
thanked for it! I have much, much trouble inside." She groaned, and laid
her fat, unoccupied hand upon the afflicted area, adding: "I feel I shall
not be quite wholesome here."

"Wat scheelt er aan, Tante?" He spoke the Taal with ease.

The large Tante snorted:

"What is the matter? Do you ask me what is the matter? As if a dokter
oughtn't to tell me that! But the Engelsch are regular devils for asking
questions. Since you must know, I have a mighty wallowing under my
apron-band, a