way it gave him
pleasure to think of that purpose foiled. He soon knew that his wife's
lover had sold his commission in the Army, and he learned, later, through
a communication forwarded through a London firm of solicitors, that
although he had chosen to ignore a certain appointment offered upon the
opposite side of the Channel, the other man would merely consider it
deferred until a suitable opportunity should occur. Meanwhile the writer
was travelling in South Africa, not alone.

Never to be alone again, she had promised him that not quite four years
ago. And to-day he sat on a box beside the waggon-bed where she lay dead
with her dead boy, and the only thing left to him that had the dear living
fragrance and sweet warmth of her slept smiling on his knees--their
daughter.

The long fine beard that he had grown swept the soft flushed cheek of the
little creature, and mingled with her yellow curls. Within the last few
hours--hours packed with the anguish of a lifetime for him--there were
sprinklings of white upon his high temples, where the hair had grown thin
under the pressure of the Hussar's furred busby, the khaki-covered helmet
of foreign service, or the forage-cap, before these had given place to the
Colonial smasher of felt, and the silky reddish-brown beard had in it
wide, ragged streaks of grey. He had worshipped the woman who had given up
all for him; they had lived only for, and in one another during four
wonderful years. Hardly a passing twinge of regret, never a scorpion-sting
of remorse, spoiled their union.

But they never stayed long in any town or even in any village. Some sound
or shape from the old unforgotten world beyond the barrier, some English
voice that had the indefinable tone and accent of high breeding, some
figure of Englishman or Englishwoman whose rough, careless clothing had
the unmistakable cut of Bond Street, some face recognised under the grey
felt or the white Panama, would spur them to the desire of leaving it
behind them. Then the valises would be repacked, the oxen would be hastily
inspanned, and their owners would start again upon that never-ending
journey in search of something that the woman was to be the first to find.

At last, when the sun was high and the worn-out beasts were almost
sinking, a group of low buildings came in sight a few miles away beyond a
kloof edged with a few poplar-like trees and the kameelthorn. A square,
one-storey house of corrugated iron, with a m