r eyes, but she looked up now. Those
dark eyes clinging to his said as no words could have: 'I have come to an
end; if you want me, here I am.'

For sheer emotional intensity had he ever--old as he was--passed through
such a moment?

The words: 'Irene, I adore you!' almost escaped him. Then, with a
clearness of which he would not have believed mental vision capable, he
saw Jolly lying with a white face turned to a white wall.

"My boy is very ill out there," he said quietly.

Irene slipped her arm through his.

"Let's walk on; I understand."

No miserable explanation to attempt! She had understood! And they
walked on among the bracken, knee-high already, between the rabbit-holes
and the oak-trees, talking of Jolly. He left her two hours later at the
Richmond Hill Gate, and turned towards home.

'She knows of my feeling for her, then,' he thought. Of course! One
could not keep knowledge of that from such a woman!

CHAPTER IV

OVER THE RIVER

Jolly was tired to death of dreams. They had left him now too wan and
weak to dream again; left him to lie torpid, faintly remembering far-off
things; just able to turn his eyes and gaze through the window near his
cot at the trickle of river running by in the sands, at the straggling
milk-bush of the Karoo beyond. He knew what the Karoo was now, even if
he had not seen a Boer roll over like a rabbit, or heard the whine of
flying bullets. This pestilence had sneaked on him before he had smelled
powder. A thirsty day and a rash drink, or perhaps a tainted fruit--who
knew? Not he, who had not even strength left to grudge the evil thing its
victory--just enough to know that there were many lying here with him,
that he was sore with frenzied dreaming; just enough to watch that thread
of river and be able to remember faintly those far-away things....

The sun was nearly down. It would be cooler soon. He would have liked
to know the time--to feel his old watch, so butter-smooth, to hear the
repeater strike. It would have been friendly, home-like. He had not even
strength to remember that the old watch was last wound the day he began
to lie here. The pulse of his brain beat so feebly that faces which came
and went, nurse's, doctor's, orderly's, were indistinguishable, just one
indifferent face; and the words spoken about him meant all the same
thing, and that almost nothing. Those things he used to do, though far
and faint, were more distinct--walking past t