at him a little obliquely. "She came pretty near it when
we took Hetmeyer's Kopje."

"Is he all right again?" Stafford asked; then added quickly, "I've had
so much to do since the Hetmeyer business that I have not seen Byng."

Barry spoke very carefully and slowly. "He's over at Brinkwort's Farm
for a while. He didn't want to go to the hospital, and the house at the
Farm is good enough for anybody. Anyhow, you get away from the smell of
disinfectants and the business of the hospital. It's a snigger little
place is Brinkwort's Farm. There's an orchard of peaches and oranges,
and there are pomegranate hedges, and plenty of nice flowers in the
garden, and a stoep made for candidates for Stellenbosch--as
comfortable as the room of a Rand director."

"Mrs. Byng is with him?" asked Stafford, his eyes turned towards
Brinkwort's Farm miles away. He could see the trees, the kameel-thorn,
the blue-gums, the orange and peach trees surrounding it, a clump or
cloud of green in the veld.

"No, Mrs. Byng's not with him," was the reply.

Stafford stirred uneasily, a frown gathered, his eyes took on a look of
sombre melancholy. "Ah," he said at length, "she has returned to
Durban, then?"

"No. She got a chill the night of the Hetmeyer coup, and she's in bed
at the hospital."

Stafford controlled himself. "Is it a bad chill?" he asked heavily. "Is
she dangerously ill?" His voice seemed to thicken.

"She was; but she's not so bad that a little attention from a friend
would make her worse. She never much liked me; but I went just the
same, and took her some veld-roses."

"You saw her?" Stafford's voice was very low.

"Yes, for a minute. She's as thin as she once wasn't," Barry answered,
"but twice as beautiful. Her eyes are as big as stars, and she can
smile still, but it's a new one--a war-smile, I expect. Everything gets
a turn of its own at the Front."

"She was upset and anxious about Byng, I suppose?" Stafford asked, with
his head turned away from this faithfulest of friends, who would have
died for the man now sitting on the stoep of Brinkwort's house, looking
into the bloom of the garden.

"Naturally," was the reply. Barry Whalen thought carefully of what he
should say, because the instinct of the friend who loved his friend had
told him that, since the night at De Lancy Scovel's house when the name
of Mennaval had been linked so hatefully with that of Byng's wife,
there had been a cloud over Rudyard's life; and that