s
wife, or more to him than might have been an adder gathered from his
own aloe hedge, with all the traits and attributes peculiar to adders
who are gathered to the bosom and warmed there.

He came back to a home from which the spell of the golden, laughing
woman was lifted. The evil menace that had hung for so long over the
old farm was lifted for ever. Part was buried by the blue-aloe hedge;
part of it, plucked from the dregs of an ebbing river, lay in a far
grave with no mark on it but the plain words, "Isabel Saxby." While
the sad watcher in the kraal had no more need to walk and whisper
warnings by night.

It was the children who laughed now at Blue Aloes, merry and free as
elves in a wood. There was a glow came out of Christine Chaine that
communicated itself to all. She and Saltire were to be married as soon
as a Quentin aunt, who was on her way, had settled down comfortably
with the children. Afterward, Roddy would live with them at the Cape
until his schooldays were over. In the meantime, they walked in a
garden of Eden, for the rains had made the desert bloom, and life
offered them its fairest blossoms with both hands.

The Leopard

PART I

It was nine o'clock, and time for the first waltz to strike up. The
wide, empty floor of the Falcon Hotel lounge gleamed with a waxen glaze
under the brilliant lights, and the dancers' feet were tingling to
begin. Michael Walsh, who always played at the Wankelo dances, sat
down at the piano and struck two loud arresting bars, then gently
caressed from the keys the crooning melody of the _Wisteria Waltz_.
Two by two, the dancers drew into the maze of music and movement, and
became part of a weaving rhythmic, kaleidoscopic picture.

There was not an ill-looking person in the room. The men were of a
tanned, hard-bitten, adventurous brand; the women were nearly all
pretty or attractive or both, and mostly young. These are the usual
attributes of women in a new country like Rhodesia; for men do not take
ugly, unattractive women to share life with them in the wilds, and
girls born in such places have a gift all their own of beauty and charm.

Many of them were badly dressed, however, for that, too, is an
attribute of the wilds, where women mostly make their own clothes,
unless they are rich enough to get frequent parcels from England.
There was this to be noted about the gowns: When they were new, they
were patchy affairs, made up at home from materials