yrdom," she snapped, and flung out of the room,
leaving him perplexed and grave.

"If I thought so," he said in his heart, "if I were sure of it, I
would forbid the banns myself."

He moved to the window, and stood for a long time looking silently and
sadly to the far blue hills. He was thinking that, though he had given
his life almost to be all in all to Meryl since she was left
motherless, there was one part now he could not play.

"A mother would have seen through anything and known what to do," he
finished, and sighed heavily.

XXIII

CAREW'S STORY

The news reached Carew through a newspaper. He was back in Salisbury now,
attending the renewed sitting of the Commission, giving invaluable
assistance. Whatever he said was instantly listened to. The chief members
of the Commission, men of note and weight, wondered a little over this
distinguished-looking man, merely a soldier-policeman, who knew such an
extraordinary amount about the black races in Rhodesia; but if they
sought enlightenment they were disappointed. No one knew anything about
Major Carew, except that he was once in the Blues and now in the British
South Africa police, and that the natives were more or less his hobby.

But there was one morning when he was more silent than usual; when he
seemed a little _distrait_ and very difficult to approach. And the
moment the sitting was over he declined, somewhat curtly, an
invitation to dinner that evening, and rode out across the veldt
alone. That was the morning the daily newspaper contained the news
that the only child of Henry Pym, the well-known millionaire, was
engaged to be married to Mr. William van Hert, the eminent politician.

And Carew's comment was to ride out across the veldt alone.

The news was undoubtedly a shock to him. Of course, he had known she
would marry, but, more or less unconsciously, he had pictured her with
an English home and a permanent place in English society.

The reality,--what actually had happened,--had not entered his head at
all. Of course he knew van Hert by name; everyone did. And because of
his reputation for anti-English views Carew both marvelled and at the
same time gleaned a probable motive. And the result of his cogitations
was that added sternness which always came into his face when he was
seriously troubled.

Yet what use to fret and trouble now? She had gone out of his life for
ever, and with her his last chance of glad renewing. Henceforth he