must go back to his quiet life of service which asked and gave nothing
else, and to the companionship of those old memories which sometimes
awakened from their sleep.

He rode far across the veldt, and for the first time for many a long
year turned back the leaves of the closed book. And the reason he did
this was the remembrance of Meryl's face, as she leaned up against the
lintel of the window that last evening at Bulawayo, when they both
felt it was a final parting. Something that had been in the depths of
her eyes, and which she had been powerless to hide, although she made
no other sign. It was a remembrance that called that added sternness
to his face: the sternness of deep trouble suppressed. For he knew no
woman of Meryl's nature would look as she had looked that evening and
love another man in a month. Therefore it was probably for some
altruistic motive and not love that she had consented to marry van
Hert; no shallow, selfish motive he knew well enough, but perhaps some
call she had found the courage to answer.

But if it was also a sacrifice, an offering of herself and her
happiness upon some altar of need, ought he to let her fulfil it?
Between her and the husband he had pictured for her he could not allow
himself to stand; between her and van Hert, whom he was convinced she
did not love, was another matter. Yet he knew in his heart that he
could not save her now; the die was cast, both of them must abide by
it. And in any case, how could he tell her his story? How could he go
to her with that story and empty-handed as well; she the heiress of
great wealth, and he without even a name and position?

Away out in the kopjes he rode his horse slowly up a steep hill-side,
and on the top dismounted and sat upon a boulder, looking over a vast
tract of lovely country to infinite blue distances. As ever in moments
of stress, he had chosen the height, with wide horizons, fresh-blowing
winds, far spaces of sunlight; and in the flickering shade of the
thinly foliaged trees he took off his helmet, baring his head to the
breeze. And it could be seen that the grey about the temples had been
increasing, while the strong lines on the face had deepened already,
as if it had gone hardly with him of late.

He sat very still; so still that a little squirrel ran down almost to
his feet to investigate the strange figure, and little birds chirped
all kinds of personalities about him to each other close at hand. He
was taking