of an early
winter sky, fell through the nearly denuded boughs upon the earth
around, and the screech of crickets and the far-off melodious shout of a
hoepoe hardly seemed to break the stillness. What would she answer? Or
would she even understand? And as to this I almost hoped not, for here
had I, under cover of this veiled talk, been saying to her in effect:
"Beryl, I am a ruined man, a beggar, but--how would it be to throw away
the best years of your life and wait for me on the off chance of my ever
being able to rise substantially above that most unenviable position?"

"Of course I am only putting a case," I appended with conscious
lameness.

"Oh, of course," she answered readily. "But, supposing--"

"Beryl! Beryl!" rang out a clear, child-voice, _crescendo_. "Oh, there
you are. I thought she had gone to the garden, Dr Pentridge," this
last back over a shoulder, and Iris came tearing along the path, tossing
back the wealth of her gold-brown hair. After her, in more leisurely
fashion, came Pentridge.

He started on seeing me, so plainly, so unmistakably, that, keenly
observant, I at once set up the theory within my own mind that he had
come to find Beryl alone, with a purpose of course. The child could
easily have been got rid of, but I--well, that was a different matter.

"Ha, Holt! Hard at it as usual?" he said, with rather a forced
geniality.

"Not particularly hard. Only filling up an odd moment."

He told us that he had just received letters by a messenger who had
ridden out from Fort Lamport, letters relating to his pending
negotiations, which would render it necessary for him to leave as soon
as possible; in fact, that very afternoon if it could possibly be
managed. He would have to go straight home from there, so supposed it
would be a final good-bye, though we should all meet again soon--in
fact, quite soon, he hoped.

I don't know whether I did, and that for obvious reasons. However, it
was manifest that he wanted to have a talk with Beryl, and he should
have it, so far as I was concerned; to which end I started in on a
battle of chaff with Iris, which kept her busy for a few minutes, then
craftily manoeuvred her further down the kloof to look at and talk over
a couple of bees' nests we had been planning to take out. This was all
right enough, but what does the little fiend do next but splutter out--

"Can you keep a secret, Kenrick? Because if so I'll tell you one.
Pentridge is aw