. Never mind. Buck up now, and come inside. It's
beastly cold out here."

"Why yes. I feel tottery though. Oh Edala, what a fool you must think
me."

"No. Only, don't do it again," was the reply, accompanied by a curious
laugh. Edala was thinking--though not resentfully--of how a day or two
ago the other was lecturing her: in a way talking down to her, while
disclaiming any intent to do so. Now she was the one upon whom
everything depended. The situation was in her hands.

They went inside, and Edala mixed a glass of brandy and water.

"You drink this," she said. "Then go to sleep for an hour or two and
we'll start for Kwabulazi."

"But I hate spirits--Ugh!" with a shudder.

"So do I; and I hate medicine too; but both are necessary sometimes.
Down with it."

Evelyn obeyed, with more than one additional shudder. But the end
justified the means, for, sitting back in a low roomy armchair, she soon
felt drowsy and dropped off to sleep.

Edala felt no inclination to follow her example, on the contrary she had
never felt more wakeful in her life. She wandered from room to room.
There was her father's library, and his favourite chair and reading
lamp. There were his cherished books, and all the surrounding was alive
with his presence. She could hardly realise that he was no longer
there, but instead was a prisoner--a hostage--in the hands of
insurrectionary savages; whose wild mad scheme of rebellion could end in
no other way than that utterly disastrous to themselves, and then--?

She looked around the room, and a terrible wave of compunction, or
remorse came over her. How hard, how selfish, how unloving she had been
towards him. Who was she that she should judge him? Yet she had, and
that at every moment of the day.

All the affection and care and consideration he had lavished upon her
came back now. It would, when it was too late, he had more than once
said in his bitterness--Evelyn too had all unconsciously echoed his
words. And it had. Should she ever see him again--ever look upon that
loving presence--to whom she had been all in all for the whole of her
young life, and whom she had met with ingratitude and repulsion? In the
lonely silence of the still midnight the girl who had faced physical
danger with a calm front, and rare readiness of resource, broke down.

"Father darling--darling! come back to me," she moaned. "Only come back
to me, to your little one again, and all shall be so di