ad faded from her sky. What
was she to do with her future? Marry somebody and busy herself with
rearing a pack of children? It would be a physical impossibility to her.
No, she would go away to Europe and mix in the great stream of life and
struggle with it, and see if she could win a place for herself among the
people of her day. She had it in her, she knew that; and now that she
had put herself out of the reach of passion she would be more likely to
succeed, for success is to the impassive, who are also the strong. She
would not stop on the farm after John and Bessie were married; she
was quite determined as to that; nor, if she could avoid it, would she
return there before they were married. She would see him no more, no
more! Alas, that she had ever seen him.

Feeling somewhat happier, or at any rate calmer, in this decision, she
rose to return to the noisy camp, extending her walk, however, by a
detour towards the Heidelberg road, for she was anxious to be alone as
long as she could. She had been walking some ten minutes when she caught
sight of a cart that seemed familiar to her, with three horses harnessed
in front of it and one tied behind, which were also familiar. There were
many men walking alongside the cart all talking eagerly.

Jess halted to let the little procession go by, when suddenly she
perceived John Niel among these men and recognised the Zulu Mouti on the
box. _There_ was the man whom she had just vowed never to see again, and
the sight of him seemed to take all her strength out of her, so that
she felt inclined to sink down upon the veldt. His sudden appearance was
almost uncanny in the sharpness of its illustration of her impotence in
the hands of Fate. She felt it then; all in an instant it seemed to be
borne in upon her mind that she could not help herself, but was only
the instrument in the hands of a superior power whose will she was
fulfilling through the workings of her passion, and to whom her
individual fate was a matter of little moment. It was inconclusive
reasoning and perilous doctrine, but it must be allowed that the
circumstances gave it a colour of truth. And, after all, the border-line
between fatalism and free-will has never been quite authoritatively
settled, even by St. Paul, so perhaps she was right. Mankind does not
like to admit it, but it is, at the least, a question whether we can
oppose our little wills against the forces of a universal law, or
derange the details of an