hem,
because they can't get anything out of them without. But you see Captain
Niel gets on well enough with the 'boys.' I think he'll do, my dear,
I think he'll do," and Bessie quite agreed with him. And so it came to
pass that after this six weeks' trial the bargain was struck finally,
and John paid over his thousand pounds, becoming the owner of a third
interest in Mooifontein.

Now it is not possible, in a general way, for a man of John Niel's age
to live in the same house with a young and lovely woman like Bessie
Croft without running more or less risk of entanglement. Especially
is this so when the two people have little or no outside society or
distraction to divert their attention from each other. Not that there
was, at any rate as yet, the slightest hint of affection between them.
Only they liked one another very much, and found it pleasant to be a
good deal together. In short, they were walking along that easy, winding
road which leads to the mountain paths of love. It is a very broad road,
like another road that runs elsewhere, and, also like this last, it has
a wide gate. Sometimes, too, it leads to destruction. But for all that
it is a most agreeable one to follow hand-in-hand, winding as it does
through the pleasant meadows of companionship. The view is rather
limited, it is true, and homelike--full of familiar things. There stand
the kine, knee-deep in grass; there runs the water; and there grows
the corn. Also you can stop if you like. By-and-by it is different.
By-and-by, when the travellers tread the heights of passion, precipices
will yawn and torrents rush, lightnings will fall and storms will blind;
and who can know that they shall attain at last to that far-off peak,
crowned with the glory of a perfect peace which men call Happiness?
There are those who say it never can be reached, and that the halo which
rests upon its slopes is no earthly light, but rather, as it were, a
promise and a beacon--a glow reflected whence we know not, and lying on
this alien earth as the sun's light lies on the dead bosom of the moon.
Some declare, again, that they have climbed its topmost pinnacle
and tasted of the fresh breath of heaven which sweeps around its
heights--ay, and heard the quiring of immortal harps and the swan-like
sigh of angels' wings; and then behold! a mist has fallen upon them, and
they have wandered in it, and when it cleared they were on the mountain
paths once more, and the peak was far away. An