ried in her arms, while she wailed to herself over
and over again,--

"He might have waited! He might have waited! My God in heaven, what
have I done? But at least he might have waited!"

A commissariat train was leaving Johannesburg at two o'clock the
next morning. His pass in his hand, Weldon clambered drearily on the
train for the long ride back to Kroonstad. Motion of any kind was
better than remaining longer in Johannesburg. Nevertheless, the
jolting of the train was wellnigh unbearable. His shoulder throbbed,
and the dull pain in his head was maddening. He had passed the stage
of weariness, however, where one is conscious of exhaustion. An
ever-tightening strain was upon him. He could not rest now; he must
go on, and on, and on, faster and ever faster, until at last
something should snap and quiet perforce should overtake him.

Early dawn found him at Kroonstad. Sleep had been impossible for
him; he had no appetite for food, and it took an ever-increasing
effort for him to pull himself together. Like a man mounting a
steep, pathless hill, he tried to drag himself up above the
consciousness of his aching head and throbbing wounds; but it was
not to be done. At the station he halted irresolutely. Then of a
sudden he faced towards the great hospital tent.

"I want something to steady me a bit," he said briefly to the first
doctor he met there. "I have two or three scratches, and I am
feeling fagged. Give me something to help me get a grip on myself
again, for I can't spend time to be ill."

The doctor remonstrated; but Weldon's answer was peremptory.

"I tell you, I can't stop. Give me something and let me go. I've
work at Lindley that must be done, and a convoy leaves in an hour."

An hour later he was trudging over the veldt in the direction of
Lindley. Lindley was forty miles away; the roads were dusty, and the
sun of early February struck down upon him with the heat of a
belated summer. Nevertheless, at Lindley was his squadron, and with
his squadron would be work. Never in all his past life had Weldon
known this imperative need for work. In it now, and in its
accompanying excitement and in its inevitable risk, would lie his
ultimate salvation. For him, the future held but one plain duty, and
that duty was to forget.

The experienced eye of the doctor had told him that the gaunt
trooper was a sick man; it had also told him that the trooper's
determination would outweigh his sickness, at least for the pr