xieties and apprehensions--was a thing outside.
Yet from the point of view of Le Sage there was a good deal to be said.
He was not a demonstrative man, this one, who enjoyed the repute of
never having made a bad bargain in his life; yet in his heart of hearts
he had a very soft place for this beautiful only daughter of his, and
the secret of his rancour lay in the fact that he resented her leaving
him at all--or at any rate for some time to come. It was unreasonable,
he would candidly allow to himself--but the feeling was there. She had
brightened his home and his life, and now she was prepared--even
anxious--to cease doing both--to leave him at the call of an outside
stranger of whose very existence barely a year ago she had hardly been
aware. Had it been a man of solid gifts and substantial position upon
whom she had bestowed her love, it would have been a gilding of the
pill; but she had chosen to throw herself away upon a "waster"--as his
favourite and wrathful epithet put it--one on the verge of insolvency,
and without the requisite faculties for righting himself--ah, that
rendered the potion a very black and nauseous one to the universally
successful man.

Now as he rode, in gloomy silence, the laugh, and quip, and tender tone
of the pair behind him, was as fuel to the fire of his anxiety to give
Wyvern his _conge_, and that in unmistakable terms. He had made up his
mind to do this, from the moment he had looked and had seen him coming
in at the gate, but Lalante had taken care they should never be alone
together. Well, he would do it--not to-day but to-morrow morning, and
if no opportunity occurred he would make one; point-blank if need be. A
"waster" like that, who couldn't even keep himself!

"Hullo, Le Sage. You seem a bit off colour," cried Wyvern genially,
ranging up alongside, as they topped the last rise, wherefrom the
homestead came into view about a mile in front. "It really was a
beastly shame to lug you off on that fool's errand after the long ride
of it you had had."

"Oh, I'm all right. It's all in the day's job, and I'm as tough as
wire, thank the Lord. Is that confounded vermin-preserve behind your
place as full as ever, Wyvern? It's about time you killed some of it
off, isn't it?"

The reference was to the network of rugged bushy kloofs of which mention
has been made, and which were specially adapted for the harbouring of
various forms of wild life, antipathetic and detrimental to s