fe faithless and ashamed?"

"And I, I swear also," I broke in.

"Nay, swear nothing. While I live I know that you will love me, and if
I should be taken, it is my wish that you should marry some other good
woman, since it is not well or right that man should live alone. With
us maids it is different. Listen, Allan, for the cocks are beginning to
crow, and soon there will be light. You must bide here with your father.
If possible, I will write to you from time to time, telling you where
we are and how we fare. But if I do not write, know that it is because I
cannot, or because I can find no messenger, or because the letters have
miscarried, for we go into wild countries, amongst savages."

"Whither do you go?" I asked.

"I believe up towards the great harbour called Delagoa Bay, where the
Portuguese rule. My cousin Hernan, who accompanies us"--and she shivered
a little in my arms--"is half Portuguese. He tells the Boers that he
has relations there who have written him many fine promises, saying they
will give us good country to dwell in where we cannot be followed by the
English, whom he and my father hate so much."

"I have heard that is all fever veld, and that the country between is
full of fierce Kaffirs," I said with a groan.

"Perhaps. I do not know, and I do not care. At least, that is the notion
in my father's head, though, of course, circumstances may change it.
I will try to let you know, Allan, or if I do not, perhaps you will be
able to find out for yourself. Then, then, if we both live and you still
care for me, who will always care for you, when I am of age, you will
join us and, say and do what they may, I will marry no other man. And if
I die, as may well happen, oh! then my spirit shall watch over you and
wait for you till you join me beneath the wings of God. Look, it grows
light. I must go. Farewell, my love, my first and only love, till in
life or death we meet again, as meet we shall."

Once more we clung together and kissed, muttering broken words, and then
she tore herself from my embrace and was gone. But oh! as I heard her
feet steal through the dew-laden grass, I felt as though my heart were
being rent from my breast. I have suffered much in life, but I do not
think that ever I underwent a bitterer anguish than in this hour of my
parting from Marie. For when all is said and done, what joy is
there like the joy of pure, first love, and what bitterness like the
bitterness of its loss?