And so the day of decision came, and all unconsciously Diana struck the final note. In the morning, glancing through various papers, magazines, and pamphlets with an extraordinary skill to glean any little essential point without wading through column upon column of matter, she came upon a paragraph that aroused her instant indignation.

"O listen to this!" she cried. "If they are not at it again! Somewhere or other General Grets has been making a speech, and here is part of his noble sentiment: 'I earnestly appeal to parents to prevent their children marrying any of the English race. They must not let this colony become a bastard race the same as the Cape Colony. If God had wanted us to be one race, He would not have made a distinction between English and Dutch.' Well, I wonder what Dutch Willie will have to say to that?" and she smiled grimly to herself in anticipation of some satisfaction to come. "This man Grets is certainly one of his supporters. If he comes this afternoon I shall have a nice little bomb ready for him!"

But instead of waiting for his usual late hour, van Hert came early, and asked to see Miss Meryl Pym alone; and when Diana returned from a game of golf ready for the fray, she was presented to van Hert as her future cousin.

For once even she was nonplussed and at a loss for words. "O well, it would be silly to pretend to be surprised, wouldn't it?" she said rather lamely, and crossed to the tea-table to pour out her own cup of tea. "And it is superfluous to hope you'll be happy and prosperous and all that; so I'll just say, my dear future-in-law, I think you're a devilish lucky man!..." And Diana snapped it out as if an unaccountable sensation demanded an explosive of some sort.

"My dear!... my dear!..." cried Aunt Emily in outraged horror. "Do try to remember where you are and who you are! If you indulge in such vulgar, disgraceful language on the golf course, you certainly cannot expect to repeat it in the drawing-room." But Diana paid no heed. She had already observed that Meryl, though blushing faintly, avoided meeting her eyes.

"And what about this brilliant speech of General Grets' reported this morning? Will your party allow you to consummate the match, do you think?..." with biting sarcasm.

But van Hert only laughed good-temperedly. "Could it in any way better be given the lie?" he asked, and before that irrefutable logic Diana was silent.

Neither could she see her way to raising any reasonable objections, when a little, later the engagement was announced broadcast with considerable beating of big drums, but she flung a few sarcasms about with some violence.

She flung one or two at her uncle, being at a loss to understand his taking the engagement so quietly; but if she had been present at the interview between him and Meryl before the final sanction was given, she would have seen that he too could hardly act otherwise. In truth, Meryl perplexed them both in those first few days, for she was so calm and quiet and self-contained they both felt a little dumb before her. It was as if, having finally made up her mind, she was determined to avoid all paths that might weaken her and take her stand alone. She was far more quiet and composed than either her father or Diana. These did not say much, but they showed perhaps the more. Henry Pym's hair whitened perceptibly, as if from some stern mental trouble, and Diana was uncertain, peevish, and difficult to please. Only once the subject was alluded to between them.

"I confess the news took me rather by surprise," her uncle admitted in reply to some sally of hers, "and I was a little at a loss to follow her actions."

"Actions?..." sniffed Diana. "What actions?... None were needed; it is the result of meditation."

"You mean?..." questioningly.

"Heroics and martyrdom," she snapped, and flung out of the room, leaving him perplexed and grave.

"If I thought so," he said in his heart, "if I were sure of it, I would forbid the banns myself."

He moved to the window, and stood for a long time looking silently and sadly to the far blue hills. He was thinking that, though he had given his life almost to be all in all to Meryl since she was left motherless, there was one part now he could not play.

"A mother would have seen through anything and known what to do," he finished, and sighed heavily.



XXIII

CAREW'S STORY

The news reached Carew through a newspaper. He was back in Salisbury now, attending the renewed sitting of the Commission, giving invaluable assistance. Whatever he said was instantly listened to. The chief members of the Commission, men of note and weight, wondered a little over this distinguished-looking man, merely a soldier-policeman, who knew such an extraordinary amount about the black races in Rhodesia; but if they sought enlightenment they were disappointed. No one knew anything about Major Carew, except that he was once in the Blues and now in the British South Africa police, and that the natives were more or less his hobby.

But there was one morning when he was more silent than usual; when he seemed a little distrait and very difficult to approach. And the moment the sitting was over he declined, somewhat curtly, an invitation to dinner that evening, and rode out across the veldt alone. That was the morning the daily newspaper contained the news that the only child of Henry Pym, the well-known millionaire, was engaged to be married to Mr. William van Hert, the eminent politician.

And Carew's comment was to ride out across the veldt alone.

The news was undoubtedly a shock to him. Of course, he had known she would marry, but, more or less unconsciously, he had pictured her with an English home and a permanent place in English society.

The reality,—what actually had happened,—had not entered his head at all. Of course he knew van Hert by name; everyone did. And because of his reputation for anti-English views Carew both marvelled and at the same time gleaned a probable motive. And the result of his cogitations was that added sternness which always came into his face when he was seriously troubled.

Yet what use to fret and trouble now? She had gone out of his life for ever, and with her his last chance of glad renewing. Henceforth he must go back to his quiet life of service which asked and gave nothing else, and to the companionship of those old memories which sometimes awakened from their sleep.

He rode far across the veldt, and for the first time for many a long year turned back the leaves of the closed book. And the reason he did this was the remembrance of Meryl's face, as she leaned up against the lintel of the window that last evening at Bulawayo, when they both felt it was a final parting. Something that had been in the depths of her eyes, and which she had been powerless to hide, although she made no other sign. It was a remembrance that called that added sternness to his face: the sternness of deep trouble suppressed. For he knew no woman of Meryl's nature would look as she had looked that evening and love another man in a month. Therefore it was probably for some altruistic motive and not love that she had consented to marry van Hert; no shallow, selfish motive he knew well enough, but perhaps some call she had found the courage to answer.

But if it was also a sacrifice, an offering of herself and her happiness upon some altar of need, ought he to let her fulfil it? Between her and the husband he had pictured for her he could not allow himself to stand; between her and van Hert, whom he was convinced she did not love, was another matter. Yet he knew in his heart that he could not save her now; the die was cast, both of them must abide by it. And in any case, how could he tell her his story? How could he go to her with that story and empty-handed as well; she the heiress of great wealth, and he without even a name and position?

Away out in the kopjes he rode his horse slowly up a steep hill-side, and on the top dismounted and sat upon a boulder, looking over a vast tract of lovely country to infinite blue distances. As ever in moments of stress, he had chosen the height, with wide horizons, fresh-blowing winds, far spaces of sunlight; and in the flickering shade of the thinly foliaged trees he took off his helmet, baring his head to the breeze. And it could be seen that the grey about the temples had been increasing, while the strong lines on the face had deepened already, as if it had gone hardly with him of late.

He sat very still; so still that a little squirrel ran down almost to his feet to investigate the strange figure, and little birds chirped all kinds of personalities about him to each other close at hand. He was taking a journey into a far land—the far land of the buried past. He was thinking of that story he would have had to tell Meryl Pym. Of Joan's sad life, sad love, sad death. Of how long ago she had lain dead upon the heather, as far as anyone could tell, slain by his hand.

He went back to it now, page by page; it seemed in some sort of penance that he must give. The first pages dealt with those two gay young brothers in the Blues; the elder, Peter, the recognised heir to the rich bachelor uncle, who now made life gay for them with an allowance of two thousand a year each; but he was an autocrat and something of a tyrant, the old uncle, and his will had to be law. He did not mind their sowing of wild oats if they were what he called gentlemanly wild oats, and merely got them talked about as gay young dogs, and he was always generous with an extra cheque if they got into difficulties; but he would not have foolhardy, quixotic affairs at all. There he put his foot down. When the younger brother, Geoffrey, a youth of small, mean aims and temperament, led the pretty daughter of one of the keepers into trouble, he told his uncle he was going to give her a fixed sum out of his own allowance yearly while she was unmarried, and something always for the child.

"Nonsense," said the old gentleman tartly; "the girl shouldn't have been such a fool. I will pay one hundred pounds into the bank for her, and she shall not have another penny." Geoffrey thought himself well out of the scrape, but before the incident closed there were words between the brothers that neither ever forgot. Peter took a different view of the matter entirely; he knew the girl, and he knew that she was gentle and confiding, and that Geoffrey had won her round with promises. So he called his brother a cur, and a few other things with strong adjectives, and because he knew he was in the wrong Geoffrey never forgave him. He went further, and hated him from that time onward.

But the incident was destined to bear fruit of a far more searching nature. Because he heard the girl was very ill and quietly fretting herself to death, Peter went one day to see her, prepared to make any amends in his power for his brother's sin. And beside the sofa where the girl lay he met Joan Whitby. And such are the vagaries of human nature, with its beginning on that day, the gay, light heart, the fickle fancies, light loves, wild escapades of the devil-may-care young sportsman, all vanished away into thin air before a love that filled his whole being. Lovelier, gayer, cleverer women, ready enough to meet the heir of Richard Fourtenay-Carew halfway, had left him only gay and careless. Joan Whitby, shy, distrustful, reserved, won the prize unsought. She had run away from him, avoided any spot where they might meet, hidden if she saw him in the distance, tried to hurry past if they met unawares; more than that she could not do, because she was the governess at the agent's house, and she and her charge must often cross the park. But Captain Peter Fourtenay-Carew was a hot-headed, determined young man, and having lost his heart to Joan's grey eyes and delicate, lovely face, he was not very likely to be abashed by the fact that she hid from him; rather it whetted his determination to win her. And in the end, because Joan perceived he was an honest gentleman and that he truly loved her, and because with all her pure, strong soul she truly loved him, she left off running away and came shyly through the wood to meet him. And of course Geoffrey, the jealous, spiteful brother, discovered their secret, and carried the tale to his uncle in violent, indignant guise, precipitating anger for his own ends, where a little discretion might have found a compromise. Mr. Carew's lips curled a little cruelly as he remarked he would easily nip that peccadillo in the bud. He would have no penniless, unknown governess reigning at Dartwood Hall, having already quite other views for his future successor. Then he informed his agent the young lady holding the post of governess in his house must be sent away at once, with a quarter's wages which he would be pleased to remit. To Peter he said nothing; he merely waited for an indignant scene, easily to be squashed with cold and cursory logic concerning allowances and future inheritance if his wishes were disregarded. But it was just there that he misjudged this gay, handsome nephew of his, possessed also of a fund of spirit and strong character which his uncle had not had the perspicacity to perceive.

The interview duly transpired, but there was no indignation at all. If he had looked for melodrama he was disappointed; the melodramatic did not appeal to Peter Fourtenay-Carew. He merely told his uncle quite quietly and respectfully that he intended to marry Joan Whitby. Richard Carew condescended to reason a little before he resorted to that cold, cursory logic, but he might just as well have saved himself both. Peter stood in the library window, looking across the grand old park, and heard, apparently unmoved, that all those rich acres and woodlands and well-stocked waters and preserves would pass from him to his brother, if he chose to remain obdurate and marry the poor governess, instead of the lady of high lineage his uncle had already selected for him.

What he said was, "Do you wish me also to lose my career and leave the Blues?"

For the moment his uncle had been too angry to reply. "Get out," he had said roughly. "You can't be yourself this morning. I will not believe you seriously contemplate losing anything."

Peter had turned back from the window, and stood a moment looking squarely into his uncle's face. "I am going to marry Joan," he said, "and as you have brought me up to be perfectly useless, except in a crack regiment, I only want to know if you will continue my allowance long enough to give me time to find out what I can be useful at," then he had walked quietly out of the room.

And Richard Carew, distrusting his own ears and far more upset than he would ever for a moment admit, remembered that he had seen just that look on the face of Peter's mother when he had had to break to her that her husband had been killed in the hunting-field—a look of desperate finality and unswerving resolve. Within the year he had stood beside her grave also, and taken the two baby boys home to his own house.

Then Geoffrey had come to him, and because he was clever and unscrupulous he fanned the flame easily to white-heat. Finally the uncle had decreed, "I will give him a week to think it over, and in the event of his remaining obdurate I will offer him one thousand a year for five years, and at the end of that time the allowance to be renewed or decreased, or stopped, according to my pleasure."

At the end of the week Peter's reply was "I am going to marry Joan on the 25th by special licence, in London. If you will not receive us together, I should be glad if my man might pack my clothes and bring them to me, with a few other belongings."

And Richard Carew's answer to that had been a lawyer's letter, politely enquiring of Captain Peter Fourtenay-Carew to what address he wished the allowance sent, which was to be his for five years. Peter, not yet too angry to be cautious, asked if the five thousand pounds might be invested for him in entirety, and made arrangements at once to exchange into a far cheaper regiment, aware that as a soldier he might still keep a home for his wife, whereas any experiment in the untried fields of labour might swallow up all he had. In due course the solicitor replied that the request would be granted. But ere the wedding was solemnised the unlooked-for hand of fate dealt him a pitiless blow. He had many friends in the neighbourhood of his uncle's estate, friends who were glad and willing to receive Joan for his sake and her own; and in an unhappy hour he received a pressing invitation to meet her at the house of one of them, and have a week with the pheasants before he had to rejoin his regiment. It was a bitter cold month that year, and every sportsman's temper was a little on edge at having to face December blasts in October. And one day when they were out in a preserve that adjoined Richard Carew's, he and his friend heard shots and voices over the dividing hedge; and it brought up the subject of young Geoffrey's cold-blooded delight in his good fortune at becoming his uncle's heir, and unthinkingly the friend commenced to repeat a report of something he had said in the local club when a little the worse for drink. Then he had stopped short abruptly, trying to turn away the subject, but with a sudden dangerous light in his eyes Peter had demanded to be told; and because the other man's heart was sore for his friend, and he wanted to give Peter an excuse to cross swords with his brother, he told how Geoffrey had implied his relations with Joan had been exactly the same as his own, Geoffrey's, with the keeper's daughter in the beginning, but that he had not been clever enough to get clear of the affair as he had done, and that now he was nicely sold for his high-flown superiority.

And then the wrath in Peter's face had been a terrible thing to see. It was as if his very nature reeled. He ground his teeth together, and his eyes had a red look as he muttered savagely, "God damn him; he shall pay for this!" He was standing with his face towards his uncle's preserve, and even as he cursed there was a sound of shots, and a second later a hare dashed out and fled past them.

Scarcely knowing what he did in the blind white-heat of his passion, but possessed suddenly with an awful desire to kill, he swung completely round and fired at it. And just at that moment Joan and their hostess were coming up behind, hidden by the brushwood and shrubs, to go with them to the luncheon-place,—and Joan fell, shot through the heart. In the first awful moment no one seemed able to grasp the appalling fact. Peter threw himself down on his knees beside her, and was like a man struck dazed and speechless. He had a feeling that it was some horrible dream or hallucination, and presently this bewildering dazed sense would pass away and he would find the horror had not been real. Then across his torment he heard a voice that stung him alive with dreadful venom. His uncle and his brother had climbed the fence and had come to see what had happened, hearing from a scared keeper that someone was shot. Peter looked up and saw them. It was a dreadful moment for the three to meet. His friend, Maitland, seeing the unnatural ferocity in his eyes, tried to draw him away. Even Richard Carew, the uncle, looked a little alarmed. But Peter in his madness took a step forward. "You cur, you libelled her," he hissed at his brother, and cursed him bitterly. And then Geoffrey lost his head too. An ugly sneer distorted his face as he answered, "Well, anyhow, you won't get your inheritance back now, just through a casual shot. Lady Lilton is going to marry me, and ..." But he had no time to finish, for Peter suddenly hurled himself upon him, and struggled fiercely to get his hands at his throat.

The scene was terrible. Those who were present never forgot it, and by the time a keeper and Maitland managed to separate them Geoffrey was too much hurt to stand alone. They left him lying on the ground, while Richard Carew forced a little brandy between his clenched teeth, and Maitland dragged Peter away to where his wife and a keeper were watching with horror in their eyes beside Joan's lifeless form. For a moment they feared he had lost his reason, and then some dreadful tension in his brain seemed to snap suddenly and they saw he was himself again. Without a word to either of them he stooped down and lifted the still form in his arms, and carried her unaided back to the Maitlands' house.

He did not lose hold of himself again, but for weeks suffered a mind agony that might well have permanently turned the brain of a weaker man. Night after night the Maitlands heard him leave the house, after all had gone to bed; and they knew that he went out to tramp the moors till morning, for it was only from utter physical exhaustion he ever slept. No word came from the Hall, but rumour said the younger brother was injured so that he would not walk for months. Richard Carew's only action was to lavish hush-money, and keep as much as possible out of the papers. One mistake he made. Through his solicitor he informed his nephew he was willing to give him his former income, that he might remain in his old regiment. In answer to that Peter wrote to the lawyer: "I am leaving England for ever, and I shall cease to remember from this moment that I have the misfortune to be related to Richard and Geoffrey Fourtenay-Carew. No letters will reach me. I leave no address," and then he signed himself "Peter Carew" without the Fourtenay, and used the second name no more. And immediately afterwards he joined one of the early pioneer bands setting out for Rhodesia, possessing nothing in the world but a little money gained by the sale of his personal possessions and a memory that would shadow his whole life.

Sitting alone on the kopje-top, he leaned his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, and it was as though the waters of bitterness overflowed him.

No, of course he could never tell Meryl such a story as that. For sixteen years his path had lain alone and his bitterness been shared with none. It must go on so now to the end. When he could bear it the memory of Joan's dear face still came to him as in infinite love and compassion; but he seldom dared allow himself even that; it was better to have nothing in his life—no past, present, nor future except his work.

He got up and stood for a moment leaning against his horse, resting his arms on the saddle and gazing far away. Then he rode slowly home under the stars, and by the time he reached the police camp his face was only rigid and mask-like.



XXIV

A RAIN-WASHED MORNING AND A DISCUSSION

It was the first rain-washed morning of the wet season when Ailsa Grenville heard the news, through a letter from Diana.

And the first rain-washed morning is an epoch in the Rhodesian year; therefore it cannot be dismissed with a curt announcement.

All night long the vigorous, boisterous spring-cleaning had been in progress. Ailsa, snug in her little bed, with the rain slashing and banging and pounding on the corrugated-iron roof, and the trees swishing and swaying, and the wind rushing around like a mad thing, apparently from all four corners of the earth at once, had laughed softly to herself at the commotion Mother Nature was making upon the dusty, dishevelled, rubbish-strewn land. It was as if, having been very busy elsewhere for three months, she meant to stand no nonsense now, but get the whole country furbished up in one night. What a time they were having, those dusty, untidy-looking trees! Bucket after bucket, millions of buckets as big as a house, full of delicious rain-water, flung at their heads! And the dusty, disgraceful roads swept bare, with gallons upon gallons of water driving their refuse hither and thither, all of it, as if mightily ashamed of itself, scrambling along in masses; and, of course, in its haste choking up the drains, and becoming a serious hindrance until a veritable water-spout was necessary to clear the course.

And then the dead branches and twigs that the trees had been too lazy to shed; short shrift for them on the first spring-cleaning night. Down they came, helter-skelter, and no notice taken of the tree's groaning, or its crackling cries of protest.

And the little river-beds and stream-beds, carelessly left to get filled up with dead leaves and rank grass, such a turning out for them as the resistless water was driven in sweeping streams along their bosoms! And woe betide any carelessly thatched or unsightly roofs! Off they went, away with the general medley. The coming summer would have none of them. And the granite, which had allowed dust and dirt and dead grasses to accumulate upon it, how it got its face scrubbed and washed that first night, and the wind shrieking with glee all the time, dashing the sheets of rain against it with its whole might!

But, of course, one could tell that everything liked it. The laughter in the trees and the wind was quite distinct, and the little rivers were fairly shouting with joy. It was not their fault that all that piece of the earth had grown so dusty and untidy; it was Mother Nature's own fault for being so long coming with those big buckets of hers. How could any land, however willing, look spruce and green and clean with no rain for four months? No wonder there was such a commotion, and it was such a noisy, vigorous business, when at last the rain did come! Every tree and every blade and every flower had a special little life-plan of its own to carry out, if only it could get enough moisture, to say nothing of all the myriad insects and birds and animals, who were too lackadaisical, after the long, dry heat, to thoroughly begin their summer preparations until the rain came. The activity among the humans, with their gold-mines and farms and fanciful erections, would be nothing, would not be worth mentioning, compared with the activity going on in the hidden world all around them on the morrow. Even the flowers had been chary of wearing their best dresses in such a dusty, untidy world.

But wait till to-morrow, and then see them! Far, far outvying any assembly of Ascot frocks or Lords' cricket week or Henley Sunday. The boisterous rain was a little severe on the dainty blossoms, but one may be sure they bore it with the pluckiest patience, whispering to each other gleefully about the lovely frocks they were going to wear the next day. And there would be such eager, joyful cogitations in the bosoms of all the little males anxious to be off on their spring courting affairs. How could any self-respecting young cock bird or male insect go and pay his addresses in a dusty, dirty, faded coat? Of course, it wasn't to be thought of. The other chap, who waited, would get all the running. But to-morrow there would be no further need to wait at all. Plumage and coats would be spring-cleaned, and expectations for the coming summer of the highest. Well-filled storehouses, leaf-cosy nests, glorious hunting-grounds. Never mind these boisterous winds and the violent way they hurl the rain about; sit tight and make lovely plans for to-morrow.

Ailsa, snug in her little bed, thought happily about the earth and its glad renewing, and woke up her precious Billy to say, "Are you awake, Billy? Can you hear it?... We shan't know our little world to-morrow."

And Billy, who was sometimes of a very prosaic turn of mind, answered, with a grunt, "Just in time to save that top patch of mealies and the bed of onions, by Jove!..." and then rolled over and went to sleep again.

"Bother your onions and mealies," said his adoring wife. "The world wasn't made for you to grow vegetables in!..."

But the next morning they climbed a kopje together, just for the joy of it, and laughed softly, and exclaimed in hushed voices at all the wonder outspread.

Such a glorious new heaven and new earth! In the heaven a rain-washed sky, resplendent with armaments of fairy cloud-vessels sailing across deepest, loveliest blue. On the earth every leaf and every blade flashing light, as if it had a little sun of its own; every flower in its loveliest court dress; the very stones gay with beautiful shades of lichen; the granite kopjes in the distance, with their faces so thoroughly scrubbed, gleaming with the dazzling brightness of new-fallen snow. Dark, rich soil where the plough had been, renewed with the richness of velvet. Sullen, colourless veldt, radiant in a few short hours with the first outposts of its coming spring glory. Far, blue hills, bluer and intenser than ever in the rain-washed atmosphere. Little cock birds and male insects away off soon after sunrise about those courting affairs that had been delayed. A whole world rejoicing; a whole world singing Te Deums of praise and thanksgiving in its own dear, happy, overflowing way.

No wonder the big fellow in the well-worn khaki, with his vigorous enthusiasms and wide sympathies, thought a little regretfully of the hide-bound, clause-bound, doctrine-bound, sober-minded black cloth he had felt himself obliged to put off. Would humanity ever sing again as the sons of the morning? Ever burst into Te Deums of overflowing thanksgiving to the Giver of all good, such as echoed and re-echoed from a long-parched earth on its first rain-washed morning.

Well, he could but try to keep the long face and depressing atmosphere and thin air of superiority safely out of his own little sphere, and while he taught the natives to be active, useful members of society, try to help all the settlers about him, hard cases or otherwise, to be honest, fearless, clean-living men, whether they achieved it to the accompaniment of good round oaths and a Sunday morning spent in bed, or on their knees between consecrated walls in the accepted way. Of course, he liked them to come to his little stone tabernacle with its thatched roof, and he made his service just as attractive as ever he could on their behalf; but if they were too lazy or too busy to come—well, it didn't follow they couldn't be honest, clean-living fellows without it; so then he went to them, and sat over their camp fire, and told them a good story or two, and in the end there wasn't a camp within twelve miles where the "bloomin' sky pilot" wasn't one of the most welcome guests.

But to do them justice, they mostly liked going to his little tabernacle, for it was always a pleasant meeting-place, and men in exile, even "hard cases," like to sing a good old-fashioned hymn just once in a way; to say nothing of the big home-made cake, full of plums, which was usually ready to be handed round afterwards on the "sky pilot's" verandah, and which he teasingly informed Ailsa was her way of bribing his congregation to come to church, rather than suffer the ignominy of hearing him preach to empty benches.

But that was as it might be; anyhow, if a settler within reach chanced to be ill, he might be sure he would get a jelly or soup or milk, even if he had never put a foot inside the little wilderness church. And if Billy could not take it The Kid or Moore had to, for Ailsa ruled her little sphere with a rod of iron, and the two troopers had long been her willing slaves.

But though she had cut herself adrift from the pleasant world of her girlhood, and won a real satisfaction out of life that would be death to most women, she had never lost her sympathies with all that went on in that existence, where

Life treads on life And heart on heart; We press too close in church and mart To keep a dream or grave apart.

And when they came back from their ramble on that joyous morning, Diana's letter caused a shadow to come over all the sunlight, and a quick anxious ache to grow up in her heart. After baldly stating the news of Meryl's engagement her cousin wrote:—

"Was it you, or was it that bearish policeman, who suggested to such a dreamer as Meryl the desirability of a martyr's crown?... She is far better suited to love in a cottage and babies, but just because that is the case and it is easy to obtain, she chooses to break her heart on some vague altar of sacrifice. I have no patience with these high-falutin ideas myself, nor with the cottage and babies either, for the matter of that; but I suppose a few people had to be practical and selfish and commonplace, to keep the world going round without violent bumps and jerks. Don't send Meryl congratulations; send her an In Memoriam card. Believe me, it is better suited to the auspicious occasion."

Ailsa showed the letter to her husband, feeling that it was the worst news she had had for many years. "What does it mean, Billy?... What can have influenced her?... My sweet Meryl! What is it?... What can it be?... that keeps Major Carew so aloof? It was easy to see how they attracted each other."

"He is a proud man," her husband said, gravely. "It is not easy for a proud man with nothing to choose a wife with a large fortune."

"Ah, but there is something more," she cried, "it cannot be only that. What has kept him so reserved in every particular all these years?"

But Grenville could not help her, and all the afternoon she worried and fretted in silence.

In the evening she said to him anxiously, after again discussing the news, "Mrs. Fleetwood has often asked me to visit her in Salisbury. Shall I go now? Perhaps if I could get Major Carew to talk?..."

"You will never get him to talk," with quiet conviction.

"Nevertheless, my husband, I feel I must try. We have so much, you and I. One can but make the effort."

She got up from her chair and went round to him, and climbed on to his knee and hid her face, because she was troubled and unhappy.

"Tell me something I can do to help them, Billy?" she pleaded.

He fondled her hair in silence a moment, and then, because he thought it might comfort her afterwards to know she had tried, he said, "There is no harm in your going to Mrs. Fleetwood's. I think the change would do you good."

And Ailsa went to bed a little comforted that at least he sanctioned her journey.



XXV

AILSA LEARNS CAREW'S SECRET

Ailsa had to journey to Selukwe in the post-cart, and she found it very trying; all the more so because her tender heart, which loved all animals, suffered agonies of compassion for the poor underfed, overworked mules, some with sores, urged pitilessly along by their black driver. She wished vainly that she was the happy possessor of a fortune, and might at once finance in Rhodesia the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, for which funds are so urgently needed. At Selukwe she had some little time to wait at the hotel before taking the train, and she went round to the posting-stables to interview any white man she could find who might be in a responsible position towards the post-cart mules on the subject of their condition. The man, of course, complained of the roads, which were in a hopeless condition, and beyond satisfying in a measure her own sense of compassion, she knew she had done little good. But while she talked to the white man at the stables, a thin, scholarly looking, grey-haired gentleman chanced to overhear their discourse, and raising his hat to her with grave courtesy, expressed his admiration of her action.

"But can nothing be done, do you think?" she asked him dolefully.

"I'm afraid not. You see, the Government do not particularly wish that route used, and so they have allowed the road to lapse. Let us hope there will very shortly be a railway, at any rate, to Edwardstown, and that then visitors will be encouraged to go and see your wonderful Zimbabwe ruins, instead of discouraged by the discomforts of the way."

They moved towards the hotel together, and Ailsa asked, "Have you seen them?"

"Only for a few short hours, which were all I could spare from some research work I was doing elsewhere in Rhodesia. I was tremendously impressed by the little I had time to see, and look forward to a long sojourn there presently."

They talked on, their conversation drifting from one subject to another, and then he discovered her name was Grenville, and she that his was Delcombe, and they greeted each other anew as both hailing from lovely Devon. After that he proudly assumed the role of escort, and waited upon her hand and foot. As it chanced, he also was journeying to Salisbury, so they became travelling companions, and the chance acquaintanceship ripened rapidly. In the evening they dined together in the restaurant-car and sat long over their meal; and then it was that Ailsa chanced to mention the name of Major Carew.

Henry Delcombe at once remarked, "There was a Major Carew at the Zimbabwe police camp, I think, when I visited the ruins, but I did not see him. I should like to have done. I understood from the young trooper there that he is some relation to the Fourtenay-Carews?" and he paused interrogatively.

"It was the man I am speaking of. He is a Fourtenay-Carew."

"Ah!..." and Ailsa saw instantly the swift interest in her companion's eyes; a wave as of thought-telepathy that this man probably held the key to Peter Carew's past. Delcombe read in her sparkling eyes that her interest in the soldier-policeman was no casual one, but of the warmest friendship.

"Did you know him before he came out here?" she ventured.

"I knew his father well; I lived near to them in Devon. I was doing some research work, and I had a quiet little home in a lovely valley close to the little place that was then this man's home, and quite near also to Dartwood Hall, where the elder brother, Richard Fourtenay-Carew, lived. They are not a rich family at all, you know. Dartwood Hall and estates and money came to Richard Carew through a very eccentric godmother, who brought him up, and he could do as he liked with it all. His younger brother, Peter Fourtenay-Carew, and his wife had, I think, only a very small income between them besides his pay as a captain. They rented a pretty little place in Devonshire close to Dartwood Hall, and came there for the hunting whenever he was able. The brothers were good friends, and he always had the run of the Dartwood stables. They were an interesting pair, but it was the younger whom I regarded as a friend, and that was why I was anxious to find out if I had stumbled across his son. As you may have heard, Captain Fourtenay-Carew, the father, was killed in the hunting-field and his wife died within the year. The two boys, then quite babies, were adopted by Richard Carew and brought up as his own sons."

He paused and studied Ailsa's face gravely. She was almost breathless with interest, and he seemed a little taken aback by it. She saw the question in his eyes, and hastened to add frankly, "I cannot tell you how interested I am to hear this. My husband and I think there is no one in the world like Major Carew; in fact, in some vague, distant way I believe we are related. But he never speaks of his past life at all. For some reason he seems to regard it as a closed book; he even persists in calling himself a Rhodesian, and resolutely ignores the fact that he is anything else as well."

"Ah!..." and the thin, scholarly face of her companion looked as if he were obtaining a clue he wanted. There was a pause, and each seemed to be weighing something in his and her mind. Then Ailsa spoke: "I conclude he has some reason for his extreme reticence, and I hope I should be one of the last to pry into anyone's secrets; but for a reason I can hardly explain, I should be very glad to know something now that might possibly help me to do a special service for him. I shall see him in Salisbury."

"What I know is no secret in a general sense," said Delcombe, speaking with grave deliberation; "but the facts of it were cleverly hushed up by his uncle, and you will easily understand that Major Carew would never speak of it now. My own interest in the matter is because of my regard for his father, and, I think I may say, admiration for himself. Anyone seeing the two brothers together as I did—that is, the younger men—must have felt deeply drawn to the elder and repulsed by the younger. A finer young fellow than Peter Fourtenay-Carew never stepped. The other brother was good-looking also, but he was cunning and crafty and little liked. Yet, such are the mysterious ways of Providence, the younger brother, by an unlooked-for turn of events, became the possessor of wealth and place and influence, and the elder went out from his country penniless, exiled, and alone. As far as I can judge, no one in England has ever heard of him since. I don't think it is even known where he is. A few of us knew that he came out to South Africa, and journeyed to Rhodesia with one of the pioneer columns, but that is quite sixteen years ago, and events at home move quickly, and his utter silence lost him the warm places he might have held in most hearts, or, at any rate, left them in abeyance. I only came out to Rhodesia a few months ago, and I have been much on the veldt, studying ancient relics; but I have kept my ears open. I heard of the man you are speaking of at the police camp at Zimbabwe, but the young trooper, Mr. Stanley, was not communicative. With a very praiseworthy esprit de corps, he declined to be drawn into any discussion whatever concerning his officer. I heard after I left that he, Major Carew, was a very reserved, taciturn man, but it was generally credited he had once held a captaincy in the Blues; that and a personal description persuaded me he was my old friend's son."

"Yes," Ailsa said, "there can be no doubt about it. I suppose you knew that he was going to be married just before he came away, and something rather dreadful happened?"

"Ah; he has revealed that much, has he?" in some surprise.

"Not to me; to a great friend of mine."

"I see."

He seemed perplexed, uncertain evidently, how much to tell her. Ailsa understood, and was a little at a loss how to act herself.

"I should not have mentioned the fact to anyone else," she said, "as he evidently wishes to keep all personal matters entirely to himself; but, of course, you were very likely to know it. I also learnt from my husband that he was the elder brother and originally his uncle's heir, but something happened to cause Mr. Carew to change his mind."

Then Mr. Delcombe said thoughtfully, "I think there is no reason why I should not tell you a little more about him. I have always felt exceedingly sorry for his determined exile, and the isolation from all his old friends and old delights. I know that he dearly loved Devon, and one feels it is time now that he came back to try and pick up the threads. You and your husband appear to be his only friends, and as a distant connection you might be able to approach him upon a subject where a stranger, or shall we say a forgotten friend, would be diffident." He paused, then added, "I wonder if he has the remotest idea that, owing to several deaths, he is now the next heir to the Marquis of Toxeter?"

A sudden joy seemed to sweep Ailsa through and through, and her eyes shone, and she clasped and unclasped her hands with excitement as she breathed, "O, is that really true? It seems too good; too much like a story-book."

"Yes, it is a fact. Major Carew's family was a younger branch, and sixteen years ago it would never have entered anyone's head that the marquisate might fall to them. Time makes many changes, and three heirs have died in succession. The present marquis is old and has no children, therefore the next heir was Richard Fourtenay-Carew, also childless, and after him Major Carew's father. Richard Carew died very shortly after this man left England, and young Geoffrey Carew then succeeded to all his possessions. I believe something was left to Major Carew, but he refused to touch it. It is since then that (his uncle being dead) he has become the heir of the present marquis, and I think it highly probable he has no notion of the fact whatever."

"I am almost certain he has not," Ailsa intercepted, "for I think he would have mentioned it to my husband."

"Unfortunately there is very little money with the title, but he is not a man to trouble much about that; and, of course, the present marquis may live some time. But I have thought sometimes if he knew it might wipe out a little of the past bitterness. His brother robbed him of so much, but in the end it would seem Nature is making things even again. Geoffrey would give half his wealth to have the title, and I have reason to believe that it is a great bitterness to him to know that his brother, who cares nothing at all about it probably, must inevitably inherit it if he outlives the present owner."

"And you will tell him?..." eagerly.

"Perhaps. Or it may be that you!..." He hesitated, and looked at her thoughtfully.

And then Ailsa said impulsively, "Let me give you trust for trust. I am taking this journey now chiefly on Major Carew's account. There is trouble in the air. I cannot tell you the facts; I scarcely know them. But he has lived his isolated, reserved life so long, I feel it has perhaps warped his view a little, and if he could be persuaded to open his heart to a friend he might see things in a clearer light, and save himself and a dear friend of mine great unhappiness." She paused, then added sadly, "But I am so much in the dark concerning him I hardly know how to win his confidence. There appears to have been this something before he left England, something rather terrible, that has shadowed all his life."

"There was; I will tell you in confidence. Richard Carew hushed it all up, but there were a few of us who knew. His quarrel with his uncle was because he insisted upon marrying a poor governess, a most lovely and charming lady, instead of the bride his uncle had chosen. He was disinherited, and his allowance so curtailed that he would have to leave his regiment; but none of that troubled him in the least. He adored his fiancee, and was supremely happy, as anyone could see. Then the tragedy fell. I cannot tell you all the details, probably no one knows them except his friends the Maitlands and his brother, and uncle who is now dead. He was out shooting with Maitland, and the other two were near at hand; and Maitland had repeated something to him his brother had said, which was a deadly insult to Miss Whitby. He was in a blind fury, and scarcely knew what he was doing, when he swung round and fired at a hare behind him...." There was a moment's intense pause before he finished in a low voice—"and the shot killed the poor girl he was to have married in a week."

"O, how terrible!..." Ailsa gasped, and went white to the lips. "How terrible! Poor man! O, poor man!" Tears came into her eyes, and she turned away to hide them, and for some moments both were silent.

Then Delcombe continued, "It is no wonder that he has been always reserved and silent. I suppose in a way it killed the part of him that could be anything else. He just went right away to a strange country, dropped the double name they had always been proud of, and cut himself adrift altogether from everything connected with his old life. It is no doubt his intention to remain apart, and take up the old threads no more. But I loved his father, and I loved him in my old-fashioned way which he was not likely to perceive; and when the Royal Geographical Society offered me a chance of a trip to Rhodesia I took it gladly. One of my first thoughts, when the decision was finally made and I was appointed, was, 'Perhaps I shall come across Peter Carew's son.'"

Ailsa rested her elbow on the table and leaned her head on her hand, still with the glisten of tears in her eyes. "It makes one feel there is surely a Providence," she told him softly, "for my chance meeting with you may save him, and that other, from everlasting regret."

A little later, when they went to their separate compartments for the night, she thanked him again. "You have made me feel quite broken-hearted for our dear soldier-policeman. Think what his memories must have been all these years! But perhaps his dark day is finished. I am very hopeful now. God bless you for remaining so staunch a friend to him and giving me your confidence!"

And in Johannesburg that night Meryl said simply and quietly to van Hert, "I will marry you as soon as you wish. As you say, there is nothing to wait for, and, afterwards, there is much that we can do together."

"In a fortnight?" he urged, and she assented.

But Diana insisted otherwise. "It is simply indecent haste," she exclaimed, "and nothing in this world will persuade me to decide upon my bridesmaid's frock and have it ready in less than three weeks, and it may be a month."

And Meryl—a quiet, white-faced Meryl nowadays, with little enough enthusiasm for frocks and wedding-presents—let her have her way.



XXVI

"HOW CAN I GO TO HER!..."

The first meeting between Ailsa and Carew was a very difficult one for the woman. Directly she saw him she realised that he had drawn back into his shell further than ever, and the increased greyness on his temples spoke for itself of anxious, troubled hours. At first he had been difficult to entrap. In reply to her note came just a vague regret that he was exceptionally busy, and often out on the veldt, with a hope that he would see her before she left. One or two other attempts failed entirely to procure the interview, and she was almost at her wits' end. Finally, she had to resort to strong measures, and gain her end by subterfuge. Carew went to the house of a man friend by invitation, and was shown into his friend's den to find Ailsa awaiting him alone. The expression on his face told her instantly that he felt himself trapped, and resented it. But she could be very disarming when she liked, and she had tact enough to follow the straight course most likely to appeal to him now that she had gained her interview.

"You must not be angry with me," she said, with engaging frankness. "I simply had to see you."

He stood very upright, with a cold, unresponsive face, and waited for her to proceed.

"Won't you sit down? You make it difficult for me when you are ... so ... so ... distant and unbending."

He moved away to the window, and stood looking out, with his back to the room. "Will you tell me what it is you have to say?" he asked very quietly. He knew perfectly well it had to do with Meryl, and he did not want her to see his secret in his face. In fact, he did not wish to speak of the subject at all.

Ailsa stood silently a moment, looking at his back, and then she said very quietly, "I have heard the story of your past life. I ... I ... know it all."

For a moment there was such a stillness in the room that one could almost hear heart beats. The figure in the window never moved.

"Who told you?..." he asked at last.

"Mr. Henry Delcombe, the scientist, who was a great friend of your father's."

Another silence. At last—

"Is he in Rhodesia now?"

"He is here, in Salisbury. He will not tell anyone else," she added. "He told me because ... because ... he perceived that Billy and I cared for you very much, and for your happiness." She moved a little nearer to him, and continued gently, "I felt almost as if I could break my heart with sympathy for you,—and that you should have borne such memories all these years, alone."

"I have put them behind me," he said, speaking almost harshly. "The past is dead. What does it matter who and what I was before?... To-day I am a Rhodesian, and my work is here. I shall remain here now until I die."

"You may not be able to do that," and her voice had suddenly a ring in it that seemed to arrest him.

"Why may I not?"

"Because presently—very soon perhaps—you will have to answer to a call that requires you in England."

He half turned to her, waiting silently and unmoved, with grave eyes fixed on the distance.

She came a step nearer. "Mr. Delcombe told me also, that because of many changes that have taken place in the sixteen years since you cut yourself adrift from home, you are now heir to the marquisate of Toxeter. When the present marquis dies you will succeed him."

It seemed at first as if he heard without understanding. Once more there was a silence in which one might hear heart beats.

"Will you let me congratulate you?" Ailsa asked a little timidly.

"I think he must have been dreaming," he said in slow comment.

"No; there is no doubt about it whatever. He will tell you himself if you will let him. He wants to see you very much."

And still he was only silent, gazing, gazing to the far distance. If it was true, how was it he had never heard?... Could it possibly all have transpired during the times he had been away shooting in the far north, or out on the veldt, away from newspapers for months?

"There is something else I want to speak about," and her voice trembled somewhat. "This news concerning your future will make it a little easier. You know, of course, that Meryl Pym has become engaged to Mr. van Hert, the well-known Dutch politician?"

Instantly he stiffened. "I saw it in a newspaper."

She came close up to him suddenly. "O, Major Carew"—and there was an infinite pleading in her voice—"Billy and I thought you cared for her, and we believed she cared for you. Don't let her wreck her whole life now.... Don't stand by and let her marry a man she does not love. Go to her before it is too late!"

Under his iron control his face seemed to work strangely. She saw the swift compression of his lips, the swift pain in his eyes, the strong hunger he could not entirely hide.

"It is impossible," and the usual steadiness of his voice was shaken. "You say you know my story!... How can I go to her and tell her that once I killed the woman I loved?... How can I speak to her of love—I, the policeman, she the heiress?... How can I tell her that story which was told to you?... The story of damnable hate and passion, when I tried to strangle my own brother. I tell you she would shrink away in horror. She must shrink. Why did you speak to me about it at all! Your thoughts are folly and madness. I offer love to Meryl Pym?... My God! I have some decency—some pride left." And the pain and bitterness in his voice shocked and stabbed her.

But in spite of her inward shrinking she answered him boldly, drawing on a courage lent her by love and sincerity.

"And I say that if you love her truly, you ought to be able to trust her with your story. It is not noble and spirited of you to stand aside as you perhaps think. It is cowardly. Pride is generally cowardly. For the sake of your pride, of your own personal feelings, you will let her go on with this marriage and never say a word and never move a finger to save her from shipwrecking her whole life. First you will let your own sad past come between you; then you will let her hateful gold drive you away; then you will talk of yourself as just a policeman. And in any case—you must know it as well as I know it—none of these things would estrange Meryl Pym from the man she loved. There is nothing whatever between you except your pride, and you think that demands a renunciation from you, careless or no whether it brings heart-break for her."

He had grown deathly white now, with dark hollows round his eyes, and she could almost see how his teeth were clenched behind the firm lips. She had taken him entirely by surprise in her outburst, and her news concerning himself; and he discovered she had swept his secret from him concerning his love for Meryl, almost before he knew what he was speaking of.

"There might be something in what you say if Miss Pym cared for me in return. That she does is the merest supposition."

"And how do you know that with such sureness?" she cried. "No, no, Major Carew; in your heart you know otherwise. But you just let her go away without a word, without a hope, and one or two of us know what this hasty engagement means. Diana calls it martyrdom. She wrote me to send Meryl an in memoriam card instead of congratulations, for it was more in accord with the occasion."

His face worked visibly, in spite of his stern suppression, but he still stood rigid and upright, looking away from her—out over the far shadowy veldt, seeing nothing.

In the pulsing silence that followed he beheld again that terrible October scene, when his love lay dead upon the heather. Could he ask any other woman to share that with him?... let the burden of such a memory faintly touch her life?... He knew that at the inquest it had been decided no one could possibly say who fired the shot. His uncle and brother were both shooting at the time, in the same direction; but though his friend Maitland had insisted upon a verdict of accidentally shot by someone unknown, and Richard Carew had resolutely supported him, in his own heart he had stood condemned. Yet if penance were required, what had he not given?... Exile, loneliness, nonentity for all the best years of his life; and her image, the beloved face of his lost Joan, the only woman's presence in his life. And yet now, as he stood gazing, gazing to the far blue hills, it seemed that her face and Meryl's were strangely blended. From the very first their eyes had been as the eyes of one woman, infinitely comprehending, infinitely true. Was it possible that Ailsa's accusation was true? One woman had been sacrificed more or less to his mad, insensate fury against his brother. Was the other perhaps to be sacrificed to his rigid, indomitable pride? One picture seemed to stamp itself upon his brain with ever-increasing strength and clearness: the picture of Meryl, leaning up against the window lintel that last evening at Bulawayo, white as a frail, exquisite lily, with the anguish in her deep eyes that she could not entirely hide. That, and the iron control he had needed to put upon himself, making him seem grim and unfeeling for fear one instant's weakness should make his longing arms enfold her. Well, he had played his man's part as well as he could; ridden away from her, disappointed her, openly avoided her, only in the end to love her with the deep, wise, understanding, all-embracing love of a man past his first youth, and with a wide knowledge of human nature.

And this engagement of hers to van Hert! What might it not result from?... What hopelessness, what despair, what heroic resolve to play her little part in the country's good, and win some satisfaction perhaps, since she might not have happiness!

Standing silently at the window it all seemed to pass through his mind with piercing clearness, and Ailsa's spirited attack rang still in his ears: "First you will let your sad story come between you, then her hateful gold, then your lowly position, answering to the call of your own pride, careless whether it wreck her life's happiness or no."

Yes, she was quite right, it was his pride. Even now the thought of the gold was hateful to him.

Still, if some day he would indeed be the Marquis of Toxeter!... if he could at least offer her a high position!... if it was no longer a question of going to her empty-handed....

The silence continued, and in the background Ailsa waited and watched. She could read nothing from the tall figure in the window, except that his thoughts were far away and he was probing deeply. She leaned back in a low chair, feeling suddenly very tired and overwrought. She had come all the way from far Zimbabwe for this interview, just to say to this man, before it was too late, the spirited things she had said. And now?...

She looked round the den of the man who was her friend, and his, and had helped her to win the interview, noting each trivial detail, each attempt at decoration and hominess, each cunning substitute such as every Rhodesian contrives out of his ingenuity for some trifle not easily procured in that far land. And all the time she was tensely painfully aware of that strong man in the window, and of the issues that hung upon his decision. How, in the event of his deciding to approach Meryl, the recognised fiance was to be treated, was beyond her. She was too tired to probe further. She only cared that Meryl's happiness should be saved. Her own had been so nearly lost, she had seen so much unspeakable bitterness arise out of one great mistake, made once by many women at the altar, and she only waited to know if she had lost or won.

At last the silent figure moved. At the window Carew turned and came towards her. She watched him with all her soul in her eyes, unable to rise from her chair for very tension.

"What are you going to do?..." she asked, hoarsely.

"Can you tell me where I can find Henry Delcombe?" he said.



XXVII

DIANA BEGINS TO GROW PERPLEXED

In the meantime the household at Hill Court was a restless, uneasy, depressed one. No person in it, except Meryl, seemed undisturbed by the unsatisfactory atmosphere. She by taking thought, had, contrary to the old dictum, added to her stature; but it was the stature of her mind. The spirit that takes a woman through the troubled waters at hand, with all her consciousness set upon the great goal ahead, upheld her now; and in the presence of onlookers gave her a grave serenity, not in any way akin to joy, but baffling to those who would fain have seen her show a stronger feeling either of gladness or regret.

It baffled even van Hert himself. To him she seemed so strangely the same, yet different, from the woman he had loved before the Rhodesian tour. In all his work, his plans, his schemes, she was as earnest and interested as he could possibly wish; but that fairness his dark strength had coveted seemed to elude him at every turn. When he kissed her, he felt vaguely that she suffered his caress; on one or two occasions it almost seemed as if she went further and shuddered, and yet she never actually repulsed him. And then the dainty, light humour that had been hers as well as Diana's!... What had become of it?... It seemed now as if Diana had absorbed it all, for Meryl was nearly always quiet, while the younger girl was almost boisterous. And yet even in Diana there was a note that puzzled him. She was so jumpy and uncertain. Childishly gay one moment, and cuttingly brilliant the next. He was glad she was there. After the first week of the engagement he found himself quite willing to further Meryl's obvious wish for her company upon every occasion. So if she rose to leave them alone they deterred her with vague requests and excuses; and when they went in public together, Diana was always with them. And when she was snappy, they laughed at her and did not mind. Diana snappy was better than no Diana at all.

Aunt Emily thought otherwise, and was deeply grateful to them in her heart whenever they took her refractory niece safely out of her way. Her escapades were apt to be so wild nowadays, and her language so horrifying; and whenever the poor lady remonstrated, she was always told that it was the result of the Rhodesian trip.

"It will take me quite a year to get over it," Diana informed her. "You can't eat rats, and sleep with a frog in your bed, and go unwashed for weeks on end, without suffering from it in some way. God bless my soul!... is it likely?..."

At the end of the second week, anyone watching with keen insight might have seen a still more significant change creeping over the three most noticeable inmates of the house; for Mr. Pym was only silent and grave and retiring, going early to his study and feigning to be much occupied. And Aunt Emily had acquired a habit of going to sleep after dinner during her solitariness, which Diana wickedly called a dispensation from Heaven to bless the household of Henry Pym.

So the lovers and Diana were left to themselves, and usually sat upon the deep verandah. And it became apparent presently that all the talking was done by Diana and van Hert; Meryl was merely a silent listener. Perhaps she was not even a listener; one could not tell. She sat so still, with wistful eyes looking out beyond the stars. But Diana, on the other hand, exceeded herself; and in doing so she made van Hert exceed himself also. She was brilliant, mischievous, reckless, serious, satirical, nonsensical, all in a breath. She drove him hither and thither; led him on one moment, and withered him with her satire the next. It was obvious the man very soon left off treating her with any careless levity; if he did he was outwitted in no time; torn to shreds, and cast to the four winds on merry logic that had ever the sting of satire behind its laughing lightness. Very quickly he was on his guard, with thrust and parry; keen, watchful, alert—the politician to whom South Africa listened. And finally there came a day when, after unfolding a plan to Meryl, he added, "That is my idea, but I thought I would consult your cousin first." It seemed to strike him that it was a little odd, and he added, "She is extraordinarily observant. She may see some weak point we have overlooked."

"Yes, consult Diana," Meryl had replied at once; "she knows a lot about statistics of that kind. She has often had arguments with father over them."

So in the evening van Hert came in eager haste to have his talk with Diana. And Diana had taken herself off to a dinner-party and was not forthcoming. So the lovers sat on the verandah alone, and after a little they began to feel at a loss for anything to say, and wished devoutly that Diana would return.

As she was likely to be late, van Hert got up and spoke of departing. He said he had a measure to study carefully, ready for the reopening of Parliament at Cape Town. And while he was still explaining, Diana returned. She had made an excuse and left the party early.

"It was so dull," she said. "I have no patience with people who let me bite them, and do not try to bite back. I bit them all, more or less, in the end, and left them bathing each other's sores, so to speak, and exclaiming with bated breath at my cleverness. Fools and blockheads! just because I've got a banking account that would buy half of them up, and never miss it. As if I didn't know, when I'm in that mood, I'm a cattish little spitfire!..."

"So you came home to worry us?..." and the pleasure in his face was suddenly illuminating.

"Well, you have the pluck to hit back," and she looked at him with a flash of her eyes that made his senses reel a little. She threw her costly evening-cloak on to a chair, and pushed it a little aside with her foot, with a graceful action that displayed a dainty slipper and ankle, in no wise lost upon him. "I always hit back myself," she continued. "I've no sympathy with the 'other cheek' theory. I hit twice as hard as the attacker if possible. If Aunt Emily were here, I should say I give a dickens of a smack; but as she isn't, it is not worth while." She came forward with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "Poor dear Aunt Emily! I sometimes have her conscience very much on my mind; but there ... I can bear it." And her comical enunciation in the poor lady's exact tones set both Meryl and van Hert off laughing.

The laughter was coming back to her own eyes too. When she entered they had been clouded, and her lips pouting. If they only knew it, she had been bored to tears at the party; bored utterly and completely, longing to be back on the verandah fighting a wordy, keen, good-tempered battle with van Hert; and she felt sure he would have gone when she returned. She had noticed he never stayed late when she was absent. But she was just in time. He had not gone, was only just going, and she perceived the face of each was tired and depressed.

"What have you been doing?" she rallied them. "You looked as if you had been intending to read the marriage service through together, and had read the funeral one by mistake; or possibly because it appealed to you more!... You both seemed doleful enough for anything."

"We missed you," Meryl said, simply. "William wanted to ask you about a new measure he is planning."

Van Hert said nothing, but he was looking at her unconsciously, with a light in his eyes that staggered her. Other men had looked at her with admiration, but this man had an expression that seemed to envelop her with himself. She felt throughout her pulses that he was all fire and eagerness and intensity, a strong, wilful, obstinate, fierce, virile personality that reached out mute, unconscious arms to her level-headed coolness. The fire in his eyes was only smouldering as yet, but it seemed to tell her that he was a fine-toned, brilliant instrument that she, and perhaps she only, could play upon as she liked, bringing forth both thundering chords and enveloping sweetness.

And in the sudden silence that had fallen upon the verandah, Diana knew that she liked to play, would always like to play, that with this man at least boredom would never fret her restless soul.

Then she plunged into words with him, and they sparred delightedly, and that work he had spoken of as awaiting him at home was left to take care of itself.

Later, Diana went outside on the verandah of her room and Meryl's and looked at the stars. The tables had turned utterly, but it was doubtful if either of them perceived it. Meryl went quietly to bed with only a few words, and either slept, or feigned sleep. Diana loitered on the verandah, and looked at the stars. She hardly knew why, only some strange half-consciousness was springing up inside her that made her restless. Somehow van Hert seemed to be gaining a hold over her. She could not gauge how, nor why, nor wherefore; but as she thought of his fine dark eyes in the starlight, with that luminous, glad expression when he looked at her, she had a sense of violent antipathy one moment, and of a gladness that made her blush secretly the next.

But within three days the date of the wedding was fixed, and all the papers paragraphed it far and wide.

It appeared in Salisbury the day after Ailsa had had her talk with Carew, and it came as a shock to both of them. It left just three weeks for action, and no more. What was to be done? Ailsa tried to get another interview with Carew at once, and found he had had to ride to some place twenty miles distant, and might not be back until the morrow. So, in distress, she sought Henry Delcombe. What he had to tell her was faintly reassuring. Carew had gone to see him after he left Ailsa, and had asked for proofs of his heirship to the marquisate of Toxeter. Delcombe had been able to satisfy him, and he had been gravely friendly, but that was all. At last, in desperation, Ailsa decided to write to Diana. The mail left that morning, and would reach Johannesburg in three days. Diana was full of resource, and she might think of a plan. Ailsa decided to tell her as much as she could without betraying any confidence. She said no word of the tragedy. That only concerned Meryl, and if she were to hear it at all, she must hear it from him. Neither did she mention his changed position; that also he should tell himself. She contented herself with letting Diana know that he had admitted he loved Meryl.

In the meantime she waited anxiously for Carew to return, but heard no word of him until the Sunday afternoon. In reply to an urgent little note he came to see her. She had wondered if he would be changed at all; if his new position would shed a ray of gladness in his steady eyes. But he seemed exactly the same, and she could read nothing.

"Did you see the announcement yesterday?" she asked. "There is so little time. I had to see you."

"I did."

"And what are you going to do?"

He looked down at the carpet, lost in thought. "I hardly know," he said.

"O, won't you at least go to Johannesburg?..." she pleaded. "See Meryl once. If you fail her now, perhaps you will never forgive yourself."

"On the other hand, I may only disturb her mind. How do you know she has not cared for this man for a long time? In any case, what right have I to cross his path now?"

"O, your logic!..." she cried. "The way you men think this and that and the other, when a woman just knows! Go and see her. Go and make sure of things for yourself."

But he shook his head in doubt and perplexity. To him it seemed almost like stealing to go and attempt to take from this other man what he had won fairly and openly; and though Ailsa tried other arguments, she could not move him. Only one half-hope she extracted from him.

"Perhaps," he said, "I will write to Mr. Pym and ask his advice."

Then he went back to the hours of desperate mental stress, that were steadily increasing the grey about his temples. To Ailsa he might have seemed cold and self-contained as ever, but if she could have known it, all his being was torn with conflict. With the hourly growing ache and longing to throw everything to the winds and to try to carry Meryl off while there was yet time there was the fear lest a wrong step on his part should shatter for her some newly found content.



XXVIII

DIANA'S PERPLEXITIES INCREASE

The two days after Diana came home early from her dinner-party were chiefly noticeable for the fact that for the first time since the engagement van Hert remained away from Hill Court. No one knew why, and the excuse he sent was of the vaguest. Diana asked her own heart and was troubled. When he came on the third day, he walked into the drawing-room to look for Meryl, and found Diana reading in the window alone. They discovered each other suddenly, and it was almost as if he gave a guilty start; and he looked unusually pale, with haggard eyes, as if he had slept badly of late. Diana saw it all, but gave no sign.

"You are something of a stranger, Meinheer van Hert," she said lightly. "My sword had almost time to rust."

"It would never do that. The best of swords is none the worse for an occasional rest; unless"—with a somewhat tired gleam of humour—"you have been keeping it bright at the expense of poor Aunt Emily."

"No, it has had a real rest. I am saving it again for the best swordsman worthy of it."

His eyes came suddenly to her face, and she realised at once that until that moment he had scarcely looked at her; and in that second's flash she saw something in them that hurt: a swift, deep trouble that he was struggling to hide. He looked away again quickly, noting the lovely shades of the room, the masses of violets, the general airiness and elegance.

"Is Meryl at home?"

"Yes. I will go and tell her you are here."

Diana went upstairs very slowly, lost in thought. And when she had told Meryl, she stood a long time at the window, thinking still. Presently Meryl came back. "William came to ask me to definitely fix the date of the wedding. We decided on the fifth; that will give us just a week before he must go to Cape Town." Then, as if she did not expect Diana to make any comment, she added, "The invitations must go out to-night."

That evening van Hert came as usual, but, simply because he was gayer than usual, Diana perceived that his gaiety was forced; and she saw also that he shunned meeting her eyes, looking anywhere, nowhere, rather than into her face.

The next day she rode in a direction where she and Meryl often met and joined him for a gallop. Meryl had suggested coming as usual, but Diana had contrived to put her off. She wanted if possible, without quite knowing why, to see van Hert alone; and as it happened, Fortune favoured her, for he appeared up a side road suddenly, and had no time to escape her, even had he wished. So they rode together, and he tried to talk to her as usual. When they came to a spot where they often dismounted, and sat to enjoy the lovely view of distant hills, Diana prepared to get off her horse. She saw him hesitate, and then he muttered something about an important engagement.

"O, nonsense!..." with a gay, airy smile. "If I'm not in a hurry, you can't be. I only want to sit for about fifteen minutes."

So they gave their horses' reins to the smart black groom, who always rode with the girls, and sat on the rustic bench where the three had several times sat together.

And suddenly, Diana, giving rein to her impulsive temperament, said, "What is your opinion of a man who marries one woman and loves another?"

She saw him start and stiffen, but he tried to parry the thrust. "What a question to ask a fiance of a few weeks, on the eve of becoming a bridegroom!..."

"Well, that's why! I thought you would have formed many opinions on the subject of love and marriage."

"And why do you want to know?"

"O, just a fancy! I know men sometimes do that kind of thing. Personally I think it is rather cowardly."

"Why cowardly?..."

"Because it shows a man hasn't the pluck to own he has made a mistake. He would rather go on with it, and pretend everything is all right."

She saw him bite his lip, and felt more thoroughly that he would not meet her eyes.

"It is hard on the other woman, the one he does love, too. It might make her very happy to be told. One joy is better than two miseries any day, even if his lordship did have to own to a mistake and look rather silly!..." with a little laugh.

"Perhaps I shall know more about it when I am married," trying to speak carelessly. "You must ask me later."

"Probably I shall not want to know then; my fancies are always varying. What should you do, for instance, if you suddenly found you cared for someone else more than Meryl?"

She was watching him closely, and she saw the swift, tell-tale blood rush to his face.

"I'm sure I don't know," he answered, with a forced, unnatural laugh. "It is rather a remote probability now."

"O, one never knows!..." Diana spoke with assumed lightness, and looked away to the hills, feeling a little unnerved by the sudden, swift palpitating in her blood. "Shall we go on now?" rising and turning her back to him. "I mustn't keep you any longer from that important engagement."

She might have added that she had learnt what she came out to learn; but instead she put her horse to a smart gallop, and rode back without scarcely speaking, flinging him a gay good-bye over her shoulder when their roads separated.

When she reached home she found Meryl surrounded by dressmakers, and trying hard to assume an interest in the proceedings; but Diana's clear eyes saw the effort as plainly as if it had been written across her forehead. She saw that she looked ill, too; ill and worn and joyless, as if something had damped for ever her natural fount of gaiety. And withal she was so sweet-tempered and considerate, studying everybody else's feelings in this wedding of hers; everyone's apparently except her own. Diana wanted to shake her one moment, and howl round her neck the next. Instead of doing either she was a little more snappy than usual.

"Will you have your dress fitted now?" Meryl asked her. "Madame has it all ready."

"No," shortly. "I haven't time this morning; and besides, one can't be fitted just after a ride. I'm going to have a hot bath and a cigarette," and she flung out of the room, leaving Meryl a little perplexed and Madame considerably perturbed.

In her own apartment she tossed things about, and was very irritable with her maid. Later, she went out into the garden to a shady nook where she was not likely to be disturbed, because she wanted to think. But thinking was no easy matter. On every side were perplexities.

"It's just the devil's own mess," she summed up at last, unable to think of any other sufficiently strong description. "Meryl doesn't want to marry van Hert, and van Hert doesn't want to marry Meryl; they both want to marry someone else; and yet they both mean to go on to the bitter end, because of some rotten-cotton notion about serving South Africa. O! I've no patience with these heroic attitudes! They are not suited to commonplace everyday life. If they'd a little more sound common sense, and a little less of the noble and lofty soul spirit, they would perceive they will only do more harm than good by going against nature and trying to force inclinations. But the absurd thing is, that neither has yet had the perspicacity to perceive the other's unwilling frame of mind. That exactly bears out my point. These heroic attitudes do not suit the exigencies of everyday life. If they weren't both so bent on doing the noble thing, they would perceive they are merely making fools of themselves, and incidentally straining my powers of resource beyond all reason. Of course it can't go on; but what in the name of all that's wonderful can I do to stop it?... Send for The Bear, and compel him to make the best of the awful fact that Meryl possesses a fortune, and console dear Dutch Willie myself, I suppose!..." And she smiled grimly. Then her face softened, and tears unexpectedly gleamed in her eyes. She brushed them away, apostrophising herself impatiently. Then she swallowed down a sob, murmuring, "I can't bear the thought of Meryl, standing with that smile on her lips and that expression in her eyes, to be fitted for her wedding-dress. It makes one want to tear the whole world to pieces, and sink South Africa in the nethermost ocean. No wonder uncle shuts himself in his study so much nowadays. He must be just as hard put to it as I am to know what to do." A step disturbed her cogitations at that moment, and Aunt Emily came into view.

"Ah, my dear, I thought I saw you come down the garden. There is a letter for you with a Rhodesian stamp. I thought you might like to have it." And she handed it to her, at the same time sitting down on the garden-seat beside her.

"Have you seen Meryl's dress," she enquired, with an expression that had suddenly grown sentimental. "The dear child. To think of her in her wedding-dress, so soon to be a bride!"

"Well, that's a commonplace enough event! Girls like Meryl usually do become brides, and later on they wear shrouds, and have a nice little coffin all to themselves. There really isn't very much difference!..."

"O, my dear!... What a dreadful remark to make! I am sure it is unlucky to speak like that."

"Then I hope it will be unlucky enough to postpone the wedding indefinitely."

Aunt Emily turned and looked at her niece as if she thought she had taken leave of her senses, but that was not by any means a new expression upon the face of Henry Pym's sister confronting Henry Pym's niece.

"Really, Diana!..." she expostulated. "I think it is hardly a subject for jesting. Marriage is a very serious thing. I hope God will bless dear Meryl with great happiness. I confess, at first, I was disappointed that she chose a Dutch husband; but Mr. van Hert has very good Huguenot blood in his veins, and he is undoubtedly a very charming man; and then, of course, her children will only be half Dutch."

"Her children ought to be bear cubs!" snapped Diana, wishing her aunt would go away and leave her to read her letter in peace.

For a moment Aunt Emily was too horrified to reply, and then Diana added, "Don't trouble to expostulate any more. I'm not really mad, only eccentric. I never could see why people make such a silly fuss about weddings; anyhow, they are all the same and all commonplace. When I marry, I shall give all my friends the shock of their lives, something to talk about for a year, and then for once in my life I shall be a public benefactor. I see Helen looking about on the terrace as if she wanted you. Shall I ask her?..."

"No, I will go in to her"; and she got up and walked towards the house, still wearing a shocked expression.

"I wonder if Helen will have the sense to manufacture some request?" thought Diana, glancing after her. "As if I could see the terrace from here!..."

Then she opened her letter.

When she had read it through once, she turned back to the beginning and read it through again. And all the time she was so rigidly still, that a little bird hopped close up to her foot to investigate.

Then she laid the letter down and looked out across the garden. Five minutes later she got to her feet.

In a moment of crisis Diana was the type who courageously follows an inspiration, without overmuch weighing and sifting. She had faith in her own keen woman's instinct and she knew there were times when sharp, decisive action is better than lengthy, minute attention to all the laws of war, and far-reaching considerations of what might or might not result.

A gate at the far end of the garden led out to the main road, and not very far down was a post office. Diana went straight to it, and sent a wire, with prepaid reply, directed to Major Carew, which ran:—

"Can you come at once? Urgently wanted. Go to Carlton and send message on arrival to me.

"DIANA PYM."



XXIX

A USEFUL BLUNDER

The railway journey from Salisbury to Johannesburg takes three and sometimes four days; so that whether Carew responded to her urgent message or not, Diana had rather a long time to possess her soul in patience and make up her mind what course to take next. She was in two minds whether to take her uncle into her confidence or not, but decided men were always apt to bungle, and she had better trust entirely to her own guidance. Beyond a doubt the situation required the most delicate and skilful handling. First of all, she felt she must convey to van Hert some suggestion that would prepare him for the shock of what might be expected to follow upon Carew's arrival, supposing he came. Meryl she did not worry greatly about. She might be expected to be swept off her feet and go with the tide, by the very suddenness of it all. The two men presented the obstacles. Carew would have to be inveigled with the greatest finesse into an interview with Meryl, without ever letting him perceive a woman was leading him. In her heart Diana was a little afraid of the steady, unbending face. He was not likely to prove pliable; he might even refuse to come. Nothing she could say could alter the fact that he was a policeman and Meryl was burdened with a fortune, and that was the only barrier Diana was aware of. She laughed a little to herself as she wondered whether it would help matters if Mr. Pym made a will disinheriting Meryl, and dividing his money between her and charities. She could easily give it back to Meryl later. Then she sighed. "More heroics!... and they tell us it is a base world. Here am I driven out of my senses nearly, positively suffocated with high-mindedness, because three delightful people can't come down from their unlivable altitude and exhibit a little practical common sense."

Then, of course, there was van Hert's pride to consider. What in the world, at this time of all others, was to be made of an English girl jilting a prominent Dutch politician a week before the wedding day! "It's almost enough to cause another war!" sighed poor Diana. "I'm really beginning to wish I had let them all go their own foolish ways. If I don't mind I shall end in becoming a heroine myself, and that's really too alarming!..."

However, the bull having been taken by the horns, it was wiser to keep a firm hold of them; though more than once Diana felt herself very entirely in sympathy with Mark Twain when he says, "It is better to take hold by the tail, because then you can let go when you like."

Obviously van Hert must be tackled first, but she waited until the morning after sending her wire, hoping for a reply. It came early, and fortune favoured her in that she received her orange-coloured envelope unknown to anyone. She carried it upstairs and opened it with a beating, anxious heart. It contained only two words, and was not signed:—

"Arrive Saturday."

For a moment she felt a little dazed. He was coming then, the stern soldier-policeman. What in the world was she to say to him?...

Then a flood of gladness began to well up in her heart. After all, it meant before all things, that a day of great joy might be at hand for Meryl. Did anything else really matter?... If she personally came through the transaction a little battered—well, it wouldn't really matter, if Meryl and The Bear were safely off the rocks. Rather than let any shadowy good for South Africa come between them now she would marry van Hert herself, and at that she gave a little low laugh. In the meantime she had three days to think out a plan and convey to van Hert some sort of preparation.

When he came that Wednesday evening it was easily seen that he was feverish. His eyes were unnaturally bright and his face flushed, and at dinner he only played with his food and ate nothing. He talked and laughed gaily, but with intermittent shivering which he tried hard to hide. Everyone saw it, and Meryl grew concerned. He tried to laugh it off, but was not successful. Finally Mr. Pym advised him to go home to bed. And then Aunt Emily made the crowning blunder of her life, and like some other big blunders now historical, it proved a blessing in disguise.

She glanced at Diana with a scared face and exclaimed in perturbation, "Now if the wedding is put off it will be your fault, Diana. I told you it must bring ill-luck to speak about it as you did."

There was an awkward pause, and in spite of herself Diana flushed scarlet.

"What did Diana say?" van Hert asked of Aunt Emily, half grave and half casual.

The poor lady, having quickly discovered she had made an unfortunate remark and become considerably flurried, made matters worse by stammering guiltily, "O, it was nothing much; she was only talking at random. She ... she ..."—distressfully discovering van Hert's eyes still fixed upon her—"said something about hoping the wedding would be postponed, and I said it was unlucky."

For a moment the constraint was painful. Meryl had grown as white as the tablecloth, and Mr. Pym looked thoroughly worried. Diana, however, had quickly recovered herself, and was now the most composed of any. She gave a little sniff and glanced defiantly at van Hert. His eyes roved round the table and finally fixed themselves upon hers. She did not waver, but looked steadily back at him. He gave a self-conscious, constrained laugh. "I presume you had your reasons?" he said.

She narrowed her eyes a little as she replied with a directness probably he alone understood, "Yes, I suppose I had. It was yesterday, Tuesday. Tuesday is often a queer day with me."

And he knew she was referring to their conversation during the morning's ride.

Then Meryl got up to relieve the tension, and because she began to feel a little uncertain of herself.

"Di often has queer days, but they have nothing to do with your feverishness, William. Jackson had better go back with you, and we will telephone Dr. Smythe to look in and see how you are." She went away to order the motor, and van Hert seized an opportunity to speak to Diana unheard.

"I know what you are alluding to," he said, gravely. "We cannot very well leave it like this. Will you ride the same way to-morrow?"

"But if you have fever?" hesitatingly.

"In the war I fought all day long with fever on me. Surely I can ride! You will be there?"

"Yes."

When van Hert arrived at the meeting-place next morning, he wore an overcoat and looked as if he ought to be in bed, and Diana's heart smote her. But she comforted herself with the thought that his fever was very much of the mind, and her medicine, if drastic, might still do him more good than any physician's.

They rode side by side to the seat they had sat upon before, and without saying much he helped her to alight and gave the reins of both horses to the black groom.

Once seated, however, he turned to her and said, gravely, "Of course, that remark of yours had to do with our conversation the last time we sat here?"

"Of course," agreed Diana, calmly. The intricacies of the task she had set herself were beginning to interest more than scare her, and she was not afraid as to her skill in handling van Hert.

"May I ask in what exact particular?"

"Merely that you are the man about to marry a woman you do not love."

He opened his lips to expostulate and deny, but she rested a little hand on his arm a moment and interrupted. "No, do not trouble to deny it. I should not have dared to say such a thing without being sure of my ground. Your face told me on Tuesday."

He was silent, feeling himself unaccountably in the grip of something he could no longer thwart.

"Now listen to me. When Meryl went to Rhodesia you did love her. I think she was all the world to you. So she was when she came back, at first. You were in haste to win her, and she consented to be engaged to you. Afterwards...." She paused.

"Well, afterwards?..." in a strained, unnatural voice.

"Afterwards you found in some vague way she was changed. You had won her, but you did not possess her. Something had happened. You seemed to have seized the substance and found it shadow. I seem to be talking like a book, but we will let that pass! Instead of trying to find out whether this really was the case, you attempted to hurry forward the wedding. That, I think, was weak of you."

"And something had happened?..." he asked, hoarsely. "What?..."

Diana spread out her hands with a little French gesture. "It is sometimes just as poignant to say, 'Cherchez l'homme' as, 'Cherchez la femme.'"

"You mean?..."

"That what had happened was another man."

"Ah!..." in quick surprise; and after a short, tense silence, "Then why in the world?..." But again she stayed him with a little arresting hand.

"You wonder why she engaged herself to you?... When you have the clue it is quite simple. The other man loves her, but he has not told her so. I do not know that he ever will. He is a proud, obstinate Englishman, and has no position and no money. Apparently he is ready to let Meryl wreck her life, rather than bless his with herself and her fortune. Some men are like that. It is a mixture of pride and heroics very difficult for a well-meaning cousin like myself to cope with. I think it may even turn my hair grey yet." Again she spread out her hands. "Can you not see the rest?... You yourself led up to it. You urged your united service to South Africa (though why poor South Africa should be dragged in, I don't know), and she, having as she thought lost all hope of simple, personal happiness, decided to give herself to you and to her country. Now do you understand?"

He was silent for a considerable time, thinking deeply; and then, with one of his quick versatile changes, he turned and pounced upon her with the question, "Granting all is as you say, what I want to know is, how have you discovered it?" He looked hard into her face with keen, searching eyes. "How did you know that I had changed?"

He had taken her a little unawares, and suddenly she felt the hot, tell-tale blood mounting higher and higher up her face. She moved restlessly, impatiently, as if his gaze were intolerable, and then replied a trifle lamely, "You must have heard the English proverb, 'Lookers-on see most of the game.'"

"Ah! I wonder at what particular point you saw first?..."

"In any case it is beside the question," she declared, anxious to get the conversation away from herself. "As I asked you on Tuesday, I ask you again, 'What do you think of a man who marries a woman when he does not love her?'"

"That is not the question you asked me."

"Yes it is," a trifle shortly. Diana was beginning to feel rather like a swimmer out of his depth.

"I beg your pardon, it is not; but we will let it pass for the moment. Granting that what you have told me is true, what do you expect me to do?"

"Tell Meryl the truth."

"And what is the truth?" He was gazing hard at her again, and Diana began to wish she could run away and hide. She knew that her changing colour and averted eyes were telling him something he badly wanted to know.

"O, you're very dense!" she cried, seeking to cover her discomfort. "Tell her you have discovered it is all a mistake; that you do not think she loves you better than all the world; and that you feel yourself wedded to your work, and ... and ... that kind of thing. Of course it won't be nice, but surely you can see it is a far braver thing to do, than just to go on because you are afraid of what the world will say?"

"And suppose Meryl wishes to hold to her promise and give herself to her country?"

"She can still do that, only in some other way."

"And what do you think South Africa will say?"

"O, that's quite beyond me!..." with a little comical grimace, "but, of course, at any cost, you must avert another war!..." They both smiled, and she added more seriously, "You can announce that you discovered in time you were not very well suited to each other, and mutually agreed to break off the engagement."

Again he was silent for a long time, lost in thought. At last, "And when do you think I should say this to Meryl?"

"It will not be any easier through waiting. Why not to-night?"

Again he was silent, and something in the air, some secret, veiled magnetism, told Diana whither his thoughts were tending, and her cheeks grew hot in spite of herself.

"If I speak to Meryl to-night, and she decrees that the engagement shall end, will you promise to ride this way to-morrow morning?"