Bertram Mitford (continued 3)

Chapter Two.

A Waft of Strange News.

“I say, Uncle Luke. Do you happen to be aware that it’s jolly well tiffin time—Hallo, Canon! Didn’t know you were here. How are you?”

He who thus unceremoniously burst in upon them, in blissful ignorance of the momentous matter under discussion and of course of how his own fortunes had been balancing in the scale, was a goodly specimen of English youth, tall, and well-hung, and athletic, but the bright frank sunniness of his face, his straight open glance, and entirely unaffected and therefore unspoiled manner rendered him goodly beyond the average. Percival West and Hilary Blachland were both orphaned sons of two of Sir Luke’s sisters, and had been to him even as his own children. There was a difference of many years between their ages, however, and their characters were totally dissimilar, as we have heard set forth.

“Time for tiffin is it, Percy?” said Sir Luke, glancing at his watch. “You see we old fogies haven’t got your fine healthy jackass-and-a-bundle-of-greens appetite. We must have overlooked it.”

“I don’t agree with you at all, Canterby,” laughed the Canon. “I’ll answer for it. I feel uncommonly like beefsteaks, or anything that’s going. And what have you been doing with yourself, Percy?”

“Biking. Got ten miles out beyond Passmore since eleven o’clock. Oh, bye-the-bye, Canon, I saw the Bishop in Passmore. He wanted you badly.”

“Percy, speak the truth, sir,” returned the Canon, with a solemn twinkle in his eyes. “You said the Bishop wanted me badly? And—his Lordship happens to be away!”

“Every word I said is solemn fact,” replied Percival. “I saw the Bishop in Passmore, but I didn’t say to-day though. And there’s no denying he did want you badly. Eh, Canon?”

“You’re a disrespectful rascal, chaffing your seniors, sir, and if I were twenty years younger, I’d put on the gloves and take it out of you.”

“Come along in to tiffin, Canon, and take it out of that,” rejoined Percival with his light-hearted laugh, dropping his hand affectionately on to the old man’s shoulder. And the trio adjourned to the dining-room.

Jerningham Lodge, Sir Luke Canterby’s comfortable, not to say luxurious establishment, was a roomy old house, standing within a walled park of about a hundred and fifty acres. Old, without being ancient, it was susceptible of being brought up to fin-de-siècle ideas of comfort, and the gardens and shrubberies were extensive and well kept. It had come into his possession a good many years before, and soon after that he was left a childless widower. Thus it came about that these two nephews of his had found their home here.

The elder of the two, however, did not turn out entirely to the satisfaction of his uncle.

“Hilary is such a confounded young rake,” the latter used to say. “He’ll get himself into a most infernal mess one of these days.”

Both dicta were true. Headstrong and susceptible, there was hardly ever a time when Hilary Blachland was outside some entanglement: more than once getting him into a serious scrape. Such, however, did not invariably come to the ears of his uncle, though now and then they did, and on one occasion Sir Luke found himself obliged to pay down a heavy sum to keep an uncommonly awkward breach of promise case against his nephew from coming into court. Hilary at last made Passmore too hot to hold him, but the worst of it was that sooner or later the same held good of everywhere else. Still, the infinity of trouble he gave him notwithstanding, this scapegrace was the one of his two nephews for whom Sir Luke had the softest place in his heart—but at last the climax arrived, and the name of that climax was the name of the suit which we have just heard Sir Luke mention. Therein Hilary had got himself—as his uncle had forcibly put it—“into a most infernal mess.” His said uncle, moreover, had found himself called upon to pay the somewhat heavy damages and costs.

He need not have done so, of course. He might have left the scapegrace to drag himself out of the mud he had got into. But, unlike many men who have coined their own wealth, there was nothing close-fisted about Sir Luke Canterby. He had disbursed the large sum with scarcely a murmur—anything to close down the confounded scandal. But with Hilary Blachland he was seriously angry and disgusted, and told him as much in no halting terms. The other replied he had better go abroad—and the sooner the better. So he took himself off—which, declared Sir Luke, was the most sensible thing he had decided to do for some time. He changed his mind though, on learning that Hilary had not gone alone, and—missed him, as he put it to himself and his most intimate friend, viz. Canon Lenthall, “like the very devil.”

“By the way,” said Percival when lunch was half through. “I brought out a later paper from Passmore. Here it is,” producing it from the pocket of his Norfolk jacket. “Want to see it, uncle? Not much news, I expect.”

“Let’s see the stock and share column,” holding out one hand for the paper, and fixing his glasses with the other. A glance up and down a column, then a turning over of the sheet. Then a sudden, undisguised start.

“God bless my soul! What’s this?”

His hand shook as he held the news sheet, running his glance hastily down it. “Why, that must be Hilary. There, Canon, read it out I can hardly see—there—that paragraph.”

The old priest took the paper. “‘Trouble brewing in Mashonaland’? Is that it? Yes? Well, here’s what they say:—

“‘Stirring times seem in store for our Chartered Company’s pioneers in their new Eldorado. It has been known that Lo Bengula’s concession of the mining rights in Mashonaland to that Company was very distasteful to his people, and for some time past these have been manifesting their displeasure in such wise as to show that it is only a question of time when the settlers of Mashonaland will find themselves called upon to vindicate their rights by force, against their truculent neighbours. The last instance that we have seems to have happened early in November, when an armed force of Matabele crossed into Mashonaland, raiding and threatening at their own sweet will. Several native servants in the employ of settlers were murdered in cold blood, Lo Bengula’s warriors asserting their right to carry on their time-honoured pastime, declaring that the lives of these people were not included in the concession; but so far they have refrained from murdering Europeans. One specific example of the unbridled aggressiveness of these savages is also to hand. The impi went to the house of a man named Blachland, a trader and hunter residing near the head waters of the Umnyati river. Two of his servants had got wind of its approach, and after warning their master fled for their lives to the bush. It appears however, that Blachland was ill with a bad attack of fever, and too weak to move.’”

An exclamation from Percival and Sir Luke caused the reader to pause.

“Go on, Canon, go on,” said the latter hurriedly.

“‘It appears that the induna in charge of the impi was well known to the sick man, and while he entered the house and engaged the latter in conversation, his followers amused themselves by ransacking the out-premises. Here they discovered two little Mashona boys, Blachland’s servants, who were hiding in terror. These were dragged forth, and regardless of their shrieks for mercy, were ruthlessly speared, the bloodthirsty savages roaring with delight as they tossed the miserable little wretches to and fro among each other, on the blades of their great assegais. Then they went away, leaving the bleeding and mangled corpses lying in the gateway, and calling out to the sick occupant of the place that the time for killing white people had not come yet.

“‘From there they proceeded to the camp of two prospectors named Skelsey and Spence. The last-named was away, but Skelsey had got wind of their coming and had promptly put his camp into a position of defence—and prepared to give them a warm reception. When they arrived he showed them his magazine rifle and revolver, and called out to the induna in command that he was going to shoot until he hadn’t a cartridge left, if they advanced a step nearer. They did not appear to relish the prospect, and drew off, uttering threats. Thus this brave fellow saved the lives of his four scared and cowering Mashona servants, who, however, showed their appreciation by deserting next day.

“‘Blachland, it is reported, is out of favour with Lo Bengula, who recently ordered him out of his country for some reason or other, while he was on a trading trip at Bulawayo.’”

Then followed some more comments on the insecurity of life and property at the mercy of savage neighbours, and the necessity for prompt and decided action, and the paragraph ended.

“I suppose there’s no doubt about it being Hilary?” said Percival, when the reader had stopped. “Blachland isn’t such a common name, and he did go out there as a trader or something. By Jove, wouldn’t I like to be with him!”

Both his seniors smiled. They were thinking his wish might soon be realised.

“Down with fever, poor chap!” said Sir Luke. “But that up-country fever isn’t fatal, I’ve heard, not if men take proper care of themselves. He ought to have a run home though. The voyage would soon set him on his feet again.”

“Rather!” echoed Percival, enthusiastically. “It would be grand to see the dear old chap again.”

“Well, perhaps we may, Percy, perhaps we may,” rejoined his uncle, rather excitedly. “How would you like to go over and fetch him?”

“Me? By George! I’d like it better than anything else in the world. But—suppose he wouldn’t come?”

“Of course he’d come. Why shouldn’t he come?” testily answered Sir Luke, to whom this afterthought was not a pleasant one. And the rest of the time was spent in discussing this news from a far-away land.

“Strange, isn’t it?” said Sir Luke, thereafter, Percival having gone out of the room. “Just as we were talking over Hilary, and here this bit of news comes right in upon us from outside. If Percy hadn’t brought back that paper we might never have heard it.”

“Looks like an omen, doesn’t it, Luke?” laughed the Canon. “Looks as if he were to be instrumental in bringing Hilary back.”

“I hope to Heaven he may. I say, Dick, old friend, I’m more than glad you turned in here to-day, in time to make me put that abominable draft in the fire.”

“Will you walk back with me a little way, Percy?” said the Canon as he was taking his leave, having refused Sir Luke’s offer to send him back on wheels.

“Why rather. Wait, I’ll just get my bike. I can wheel it along, and ride it back.”

They passed down the village street together, nodding here and there to an acquaintance, or acknowledging the salutation of a rustic. The rector of the parish passed them on a bicycle, and the two professors of rival creeds exchanged a cordial and friendly greeting, for somehow, no one was anything other than friendly with Canon Lenthall. But it was not until they had left the village behind and had gained the open country that he began to discourse seriously with his younger friend as to the matter of which both were thinking.

“Let me see. How long is it since you saw Hilary?” he began.

“Oh, about half a dozen years—just before he got into that—er—mess. What a splendid chap he was, Canon. I’ve sometimes thought Uncle Luke was a bit hard on him that time.”

“You’re quite wrong, Percy. Hard is the one thing your uncle could not be. Why, he’s the softest hearted man in existence.”

“Yes, I know. But, does he really want me to go out there and hunt up Hilary?”

“I believe so. As a matter of fact, we happened to be discussing that very thing just before you came in. It was a strange coincidence that you should unconsciously have brought the news you did.”

Percival whistled. “Were you really? Strange indeed. Well, I’m on for the scheme. It doesn’t matter if I enter at the Temple now, or in six or eight months’ time—and, what an experience it’ll be in the mean time.”

They were nearing Passmore, and the chimneys and spires of the town were growing larger and larger in front of them—and already the haze of smoke was dimming the bright green of the expanse of meadow between. They had gained the wooden road-bridge, beneath which the sluggish water ran oily between the black piers, and here the Canon paused.

“It will be a great thing if we can bring Hilary back to his uncle, so that they are thoroughly reconciled. But Percy, my boy—remember that so far, for all these years past you have been the first and only one near him. How will you feel when you see another first—and to all appearances of more consequence than yourself, as is natural in the case of one who has long been away. Are you sure of yourself?”

But the young man burst into a free, frank and hearty laugh.

“Great Scot, Canon!” he cried merrily. “What sort of a bounder are you trying to take me for? There’s nothing I’d like so much as to see the dear old chap back again.”

The old priest gazed steadily at him for a moment, and felt greatly relieved. The answer rang so spontaneous, so true.

“Well, I had that to say to you, and have said it. In fact I brought you with me now on purpose to say it. Now, good-bye my boy, and God bless you.”

Chapter Three.

Bayfield’s Farm.

There is a rustling in the cover, faint at first, but drawing nearer. As it does so, the man with the gun, who has been squatting half concealed by a shrub in one corner of the little glade, picks himself up stealthily, noiselessly, and now widely on the alert. A fine bushbuck ram leaps lightly into the open, and as its large protruding eye lights on this unusual object, its easy, graceful bound becomes a wild rush. Then the gun speaks. The beautiful animal sinks in his stride and falls, a frantic, kicking heap, carried forward some six or eight yards by the impetus of his pace. Twirling, twisting, now attempting to rise, and almost succeeding, then rolling back, but still fighting desperately for life—the blood welling forth over his black hide where the deadly loepers have penetrated—the stricken buck emits loud raucous bellowings of rage and fear and agony. But the man with the gun knows better than to approach too near, knows well the power of those long, needle-pointed horns, and the tenacity of life contained within the brain beneath them; knows well that a stricken bushbuck ram, with all that life still in him, can become a terribly dangerous and formidable antagonist, and this is a very large and powerful unit of the species.

The crash of the shot reverberates, roaring from the overhanging krantz—dislodging a cloud of spreuws from its rocky ledges. These dart hither and thither, whistling and chattering, their shrill din mingling with the bellowings of the wounded buck. But upon this arises another din and it is that of canine throats. Two great rough-haired dogs leap forth into the glade, following upon the line taken by the buck. Then ensues a desperate game. The stricken animal, summoning all his remaining strength to meet these new foes, staggers to his feet, and, with head lowered and menacing, it seems that no power on earth can stay the foremost of the dogs from receiving the full length of these fourteen-inch horns in his onward rush. These, however, are no puppies, but old, well-seasoned dogs, thoroughly accustomed to bush-hunting. Wonderfully quick are they in their movements as, just avoiding each deadly thrust, they leap, snapping and snarling, round their quarry—until one, seeing his chance, seizes the latter just below the haunch in such fashion as promptly to hamstring him. The game antelope is done for now. Weakened, too, by the jets of blood spurting from his wounds, he totters and falls. The fight is over.

With it the man with the gun has deemed it sound policy not to interfere. To encourage the dogs would render them too eager—at the expense of their judgment—and to fire a second shot would be seriously to imperil them. Besides, he is interested in this not so very ill-matched combat. Now, however, it is time to call them off.

To call is one thing, but to be obeyed is quite another. The two great dogs, excited and savage, are snarling and worrying at the carcase of their now vanquished enemy—and the first attempt to enforce the order is met with a very menacing and determined growl, for this man is not their master. Wisely he desists.

“Confound it, they’ll tear that fine skin to ribbons!” he soliloquises disgustedly. Then—“Oh, there you are, Bayfield. Man, call those brutes off. They don’t care a damn for me.”

A horseman has dashed into the glade. He, too, carries a gun, but in a trice he has torn a reim from the D. of his saddle, and is lashing and cursing with a will among the excited hounds. These draw off, still snarling savagely, for he is their master.

“Magtig! Blachland, but you’re in luck’s way!” he exclaimed. “That’s the finest ram that’s been shot here for the last five years. Well done! I believe it’s the same one I drove right over that Britisher last month, and he missed it clean with both barrels. That young fellow stopping with Earle.”

“Who’s he? A jackaroo?”

“No. A visitor. I don’t know who he is. By the way, I must take you over to Earle’s one of these days. He’s got a good bit of shoot. Look here, Jafta,” turning to a yellow-skinned Hottentot, also mounted, who had just arrived on the scene, “Baas Blachland has shot our biggest bushbuck ram at last.”

“Ja. That is true, Baas,” grinned the fellow, who was Bayfield’s after-rider, inspecting the edge of his knife preparatory to the necessary disembowelling and loading up of the quarry.

“We may as well be getting along,” said Bayfield. “Jafta, go and fetch Baas Blachland’s horse.”

“I thought an up-country man like you would turn up his nose at our hunting, Blachland,” said Bayfield as they rode along. “But what you can’t turn up your nose at is our air—eh? Why, you’re looking twice the man you were a fortnight ago even. I suppose that infernal fever’s not easily shaken off.”

“It’s the very devil to shake off, but if anything will do it, this will.” And the speaker glanced around with a feeling of complete and restful enjoyment.

The kloof they were threading afforded in itself a noble and romantic scene. Great krantzes soaring up to the unclouded blue, walls of red ironstone gleaming like bronze in the sun-rays—or, in tier upon tier, peeping forth from festoons of creeper and anchored tree and spiky aloe. Yonder a sweep of spur on the one hand, like a combing wave of tossing tumbling foliage, on the other a mighty cliff, forming a portal beyond which was glimpsed a round, rolling summit, high above in the distance—but everywhere foliage, its many shades of green relieved here and there by the scarlet and pink of the wild geranium, the light blue of the plumbago, and half a dozen other splashes of colour, bright and harmonising; aglow, too, with the glancing of brilliant-winged birds, tuneful with their melodious piping and the murmuring hum of bees. And the air—strong, clear, exhilarating, such as never could be mistaken for the enervating steaminess of up-country heat—for the place was at a good elevation, and in one of the settled parts of the Cape Colony.

Gazing around upon all this, Hilary Blachland seemed to be drinking in new draughts of life. The bout of fever, in the throes of which we last saw him lying, helpless and alone, had proved to be an exceptionally sharp one; indeed, but for the accident of Sybrandt happening along almost immediately after the Matabele raid, the tidings of which had reached England, as we have seen—it is probable that a fatal termination might have ensued. But Sybrandt had tended him with devoted and loyal camaraderie, and when sufficiently restored, he had decided to sell off everything and clear out. “You’ll come back again, Blachland,” Sybrandt had said. “Mark my words, you’ll come back again. We all do.” And he had answered that perhaps he would, but not just yet awhile.

He had gone down country to the seaside, but the heat at Durban was so great at the time of year as to counteract the beneficial effect of the sea air. Then he had bethought himself of George Bayfield, a man he had known previously and liked, and who had more than once pressed him to pay him a visit at his farm in the Eastern Province. And now, here he was.

A great feeling of restfulness and self-gratulation was upon him. He was free once more, free for a fresh clean start. The sequence of his foolishness, which had hung around his neck like a millstone, for years, had been removed, had suddenly fallen off like a load. For he had come to see things clearer now. His character had changed and hardened during that interval, and he had come to realise that hitherto, his views of life, and his way of treating its conditions, had been very much those of a fool.

George Bayfield had received him with a very warm welcome. He was a colonial man, and had never been out of his native land, yet contrasting them as they stood together it was Blachland who looked the harder and more weather-beaten of the two, so thorough an acclimatising process had his up-country wanderings proved. Bayfield was a man just the wrong side of fifty, and a widower. Two of his boys were away from home, and at that time his household consisted of a small son of eleven, and a daughter—of whom more anon.

The kloof opened out into a wide open valley, covered mainly with rhenoster brush and a sprinkling of larger shrubs in clumps. From this valley on either side, opened lateral kloofs, similar to the one from which they had just emerged, kloofs dark with forest and tangled thickets, very nurseries for tiger and wild-dogs, Bayfield declared—but they had the compensating element of affording good sport whenever he wanted to go out and shoot a bushbuck or two—as in the present case. His boundary lines ran right along the high rand which shut in the broad valley on either side, and the farm was an excellent one for sheep and ostriches. In fact the valley portion of it was a perfect network of wire fencing, and in their respective “camps” the great black bipeds stalked to and fro, uttering their truculent boom, or lazily picking at the aromatic grasses, which constituted their natural and aboriginal food. And the name of the place was Lannercost.

“These confounded ostriches spoil half the shooting on the place, and, for the matter of that, anywhere,” remarked Bayfield, as they ambled along through one of the large camps, where one exceptionally fierce bird hung about their flank, only kept from a nearer approach by the presence of the two dogs. “You flush a covey of partridges or a big troop of guinea-fowl, and away they go and squat in complete security under the wing of some particularly ‘kwai’ bird in the next camp. It’s beastly tantalising. Ever shot any wild ostriches up-country, Blachland?”

“Yes, on two occasions—and I enjoyed it for that very reason. I was held up once on top of a rail for nearly two hours besieged on each side by an infuriated tame one. Had to wait until dark to get down. So you see it was a kind of poetic justice to turn the tables on the wild ones.”

“Rather. These are good game preservers though, in that they keep the niggers from killing the small bucks in the camps. Look at those few springbuck I’m trying to preserve. They’d all have been killed off if it wasn’t for the ‘kwai’ birds in the camp. By George! the sun’ll be down before we get home. That isn’t good for a man with fever still in his system at this time of year.”

“Oh, that’s no matter. I’m a good deal too tough.”

“Don’t you be so sure about that. We’d better push the nags on a bit.”

The house stood at the head of the valley, and had been growing larger and larger as they drew near. The sun was dropping, and that wondrously beautiful glow which heralds his departure from the vivid, clear South African day was upon the surroundings, softening, toning everything. Hundreds of doves cooed melodiously from the sprays, and as they passed through a gateway, ascending a winding path between high quince hedges, clouds of twittering finks and long-tailed mouse-birds scattered with a whirr on either side of the way. Spreuws, too, whistling among the tall fig-trees in the orchard, helped to swell the chorus of Nature’s evensong.

“There are a sight too many of these small birds,” observed Bayfield. “They want keeping down. Sonny’s getting lazy with that air-gun of his. They’ll play the mischief with the garden if he gives them much more rope. There he is, the schepsel. Hi! Sonny!” he called out, as a good-looking boy came down the path to meet them. “Why don’t you thin off some of these birds? Look at ’em all. No one would think you’d got an air-gun and half a dozen catapults.”

“The gun’s out of order, father,” answered the boy.

“It’s always getting out of order. Those air-guns are frauds. Where’s Lyn?”

“She was about just now. We watched you from beyond the third gate. There she is.”

Following his gaze they descried a white-clad feminine form in front of the house, which they were now very near.

Chapter Four.

Lyn.

“Well, Mr Blachland, what luck have you had?”

The speaker was standing on the stoep, whither she had come out to meet them. She was rather a tall girl, with a great deal of golden hair, arranged in some wonderful way of her own which somehow enhanced its volume without appearing loose or untidy. She had blue eyes which looked forth straight and frank, and an exquisite skin, which even the fierce glare of the summer sun, and a great deal of open-air life had not in the least roughened, and of which a few tiny freckles, rather adding piquancy to a sweetly pretty face, oval, refined and full of character, were the only trace. If there was a fault to be found in the said face, it was that its owner showed her gums slightly when she laughed—but the laugh was so bright, so whole-hearted, and lighted up the whole expression so entrancingly that all but the superlatively hypercritical lost sight of the defect altogether.

“He’s bowled over that thundering big bushbuck ram we’ve been trying for so often in Siever’s Kloof, Lyn,” answered her father for his guest.

“Well done!” cried the girl. “You know, Mr Blachland, some of the people around here were becoming quite superstitious about that buck. They were beginning to declare he couldn’t be killed. I suggested a silver bullet such as they had to make for those supernatural stags in the old German legends.”

“A charge of treble A was good enough this time—no, I think I used loepers,” laughed Blachland.

“I almost began to believe in it myself,” went on the girl. “Some of our best shots around here seemed invariably to miss that particular buck, Mr Earle for instance, and Stephanus Bosch, and, I was nearly saying—father—”

“Oh don’t, then,” laughed Bayfield. “A prophet has no honour in his own country. Keep up the tradition, Lyn.”

“And, as for the Englishman, the one that came over here with the Earles, why he missed it both barrels, and they drove it right over him too.”

“By the way, Lyn,” said her father, “what was that Britisher’s name? I’ve clean forgotten.”

“That’s not strange, for you’ll hardly believe it, but so have I.”

“Um—ah—no, we won’t believe it. A good-looking young fellow like that!”

“Even then I’ve forgotten it. Yes, he was a nice-looking boy.”

“Boy!” cried her father. “Why, the fellow must be a precious deal nearer thirty than twenty.”

“Well, and what’s that but a boy?”

“Thanks awfully, Miss Bayfield,” said Blachland. “The implication is grateful and comforting to a battered fogey of a precious deal nearer forty than thirty.”

For answer the girl only laughed—that bright, whole-hearted laugh of hers. It was a musical laugh too, full-throated, melodious. She and her father’s guest were great friends. Though now living somewhat of an out-of-the-world life, she had been well-educated, and her tastes were artistic. She drew and painted with no mean skill, and her musical attainments were above the average. So far from feeling bored and discontented with the comparative isolation of her lot, she had an affection for the free and healthy conditions of her surroundings, the beauties of which, moreover, her artistic temperament rendered her capable of perceiving and appreciating. Then this stranger had come into their life, and at first she had been inclined to stand somewhat in awe of him. He was so much older than herself, and must have seen so much; moreover, his quiet-mannered demeanour, and the life-worn look of his firm dark countenance, seemed to cover a deal of character. But he had entered so thoroughly and sympathetically into her tastes and pursuits that the little feeling of shyness had worn off within the first day, and now, after a fortnight, she had come to regard his presence in their midst as a very great acquisition indeed.

“I say, Lyn,” struck in her father. “Better take Blachland inside—yes, and light up some logs in the fireplace. There’s a sharp tinge in the air after sundown, which isn’t good for a man with up-country fever in his bones, as I was telling him just now. I must just go and take a last look round.”

“Did you do any more to my drawing to-day?” asked Hilary, as the two stood within the sitting-room together, watching the efforts of a yellow-faced Hottentot girl to make the logs blaze up.

“I’ve nearly finished it. I’ve only got to put in a touch or two.”

“May I see it now?”

“No—not until it is finished. I may not be satisfied with it then, and tear it up.”

“But you are not to. I’m certain that however it turns out it will be too good to treat in that way.”

“Oh, Mr Blachland, I am surprised at such a speech from you,” she said, her eyes dancing with mischief. “Why, that’s the sort of thing that English boy might have said. But you! Oh!”

“Well, I mean it. You know I never hesitate to criticise and that freely. Look at our standing fight over detail in foreground, as a flagrant instance.”

The drawing under discussion was a water-colour sketch of the house and its immediate surroundings. He would treasure it as a reminder after he had gone, he declared, when asking her to undertake it. To which she had rejoined mischievously that he seemed in a great hurry to talk about “after he had gone,” considering that he had only just come.

Now the entrance of George Bayfield and his youngest born put an end to the discussion, and soon they sat down to supper.

“Man, Mr Blachland, but that is a mooi buck,” began the boy. “Jafta says he never saw a mooi-er one.”

“Perhaps it’ll bring you luck,” said Lyn, looking exceedingly reposeful and sweet, behind the tea-things, in her twenty-year-old dignity at the head of the table.

“I don’t know,” was the reply. “I did something once that was supposed to bring frightful ill-luck, and for a long time it seemed as if it was going to. But—indirectly it had just the opposite effect.”

“Was that up-country, Mr Blachland?” chimed in the boy eagerly. “Do tell us about it.”

“Perhaps some day, Fred. But it’s a thing that one had better have left alone.”

“These children’ll give you no peace if you go on raising their curiosity in that way,” said Bayfield.

“I’ll go up-country when I’m big,” said the boy. “Are you going again, Mr Blachland?”

“I don’t know, Fred. You see, I’ve only just come down.”

The boy said no more on the subject. He had an immense admiration for their guest, who, when they were alone together, would tell him tales of which he never wearied—about hunting and trading, and Lo Bengula, and experiences among savages far wilder and more formidable than their own half-civilised and wholly deteriorated Kaffirs. But he was sharp enough to notice that at other times the subject of “up-country” was not a favourite one with Blachland. Perhaps the latter was tired of it as he had had so much. At any rate, with a gumption rare in small boys of his age, Fred forbore to worry the topic further.

This was one of those evenings which the said guest was wont to prize now, and was destined in the time to come to look back upon as among the very happiest experiences of his life. He regarded his host indeed with a whole-hearted envy, that such should be his daily portion. There was just enough sharpness in the atmosphere to render indoors and a bright, snug fire in a well-lighted room especially reposeful and cosy, as they adjourned to the sitting-room where Lyn’s piano was.

“Fill up, Blachland,” said his host, pushing over a large bladder tobacco-pouch. “Where’s my pipe? No—not that one. The deep one with the wire cover.”

“I’ve got it, father,” cried Lyn. “I’m filling it for you.”

“Thanks, darling,” as she brought it over. “You know, Blachland, my after-supper pipe never tastes so good unless this little girlie fills it for me. She’s done so ever since she was a wee kiddie so high.”

Blachland smiled to himself, rather sadly, as he watched the long tapering fingers pressing down the tobacco into the bowl, and wondered how his friend would feel when the time came—and come it must, indeed any day might bring it—when he would have no one to render this and a hundred and one other little services of love, such as he had noticed during his stay—when Bayfield should be left lonely, and the bright and sweet and sunny presence which irradiated this simple home should be transferred to another. Somehow the thought was distasteful to him, vaguely, indefinably so, but still distasteful.

Meanwhile Lyn had opened the piano, and after an appeal to them for any preference in the way of songs, which was met by an assurance that any and all were equally acceptable, had begun singing. The two men sat back in their armchairs at the further end of the room, listening in supremest content. From the first Blachland had excused himself from attending her at the piano. He wanted thoroughly to enjoy her performance, which he could not do standing fussing around, and Lyn had appreciated the real and practical compliment thus conveyed. And he did enjoy it. Song after song she sang, now grave and pathetic, now gay and arch, and it seemed to him he could sit there listening for ever. Hers was no concert-hall voice, but it was very sweet and true, and was entirely free from mannerism. She did not think it necessary to roll her r’s in the approved professional style whenever that consonant came at the end of a word, or to pronounce “love” exactly according to its phonetic spelling, but every word was enunciated distinctly, and therefore as intelligible as though she had been talking. In short, her singing was utterly without self-consciousness or affectation, and therein lay no small a proportion of its charm.

“There! That’s enough for one night!” she cried at last, closing the instrument.

“Not for us,” declared Blachland. “But you mustn’t overstrain your voice. Really to me this has been an immense treat.”

“I’m so glad,” said the girl brightly. “I suppose, though, you don’t hear much music up-country. Don’t you miss it a great deal?”

“Yes, indeed,” he answered, and then a picture crossed his mind of evening after evening, and Hermia yawning, and reiterating how intensely bored to death she was. What on earth was it that made retrospect so utterly distasteful to him now? He would have given all he possessed to be able to blot that episode out of his life altogether. Hermia the chances were as five hundred to one he would never set eyes on again—and if he did, she was powerless to injure him; for she had not the slightest legal hold upon him whatever. But the episode was there, a black, unsavoury, detestable fact, and it there was no getting round.

“Now, sonny, it’s time for you to turn in,” said Bayfield. “By George, I’ll have to think seriously about sending that nipper to school,” he added, as the boy, having said good-night, went out of the room. “But hang it, what’ll we do without the chappie? He’s the only one left. But he ought to learn more than Lyn can teach him now.”

“Father, you are mean,” laughed the girl. “Reflecting on my careful tuition that way. Isn’t he, Mr Blachland?”

“I wonder how it would be,” pursued Bayfield, “to make some arrangement with Earle and send him over there four or five days a week to be coached by that new English teacher they’ve got.”

“Who is he?” said Blachland. “A Varsity man?”

“’Tisn’t ‘he.’ It’s a she,” returned the other, with a very meaning laugh. “A regular high-flyer too. Mrs Earle isn’t so fond of her as she might be, but I expect that young Britisher has put Earle’s nose out of joint in that quarter. They say she’s a first-rate coach, though.”

“Now, father, you’re not to start talking scandal,” said Lyn. “I don’t believe there’s any harm in Mrs Fenham at all. And she isn’t even pretty.”

“Ho-ho! Who’s talking scandal now?” laughed her father. “Taking away another woman’s personal appearance, eh, Lyn? By the way, there are several round there you won’t get to agree with you on that head.”

“Oh, she’s married, then?” said Blachland, though as a matter of fact the subject did not interest him in the least.

“Has been,” returned Bayfield. “She’s a widow—a young widow, and with all due deference to Lyn’s opinion, rather a fetching one. Now, isn’t that a whole code of danger-signals in itself? Get out some grog, little girl,” he added, “and then I suppose you’ll want to be turning in.”

“Yes, it’s time I did,” replied Lyn, as she dived into a sideboard in fulfilment of the last request. “Good night, Mr Blachland. Good night, old father. Now, you’re not to sit filling up Mr Blachland with all sorts of gossip. Do you hear?”

“All right,” with a wink over at his guest. “Good night, my little one.”

Blachland had long ceased to wonder—even if he had done so at first—at the extraordinary tenderness existing between Bayfield and this child of his. Cudgel his experience as he would, he could find in it no instance of a girl anything like this one. Sunny beauty, grace, and the most perfect refinement, a disposition of rare sweetness, yet withal plenty of character—why, it would require a combination of the best points of any half-dozen girls within that experience to make up one Lyn Bayfield, and then the result would be a failure. To his host he said as much when they were alone together. The latter warmed up at once.

“Ah, you’ve noticed that, have you, Blachland? Well, I suppose you could hardly have been in the house the short time you have without noticing it. Make allowances for an old fool, but there never was such a girl as my Lyn—no, never. And—I may lose her any day.”

“Great Heavens, Bayfield, surely not! What’s wrong? Heart?”

“No—no. Not that way, thank God—by the by, I’m sorry I startled you. I mean she’s bound to marry some day.”

“Ah, yes, I see,” returned Blachland, reassured, yet furtively hoping that the smile wherewith he accepted the reassurance was not a very sickly one. But the other did not notice it, and now fairly on the subject, launched out into a narrative of Lyn’s sayings and doings, as it seemed, from the time of her birth right up till now, and it was late before he pulled up, with profuse apologies for having bored the very soul out of his guest, and that on a subject in which the latter could take but small interest.

But Blachland reassured him by declaring that he had not been bored in the very least, and so far from feeling small interest in the matter, he had been very intensely interested.

And the strangest thing of all was that he meant it—every word.

Chapter Five.

An Episode in Siever’s Kloof.

The days sped by and still Hilary Blachland remained as a guest at George Bayfield’s farm.

He had talked about moving on, but the suggestion had been met by a frank stare of astonishment on the part of his host.

“Where’s your hurry, man?” had replied the latter. “Why, you’ve only just come.”

“Only just come! You don’t seem to be aware, Bayfield, that I’ve been here nearly four weeks.”

“No, I’m not. But what then? What if it’s four or fourteen or forty? You don’t want to go up-country again just yet. By the way, though, it must be mighty slow here.”

“Now, Bayfield, I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but you’re talking bosh, rank bosh. I don’t believe you know it, though. Slow indeed!”

“Perhaps Mr Blachland’s tired of us, father,” said Lyn demurely, but with a spice of mischief.

“Well, you know, you yourselves can have too much of a not very good thing,” protested Hilary, rather lamely.

“Ha-ha! Now we’ll turn the tables. Who’s talking bosh this time?” said Bayfield triumphantly.

“Man, Mr Blachland, you mustn’t go yet,” cut in small Fred excitedly. “Stop and shoot some more bushbucks.”

“Very well, Fred. No one can afford to run clean counter to public opinion. So that settles it,” replied Blachland gaily.

“That’s all right,” said Bayfield. “And we haven’t taken him over to Earle’s yet. I know what we’ll do. We’ll send and let Earle know we are all coming over for a couple of nights, and he must get up a shoot in between. Then we’ll show him the pretty widow.”

A splutter from Fred greeted the words. “She isn’t pretty a bit,” he pronounced. “A black, ugly thing.”

“Look out, sonny,” laughed his father. “She’ll take it out of you when she’s your schoolmissis.”

But the warning was received by the imp with a half growl, half jeer. The prospect of that ultimate fate, which had already been dangled over him, and which he only half realised, may have helped to prejudice him against one whom he could not but regard as otherwise than his natural enemy.

The unanimity wherewith the household of three voted against his departure was more than gratifying to Hilary Blachland. Looking back upon life since he had been Bayfield’s guest, he could only declare to himself that it was wholly delightful. The said Bayfield, with his unruffled, take-us-as-you-find-us way of looking at things—well, the more he saw of the man the more he liked him, and the two were on the most easy terms of friendship of all, which may best be defined that neither ever wanted the other to do anything the other didn’t want to. Even the small boy regarded him as an acquisition, while Lyn—well, the frank, friendly, untrammelled intercourse between them constituted, he was forced to admit to himself, the brightness and sunshine of the pleasant, reposeful days which were now his. He had no reason to rate himself too highly, even in his own estimation, and the last three or four weeks spent in her daily society brought this more and more home to him. Well, whatever he had sown, whatever he might reap, in short, whatever might or might not be in store for him, he was the better now, would be to the end of his days, the better for having known her. Indeed it seemed to him now as though his life were divided into two complete periods—the time before he had known Lyn Bayfield, and subsequently.

Thus reflecting, he was pacing the stoep smoking an after-breakfast pipe. The valley stretched away, radiant in the morning sunshine, and the atmosphere was sharp and brisk with a delicious exhilaration. Down in the camps he could see the black dots moving, where great ostriches stalked, and every now and then the triple boom, several times repeated, from the throat of one or other of the huge birds, rolled out upon the morning air. The song of a Kaffir herd, weird, full-throated, but melodious, arose from the further hillside, where a large flock of Angora goats was streaming forth to its grazing ground.

“What would you like to do to-day, Blachland?” said his host, joining him. “I’ve got to ride over to Theunis Nel’s about some stock, but it means the best part of the day there, so I don’t like suggesting your coming along. They’re the most infernal boring crowd, and you’d wish yourself dead.”

Hilary thought this would very likely be the case, but before he could reply there came an interruption—an interruption which issued from a side door somewhere in the neighbourhood of the kitchen, for they were standing at the end of the stoep, an interruption wearing an ample white “kapje,” and with hands and wrists all powdery with flour, but utterly charming for all that.

“What’s that you’re plotting, father? No, you’re not to take Mr Blachland over to any tiresome Dutchman’s. No wonder he talks about going away. Besides, I want to take him with me. I’m going to paint—in Siever’s Kloof, and Fred isn’t enough of an escort.”

“I think I’ll prefer that immeasurably, Miss Bayfield,” replied he most concerned.

“I shall be ready, then, in half an hour. And—I don’t like ‘Miss Bayfield’—it sounds so stiff, and we are such old friends now. You ought to say Lyn. Oughtn’t he, father, now that he is quite one of ourselves?”

“Well, I should—after that,” answered Bayfield, comically, blowing out a big cloud of smoke.

But while he laughed pleasantly, promising to avail himself of the privilege, Hilary was conscious of a kind of mournful impression that the frank ingenuousness of the request simply meant that she placed him on the same plane as her father, in short, regarded him as one of a bygone generation. Well, she was right. He was no chicken after all, he reminded himself grimly.

“I say, Lyn, I’m going with you too!” cried Fred, who was seated on a waggon-pole a little distance off, putting the finishing touches to a new catapult-handle.

“All right. I’ll be ready in half an hour,” replied the girl.

One of the prettiest bits in Siever’s Kloof was the very spot whereon Blachland had shot the large bushbuck ram, and here the two had taken up their position. For nearly an hour Lyn had been very busy, and her escort seated there, lazily smoking a pipe, would every now and then overlook her work, offering criticisms, and making suggestions, some of which were accepted, and some were not. Fred, unable to remain still for ten minutes at a time, was ranging afar with his air-gun—now put right again—and, indeed, with it he was a dead shot.

“I never can get the exact shine of these red krantzes,” Lyn was saying. “That one over there, with the sun just lighting it up now, I know I shall reproduce it either the colour of a brick wall or a dead smudge. The shine is what I want to get.”

“And you may get it, or you may not, probably the latter. There are two things, at any rate, which nobody has ever yet succeeded in reproducing with perfect accuracy, the colour of fire and golden hair—like yours. Yes, it’s a fact. They make it either straw colour or too red, but always dead. There’s no shine in it.”

Lyn laughed, lightheartedly, unthinkingly.

“True, O King! But I expect you’re talking heresy all the same. I wonder what that boy is up to?” she broke off, looking around.

“Why, he’s a mile or so away up the kloof by this time. Do you ever get tired of this sort of life, Lyn?”

“Tired? No. Why should I? Whenever I go away anywhere, after the first novelty has worn off, I always long to get back.”

“And how long a time does it take to compass that aspiration?”

“About a week. At the end of three I am desperately homesick, and long to get back here to old father, and throw away gloves and let my hands burn.”

Blachland looked at the hands in question—long-fingered, tapering, but smooth and delicate and refined—brown indeed with exposure to the air, but not in the least roughened. What an enigma she was, this girl. He watched, her as she sat there, sweet and cool and graceful as she plied her brushes, the wide brim of her straw hat turned up in front so as not to impede her view. Every movement was a picture, he told himself—the quick lifting of the eyelid as she looked at her subject, the delicate supple turn of the wrist as she worked in her colouring. And the surroundings set forth so perfectly the central figure—the varying shades of the trees and their dusky undergrowth, the great krantz opposite, fringed with trailers, bristling with spiky aloes lining up along its ledges. Bright spreuws flashed and piped, darting forth from its shining face; and other bird voices, the soft note of the hoepoe, and the cooing of doves kept the warm golden air pleasant with harmony.

“What is your name the short for, Lyn?” he said, picking up one of her drawing-books, whereon it was traced—in faded ink upon the faded cover.

She laughed. “It isn’t a name at all really. It’s only my initials. I have three ugly Christian names represented under the letters L.Y.N., and it began with a joke among the boys when I was a very small kiddie. But now I rather like it. Don’t you?”

“Yes. Very much... Why, what’s the matter now?”

For certain shrill shouts were audible from the thick of the bush, but at no great distance away. They recognised Fred’s voice, and he was hallooing like mad.

“Lyn! Mr Blachland! Quick—quick! Man, here’s a whacking big snake!”

“Oh, let’s go and see!” cried the girl, hurriedly putting down her drawing things, and springing to her feet. “No—no. You stay here. I’ll go. You’re quite safe here. Stay, do you hear?”

She turned in surprise. Her companion was quite agitated.

“Why, it’s safe enough!” she said with a laugh, but still wondering. “I’m not in the least afraid of snakes. I’ve killed several of them. Come along.”

And answering Fred’s shouts she led the way through the grass and stones at an astonishing pace, entirely disregarding his entreaties to allow him to go first.

“There! There!” cried Fred, his fist full of stones, pointing to some long grass almost hiding a small boulder about a dozen yards away. “He’s squatting there. He’s a big black ringhals. I threw him with three stones—didn’t hit him, though. Man, but he’s ‘kwai.’ Look, look! There!”

Disturbed anew by these fresh arrivals, the reptile shot up his head with an ugly hiss. The hood was inflated, and waved to and fro wickedly, as the great coil dragged heavily over the ground.

“There! Now you can have him!” cried Fred excitedly, as Blachland stooped and picked up a couple of large stones. These, however, he immediately dropped.

“No. Let him go,” he said. “He wants to get away. He won’t interfere with us.”

“But kill him, Mr Blachland. Aren’t you going to kill him?” urged the boy.

“No. I never kill a snake if I can help it. Because of something that once happened to me up-country.”

“So! What was it?” said the youngster, with half his attention fixed regretfully on the receding reptile, which, seeing the coast clear, was rapidly making itself scarce.

“That’s something of a story—and it isn’t the time for telling it now.”

But a dreadful suspicion crossed the unsophisticated mind of the boy. Was it possible that Blachland was afraid? It did not occur to him that a man who had shot lions in the open was not likely to be afraid of an everyday ringhals—not at the time, at least. Afterwards he would think of it.

They went back to where they had been sitting before, Fred chattering volubly. But he could not sit still for long, any more than he had been able to before, and presently he was off again.

“You are wondering why I let that snake go,” said Blachland presently. “Did you think I was afraid of it?”

“Well, no, I could hardly think that,” answered Lyn, looking up quickly.

“Yet I believe you thought something akin to it,” he rejoined, with a curious smile. “Listen now, and I’ll tell you if you care to hear—only don’t let the story go any further. By the way, you are only the second I have ever told it to.”

“I feel duly flattered. Go on. I am longing to hear it. I’m sure it’s exciting.”

“It was for me at the time—very.” And then he told her of the exploration of the King’s grave, and the long hours of that awful day, between two terrible forms of imminent death, told it so graphically as to hold her spellbound.

“There, that sounds like a tolerably tall up-country yarn,” he concluded, “but it’s hard solid fact for all that.”

“What a horrible experience,” said Lyn, with something of a shudder. “And now you won’t kill any snake?”

“No. That mamba held me at its mercy the whole of that day—and I have spared every snake I fell in with ever since. A curious sort of gratitude, you will say, but—there it is.”

“I don’t wonder the natives had that superstition about the King’s spirit passing into that snake.”

“No, more do I. The belief almost forced itself upon me, as I sat there those awful hours. But, as old Pemberton said, there was no luck about meddling with such places.”

“No, indeed. What strange things you must have seen in all your wanderings. It must be something to look back upon. But I suppose it will go on all your life. You will return to those parts again, until—”

“Until I am past returning anywhere,” he replied. “Perhaps so, and perhaps it is better that way after all. And now I think it is time to round up Fred, and take the homeward track.”

“Yes, I believe it is,” was all she said. A strange unwonted silence was upon her during their homeward ride. She was thinking a great deal of the man beside her. He interested her as nobody ever had. She had stood in awe of him at first, but now she hoped it would be a long time before he should find it necessary to leave them. What an ideal companion he was, too. She felt her mind the richer for all the ideas she had exchanged with him—silly, crude ideas, he must have thought them, she told herself with a little smile.

But if she was silent, Fred was not. He talked enough for all three the rest of the way home.

Chapter Six.

Concerning the Unexpected.

“How do, Earle?” cried George Bayfield, pulling up his horses at the gate of the first named.

“So, so, Bayfield. How’s all yourselves? How do, Miss Bayfield? Had a cold drive? Ha—ha! It must have been nipping when you started this morning. Just look at the frost even now,” with a comprehensive sweep of an arm terminating in a pipe over the dew-gemmed veldt, a sheeny sparkle of silver in the newly risen sun. “But you—it’s given you a grand colour anyway.”

“Yes, it was pretty sharp, Mr Earle, but we were well wrapped up,” answered Lyn, as he helped her down. Then, as an ulster-clad figure disentangled itself from the spider—“This is Mr Blachland, who is staying with us.”

“How do, sir? Pleased to meet you. Not out from home, are you?” with a glance at the other’s bronzed and weather-beaten countenance.

“No. Up-country,” answered Bayfield for him. “Had fever, obliged to be careful,”—this as though explaining the voluminousness of the aforesaid wrapping.

“So? Didn’t know you had any one staying with you, Bayfield.”

“By Jove! Didn’t I mention it? Well, I wrote that brievje in a cast-iron hurry, I remember.”

“That’s nothing. The more the merrier,” heartily rejoined Earle, who was a jolly individual of about the same number of years as Blachland. “Come inside. Come inside. We’ll have breakfast directly. Who’s this?” shading his eyes to look down the road.

“That’s Fred and Jafta, and a spare horse. The youngster won’t be in the way, will he, Earle? I don’t let him shoot yet, except with an air-gun, but he was death on coming along.”

“No—no. That’s all right. Bring him along.”

Their hostess met them in the doorway. She was a large, finely built woman, with a discontented face, but otherwise rather good-looking. She was cordial enough, however, towards the new arrivals. They constituted a break in the monotony of life; moreover, she was fond of Lyn for her own sake.

“Let’s have breakfast as soon as you can, Em,” said Earle. “We want to get along. I think we’ll have a good day. There are three troops of guinea-fowl in those upper kloofs, and the hoek down along the spruit is just swarming with blekbuck.”

During these running comments a door had opened, and someone entered.

“How d’you do, Mrs Fenham?” said Bayfield, greeting the new arrival cordially. He was followed by Lyn, somewhat less cordial. Then arose Earle’s voice:

“Mrs Fenham—Mr—There now, I believe I didn’t quite catch your name—”

“Blachland.”

“Ah, yes, I beg your pardon—Blachland. Mr Blachland.”

Hilary bowed—then obliged by that other’s outstretched hand to put forth his, found it enclosed in a tolerably firm clasp, by that of—Hermia.

Thus they stood, looking into each other’s eyes, and in that brief glance, for all his habitual self-control, he would have been more than human had he succeeded in concealing the unbounded surprise—largely mingled with dismay—which flashed across his face. She for her part, if she had failed to read it, and in that fraction of a minute to resolve to turn it to account—well, she would not have been Hermia Saint Clair.

To both the surprise was equal and complete. They had no more idea of each other’s propinquity than they had—say, of the Sultan of Turkey suddenly arriving to take part in the day’s sport. Yet, of the two, the woman was the more self-controlled.

“Are you fond of sport?” she murmured sweetly, striving not to render too palpable to other observers the dart of mingled warning and defiance which she flashed at him.

“Yes, as a rule,” he answered indifferently, taking his cue. “Been rather off colour of late. Touch of fever.”

There was a touch of irony in the tone, to the only one there who had the key to its burden. For the words brought back the long and helpless bout of the dread malady, when this woman had left him alone—to die, but for the chance arrival of a staunch comrade.

“Well, lug that big coat off, old chap,” said Earle, whose jovial nature moved him to prompt familiarity. “Unless you still feel it too cold, that is. We’re going to have breakfast.”

The coat referred to was not without its importance in the situation. With the collar partly turned up, Blachland had congratulated himself that it helped to conceal the effect of this extraordinary and unwelcome surprise from the others, and such, in fact, was the case. For nothing is more difficult to dissemble in the eyes of bystanders, in a chance and unwelcome meeting, than the fact of previous acquaintanceship. It may be accounted for by the explanation of extraordinary resemblance, but such is so thin as to be absolutely transparent, and calculated to impose upon nobody. And of this Hilary Blachland was thoroughly aware.

They sorted themselves into their places. Hilary, by a kind of process of natural selection, found himself seated next to Lyn. Hermia was nearly opposite, and next to her three of the Earle progeny—preternaturally well-behaved. But on her other side was a vacant chair, and a place laid as though for somebody. There was plenty of talk going on, which enabled Blachland to keep out of it and observe.

First of all, what the deuce was she doing there? Hermia masquerading as instructor of youth! Oh, Heavens, the joke would have been enough to send him into a fit, had he only heard of it! But there she was, and it would be safe to say that there was not a living being on the wide earth, however detestable, whose presence would not have been warmly welcome to him in comparison with that of this one seated there opposite. What on earth was her game, he wondered, and what had become of Spence? Here she was, passing as a widow under the name of Fenham. And this was the unknown fair who had been the subject of their jokes, and Lyn’s disapproval! Why, even on the way over that morning, Bayfield had been full of chaff, pre-calculating the effect of her charms upon himself. Great Heavens, yes! It was all too monstrous—too grotesque entirely.

“Are you still feeling cold?”

It was Lyn who had turned to him, amid all the chatter, and there was a sort of indefinably confidential ring in her voice, begotten of close friendship and daily intercourse. Was it something of the kind that softened his as he replied to her? But even while he did so he met the dark eyes opposite, the snap of which seemed to convey that to their owner nothing could go unobserved.

“Oh no, I’m quite all right now,” he answered lightly. And then, under cover of all the fanning talk that was going on between Earle and Bayfield, he talked to Lyn, mostly about matters they had discussed before. A sort of ironical devil moved him. He would let this woman opposite, imperceptibly watching every look, weighing every word, understand that she and her malevolence, whether dormant or active, counted absolutely nothing with him.

There was the sound of a footstep outside, and the door was opened.

“Awful sorry I’m so late, Mrs Earle,” cried a voice—a young and refined English voice—as its owner entered. “How d’you do, Miss Bayfield—Er—how d’you do?”

This to the only one who was personally unknown to the speaker, and who for that very reason seemed to have the effect of a damper upon his essentially English temperament.

“Mr Blachland—Mr West,” introduced their host.

“What?” almost shouted the last-named. “Blachland, did you say? Not Hilary! Why—it is! Hilary, my dear old chap, why, this is real good. By Jove, to think of my running against you here. Where on earth have you dropped from? Earle, you’ve heard me talk about this chap. He’s my first cousin.” And grabbing hold of the other’s hands, he started wringing them as though that newly found relative were the harmless, necessary village pump. “Who’d have thought of running against you here?” went on Percival West volubly. “Why, I thought you were in some out-of-way place up-country. Well, this is a gaudy surprise!”

“Isn’t it? But somebody or other has defined this country as the land of surprises, Percy. So it’s got to keep up its character,” said Blachland, with a queer smile, fully conscious that the irony of the rejoinder would not be lost upon at any rate one other at the table.

“I say, West. Get on with your grub, old chap,” said Earle. “You can have a yarn on the way. We want to make a start, you know.”

“Right you are!” cried Percival, with a jolly laugh, as he slid into the vacant chair beside Hermia. But even amid his surprise, he did not omit to give the latter the good morning in an unconscious change of tone, which in its turn was not lost upon Hilary Blachland; for in it was an unconscious softening, which with the look which came into the young fellow’s eyes as he turned to the woman beside him, caused those of his newly found relative to open—figuratively—very wide indeed. For two considerable surprises had been sprung upon him—enough in all conscience for one morning, yet here was a third. This young fool was already soft upon Hermia. As to that there could be no doubt. Here was a situation with a vengeance, the thinker told himself. How on earth was it going to pan out? And his anticipations on that head were of no pleasurable nature.

“I say, West!” cried Bayfield. “That old ram we drove over you the other day has come to a bad end at last. Blachland’s knocked him over.”

“Oh, well done, Hilary, old chap. I suppose you’ve had a great time with big game, eh? Shocked over no end of lions and elephants, and all that sort of thing?”

“A few, yes,” answered the other, rising, for a signal for a move had been given.

A few minutes of filling up cartridge-belts and fastening reims to saddles, and other preparations, and the sporting party was ready.

“Good luck, father. Good luck, Mr Blachland,” said Lyn, as she stood watching them start.

“That ought to bring it,” answered the latter, as he swung himself into his saddle. But Hermia was not among those who were outside. Percival, who had been, had dived inside again Blachland did not fail to notice. He emerged in a moment, however, looking radiantly happy and brimming over with light-hearted spirits.

“Now, Hilary, old chap, we can have a yarn,” he said, as they started, for the others had the start of them by a hundred yards or so. “So you’re stopping with Bayfield? If only I’d known that, wouldn’t I have been over to look you up. Good chap Bayfield. Nice little girl of his too, but—not much in her, I fancy.”

“There you’re wrong, Percy. There’s a great deal in her. But—how did you fall in with Earle?”

“Knew him through another Johnny I was thick with on board ship, and he asked me over to his place. Had a ripping good time here, too. I say, what d’you think of that Mrs Fenham? Fancy a splendid woman like that spending life hammering a lot of unlicked cubs into shape. Isn’t it sinful?”

“Why didn’t you say you were coming out, Percy? Drop a line or something?” went on his relative, feeling unaccountably nauseated by what he termed to himself the boy’s brainless rattle.

“Drop a line! Why, that’s just where the joke comes in! We none of us knew where on earth you were exactly. In point of fact, I came over here to find you, and by George I have! Never expected to find you so easily, though.”

“Nothing wrong, eh?”

“No. But Uncle Luke is dying to see you again. He said I must be sure and bring you back with me.”

The other looked surprised. Then his face softened very perceptibly.

“Is that a fact, Percy? Why, I thought he never wanted to set eyes on me again as long as he lived.”

“Then you thought jolly well wrong. He does. So you must just make up your mind to go home when I do.”

“Why are you so keen on it, Percy? Why, man, it might be immeasurably to your advantage if I never went back at all.”

“Look here, Hilary, if you really mean that, I’m not a beastly cad yet.”

“Well, I don’t really mean it,” said the other, touched by the young fellow’s chivalrous single-heartedness. “Perhaps we may bring off your scheme all right. I would like to see the dear old chap again. I must have treated him very shabbily. And the old Canon—is he still to the fore?”

“Rather, and as nailing good an old sort as ever. He wants to see you again too—almost as much as Uncle Luke does.”

“Ah, he always was a straight ’un—not an ounce of shoddy or humbug about him—”

“Come on, you fellows, or we’ll never get to work,” shouted Earle’s voice, now very far ahead of them.

And leaving their home talk and reminiscences for the present, they spurred on their steeds—to join the rest of the party.

Chapter Seven.

“It cannot be.”

In the conjecture that his cousin had fallen into an infatuation for Hermia, Hilary Blachland was right—the only respect in which he had failed to grasp the full situation being that he had not fathomed the depth of that infatuation.

He knew her little ways, none better; knew well how insidiously dangerous she could be to those who did not know them, when she saw fit to lay herself out to attract. That she was laying herself out to entrap Percy was the solution of the whole problem.

Yet not all of it. She had been with the Earles before Percy’s arrival, before she could even have known he was in the country at all. And what had become of Spence? Well, this, too, would be cleared up, for he knew as well as though she had told him in so many words, that before they parted again she meant to have a private talk with him, and an understanding, and to this he was not averse. It would probably be a stormy one, for he was not going to allow her to add young West to her list of victims; and this he was going to give her emphatically to understand.

A rustle and a rush in front, and a blekbuck leaped out of the long grass almost at his horse’s feet, for they were riding in line—a hundred yards or so apart. Up went his gun mechanically—a crack and a suspicion of a puff of smoke. The graceful little animal turned a complete somersault, and lay, convulsively kicking its life away. Another started up, crossing right in front of Percival. The latter slipped to the ground in a moment, got a sight on, and turned it over neatly, at rather a long distance shot.

“I say, Bayfield. Those two Britishers are leading off well,” said Earle, as they pulled in their horses and lighted pipes, to wait till the other two should be ready to take the line again.

There are more imposing, but few more enjoyable forms of sport, than this moving over a fine rolling expanse of bontebosch veldt, beneath the cloudless blue of the heavens, through the clear exhilarating air of an early African winter day; when game is plentiful, and anything may jump out, or rise at any moment; blekbuck or duiker, guinea-fowl or koorhaan, or partridge, with the possibility of a too confiding pauw, and other unconsidered trifles. All these conditions held good here, yet one, at any rate, of those privileged to enjoy them, keen sportsman as he was, felt that day that something was wanting—that a cloud was dimming the sun-lit beauty of the rolling plains, and an invisible weight crushing the exhilaration of each successful shot.

Blachland, pursuing his sport mechanically, was striving to shake off an unpleasant impression, and striving in vain. Something seemed to have happened between yesterday and to-day. Or was it the thought that Lyn Bayfield would be more or less in Hermia’s society throughout the whole of that day? Yet, even if such were the case, what on earth did it matter to him?

The day came to an end at last, but there had been nothing to complain of in the way of the sport. They had lunched in the veldt, in ordinary hunter fashion—and in the afternoon had got in among the guinea-fowl; and being lucky enough to break up the troop, had about an hour of pretty sport—for scattered birds lie well and rise well—and by the time they turned their faces homeward, were loaded up with about as much game—buck and birds—as the horses could conveniently carry.

A flutter of feminine dresses was visible on the stoep, as they drew near the house, seeing which, an eager look came into Percival West’s face. It was not lost upon his kinsman, who smiled to himself sardonically, as he recalled how just such a light had been kindled in his own at one time, and by the same cause. What a long while ago that seemed—and to think, too, that it should ever have been possible.

A chorus of congratulation arose as the magnitude of the bag became apparent.

“Those two Britishers knocked spots out of us to-day!” cried Earle. “Bayfield and I can clean take a back seat.”

“You wouldn’t call Mr Blachland a Britisher, surely, Mr Earle?” struck in Hermia. “Why, he’s shot lions up-country.”

“Eh, has he? How d’you know?” asked Earle eagerly—while he who was most concerned mentally started.

“Didn’t he tell us so this morning?” she said, and her glance of mischief was not lost upon Blachland, who remarked:

“Does that fact denationalise me, Mrs Fenham? You said I couldn’t be counted a Britisher.”

“Well, you know what I meant.”

“Oh, perfectly.”

There was a veiled cut-and-thrust between these two: imperceptible to the others—save one.

That one was Lyn. Her straight instinct and true ear had warned her.

“She is an adventuress,” was the girl’s mental verdict. “An impostor, who is hiding something. Some day it will come out.” Now she said to herself, watching the two, “He doesn’t like her. No, he doesn’t.” And there was more satisfaction in this conclusion than even its framer was aware of.

Throughout the evening, too, Hilary found himself keenly observing new developments, or the possibility of such. At supper, they were mostly shooting all the day’s bag over again, and going back over the incidents of other and similar days. Percival, in his seat next Hermia, was dividing his attention between his host’s multifold reminiscence and his next-door neighbour, somewhat to the advantage of the latter. A new development came, however, and it was after they had all got up from the table, and some, at any rate, had gone out on to the stoep to see the moon rise. Then it was, in the sudden transition from light to darkness, Blachland felt his hand stealthily seized and something thrust into it—something which felt uncommonly like a tiny square of folded paper. Hermia’s wrap brushed him at the time, and Hermia’s voice, talking evenly to Percival on the other side, arrested his ear. There was a good deal more talk, and lighting of pipes, and presently it was voted too cold to remain outside. But, on re-entering, the party had undergone diminution by two. Mrs Earle was looking more discontented than ever.

“What’s the odds?” chuckled her jolly spouse, with a quizzical wink at his two male guests. “They’re a brace of Britishers. They only want to talk home shop. Fine woman that Mrs Fenham, isn’t she, Blachland?”

“Yes. How did you pick her up?” he replied, noticing that the discontented look had deepened on the face of his hostess, and bearing in mind Bayfield’s insinuations, thought that warm times might be in store for Hermia.

“Oh, the wife found her. I hadn’t anything to do with it. But she’s first-rate in her own line: gets the nippers on no end. Makes ’em learn, you know.”

Would surprises never end? thought Hilary Blachland. Here was an amazing one, at any rate, for he happened to know that Hermia’s mind, as far as the veriest rudiments of education were concerned, was pretty nearly a blank. How on earth, then, did she contrive to impart instruction to others? He did not believe she could, only that she had succeeded in humbugging these people most thoroughly.

Then they had manoeuvred Lyn to the piano, and got her to sing, but Hilary, leaning back in his chair, thought that somehow it did not seem the same as up there in her own home, when night after night he had sat revelling in the sweet, clear, true notes. And then the other two, entering from their moonlight stroll, had subsided into a corner together. The sight reminded him of Spence, who must needs make an open book of his callow, silly face. Percival was doing the same.

“Just as I thought,” he said to himself, an hour later, as under cover of all the interchange of good nights, he managed to slip away for a moment to investigate the contents of the mysterious paper. “‘Meet to-morrow and have an explanation, or I may regret it all my life.’ Um—ah! very likely I shall do that in any case. Still, I’m curious about the explanation part of it myself, so meet we will.”

“Come along, old chap,” said Percival, grabbing him by the arm. “You’ve got to doss down in my diggings, and we’ll have a good round jaw until we feel sleepy. Phew! it’s cold!” he added, as they got out on to the stoep—for Percival’s room was at the end of the stoep, and was quite shut off from the house. The moonlit veldt stretched away in dim beauty around, its stillness broken by the weird yelp of hunting jackals, or the soft whistle of the invisible plover overhead.

They had been talking of all sorts of indifferent things. Blachland knew, however, that the other wanted to talk on a subject that was not indifferent, and was shy to lead up to it. He must help him through directly, because he didn’t want to be awake all night. But when they had turned in and had lit their pipes for a final smoke, Percival began—

“I say, Hilary, what do you think of that Mrs Fenham?”

“Rather short acquaintance to give an opinion upon, isn’t it?”

“No. Skittles! But I say, old chap, she’s devilish fetching, eh?”

“So you seem to find. It strikes me, Percy, you’re making a goodish bit of running in that quarter. Look out.”

The other laughed good-humouredly, happily in fact.

“Why ‘look out?’ I mean making running there. By Jove, I never came across any one like her!”

Blachland smiled grimly to himself behind a great puff of smoke. He had good reason to believe that statement.

“It’s a fact,” went on Percival. “But I say, old chap, she doesn’t seem to fetch you at all. I’m rather glad, of course—in fact, devilish glad. Still, I should have thought she’d be just the sort of woman who’d appeal to you no end. You must be getting blasé.”

“My dear Percy, a man’s idiocies don’t stay with him all his life, thank Heaven—though their results are pretty apt to.”

“Well, Hilary, I’m mortal glad to have the field clear in this case, because I want you to help me.”

“I don’t think you need any help. Judging from the very brief period of observation vouchsafed to me, the lady herself seems able and willing to help you all she knows.”

“No, but you don’t understand. I mean business here—real serious—”

“Strictly honourable—or—”

The young fellow flushed up.

“If any one else had said that—” he began, indignantly.

“Oh, don’t be an ass. You surely don’t expect me—me, mind—to cotton to heroics in a matter of this kind. What do you know about the woman? Nothing.”

“I don’t care about that I can’t do without her.”

“She can do without you, I expect, eh?”

“She can’t. She told me so.”

“Did she? Now, Percy, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But how many men do you suppose she has told the same thing to—in her time?”

“None. Her marriage was only one of convenience. She was forced into it.”

“Of course. They always are. Now, supposing she had told me, for instance, she couldn’t do without me? What then?”

“You? Why, you never set eyes on her till this morning.”

“No. Of course not. I was only putting a case. Again, she’s rather older than you.”

“There you’re wrong. She’s a year or two younger. She told me so.”

Blachland, happening to know that she was, in fact, five or six years the young fellow’s senior, went on appreciating the humours of the situation. And really these were great.

“By Jove! Listen!” said the other suddenly, as a chattering and clucking of fowls was audible outside. “There’s a jackal or a bushcat or something getting at the fowls. They roost in those low trees just outside. I’ll get the gun, and if we put out the light, we may get a shot at him from the window.”

“Not much,” returned Blachland decisively. “The window’s at the head of my bed, not yours. I wouldn’t have it opened this beastly cold night for a great deal. Besides, think what a funk you’d set up among the women by banging off a gun at this ungodly hour. The hens must take their chance. Now look here, Percy,” he went on, speaking earnestly and seriously, “take a word of warning from one who has seen a great deal more of the world, and the crookedness thereof, than you have, and chuck this business—for all serious purposes I mean. Have your fun by all means—even to a fast and furious flirtation if you’re that way disposed. But—draw the line at that, and draw it hard.”

“I wouldn’t if I could, and I couldn’t if I would. Hilary—we are engaged.”

“What?”

The word came with almost a shout. Blachland had sat up in bed and was staring at his young kinsman in wild dismay. His pipe had fallen to the ground in his amazement over the announcement. “Since when, if it’s a fair question?” he added, somewhat recovering himself.

“Only this evening. I asked her to marry me and she consented.”

“Then you must break it off at once. I tell you this thing can’t come off, Percy. It simply can’t.”

“Can’t it? But it will. And look here, Hilary, you’re a devilish good chap, and all that—but I’m not precisely under your guardianship, you know. Nor am I dependent upon anybody. I’ve got a little of my own, and besides, I can work.”

“Oh, you young fool. Go to sleep. You may wake up more sensible,” he answered, not unkindly, and restraining the impulse to tell Percival the truth then and there, but the thought that restrained him was the coming interview with Hermia on the morrow. He was naturally reluctant to give her away unless absolutely necessary, but whatever the result of that interview, he would force her to free Percival from her toils. To do him justice, the idea that such an exposure would involve himself too did not enter his mind—at least not then.

“I think I will go to sleep, Hilary, as you’re so beastly unsympathetic,” answered the younger man good-humouredly. “But as to the waking up—well, you and I differ as to the meaning of the word ‘sensible.’ Night-night.”

And soon a succession of light snores told that he was asleep, probably dreaming blissfully of the crafty and scheming adventuress who had fastened on to his young life to strangle it at the outset. But Hilary Blachland lay staring into the darkness—thinking, and ever thinking.

“Confound those infernal fowls!” he muttered, as the cackling and clucking, mingled this time with some fluttering, arose outside, soon after the extinguishing of the light. But the disturbance subsided—nor did it again arise that night, as he lay there, hour after hour, thinking, ever thinking.

Chapter Eight.

“You are in Love with her.”

Bright and clear and cold, the morning arose. There had been a touch of frost in the night, and the house, lying back in its enclosure of aloe fence, looked as though roofed with a sheeting of silver in the sparkle of the rising sun. The spreading veldt, too, in the flash of its dewy sheen, seemed to lend a deeper blue to the dazzling, unclouded vault above. The metallic clatter of milk-pails in the cattle-kraal hard by mingled with the deep-toned hum of Kaffir voices; a troop of young ostriches turned loose were darting to and fro, or waltzing, and playfully kicking at each other; and so still and clear was the air, that the whistling call of partridges down in an old mealie land nearly a mile away was plainly audible.

“Where’s West?” Bayfield was saying, as three out of the four men were standing by the gate, finishing their early coffee.

“Oh, he’s a lazy beggar,” answered Earle, putting down his cup on a stone. “He don’t like turning out much before breakfast-time.”

“I believe you’ll miss some of your fowls this morning, Earle,” said Blachland. “There was a cat or something after them last night. They were kicking up the devil’s own row outside our window. Percy wanted to try a shot at it, whatever it was, but I choked him off that lay because I thought it’d scare the house.”

“Might have been a two-legged cat,” rejoined Earle. “And it isn’t worthwhile shooting even a poor devil of a thieving nigger for the sake of a chicken or two.”

“Who are you wanting to shoot, Mr Earle?”

“Ah! Good morning, Mrs Fenham. Blachland was saying there was a cat or something after the fowls last night, and it was all he could do to keep West from blazing off a gun at it. I suggested it might have been a two-legged cat—ha—ha!”

“Possibly,” she answered with a smile. “I’m going to take a little stroll. It’s such a lovely morning. Will you go with me, Mr Blachland?”

“Delighted,” was the answer.

The two left behind nudged each other.

“Old Blachland’s got it too,” quoth Earle, with a knowing wink. “I say, though, the young ’un ’ll be ready to cut his throat when he finds he’s been stolen a march on. They all seem to tumble when she comes along. I say, Bayfield, you’ll be the next.”

“When I am I’ll tell you,” was the placid reply. “Let’s go round to the kraals.”

“Well, Hilary, and how am I looking? Rather well, don’t you think?”

She was dressed quite simply, but prettily, and wore a plain but very becoming hat. The brisk, clear cold suited her dark style, and had lent colour to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes—and the expression of the latter now, as she turned them upon her companion, was very soft.

“Yes. Rather well,” he answered, not flinching from her gaze, yet not responding to it.

“More than ‘rather’ well, you ought to say,” she smiled. “And now, Hilary, what have you been doing since we parted? Tell me all about yourself.”

Most men would have waxed indignant over her cool effrontery in putting things this way. This one, she knew, would do nothing of the sort. If anything, it rather amused him.

“Doing? Well, I began by nearly dying of fever. Would have quite, if Sybrandt hadn’t tumbled in by accident and pulled me through it.”

“Poor old Hilary!—What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing much. Something funny struck me, that’s all. But you were always deficient in a sense of the ridiculous, Hermia, so it’s not worth repeating. You wouldn’t see it. By-the-way, when I was lying ill, a squad of Matabele came around, under that swab Muntusi, and looted a little, and assegai-ed the two piccaninnies.”

“What? Tickey and Primrose? Oh, poor little beasts!”

“I couldn’t move a finger, of course—weak as a cat. In fact, I didn’t know what had happened till afterwards.”

Again the humour of the situation struck him irresistibly. The matter-of-course way in which she was asking and receiving the news just as though they had parted quite in ordinary fashion and merely temporarily, was funny. But it was Hermia all over.

“I’d become sick of it by that time,” he went on. “So I sold out everything, and came down country.”

“To think of your being at the Bayfields’ all this while, Hilary. And you didn’t know I was here?”

“Hadn’t the ghost of a notion. Of course I had heard you were here, but there was nothing to lead me to locate you as ‘Mrs Fenham.’ By the way, Hermia, what on earth made you strike out in the line of instructor of youth? No. It’s really too funny.”

“Isn’t it?” she said ingenuously. “It often amuses me too. I did it for a freak—and—a reason.”

“But why ‘Fenham’? You haven’t really married any—er—fool of that name?”

“Not a bit. Thanks for the implied compliment all the same. The name did as well as any other. That’s all.”

“What has become of Spence?”

“I don’t know, and don’t care. He turned out rather a cur,” she answered with a light laugh, showing no more confusion or restraint in alluding to the circumstance, than he had done when first she broached the subject of their parting. “I had more than enough of him in three months, and couldn’t stand the sight of him in five. He had just succeeded to a lot of money, you know, and became afflicted with swelled head there and then; in fact, became intolerably bumptious.”

“Yes, I heard that from Skelsey, just when I was wondering hard how Spence was in a sudden position to undertake a—well, not inexpensive liability.”

She gave him a little punch on the arm—not ill-naturedly, for she was rather amused.

“It’s mean of you to say that, Hilary. Come now, you can’t say you found it an ‘expensive liability.’”

“Well, I’ll concede I didn’t, Hermia—not pecuniarily, that is. But it isn’t to say that Spence would not have. I thought you were going to make a serious business of it that time. Why didn’t you? You had hooked your fish, and seemed to be playing him all right. Then, just when you ought to have gaffed him—up goes the top joint, whipping aloft, and the fish is off.”

“He was a cur, and I’m well rid of him,” she returned, and there was a hard, vindictive gleam in her dark eyes. “I did mean serious business, and so did he—very much so. Do you know what choked him off, Hilary? It was when he learned there was no necessity for you to set me free—that I was free as air already. While he thought I was beyond his reach, he declared he was only living for the day when I was no longer so. But, directly he found I was quite within it, and had been all along, he cooled off with a sort of magical rapidity.”

“Yes. Human nature is that way—and here too, there was an additional psychological motive. The knowledge would be likely to make a difference, you know. Knock a few chips out of your—er—prestige.”

She burst out laughing. “You have a neat, but rather horrid way of putting things, Hilary. Yes. I quite see what you mean.”

He made no reply, and for some moments they strolled on in silence. He could not refuse to entertain a certain amount of admiration for the consummate and practical coolness of this woman. She would make an ideal adventuress. Nor did he in the very least believe that she was destined to come to grief—as by all the rules of morality he ought to have believed. That was not the way of life. She would probably end by entrapping some fool—either very old, or very young—endowed with infinitely more bullion or valuable scrip than gumption or self-control, and flashing out into a very shining light of pattern respectability.

“What are you thinking about, Hilary?” she said at last, stealing a side look at him. “Are you still the least little bit angry with me about—er—about things?”

“Not in the least. I never was. You had had enough of me—we had had enough of each other. The only thing to do was to separate. You may remember I told you so not long before?”

“I remember. And, Hilary—You would not—stand in my way if—”

“Certainly not. If you can humbug, to your advantage, any fool worth humbugging, that’s no business on earth of mine—”

“Ah, that’s just what I thought of you, Hilary,” she said, her whole face lighting up with animation. “You were always a head and shoulders above any other man I ever knew.”

”—But—” he resumed, lifting a warning hand as he stopped and faced her. “There is one and one only I must warn you off, and that most uncompromisingly.”

“Who is it?”

The very tone was hard and rasping, and her face had gone pale. All the light and animation had died out of her eyes as she raised them to his.

“That unspeakable young ass of a cousin of mine—Percy West.”

“But—why?”

“Hermia, think. How on earth can you ask such a question? The boy is like a younger brother to me, and on no consideration whatever will I stand by and allow his life to be utterly spoiled, wrecked and ruined at the very outset.”

“Why should his life be wrecked or ruined?” she said sullenly, but with averted gaze. “I could make him very happy.”

“For how long? And what then? No. Knowing what we know, it could not be. The thing is impossible—utterly impossible, I tell you. You must simply give up all idea or thought of it.”

“And if I refuse?”

“But you won’t refuse. Good Heavens! haven’t you got the whole world to pick and choose from, but you must needs come here and make a fool of this boy?”

“I didn’t come here and ‘make a fool of him.’ I was here already when he came. I told you I had a reason for stopping here. Well—that is it.”

“It was to tell me this that you arranged to meet me alone,” went on Blachland. “I conclude it wasn’t merely for the pleasure of having a talk over old times. Am I right?”

“Perfectly.”

“Well, then, Hermia, I can’t agree to it. Do be reasonable. You have the whole world to choose from, and you may rely upon it that in any other connection I will never stand in your way by word or act. But in this I will. Why are you so bent on winning this boy? He isn’t wealthy, and never will be, except by his own exertions, i.e. the development of some potential but hitherto undiscovered vein of rascality in his nature. He is much younger than you, too.”