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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grit Lawless, by F.E. Mills Young
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Grit Lawless
+
+Author: F.E. Mills Young
+
+Release Date: November 29, 2011 [EBook #38170]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIT LAWLESS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+Grit Lawless
+By F.E. Mills Young
+Published by John Lane, The Bodley Head, London and New York.
+This edition dated 1912.
+
+Grit Lawless, by F.E. Mills Young.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+GRIT LAWLESS, BY F.E. MILLS YOUNG.
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+"This job has grown.  There has got to be a fourth in it, and the fourth
+must be a man.--You understand?"
+
+The speaker, who was known as the Colonel, took the cigar he was smoking
+from his mouth the better to emphasise his words, and looked gravely
+into the serious faces of his audience.  It comprised a man of
+middle-age, bearded, secretive, calculating; and one other.  The other
+was little more than a boy.  By profession he was a mining engineer, by
+disposition a scamp, ready to plunge into any undertaking that promised
+adventure.  The boy's head was bandaged where recently it had been
+broken for him, and he sat very quiet and silent, which was unusual; as
+the Colonel was wont to remark, he frequently talked too much.  But he
+was not proud of his broken head and its consequences, so he held his
+peace.
+
+"Do either of you know of a man likely to suit?  He must be possessed of
+a good nerve and a none too tender conscience.  He'll have to put
+himself outside the law--the business is outside the law.  And he must
+be a man we can trust."
+
+The Colonel looked sharply from one to the other of his listeners, but
+neither answered.  The young engineer was sulkily examining his
+finger-nails, displaying the same air of detachment that he had shown
+throughout.  He had received so severe a reprimand over the affair of
+his broken head that he had felt strongly tempted to sever his
+connection with the Colonel.  Only that spirit of adventure that had led
+him into it, and an unnatural greed of gain, prevented him from cutting
+the concern.
+
+"I want a man with grit," the Colonel said slowly.  "There must be
+plenty such men in Africa, if I could only put my hand on one."
+
+As he paused the older man looked up suddenly.  Something in the
+Colonel's speech had jerked into his mind a name he had almost
+forgotten.
+
+"I knew a man once," he said, and hesitated because he was not quite
+sure whether his knowledge of the man justified a recommendation.  The
+acquaintance had been of the slightest; his opinion of his character was
+based more upon hearsay than deduction, but he believed it was not at
+fault.
+
+"Well?"
+
+The Colonel threw in the interjection with sharp impatience, and the
+other added briefly:
+
+"He might not be sufficiently discreet.  I know little of him...  I did
+him a service once."
+
+"What are his qualifications for this job?" the Colonel asked, passing
+over the half-implied doubt as to discretion.  "Let us get hold of
+facts; we can deal with surmises later."
+
+"Your saying you wanted a man with grit brought him to my mind,--that's
+what the fellows called him--Grit.  And, upon my word! though I suppose
+I've heard his real name, I can remember him by no other.  Nobody ever
+called him anything else.  He was a lean chap, with an ugly scar down
+one side of his face.  I met him first up in Rhodesia.  He was mining
+then.  But I saw him recently in Cape Town."
+
+"How did he earn the name of Grit?" the Colonel inquired, showing an
+increasing interest; and the boy left off biting his nails and looked up
+with a half-resentful scowl, as if jealous of the unknown man's
+qualifications for a mission he knew his chief would not entrust to him.
+
+"I don't know whether he earned it on a particular occasion, or if it
+was only a general recognition of the chap's pluck.  They said of him at
+the mines that he was a man who did not know fear."
+
+"Pshaw?"  The Colonel struck the arm of his chair impatiently with his
+open palm, and jerked one knee over the other.  "I thought you had found
+me my man," he said irritably, "a man with coolness and nerve.  I don't
+want any braggart with a school-boy hero reputation.  Tell me something
+he has done beside boast of his courage."
+
+The other man smiled.  He rolled a cigarette and stuck it between his
+teeth.  Then he struck a match and lighted it.
+
+"I can't tell you much," he said.  "I know little of him, but I never
+heard him boast.  He was a reserved fellow with a sort of hard
+recklessness of manner that gave one the impression that life hadn't
+used him well.  I remember one night, some fellows, in illustration of
+his almost incredible lack of any sense of fear, telling a yarn of how
+during one of the punitive expeditions after some native rising--he was
+in the Cape Police then, or some force, I don't remember the details
+rightly--several of the boys surrounded a hut in which six of the
+rebellious ringleaders were hiding.  They wanted to take the blacks
+alive and not lose any of their own men over the business.  Grit
+originated a plan, which they carried out, very successfully too,
+foolhardy though the undertaking seemed.  He climbed on a comrade's
+shoulders, dropped through a hole in the grass roof right into the midst
+of them, and he kept those six armed niggers at bay, fighting with a
+naked sword and his back against the mud wall.  And when the other chaps
+rushed in they declare he was smiling quietly and seemed to be enjoying
+himself.  He never bragged about it, and he never turned a hair.  He
+simply hadn't felt fear."
+
+"Then there was no particular credit due to him."
+
+"Exactly.  Nevertheless, it proves the possession of nerve."
+
+"Oh, dash it all!" the boy, who was called Hayhurst, exclaimed suddenly.
+"Give the fellow his deserts.  It was a damned plucky thing to do."
+
+The Colonel smiled drily.
+
+"It's the kind of hare-brained escapade that appeals to youth."
+
+"Call it hare-brained, if you like.  How would you have got at them,
+sir?"  Hayhurst asked brusquely, resenting the other's speech.
+
+"In exactly the same manner, if I could have found anyone fool enough to
+volunteer."
+
+He pitched the end of his cigar out through the open window and sat up
+straighter.
+
+"Do you think you could find your man, Simmonds?" he asked.  "And if you
+found him could you persuade him to come and see me here?  It would be
+safer than my going to him.  He had better come at night so as to avoid
+detection.  We don't want him to be spotted as in with us at all.  If he
+isn't marked he stands a better chance of success."
+
+"I can find him, right enough," the other answered.
+
+"Then do so with as little delay as possible.  You needn't mention what
+the job is he will be wanted for, but let him know that however valuable
+his time is it will be paid for well, and give him thoroughly to
+understand the necessity for secrecy."
+
+The man addressed as Simmonds nodded without speaking; and the boy,
+muttering something about a headache, got up, and with a brief
+good-night passed out through the French window, and swinging himself
+off the stoep was swallowed immediately in the heavy blackness without.
+The two men smoked in silence while they listened to the crunching of
+his footsteps on the gravel path, until the sound died away in the
+distance and only the stirring of the trees as the fitful wind swept
+through their branches broke the silence of the night.  Then Simmonds
+looked round sharply at the man who sat near the opening, his strong
+brows drawn together in a frown of balked annoyance, his eyes still
+turned in the direction whence Hayhurst had disappeared.
+
+"What on earth induced you to enlist that young fool?" he asked.
+
+The heavy brows contracted yet more fiercely as their owner answered,
+without moving his position:
+
+"Not such a fool as you fancy.  And his youth is--or rather, was--an
+advantage; it put others off their guard.  He was smart enough in
+getting on to the right trail."
+
+"And then bungled the business, and gave away the whole show."
+
+"Many an older man," the Colonel answered tersely, "has been outwitted
+by a woman."
+
+He mixed himself a whisky and soda, and talked of other matters until,
+close upon midnight, Simmonds took his leave.
+
+"Better send your man to me, not bring him," the Colonel said as he was
+departing,--"safer.  And be careful not to mention what I am likely to
+want of him.  I prefer to judge a man for myself before engaging his
+services."
+
+Then he wished his companion good-night, and held a lamp for him to
+light him to the gate.
+
+A few nights later the man whom other men called Grit, the man who was
+credited with being entirely devoid of fear, presented himself at the
+bungalow that the Colonel had rented furnished during the owner's
+temporary absence in England.  The bungalow was on the outskirts of Cape
+Town, and the Colonel had chosen it for its proximity to the city and
+its lonely situation.  It stood back from the road in an ill-kept,
+overgrown garden that was a wilderness of trees and vine-tangled shrubs
+and palms.  Tall straggling gum trees, with their bare untidy trunks and
+ill-shaped limbs, towered above the one-storied building and shaded the
+Dutch stoep built on to the front of the house.  Oleanders, pink and
+white, grew to an immense height, lending their fragrance to the heavily
+perfumed air, rich with the mingled scents of nicotine and gardenia, and
+the strong cloying sweetness of the orange tree, the dark green of its
+foliage starred with the matchless beauty of its blossoms.  Date and
+other palms, the prickly cactus and aloe, grew in a wild confusion; and
+enclosing the whole, undipped, neglected, yet glorious in their
+disorder, were tall hedges of the blue plumbago, whose pale flowers
+swept the ground.
+
+The Colonel was seated on the stoep when his visitor arrived.  He was
+alone, and thinking about the man though he was not expecting him.  The
+stranger advanced rapidly, with a trained regular step that caught the
+listener's attention.  Instinctively he sat up straighter, and peered
+forward into the darkness, curious to behold who it was who approached
+along the winding path from the gate.  When the new-comer stepped into
+the patch of light below the stoep he recognised him for the man
+Simmonds had spoken of by the scar on the left side of his face.
+
+He mounted the steps and came on to the stoep, a tall spare man with
+muscles of iron, the set of whose shoulders suggested, as his footstep
+had, a military training.  He was fair, with a long lightish moustache,
+a face that was tanned almost copper-coloured, and a pair of dark grey
+eyes.  The eyes were the keenest and the most sombre the Colonel ever
+remembered to have seen.  They were extraordinarily expressive, and yet
+bafflingly reticent.  A woman would have called them beautiful.  They
+conveyed so much of sex, pride, power, of cool aloofness, and at the
+same time of an almost startling concentration, that their gaze was
+somewhat disconcerting.  The Colonel when he encountered them fully for
+the first time was conscious of their influence; for quite ten seconds
+he looked steadily into their inscrutable depths without speaking.  Then
+he tilted the shade of the reading lamp at his elbow the better to see
+his man, and, perfectly understanding the reason of his action, the
+stranger advanced a few paces and stood where the light fell more
+directly on his face.
+
+"I don't know whether Simmonds prepared you for my visit," he said; "but
+I am here in accordance with your wish."
+
+"Thank you.  I am obliged to you for your prompt response."
+
+The Colonel had risen.  He led the way into the house through the open
+window at his back, and carefully closed the window behind his visitor.
+
+"I am fond of trees," he remarked, "but I distrust them.  I prefer to
+hold this interview between walls.  We have no occasion to fear the
+keyholes, for there is not a soul besides ourselves beneath this roof."
+
+He turned up the lamp as he spoke, and again peered closely at the
+stranger.  By the brighter light in the room he observed the disfiguring
+scar more clearly.  It ran a deep seam slantwise down the lower half of
+the face.  At some time or other a bayonet had slashed the man's cheek
+open and laid the jawbone bare.
+
+"You've been in the Service?" he said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+The answer, brief, uncommunicative, almost curt, told the Colonel among
+other things that this man with the ugly scar and the strange
+unfathomable eyes would brook no catechism in regard to his private
+affairs.  If he wanted his services, he must be prepared to take him on
+trust.  He stared once again into the grey eyes and sat down.
+
+"Take a seat," he said.  Then with a motion of his hand to the decanter
+of whisky that stood on the table between them: "Do you drink?"
+
+The stern mouth behind the heavy moustache relaxed slightly; its owner
+realised that a negative answer would have been welcomed by his host,
+who, though he drank himself in moderation, preferred in the present
+business the services of an abstainer.
+
+"On occasions--yes," he replied as he sat down.
+
+The Colonel pushed the decanter towards him and a glass.
+
+"Help yourself," he said briefly; and the stranger deliberately half
+filled the glass with spirit and added a dash of soda.  His host watched
+him curiously, and, reversing the quantities, mixed himself a glass.
+
+"The business for which I shall require you, if we come to an
+understanding," he began, with a formality and stiffness which he had
+not displayed before, "needs absolute discretion as well as coolness and
+courage.  I do not doubt for a moment," he added hastily, meeting the
+piercing gaze of the grey eyes, "that your discretion is equal to your
+courage.  I have heard tales of the latter.  They tell me fear is
+unknown to you.  I have heard your courage spoken of in terms of the
+highest admiration."
+
+The grey eyes smiled suddenly.
+
+"I've heard a lot about that too," their owner said.  "It's mostly from
+youngsters, though."
+
+"My informant was no youngster."
+
+"Ah! you mean Simmonds.  His knowledge isn't first hand.  He's been
+listening to the youngsters probably.  It doesn't amount to much, a
+reputation like that."
+
+The Colonel sat back in his chair and sipped his whisky meditatively.
+
+"You disclaim then the reputation you have gained?" he said.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
+
+"Does any man actually deserve the admiration accorded him?--or the
+discredit?  Such things have their fashion."
+
+"Then, you would not, perhaps, describe yourself as absolutely
+fearless?"
+
+The man flushed darkly, hesitated for an instant, and then touched the
+scar on his face deliberately.
+
+"That marks a moment of absolute terror," he said quietly.  "Thank God!
+the fear of being a coward made me receive it in the face instead of the
+back.  Courage is only a matter of control.  The hero differs from the
+coward by the smallest accident of temperament.  If self-control were
+appreciated rightly and made a particular part of the education of the
+race, the term coward would be seldom applied, and then only to the
+person it fitted."
+
+The Colonel leant forward suddenly, resting his arms on the table, his
+glance still searching the thin, inscrutable face that puzzled and yet
+attracted him.
+
+"It is men like you we want...  Why did you leave the Service?" he asked
+abruptly.
+
+His hearer stiffened visibly.
+
+"Need we go into that?" he said.
+
+"Not if you prefer to keep your own counsel."
+
+There was a barely perceptible pause.  The younger man broke it.
+
+"My objection to speak has probably led you to a fairly correct
+inference," he said.  "I was cashiered from the Army.  But for which
+stroke of fortune I should not now be offering my services to you."
+
+He lifted his glass, put it to his lips, and draining the contents, set
+it down again empty.
+
+The Colonel remained silent, regarding him with freshly awakened
+distrust.  By his own showing the man was an adventurer.  Despite his
+first prejudice in his favour he began to wonder whether after all it
+were wise to place confidence in him.  He knew nothing of him.  There
+was to his credit merely a few garnished tales of daring which, either
+from modesty or a knowledge of their exaggeration, he had himself
+practically disclaimed,--and to his discredit the ugly truth he had just
+heard from his own lips.  He sat up suddenly.  In the piercing eyes that
+met his own steadily he perceived the flicker of a smile.
+
+"You haven't committed yourself, sir.  There is time to draw back."
+
+But at the half-mocking speech, the almost insolent challenge of the
+tone, the doubt in the Colonel's mind suddenly vanished.  What if the
+man were an adventurer?  Were not his services required for an
+adventurous undertaking?  The balance sheet of his past life was no
+concern of his.  He wanted courage, daring, and intelligence; he was
+prepared to pay for them; and he believed that the man before him
+possessed these qualifications.
+
+"You are not the first man who has gone under who in happier
+circumstances would have been a credit to the Service," he said gravely,
+and having said it dismissed the subject almost it seemed with relief.
+It did not do to be over particular in regard to a man's past with great
+odds at stake.
+
+"I have mentioned what the business I wished to see you about demands of
+the man who undertakes it," he added, without pausing, "but I have said
+nothing about the business itself as yet.  Briefly, it is the recovery
+of certain letters and incriminating papers--some of them, I believe,
+forgeries--that are being now used for the purposes of blackmail."
+
+"Half a moment, please.  Is this a personal matter, or are you merely
+negotiating for someone else?"
+
+"It is not a personal matter.  It affects someone of greater importance.
+I have been sent out here to get hold of those papers at any cost.  We
+have offered a big sum down for them, but the rogues who hold them won't
+part.  Their game is to keep on squeezing.  They believe they have an
+inexhaustible mine."
+
+"From what you tell me I should say their belief was justified.  Since
+they won't sell, how do you purpose getting hold of the papers?"
+
+"We must take a leaf from their book and steal them back."
+
+There was a momentary silence during which the grey eyes looked straight
+into the brown eyes with a hard, unflinching gaze.
+
+"And that's where I come in," he said, completing the Colonel's
+sentence.
+
+The Colonel nodded.
+
+"That's where you come in--if you do come in, that is...  There is a
+certain danger attaching to the enterprise, but that I needn't mention
+to you.  You will have determined men to deal with, and, unfortunately,
+men who are in a sense prepared.  The plan has been attempted already--
+and bungled."
+
+"I should like," Grit interposed, "to hear about that, if you please."
+
+The Colonel briefly narrated the story of young Hayhurst's successful
+tracing of the incriminating papers, of how he managed to get hold of
+them, and how he lost them again through blabbing of the affair to a
+woman.
+
+"That woman is in it, take my word for it," the Colonel said.
+
+"What's her name?" inquired the man who had listened quietly to the
+recital without once interrupting or even moving his position.  At the
+abrupt question the Colonel looked across at him sharply.  He had
+purposely omitted the mention of any names; he intended to secure his
+man before going into particulars; but now that the question was put to
+him point blank he felt that he had not sufficient reason for
+withholding the information.
+
+"Her name is Lawless--Mrs Lawless, living at Rondebosch.--You know
+her?" he asked, seeing the unmistakable start his companion gave on
+hearing the name.
+
+"Know her!--Yes, I suppose I do."
+
+The Colonel did not appear greatly surprised.
+
+"It's likely you would.  She is somewhat notorious, I believe."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"Oh! nothing actually against her that I know of.  A beautiful woman
+living alone, and much admired. ...  Rumour has it that she's a widow,
+and again has it that she is not.  I've got beyond the age when a man
+troubles to find out."
+
+"What causes you to imagine she is in with the other side?" inquired his
+hearer, a shade of impatience in his tone.
+
+"The boy--"
+
+"Hayhurst?"
+
+"Yes.  Hayhurst declares that she induced him to go home with her, that
+she pumped him, and then signalled to a man who must have been hiding on
+the stoep, and who sprang in through the window behind him and knocked
+him senseless with a blow over the head.  When he came to himself he was
+lying in the gutter near his lodging and the papers were gone.  My God!"
+wound up the speaker savagely, "to know that that young fool had in his
+possession what I've been months scheming to get hold of, and lets a
+woman Delilah him out of his prize!  I could cheerfully have slain him
+when he brought the tale of his failure to me."
+
+"Lucky for him it was not to me he brought it," the other said grimly;
+"I should probably have done it.  You don't reckon yourself over
+credulous, I suppose, in accepting his tale as it stands?"
+
+"No.  I might have questioned it; but it seems probable enough in face
+of the fact that the fellow who holds the papers has been paying marked
+attention to Mrs Lawless for some time, and she certainly does not
+discourage him.  Cape Town couples their names together, I believe.  One
+can credit anything about a woman who will listen to the suit of a rogue
+like that,--a damned swindler, with a reputation for being bigamously
+married already in another country!"
+
+"His name?" the man with the scar asked sharply, leaning half-way across
+the table.
+
+"Van Bleit."
+
+Grit sat up.
+
+"God! man, I know him intimately.  We were in Rhodesia together."  He
+laughed harshly.  "It is to him I owe the nickname that has stuck closer
+than my own.  The former acquaintance may prove helpful."
+
+The Colonel peered at him closely.
+
+"You have just reminded me that the nickname is all I know you by," he
+said.  "Simmonds could not recall your rightful title."
+
+"He is not singular in that respect," was the curt response.  "My name
+is Lawless."
+
+The Colonel stared at him blankly, his jaw fallen.
+
+"Lawless!" he repeated, and for the life of him he could not prevent the
+sudden freeze in his manner.  It even occurred to him at the moment that
+he was the victim of a trick.  If so, he had walked into the trap fairly
+easily.
+
+"It is a somewhat uncommon name," he added.  "Are you by any chance
+related to the lady of whom we have been speaking?"
+
+The man he addressed returned his suspicious scrutiny with careless
+indifference.
+
+"By marriage only," he answered briefly.
+
+The Colonel was only partially relieved.
+
+"I have confided in you so much, Mr Lawless," he said, "that you will
+readily understand how unwelcome this intelligence is.  Had I known of
+the connection sooner I should have hesitated to speak so freely of a
+matter that is as a sacred trust to me--"
+
+"You need not let what you have just learnt trouble you, sir," the other
+returned carelessly.  "Nothing that you have told me so far would be
+news to the other side.  As for the connection!"--he flicked his fingers
+scornfully,--"it need weigh with you no more than that...  The lady
+disapproves of me.  We have not met for years."
+
+"Perhaps, though, since a connection of yours is mixed up in this affair
+you might not care to go on with it..."
+
+"It makes no difference," Lawless answered.
+
+The Colonel reached across the table.
+
+"You are throwing in your lot with me?" he asked quickly.
+
+The other's hand met his.
+
+"I'll get those papers back for you, or I'll kill your man," he said.
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+It was late afternoon.  The sun hung low in the blue sky and shot its
+beams between the palm slits, making a brilliant tracery on the smooth
+paths where it pierced a passage between the branches of the mimosa
+trees, yellow with their golden balls.  The chirrup of a cricket was the
+only sound that broke the quivering silence, save when every now and
+again the warm wind swept lazily through the gum trees and made music
+with their leaves.
+
+Looking out upon the sultry stillness of the garden, her pose stiller
+even than the almost motionless trees, with tense features, and eyes
+that were stirred with emotion, as the eyes of one who looks back upon
+the past from the stage of the present, seeing things with the broadened
+vision of experience, stood the woman of whom the Colonel had spoken in
+his interview with Lawless.  She was tall and dark and splendid, with
+large brown eyes flecked with a lighter shade as though they held
+imprisoned sunbeams in their pellucid depths.  Her rich dark hair waved
+back from a low brow that was like ivory in its smooth whiteness, and in
+the thin lips, scarlet as the flower of the pomegranate, showed her only
+touch of colour.  She wore a white dress of some Indian embroidery, and
+the plain gold band of her wedding-ring comprised her sole ornament.
+
+A clock inside the room chimed the half-hour, and scarcely had the sound
+died away into silence when the door behind her opened and a native
+servant showed a visitor into the room.  Mrs Lawless turned slowly
+round, and with a hesitating, reluctant step moved forward a few paces
+and then stood still, her arms hanging motionless at her sides, her lips
+slightly parted, perhaps in a greeting that never passed them, for she
+did not speak when she met the straight gaze of the visitor's keen eyes,
+and looked into the scarred yet still handsome face of the man she had
+not seen for eight years.  He had halted just inside the doorway, and he
+remained where he was, staring at her, the light falling direct upon his
+face.  The scar showed livid.  She gazed at it with fascinated eyes.
+She had not seen it before.
+
+"It was good of you to consent to see me," he said with grave
+politeness.  "I would not have troubled you with a visit had it not been
+important.  But what I have to say to you could not be written in a
+letter."
+
+"I quite understand," she answered quietly.  "Won't you sit down?"
+
+And in this commonplace manner passed a moment that marked a crisis in
+two lives.
+
+He waited until she was seated, then he crossed to the window and stood
+with his back to the sunlit scene.
+
+"I'd rather stand, thank you."
+
+He looked at her uncertainly, looked at the handsome furnishing of the
+room and frowned.  Where had she got her wealth from, this woman whom he
+had always understood to be poor?
+
+"I did not know," he said slowly, bringing his gaze back to her face,
+"that you were in South Africa until a few weeks ago.  It was a surprise
+to me.  I trust you do not consider it intrusive that I took early
+advantage of the knowledge to solicit an interview.  I would not have
+done so in ordinary circumstances, but it is a peculiar coincidence that
+you and I should be mixed up in the same shady concern.  I want you to
+believe," he added earnestly, "that I had no knowledge of your part in
+the business of which I am here to speak until after I had volunteered
+my services.  What part you actually played in it I am hoping you will
+confide in me, and not consider that I am guilty of an impertinence in
+seeming to interfere in what you do."
+
+"Oh no!" she answered gently, in her rich, deep voice, and added: "I
+expect it is the affair of that poor boy and the letters you have come
+to speak about.  I always felt that I should hear of it again."
+
+He confirmed her surmise.
+
+"You are suspected," he said in conclusion, "of having assisted in their
+recapture."
+
+She sat forward on the low sofa upon which she had taken her seat, and,
+gripping the cushions tightly, questioned him with her eyes.
+
+"Suspected by whom?--You?"
+
+"That question is unnecessary, surely," he replied coldly.  "Had I
+suspected such a thing I should not be here.  It is because I want to
+hit the next man who breathes such a slander that I desire to have from
+your own lips an explanation of that night's work.  Will you tell me all
+you know of the affair?  It may be a help to me in tracing those
+letters."
+
+"What have the letters to do with you?" she asked.
+
+"That's easily answered," he replied.  "I am a soldier of fortune; my
+hand and brain go to the highest bidder.  Personally, I am not
+interested in this matter--or rather, I was not interested; it has now
+become a matter of life or death to me.  I am pledged to recover those
+letters,--and I mean to do it."
+
+She released her grip of the sofa cushion, folded her hands loosely in
+her lap, and looked calmly into his sombre eyes.  He thought as he
+watched her that she was the most alluringly beautiful woman he had ever
+seen.
+
+"I did not know," she said slowly, halting between the words.  "I
+haven't been out very long--barely six months; and I had not heard--
+anything...  I will tell you all I know about the letters, though I
+don't quite understand their importance.  It's a case of blackmail, of
+course--at least, I gathered from Mr Hayhurst that they were being held
+for blackmail.  He had succeeded in getting hold of them.  The boy
+drinks too much, and when he has been drinking he talks.  I met him at a
+friend's house, and he was talking, boasting of his achievement.  He had
+these most important papers on his person at the time, and was inflated
+with success, I suppose--and too much wine.  I persuaded him to come
+home with me; and in the carriage he told me so much about the letters
+that on arriving here I asked him to show me the packet.  I intended to
+induce him to leave it with me until he was sober and more discreet."
+
+"That was very unwise," her hearer interrupted.  "He would probably have
+gone away and blabbed further, with the result that this house would
+have been broken into during the night.  It was a risky thing to do."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," she said.  "But I doubt whether I should have
+succeeded in persuading him.  I think I only roused his suspicions as to
+the honesty of my intentions.  And in any case I should not have been
+allowed to keep them, for he had evidently been shadowed without knowing
+it.  While I talked with him in this room I fancied I heard a sound on
+the stoep.  The window was open.  I walked over to it to look out, but
+before I could reach it, or realise quite what was happening, a man
+sprang past me into the room.  He struck the poor drunken boy one blow
+over the head with a stout short stick he carried that stunned him, and
+I--I was paralysed with terror.  I neither moved nor made any sound,
+until I saw the man coming towards me, and then I suppose I fainted; for
+I remember nothing more until I came to my senses later and found myself
+alone."
+
+"And you never communicated with the police?" he said quickly.
+
+"I sent for the police the following day," she explained; "but before
+the inspector arrived I received a message from Tom Hayhurst asking me
+not to move in the matter."
+
+She got up and walked with a certain restrained excitement in her
+movements to the mantel, where she stood, tall and graceful and
+outwardly composed, with one arm on the high shelf, her face turned away
+from him.
+
+"There is danger in this undertaking," she said.  "I don't like it.  Why
+should a man risk his life to do another man--a stranger--a service?"
+
+"You forget the reward," he said cynically.  "The pay is high."
+
+"The reward would be no compensation to a man for the loss of his life."
+
+He laughed bitterly.
+
+"We have only to die once, and no amount of prudence will release us
+from the obligation."
+
+She faced round quickly.
+
+"The men who hold those letters in their possession are desperate," she
+said.
+
+"So am I," he answered carelessly.  "It's the same on both sides, I
+imagine--merely a matter of gain."
+
+"It doesn't only amount to that with you," she exclaimed sharply, and
+her eyes darkened in her pale face.
+
+"No.  There are other considerations; but it is not necessary to go into
+them."
+
+His tone was quietly aloof; it almost seemed that he would remind her
+his doings were no concern of hers.  She withdrew within herself; and
+for the space of a few seconds there was silence between them.  He broke
+it.
+
+"You did not tell me who the man was who entered your house that night,"
+he said.
+
+"He was a stranger to me," she replied.  "I had not, to my knowledge,
+seen him before."
+
+"It was not Van Bleit?"
+
+"No."  She met his eyes steadily.  "Why should you suppose it might be?"
+
+"I would warn you against him," he said curtly, "if I might presume to
+give you advice."
+
+"Thank you," she answered coldly.  "I do not think I stand in need of
+advice.  And your warning is quite unnecessary."
+
+He drew himself up stiffly as a man might who realises a rebuff.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said.
+
+He looked at her fixedly in the pause that followed his brief apology,
+and his eyes were hard.
+
+"I have heard what I came to hear.  It won't be of great service to me,
+but I scarcely expected to learn more, and I am obliged to you for
+receiving me.  I will now relieve you of the embarrassment of my
+presence."  He bowed to her with formal politeness.  "Good afternoon,"
+he said.  "With your permission, I will leave by the window.  I see a
+path which leads direct to the gate."
+
+He turned his back towards her and stepped through the aperture on to
+the stoep.  She followed him with her eyes, those beautiful sun-flecked
+eyes shadowed with the stirring of memory; but she made no move to
+detain him.  Not until after he had left her did she remember that she
+had said no word in parting.  She had simply let him go in silence out
+of her sight--out of her life.  He had come into her life that
+afternoon, a spectre of the past, and, like a spectre, he had vanished,
+leaving only another memory to add to those that already disturbed her
+peace.
+
+She stood quite motionless, gazing, not out through the window whence he
+had disappeared, but at the place where he had stood, and as she gazed
+it was suddenly borne in upon her that an opportunity had come to her
+with the presence of this man, and she had missed it.  She had travelled
+nearly six thousand miles for this,--to realise when it was too late
+that she had missed her opportunity.  It happens thus frequently: we
+refuse to grasp the event when it entails the smallest sacrifice of
+self.  Could she have humbled her pride sufficiently, she might have had
+this man's destiny in her hands and have fashioned it to brave issues.
+
+She moved forward deliberately and took her stand where he had taken
+his, with her back to the glowing garden.  Save where his foot had
+pressed the carpet, he had touched nothing; he had not so much as rested
+a hand against the window frame.  She could have wished that he had
+touched things so that she might touch them also, and imagine in so
+doing that she drew near to him.  Despite the firmness of her nature,
+despite the ugly facts of the man's past that were well known to her,
+she could not crush the love of him out of her heart.  The woman never
+learns to hate the man who has once brought romance into her life.  That
+he had brought romance into the lives of other women this woman who
+stood in the opening with her hands locked together knew.  The knowledge
+was torture to her.  It wrung her anew each time her thoughts dwelt on
+it, and they dwelt on it often.  Even now, while she stood there with
+the remembrance of their recent interview vividly impressed on her mind,
+the sight of the scarred face photographed on her brain with a
+distinctness that was almost as though she had his image still before
+her eyes, the old gripping, agonising jealousy, the wounded self-esteem,
+were tearing her heart as with searing pincers.
+
+This man, who had brought her romance, had come to her with a gift in
+either hand.  While one gift was goodly, the other had been evil; and
+the evil had spoilt both.
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+Mrs Lawless was dining out.  She had become the fashion in Cape Town;
+no function was complete without her.  Hostesses who wished to attract
+those they could never hope to capture of themselves knew that by adding
+Mrs Lawless to their list they could command the most exclusive.  Mrs
+Lawless had a friend at Government House.  A cousin of hers was
+aide-de-camp to the Governor.  In addition she was wealthy, with an
+intellect above the average, and a beauty that was quite remarkable.
+The last qualification was sufficient for the male population of Cape
+Town.  It rallied round her like the swarm round the queen bee, and
+those women who wished to be well considered of their males rallied
+round her also, and in submitting to an obligation were forced to
+acknowledge that her charm was undeniable.  Though she had many male
+admirers she made more feminine friends.  She did not seek popularity
+with her own sex from any sense of diplomacy, but because she liked, and
+got on better with, women.  While the men considered her cold, the women
+found her peculiarly sympathetic.
+
+She had made one close friend in this new country, which was to her
+still so strange, so alien; so careless and pleasure-seeking in its
+social life, so keenly self-seeking in its business methods, and withal
+so vivid and picturesque and stirring.  This friend, brilliant in
+political and literary circles, and connected with one of the oldest
+families in the Colony, was of Dutch extraction.  She had married an
+Englishman, named Smythe; an alliance that had uprooted an old and
+bitter racial prejudice, not only on her side, but on her husband's.
+Smythe, the erstwhile rabid anti-Boer, had been heard warmly supporting
+universal tolerance.
+
+"After all," he would blandly assert, "it is only one world, and one
+mother for the whole of us.  There are bound to be factions in a very
+large family.  But one needn't carry things to extremes."
+
+His theory, however, did not include the natives.
+
+"A nigger's a nigger," he answered, when approached on this point.
+"He's not a human being; he's a link,--the one that wasn't lost.  If any
+man chooses to call him a brother he's at liberty to do so.  Personally,
+I'd as soon fraternise with a chimpanzee."
+
+There was one Dutchman, however, whom the tolerant Smythe could not
+swallow, and that was his wife's cousin, Van Bleit.  It seemed as though
+all his former dislike for the entire race had been concentrated into
+hatred of this one man.  He made no attempt to conquer this aversion,
+because he knew it was something beyond his control, but he did his best
+to hide it from his wife, whose fondness for, and admiration of, her
+cousin was a never-ending source of wonder to him.
+
+Van Bleit had a confident, masterful manner that won him an easy way to
+the hearts of certain women.  By nature he was a bully: a few of the
+women who had fallen prey to the roystering charm of his personality had
+found this out.  But they invariably made the discovery too late; Van
+Bleit squeezed his victims dry before he revealed his less amiable side.
+It was usually in making the discovery that they had been drained that
+they discovered the other thing.  If Van Bleit knew how to overcome
+feminine reluctance with a masterful manner, he also knew how to shout
+down feminine recrimination.  In cases where shouting alone would not
+avail, he showed no hesitation whatever in having resource to physical
+force.  The woman who pitted her strength against his came off worse
+than the victim who suffered in silence, knowing her case to be beyond
+hope of redress.
+
+Van Bleit had carried on most of his intrigues in Europe.  Because
+Europe, on account of the suicide of an inconsiderate widow who had
+really cared for him, had become for a time inconvenient as a place of
+residence, he had brought his handsome body and his evil mind back to
+the land of his birth; and was now pursuing with greater zest than he
+had pursued any of his former conquests the beautiful and wealthy woman
+who was his cousin's particular friend.  And Mrs Smythe, with the best
+intention in the world, took every opportunity of throwing them
+together.
+
+It was at the Smythes' house that Mrs Lawless was dining on the evening
+of the day that Lawless called upon her.  Van Bleit was there also.  He
+was her dinner partner.  It was not a large gathering.  Of the
+half-dozen guests only one was a stranger to Mrs Lawless, a tall,
+military-looking man, with iron-grey hair, and an awkward habit of
+hunching his shoulders which gave them the appearance of being round.
+After dinner, the hostess, at his request, introduced him; and Mrs
+Lawless, as she acknowledged the presentation and met the intent gaze of
+the unsmiling eyes, wondered why the name should be familiar while the
+owner was quite unknown.  Then in a flash she remembered where she had
+heard it before; young Hayhurst had talked of Colonel Grey in his
+drunken confidence on the night that the papers had been lost.  She
+understood why he had wished to be introduced; he was curious to
+discover for himself something of the woman whom he believed to be his
+enemy.
+
+He was summing her up even while he looked at her; and he was forced to
+acknowledge with considerable impatience that he too was influenced like
+any young hotheaded fool by her wonderful fairness and the beauty of her
+candid eyes.  His summary was surely at fault, since, despite the proof
+against her, he felt that here was a woman to be trusted, a woman who
+would be loyal to her friends and just to her enemies.  He squared his
+shoulders as though conscious of the awkward hunching habit, and said in
+his harsh voice:
+
+"I am glad to meet you, Mrs Lawless.  I have recently had the pleasure
+of making the acquaintance of a kinsman of yours."
+
+He observed the quick suspicion of the look that flashed from her eyes,
+the sudden reserve that masked her features, changing their smiling
+indifference to a cold displeasure, and he remembered a sentence that
+Lawless had uttered which the change in her manner corroborated: "The
+lady disapproves of me."  Good taste should have prohibited his touching
+on the subject, but in the game he was playing he set all laws at
+defiance and pushed forward with but the one aim in view.
+
+"A kinsman--of mine!" she echoed, and the soft contralto voice was a
+little unsteady.  He watched her curiously.
+
+"Someone of the same name," he added.
+
+"Oh! someone of the same name...  That's rather a broad claim to
+kinship."
+
+The change in her tone was unmistakable.  Her manner became more
+guarded, more studiously careless, but the face exposed to the merciless
+raking of his gaze wore a faintly distressed flush.
+
+"He claimed kinship with you," he insisted, smiling pleasantly at her,
+while he pulled at his iron-grey moustache with a large, well-shaped
+hand.  "I can't help feeling he was justified even on the most slender
+grounds.  He was related to you by marriage, so he said."
+
+She looked at him inquiringly.
+
+"By marriage only," he added, unconsciously quoting Lawless.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+Her composure had reasserted itself.  The man who watched her felt
+puzzled to understand what there had been in his tactless speech to
+cause her embarrassment, what there was in his further speech to relieve
+the strain.  Her disapproval of the man must be fairly deep-rooted when
+an indirect mention of him caused her distress.  She turned the tables
+while he was thus wondering, and roused dark doubts and anxious
+suspicions in his own breast as to the honesty of purpose of the
+reckless adventurer in whom he had confided an important trust.
+
+"You speak of Mr Lawless," she said quietly.  "He called upon me
+to-day."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+The Colonel's eyes snapped.  He hunched his shoulders, and jerked his
+big head forward and peered hard at her.  Intuition told her what he was
+thinking.  He feared treachery.  Distrust grew in him, distrust of the
+man for whose services he was paying,--the man who was connected by
+marriage with this woman who had tricked a drunken boy and robbed him;
+who was on visiting terms with her, though he had emphatically stated
+that the connection counted for nothing,--the man who was a friend and
+comrade of the scoundrel Van Bleit,--the man who was cashiered from the
+Army for a reason the Colonel had yet to find out.  And he intended to
+find out.  He had already started inquiries.
+
+She looked back at him steadily, and her slightly raised eyebrows
+betokened a faint curiosity.  She was fencing with him.  They were
+fighting a duel with wit for their weapons; and if the first advantage
+had been on his side, the second and greater advantage was to her.  The
+knowledge annoyed him.
+
+"Mr Lawless is to be doubly congratulated," he said drily.  "Many men
+would envy him his reputation, all men would envy him the privilege of
+calling himself your kinsman."
+
+She smiled faintly.
+
+"That is flattery, Colonel Grey," she answered.  "But tell me why men
+should envy him his reputation.  I was not aware that it justified
+envy."
+
+"Is there nothing enviable in a reputation for valour?" he asked.
+
+She turned deathly white, and her eyes glittered angrily in her tense
+face.
+
+"If I do not misunderstand you," she replied, "that is the meanest
+speech man ever made."
+
+He looked, as he felt, wholly nonplussed.  There was to come a day when
+he better understood her then incomprehensible indignation, when he not
+only understood but sympathised with it; but at the time he was entirely
+baffled.  He could only feel astonishment at her outbreak.
+
+"I fear you do misunderstand me," he said.  "There was nothing unworthy
+in the speech.  I merely conceded to a brave man a brave man's due.  I
+have heard many tales of his courage.  Men call him Grit who remember
+him by no other name.  If there is truth in hearsay, he has earned the
+nickname."
+
+His manner was sufficiently earnest to convince her of his sincerity.
+The swift anger died out of her eyes, leaving them softly pensive, and
+wistful, like the eyes of a woman who meets Hope on the road of
+Disillusion, and being unprepared for the meeting, is inclined to doubt
+that it is Hope that she encounters.
+
+"Grit!" she repeated softly.  And added: "I have not been out here long,
+and I have heard nothing of Mr Lawless for years...  I have not heard
+the nickname before, but--I like it...  Why do men call him Grit?"
+
+"Because," he answered quietly, "they credit him with being without
+fear.  They tell tales of his courage--or, rather, less of his courage
+than of his absolute fearlessness.  He is a man to whom fear is
+unknown...  That is the popular belief."
+
+"And you do not share it?"
+
+He was not altogether prepared for the question.  She sprang it upon him
+suddenly, as if something in his manner challenged her to the inquiry.
+
+"I have his word for it that he has known terror," he answered quietly,
+after a brief hesitation.
+
+"That does not disprove his courage," she said quickly.
+
+"No," he allowed.  "Courage is fear overcome."
+
+There was another and longer pause.  He ended it with the reluctant
+admission:
+
+"I am inclined to believe myself that Grit Lawless has earned his
+nickname."
+
+"You give your meed of praise grudgingly," she said.  But she smiled
+while she spoke, and the Colonel was dazzled, as many men had been
+dazzled before him, by the extraordinary seductiveness of her smile.
+
+It was not until he was back in his bungalow going over the interview,
+and that part of their talk that had related to Lawless, that it
+occurred to him her manner had been rather that of a person jealous for
+a friend's reputation than of a woman who disapproved of, and disowned,
+a kinsman.  And his old suspicion of her, and of the man whom he had
+trusted in a difficult and dangerous enterprise, returned with renewed
+force.  It struck him as a highly suspicious circumstance that while
+Lawless was on visiting terms with the woman he should have given him to
+understand that the relationship between them was the reverse of
+friendly.  He would have liked to question Lawless on the subject; but
+it had been agreed between them for the greater success of their plans
+that it was safer to hold no intercourse.  If either wished to
+communicate with the other it was left to his discretion to select a
+trustworthy messenger.  The occasion scarcely justified, in the
+Colonel's opinion, so extreme a measure.  If he had enlisted the
+services of a traitor, it was but another false move of the many that
+had been made.  Trickery could only be mated by trickery.  He must keep
+his own counsel and watch the game...
+
+He remembered, thinking quietly over the evening's entertainment, how
+Van Bleit had come forward while he was talking with Mrs Lawless, and
+ignoring him with pointed insolence, had offered her his arm and led her
+away on some pretext or another.  She had glanced back over her shoulder
+and given him another of her wonderful dazzling smiles as she left him;
+and he had uttered the wish then, which now in the lonely silence of his
+own quarters he repeated:
+
+"I would to God that woman were on our side!"
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+Lawless meanwhile had renewed his acquaintance with Van Bleit.  On
+leaving Mrs Lawless' residence he had driven as he had come back to
+Cape Town, and, dismounting from the taxi outside his hotel, was in the
+act of paying the driver when Van Bleit passed him with the stream of
+business men homeward bound while he stood upon the kerb feeling for the
+change.  But that scar on Lawless' face was unmistakable, and Van Bleit,
+arrested by it, paused in his rapid march and glanced inquiringly at
+him.  Then he came back and waited until Lawless had paid and dismissed
+his driver.
+
+When the tall, spare man with the ugly scar faced round, it was to find
+the broad figure of Van Bleit blocking his passage.  He held out his
+hand as carelessly as though they had met the day before.
+
+"God, man!" said Van Bleit sharply.  "Where have you sprang from?  It's
+a matter of nearly five years since we met, I believe, if one bothered
+to calculate; and it seems almost a lifetime.  It takes me back into the
+past to see you.  What are you doing here?"
+
+"Damned if I know," Lawless answered laconically.
+
+Van Bleit laughed.
+
+"Grit, you haven't altered," he said.
+
+He scrutinised the thin, handsome face intently.  Then he looked from
+the man to the hotel before which the latter had alighted.
+
+"Stopping here?" he asked.
+
+Lawless nodded, and Van Bleit's manner warmed.
+
+"I've made lots of inquiries about you, but could never learn anything,"
+he said.  "I feared you had gone under, but," with a glance at the hotel
+front, "this scarcely looks like it."
+
+"On the contrary," Lawless answered, "I'm on top at present.  I've been
+under and afloat several times since last we met."
+
+"You struck it rich at the mines, I suppose?"
+
+Lawless laughed unexpectedly.
+
+"Yes," he lied.  "I struck it rich at the mines.  Any man might who
+wasn't a fool."
+
+Van Bleit looked cunningly intelligent.
+
+"True," he answered.  "If a man wants to get there in Africa it don't do
+for him to be squeamish.  You didn't earn your nickname, Grit, in being
+over soft."
+
+At the mention of his nickname, Lawless looked fierce.
+
+"Damn you!" he said irritably.  "If I remember rightly I owe that to
+you.  It sticks closer than my own.  That nickname has landed me in for
+many a ridiculous adventure.  Men seem to imagine that I'm a survival of
+the mediaeval desperado; and I am offered any shady undertaking that
+entails the slightest risk."
+
+"They pay best, those undertakings," Van Bleit responded drily; and
+Lawless, regretting the speech as soon as it was made, answered
+indifferently:
+
+"Very likely.  But a man doesn't sweep sewers when he has his pockets
+lined."
+
+He advanced towards his hotel.  Van Bleit walked beside him, and
+together they passed from the glare of the pavement into the shaded
+coolness of the vestibule.
+
+"Come and drink to the good old times," he said,--"and to many more good
+times ahead."
+
+He led the way into the lounge.  When they were seated, with drinks on a
+table in front of them, he asked:
+
+"What are you doing to-night?  If you've nothing more amusing on hand,
+will you dine with me?"
+
+"If you care to repeat the invitation on some future occasion, you will
+see how readily I shall respond," Van Bleit answered.  "But this evening
+I am dining at my cousin's.  I don't know if that kind of thing amuses
+you," he added, after a moment's reflection, "but, if it does, I am
+confident my cousin would be delighted to welcome a friend of mine.  Get
+into your togs, and I'll pick you up on my way.  It's at the Smythes'.
+Smythe himself is a beastly prig, but my cousin is a good sort; and she
+gets hold of the right people, and gives one the right things to eat.
+What do you say?"
+
+"Not for me," Lawless answered.  "I'm not long returned to civilisation.
+I'll look on at the game for a while.  You go and eat your dinner, and
+make yourself agreeable--I trust both the meal and the company will come
+up to expectation--and give me to-morrow evening."
+
+"Good!"
+
+Van Bleit hesitated, looked at Lawless uncertainly, looked about him,
+changed colour; then looked at Lawless again.
+
+"The company for me to-night will consist of one," he jerked out in a
+burst of half-eager, half-reluctant confidence.
+
+His listener smiled unsympathetically.
+
+"The one and only She of the moment; eh?"
+
+"Man, you wouldn't say that if you could see her," Van Bleit returned,
+his manner unusually earnest.  "She is the most beautiful woman in the
+world."
+
+"That's a tall order," Lawless replied drily.  "If my memory serve me,
+you have happened across perfection a few times in your career."
+
+"Never before," Van Bleit asserted.  "My God, Lawless--"
+
+He broke off abruptly, and stared at the other curiously, his mouth
+agape.
+
+"I had forgotten... it's the same name," he said.  "Are you by any
+chance related to Mrs Lawless?--at present living at Rondebosch."
+
+"We are connected by marriage," Lawless answered.  He removed the cigar
+from his mouth and trimmed the ash deliberately.  "If you want to stand
+high in the lady's good graces, you will be well advised not to mention
+my name.  We do speak when accident throws us together, but I believe I
+state the bare truth when I say that the fact of our paths seldom
+crossing gives mutual satisfaction."
+
+"Yes!  In-laws don't always hit it, of course.  I never got on with my
+brother-in-law.  I was glad when the beast died.  Still, I regret the
+breach in this instance; the relationship might have served me, I'm
+going in to win.  Grit.  You give me your good wishes, I hope?"
+
+"In consideration of what I have told you, I wonder what my good wishes
+are worth?"  Lawless returned.  "But I'll give you a bit of good advice.
+The lady is puritanical, unpleasantly so.  You will never win her
+favour in the character in which I have known you.  Are you going in for
+reform?"
+
+"I'll go in for anything," Van Bleit answered promptly; "but I'll get my
+own way."  He leant forward and laid a hand on the other's shoulder.
+"And when I've got it," he said boastfully, "there'll be other
+changes...  We'll close all family dissensions--my friends will be my
+wife's.  She'll soon see things from my view."
+
+Lawless looked carelessly amused.
+
+"Two people may use the same pair of binoculars," he remarked, "but they
+almost invariably alter the focus.  I never attempted the absurdity of
+trying to make a woman see through my long-distance lens.  Their horizon
+is generally contracted, and few see beyond that restricted line of
+their imagination.  With your experience, Karl, I should have imagined
+you had long ago discovered that woman, while appearing the most pliable
+of substances, is as difficult to bend as wrought iron."
+
+Van Bleit smiled unpleasantly.
+
+"When I can't bend a thing, I break it," he answered.
+
+Lawless regretted when it was too late that he had refused Van Bleit's
+invitation to dine at his cousin's.  He might have got some amusement
+out of the evening, and the closer he shadowed the Dutchman the better
+for the success of his undertaking.  He decided that in future he would
+avail himself of such a chance as Van Bleit's offer had promised; by his
+refusal he had sacrificed a move in the game.  That in going to the
+Smythes' he would perforce meet Mrs Lawless did not weigh with him:
+there was as much space between four walls as in the universe if one
+person did not desire to be brought into contact with another.  And he
+had no intention of inflicting himself upon her.  He knew her opinion of
+him; it was not sufficiently complimentary to cause him to seek her
+society.  Nevertheless he experienced some curiosity to again encounter
+this woman whose hard purity made her so severe a judge in human
+affairs,--to measure weapons with her once more.  There came to him
+sometimes in the lonely watches of the night the belief that one day,
+despite past failures, he would pit his strength against hers
+successfully.  He never attempted to determine the line his conduct
+should take in the case of victory; it sufficed for him that the moment
+should fashion the event.  But with the passing years that dream of his
+triumph steadily receded.  He had even given up the expectation of
+seeing her again...  And now he had met her...  He had spoken with
+her...  And their sympathies were as widely divergent as ever they had
+been...
+
+He got up and paced the room restlessly for some time.  His thoughts
+worried him so that inaction became unbearable.  He left the hotel, and
+wandered forth into the city in search of such diversion as it could
+provide.  But his mind still worked round the recent extraordinary
+events, of which the interview of the afternoon had not been the least
+surprising; and almost insensibly his footsteps turned in the direction
+of the Smythes' house.  For two hours he patrolled the roadway for the
+purpose of getting a glimpse of the face he had seen so nearly only that
+afternoon.
+
+When eventually Mrs Lawless came forth she was attended by Van Bleit,
+who saw her into her motor, and closing the door on her, leant upon it
+confidentially while he made some low-toned remark to her where she sat
+inside in the dark.  Lawless was too far off to hear their voices, but
+he judged fairly well from the pantomime what was taking place, and he
+saw by the street light the admiration in Van Bleit's face.  His own
+face, when presently the motor passed him, was as expressionless as a
+mask.  The woman seated inside did not see him.  She was sitting very
+straight and motionless.  The smile had faded from the beautiful lips,
+and her eyes looked sad.  Then the motor flashed out of sight, and the
+man was left standing stiffly in the shadowy roadway like a sentinel on
+guard.
+
+The moon shone out suddenly through a rift in the heavy clouds, throwing
+the tall figure into strong relief, and revealing his face distinctly,
+stern and set, the scar on his cheek showing livid in the silvery light.
+As though the unexpected brilliance disturbed him, he altered his rigid
+attitude abruptly, swung round, and started to walk.  He walked rapidly,
+unconscious of his surroundings in the turmoil of his thoughts.  By a
+process of introspection his mind worked back continually.  He regarded
+himself in a detached, impartial light, as if it were a stranger upon
+whom he looked, a stranger whose actions he was called upon to criticise
+and pass judgment upon.  Not until that night had he ever considered his
+actions in a condemnatory light.  Life was only a chance...  Things had
+just happened...  That had been his philosophy.  And he had acted upon
+it until the thing happened that meant the finish of his career in the
+Army.  He had finished himself socially shortly after that event.
+
+His dismissal from the Service had cut him deeply, and he had bitterly
+resented it.  He had enemies.  That was what he had asserted at the
+time, what he still believed.  The other affair he treated as a
+midsummer-night's madness, and spoke of as such.  He refused to consider
+it more seriously.  But the midsummer-night's madness had been
+responsible for more than the wrecking of his career.  And it was of
+that he was thinking chiefly as he walked along the warm, dusty road
+between the motionless trees that lined the pathway and cast long black
+distorted shadows upon the ground.  He had not called it a midsummer's
+madness always; he had thought of it--ay, and spoken of it--once as
+Love.  And he had believed the world well lost at the time.  But that
+form of madness is transitory.  He had come out of the sickness
+extraordinarily sane,--scarcely penitential, but with a proper
+appreciation of the truth of certain lines that came to his sobered
+senses unbidden, yet with an appropriateness that suggested some occult
+influence, probably conscience, working upon his mind:
+
+  "If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,
+  He would be utterly despised."
+
+In a sense, he had done that; and he had won the despite such conduct
+merited.  He had been mad.  He said it again to himself, muttering the
+words under his breath.  Then he smiled grimly at the thought behind the
+words.  Poor creature of circumstance!  To be cured of one form of
+madness only to develop another!
+
+The ever-revolving wheel of fate turned relentlessly, now bearing him, a
+mere puppet, upward, now downward in its revolutions.  The wheel had
+been turning steadily downward for a long while now.  He wondered
+whether, when it began to rise again, it would still bear him with it,
+or whether before that time it would have broken him utterly and left
+him in the uttermost depths.
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+For eight years Lawless had led an adventurous life, consorting chiefly
+with men who, like himself, were outside the pale of society.  He had
+earned a livelihood how he could, sometimes working for his bread with
+his hands, at others fairly affluent; but improvident always, giving
+away recklessly in his prosperous days what later he knew he would need
+for himself.  It was during one of his poorer periods that he had
+happened across Simmonds, the man who had since introduced him to
+Colonel Grey, and so helped him towards a good thing when his fortunes
+chanced to be at a particularly low ebb.  The tide had turned with
+surprising swiftness.
+
+He found it a little difficult at first to realise this unexpected
+change of fortune, even more difficult to adapt himself to it.
+Doubtless it was the influence of Van Bleit that eventually drew him
+from his misanthropic habits and plunged him, somewhat reluctantly, into
+the vortex of Cape Town society.  The Smythes and Van Bleit introduced
+him everywhere.  Lawless had no record at the Cape.  He became known as
+a man of means, and it was rumoured that his family held a good position
+in England.  The fact that he was connected by marriage with the
+beautiful Mrs Lawless added to his popularity; and the vague
+information, given by a would-be know-all, that he had once been in the
+Army and had left under a cloud was discredited by the civilian
+population.  But the men in the Service, especially the man at
+Government House who was a relation of Mrs Lawless, remembered certain
+things; the years that had rolled by since Lawless' disgrace were not so
+many as to have put the affair so entirely out of mind that by a little
+hard thinking the reason of his dismissal could not be recalled.  It was
+a reason for which few men have any sympathy.  But, perhaps because it
+is not the custom in the Service for one man to give another away,
+perhaps, too, because this particular man was connected, however
+remotely, with the most beautiful woman in Cape Town, those who
+remembered the facts held their peace, and the discreditable whisper
+died from sheer atrophy.
+
+A certain section of Cape Town society took Lawless up.  Among men he
+was very popular, and the women decided that he was extraordinarily
+fascinating, if a trifle too reserved.  He was a man with very little
+small talk.  Where he recognised a sympathetic personality he left
+trivialities alone and plunged straightway into the depths.  Every
+emotion he betrayed or called forth was of the most profound.  Young
+girls found him irresistible, but, fortunately for them, he had no taste
+for anything but a matured intellect.  He admired youth externally, but
+he avoided intercourse with it.
+
+One exception he made in favour of a girl he first saw in a railway
+carriage while he was returning from Symons Bay to Cape Town in the heat
+of a late afternoon.  The girl was travelling with her mother and
+sister, and Lawless would scarcely have noticed her but for the
+persistence of her gaze, which, without her volition, remained
+unwaveringly fixed upon the scar on his face.  His attention was
+attracted towards her long before she realised that she was observed.
+He saw her eyes riveted on the scar, and watched her, carelessly at
+first, but with increasing interest as he marked the effect of his
+disfigurement upon her.  She stared at the long deep seam with wide,
+surprised eyes; then, her imaginative mind conjuring up a battle-field
+with all the paraphernalia of war, she pictured the moment when that
+swift relentless slash of the bayonet had been given and received; and
+he saw the big eyes darken, and an almost imperceptible shudder shake
+her slender frame.  His own eyes twinkled humorously, and, drawn perhaps
+by their magnetism, the girlish gaze lifted unexpectedly and met his.
+If he thought to see her betray a swift confusion, he was disappointed.
+Apparently it was the most natural thing in the world that this man
+should be staring into her eyes, and that she should return his stare,
+not boldly, nor with any thought of intercourse, but with a degree of
+reverence such as a young girl feels for a brave man.
+
+The rest of the journey was a duel of looks.
+
+When he got out at the terminus, Lawless stood on the platform and
+waited until the girl and her party alighted.  He gave no outward sign
+of recognition when she passed him, lifting her eyes gravely for a
+moment to his face; but the inscrutable grey eyes conveyed far more of
+meaning than the mere raising of his hat could possibly have done, or
+even a furtive attempt at speech.  The girl went home with her mind full
+of him.  She made a hero of him in her thoughts.  Always she pictured
+him in the forefront of the battle; she saw him dashing forward against
+great odds, to be cut down even while he led his men to victory, waving
+them forward over his fallen body.  She invested him with all the
+attributes which a youthful feminine mind conceives befitting a god of
+war.
+
+A few weeks later he met her at a ball.  He was introduced to her at her
+request.  He had attended the dance more to please Van Bleit than
+himself, and was standing, a little out of it, near the doorway when one
+of the committee came up to him with the announcement that he wished to
+introduce him to Miss Weeber.
+
+Lawless followed him indifferently.  When he discovered that Miss Weeber
+was the girl of the train, the indifference gave place to a satisfaction
+that not even the girlish admission that she had solicited the
+introduction could damp.  He was extraordinarily pleased.
+
+"I knew we should meet some time," he said.  "It was written...  But I
+never pictured it like this.  I have imagined you in an unconventional
+setting with the veld for a background... illimitable space--a selfish
+picture--with only you--and me..."
+
+"And we meet in the heart of a crowd," she said, and smiled.  She liked
+the imaginative picture that he drew.
+
+"Things are always different in life," he replied, "from what we would
+have.  But I'll not quarrel with the occasion; we will make the most of
+it.  Will you let me see your card?"
+
+She handed it to him.
+
+"It is almost empty," she explained.  "We have only just arrived."
+
+"That," he replied gravely, "is fortunate for me.  I claim every waltz
+you have left."
+
+"Oh no?" she returned quickly.  "I couldn't allow that."
+
+"Then every other one," he said; and duly initialled the dances and
+returned her her programme.
+
+The quiet mastery of his manner, the assumption that what pleased him
+would be equally agreeable to her, robbed her of the power to protest.
+She was glad and yet discomfited at the number of dances he had claimed;
+and she scribbled subsequent partners' names on the card herself, not
+choosing that others should see those frequently recurring initials.
+She was also a little apprehensive of what her mother would think if she
+noticed, as she could scarcely fail to do, how often she danced with the
+same man.  But she would not have forgone one of those dances whatever
+the penalty.
+
+Lawless had acted on an impulse in initialling her programme as he had
+done--a recurrence, even though slight, of the old midsummer madness.
+She attracted him.  She was not exactly pretty, but there was the charm
+of youth in her favour, and an inexplicable something about her that
+piqued his curiosity.  Also the very obvious fact that she took a
+romantic interest in him because of an old wound considerably amused
+him.  It was so distinctly feminine.  How shall a world in which the
+mothers of the nations love nothing better than the clash of arms enjoy
+universal peace?
+
+He recognised that the scar was the fundamental attraction.  But for it
+she would probably never have noticed him; because of it she singled him
+out from among his fellows, and through it he lived daily in her memory,
+figuring as greater than the race generally--a modern Achilles with the
+vulnerable spot in the face.  The thing became an obsession.  Lawless
+was conscious even while he danced with her of the fascination the scar
+held for her; her eyes seldom strayed from it, and between the dances,
+when he led her to the more secluded places for sitting out, she leant
+back in her seat and watched it with undiminished interest, while he
+fanned her and cynically wondered what she would make of the tale if he
+told her the history of the scar...
+
+Before the evening was very far advanced he did tell her its history--
+with reservations.  She asked for it, a little diffidently, a little
+apologetically, but, as he felt, with an irresistible curiosity there
+was no subduing.
+
+"I want to know so badly," she said, colouring brightly.  "I've wondered
+about it ever since I saw you first...  You must think it very rude of
+me. ...  Of course you've noticed me staring.  It's abominable, but I
+can't help it.  It's such a grim souvenir--and splendid too in its way.
+I've wanted to ask you about it a dozen times this evening, and I've
+been afraid of annoying you.  And yet, why should curiosity annoy when
+it isn't unkind? ...  I wish you'd tell me...  Will you?"
+
+"Better curb your curiosity.  You will be disillusioned otherwise," he
+replied.  "It was about the most unromantic moment in my life when I
+received that."
+
+"Your life must have been very full of adventure," she answered with
+simple and unconscious flattery.
+
+He smiled grimly.
+
+"It hasn't lacked experience of sorts," he admitted.
+
+She looked up into his face, and her eyes were wonderfully soft, and big
+with admiration.  He was tempted to stoop and kiss the fresh, young,
+slightly parted lips.  He wondered whether she would resent it if he
+did.  But the inclination that moved him to take the liberty was hardly
+strong enough to cause him to put it into effect.
+
+"Won't you let me judge?" she asked presently.
+
+"Judge what?" he said.  He had forgotten for the moment the drift of the
+conversation; his mind was intent upon her.  Then he saw her eyes fasten
+on the scar again, and, remembering her curiosity, laughed.  "Oh, that!
+...  I was forgetting...  There isn't much to tell, as a matter of fact.
+It represents one lurid moment, and then a blank...  I received that
+slash over the jaw from one of my own Tommies--we were fighting on
+opposite sides at the time...  The only satisfaction I got out of it was
+when later I learnt that the man next me had settled the reckoning for
+me."
+
+"Oh!" the girl whispered, and her soft eyes hardened.  Behind the
+hardness there lurked conflicting emotions of pity and horror.  Naked
+fact seemed so much grimmer, so much more significant of the hatred and
+the actuality of war than her heroic imagining.  She had drawn for
+herself a splendid elaborated picture of dash and courage and the glory
+of battle, and in a few words he had blotted her picture from the canvas
+and set up in its place the rugged and brutal reality.  But the reality,
+though it hurt, was far more impressive, than her carefully
+stage-managed adaptation.
+
+"He deserved death," she said.  "How dastardly to attempt to kill his
+own officer! ...  A deserter, too!"
+
+"No, not a deserter," he contradicted quietly.
+
+"But you said he was fighting on the opposite side!"  She looked up at
+him suddenly.  "Was it during the Boer war?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He played with her fan, which he was holding, opening and closing it
+absently, bringing the sticks together with a little click.  Then
+abruptly he shut it with a snap and laid it back in her lap.
+
+"There are necessarily two sides to every question, and generally much
+to be said on both," he remarked in his sharp, incisive manner.  "The
+man who was fighting on the Boers' side had been dismissed the Service,
+and I suppose, having the killing lust in him, he gave his services
+where they were appreciated."
+
+"That's treachery," she said.
+
+He smiled at her cynically.
+
+"I'd like your definition of treachery...  I imagine you hold the
+popular exaggerated ideal of man's duty to the State.  Fine thinking is
+all very well in theory, but put it to the test, and where are you? ...
+This world is built for the practical, not for the sentimentalist.  A
+thousand years hence we may be sufficiently civilised to make the ideal
+life possible.  Then we shall be satisfied to recognise one another's
+good qualities, instead of overlooking them in the eagerness of our
+eternal search after the bad.  But that will entail social and political
+revolution--and the abolition of war."
+
+"You say that!" she cried, catching on to the part of his speech which
+she understood.--"You!--a soldier!"
+
+"My only right to the title now is that of soldier of fortune," he
+replied.
+
+She looked a little surprised.
+
+"Of course I knew you had left the Army," she said.  "But once a soldier
+always a soldier."
+
+"On the principle that the leopard cannot change his spots!"
+
+"I've only heard that applied to vicious tendencies," she said.
+
+"Very true," he returned with a harshness of tone and manner that she
+was puzzled to account for.  "There is never any hope for the damned in
+this world...  When a man has been evil we see to it that we keep him
+so."
+
+Had it been possible for him to displease her, he knew that he would
+have done so then.  As it was, his sentiments disappointed her.  She
+could not understand, and therefore had no sympathy with, a cynical
+outlook on life.  And he was lacking in self-appreciation.  She was a
+type of womanhood who enjoys a heroic pose,--a type that is
+unconsciously responsible for the braggart and the egotist.  He was
+perfectly aware that he might have made a fine story out of the scar
+that appealed to her so powerfully, that he could have posed as a very
+god in her eyes; but he was either lacking in conceit, or the desire to
+stand high in her regard was not sufficiently strong to incline him to
+be boastful.  And the scar was one of the distinctions he was least
+proud of.  It marked the most gallingly unsuccessful period in a life
+which, it seemed to him, had been one big futile promise.  Few men had
+had better chances, fewer still had been hedged about as he had been by
+conflicting and destructive forces.  His very temperament was opposed to
+a successful career.  And yet he had all the gifts--and he knew it--that
+go towards the making of a successful man.  He was bigger than the
+majority, a man who even as a failure was bound to make his mark.  But a
+mental superiority only made him realise more certainly his inadequacy
+in other respects.  He chafed at the knowledge of wasted powers, the
+perversion of ideas, and the lowering of talents to fit the altered
+conditions of his life.  Some men adapt themselves to evil fortune, but
+to the man who realises his essential place in the scheme of things, to
+be forced to take a position on a lower plane is humiliating to the
+point of revolt.  Time had accustomed Lawless to his downfall; but his
+resignation was no reconciled submission, it was at best acceptance of
+the irremediable.
+
+The girl had risen at the conclusion of his trenchant speech, and stood,
+holding her fan loosely in both hands, looking up at him in the dim rosy
+glow of the Chinese lanterns.  She wore white with a string of pearls
+round the slender throat.  Lawless, looking down at her, observed how
+thin her shoulders were.  The prettiest part of her neck was hidden--the
+concession to youthful modesty.
+
+"The band is playing the next dance," she said.
+
+"Yes," he answered.  But he did not move at once.  "You are dancing it,
+I suppose?"
+
+She nodded.  At the moment she wished that she had been less eager to
+fill her card.  He was sitting out most of the dances.  She had watched
+him hanging about doorways looking on with a slightly bored curiosity,
+and once or twice she had passed him on her partner's arm seated alone
+on the stoep.  His aloofness appealed to her imagination.  Everything in
+connection with him interested her tremendously.  She was even tempted
+to skip the next dance, and trust to her partner not finding her in this
+secluded and dimly lit place.  It was not so much the knowledge that
+such conduct was unworthy, as the fear that he might think less highly
+of her, that kept her to her engagement.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said.  "I shall look forward to our next waltz."
+
+She smiled up at him suddenly, and stooping deliberately he held her by
+both arms and kissed her on the lips.
+
+It had been an impulse, not an irresistible impulse; he had made no
+effort at resistance.  The red young lips appealed to him,--the girlish
+homage appealed to him.  She was altogether fresh and delightful.  And
+she did not resent his conduct.  For a moment she drew back startled, a
+little confused, a little undecided as to what she ought to do; the next
+instant self-consciousness vanished; she was pathetically proud and
+pleased and grateful that this hero of her imagination should feel
+sufficiently kindly towards her to wish to kiss her.  She remained quite
+quiet under his hands, blushing, with eyes downcast, and a little
+fleeting smile playing tenderly about her mouth.  He removed his hands
+from her shoulders, and offered her his arm.
+
+"Your partner will be getting perfectly rabid," he said.  "I suppose I
+must take you back now to the madding crowd, kind little friend..."
+
+Afterwards he wondered at himself.  The thing was absurd...  A girl in
+her first season!  It puzzled him to think what the attraction could be.
+She was not even especially good-looking.  A starving man is no
+epicure, he told himself; and determined--but did not keep his resolve--
+to leave the thing alone.
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+The band was playing a barn dance when Lawless and his companion
+re-entered the ball-room, and most of the dancers had already taken the
+floor.  A disconsolate-looking youth, who was wandering aimlessly round
+the room with his gaze continually on the exits, hurried towards them
+when they appeared in the doorway, and eagerly claimed his partner.
+
+"I thought you had forgotten," he said to her reproachfully, "that this
+was our dance."
+
+"Oh no!" she answered as she took his arm.  "Only I didn't hear the
+music quite at once."
+
+She let him lead her straightway among the throng of dancers, and was
+surprised to find how little the excitement of the exercise moved her,
+to whom dancing had once seemed an all-sufficient joy.  Her partner's
+rather commonplace, but heretofore entirely satisfying, conversation
+pleased her no more than the movement.  That dance was altogether the
+dullest and most stupid affair in which she had taken part.  Other dull
+dances were to follow.  Throughout the evening she rather unfairly
+compared each of her partners with the man who was already enshrined in
+her heart and worshipped as a hero.
+
+Lawless, having handed Miss Weeber over, retired to the stoep to smoke.
+Van Bleit was there, and several other men who possessed assertive
+thirsts and a settled belief in a reservation of strength.  There was a
+small bar fixed up at one end of the stoep.  Lawless made his way to it,
+and Van Bleit joined him, but refused to drink.  He chaffed Lawless
+good-naturedly on his partiality.
+
+"It's most marked, old chap," he said.  "Why don't you ring the changes?
+I overheard quite the best-looking girl in the room declare she was
+dying to dance with you, and I as good as promised to introduce you.
+She's keeping the supper dance open."
+
+"Then you'd better book it yourself, Karl," the other answered
+indifferently.
+
+"I'm not booking anything," Van Bleit replied with a quiet smile.  "I'm
+reserving myself until She arrives."
+
+Lawless emptied his glass hastily and set it down.
+
+"You don't mean," he said, moving away from the buffet, "that Mrs
+Lawless is coming to-night?"
+
+"Why wouldn't I mean that?"  Van Bleit asked, looking at him curiously.
+
+"It's close on midnight, man.  And... this kind of show..."
+
+"She isn't such a puritan as you imagine," Van Bleit rejoined.--"I ought
+to know something about that by now...  And she promised me she would
+come to-night.  There was something--some rotten music she was going to
+hear first with the Smythes.  Then they were coming on here."
+
+He pitched away his cigar and twirled the ends of his big moustache into
+fine points curving upward, which gave him, he imagined, a distinguished
+and military appearance.  He was well enough to look upon without going
+to this excess of trouble.
+
+"She's not keen on dancing," he added complacently; "but I've had her
+out on the floor once or twice.  Her waltzing! ... it isn't dancing...
+it's a poem.  And the satisfaction of her nearness! ...  Just to hold
+her in one's arms! ...  Oh Lord!  Lawless, if you only knew what it felt
+like!  But you're too damned self-contained to understand.  You simply
+sneer till I want to hit the look off your face.  I wonder whether any
+woman ever warmed your fish-blood, and set your pulses beating a
+fraction of a second quicker!"
+
+"You seem to forget my violent partiality of this evening," Lawless
+returned sarcastically.
+
+"Pshaw!  It's no bread-and-butter miss who'll set your veins on fire."
+And then, the man having a kink in his nature which made him peculiarly
+evil, he added: "It's quite a safe game, though.  There are no
+interfering male relations.  The mother is the widow of a wool-merchant.
+They're not well off; and she'd welcome a wealthy son-in-law.
+Incidentally, there is no reason why a man shouldn't amuse himself."
+
+"I will make the mother's acquaintance to-night," Lawless answered, and
+struck a match and lighted himself a cigarette.  Van Bleit was sucking
+cachous for the sweetening of his breath.  The smell of musk irritated
+Lawless' nostrils.  "It takes some living up to," he observed drily.
+
+"What does?"
+
+"Being enamoured of a goddess."
+
+"Oh?"  Van Bleit laughed sheepishly.
+
+"In these days, when most women smoke themselves, I should consider such
+precaution unnecessary."
+
+"Women appreciate it," Van Bleit responded.  "It's a tribute of
+masculine homage."
+
+"One of those tributes," Lawless answered, "that cost so little either
+in the way of self-sacrifice or money that men don't mind offering them.
+But love asks bigger things.  That's where the majority of us jib.
+Love is over exacting; we quarrel with it on account of its demands...
+I suppose where a man's love was big enough to understand, it would be
+equal to removing mountains and draining the ocean...  In lesser cases
+it contents itself with sucking sweets."
+
+"You are trying to make out that you know something about it, I
+suppose?"  Van Bleit said, slightly nettled.
+
+Lawless laughed.
+
+"I should never attempt the moving of mountains," he replied.
+
+Mrs Lawless arrived during the extras that followed immediately upon
+the supper dance.  The ball-room was empty, save for a few couples,
+mostly young enthusiasts who preferred to make the most of their
+opportunity when the floor was not so crowded, and to sup later when the
+refreshment-room too had thinned, and the faithful Van Bleit.  He
+insisted upon taking her in to supper.  She had come with the Smythes;
+and she turned to Mrs Smythe at the mention of supper and lifted
+protesting shoulders.
+
+"One cannot keep on eating," she said.
+
+"Karl can," Mrs Smythe responded.
+
+"I'm famished," he said.  "I've been waiting until you arrived.  In
+fairness to me you must come and see me through."
+
+Smythe pointed to the revolving couples.
+
+"We shan't get seats," he said; "they're crowded out, you see."
+
+"Oh!  I'll find room.  There isn't such a crush as all that."
+
+"Well, you can take the ladies.  There's a limit to human endurance... a
+drink will satisfy me."
+
+"We shall have to go," Mrs Smythe said, slipping a gloved hand within
+Mrs Lawless' arm.  "When I have determined people to deal with I never
+argue.  It is so much less trouble to give in."
+
+Van Bleit conducted his party to the supper-room, and found seats for
+three at a table near the door.
+
+"What a pity Theo didn't come," Mrs Smythe remarked, with a glance at
+the vacant chair on her right.
+
+She looked round the crowded room and nodded to several acquaintances.
+There was a confusion of sound that yet was not noisy,--the hum of talk
+and laughter, the frequent popping of champagne corks, a soft continuous
+rustle of movement, and the clatter of knives and forks.  She glanced
+smilingly across Van Bleit, who was trying to catch the attention of a
+waiter, to where Mrs Lawless sat, leaning forward looking away from her
+towards the next table.
+
+"Zoe, the sight of all these people feeding makes me hungry," she said.
+
+"Of course you're hungry," Van Bleit responded.  "You can't sit up all
+night on nothing."
+
+But Mrs Lawless apparently did not hear.  She was gazing with
+unconscious intensity at a man at the table on the opposite side of the
+opening.  He had his face towards her; but he had seen her entry, and,
+having watched her while he could do so unobserved, he now gave his
+undivided attention to the girl beside him.
+
+Mrs Lawless regarded the girl with critical interest.  There was
+nothing especially remarkable about her in any way.  She was young and
+fresh-looking, and wore a simple white frock, and a pearl necklace the
+beads of which were of a size to open up doubts as to their genuineness
+in an inquiring mind.  Mrs Lawless did not question the pearls; she
+accepted them, as she accepted the peerless youth of the wearer, as
+parts of a whole the effect of which was pleasing.
+
+She turned in response to a question of Van Bleit's as to what she would
+eat, and answered carelessly:
+
+"Oh! anything."
+
+He ordered for the three of them, and then sat back in his seat and
+surveyed the scene at his leisure.  He saw Lawless at the table opposite
+with the girl he had danced with most of the evening; but he made no
+reference to him.  He acknowledged the acquaintance before Mrs Lawless,
+but, remembering what Lawless had told him concerning her disapproval of
+himself, he never admitted intimacy for fear of prejudicing his cause.
+Mrs Smythe, on the other hand, made no concealment of her liking for
+her friend's discredited kinsman.  She did not often speak of him to
+Mrs Lawless, recognising that the subject was rather more painful than
+the ordinary family dispute, but nothing would have given her greater
+pleasure than to assist towards a reconciliation between them.  With
+that end in view she had given Lawless an open invitation to her house,
+thinking that perhaps if occasionally brought together by chance they
+might eventually, if only for the sake of appearance, smooth over their
+differences and close the breach.  Continued feud was the invariable
+result of an exaggerated sense of dignity on both sides, and it was
+old-fashioned.  But Lawless very seldom availed himself of her kindness,
+and had managed his few visits so far when Mrs Lawless had not been
+present.  She more than suspected design in this, and it helped to
+strengthen her belief that the estrangement had originated with him, and
+that he was responsible for its continuation.
+
+"You don't like that chicken," Van Bleit remarked abruptly to Mrs
+Lawless, observing that she was only trifling with the food upon her
+plate.  "Let me send it away and get you something else."
+
+"Please, don't," she remonstrated.  "I've already dined.  I'm just
+keeping you in countenance."
+
+"But that's rotten for you," he expostulated.  "If I had really thought
+it would bore you, I wouldn't have brought you here.  Drink some more
+champagne then, if you won't eat."
+
+"I'm not in the least bored," she replied, flashing a brilliant smile at
+him.  "To eat is not my sole source of amusement.  There is plenty to
+interest me here for an hour, if you are inclined to stay that time."
+
+"I'm not," he returned.  "I'm longing to try the floor.  I've not danced
+yet...  I've been waiting.  You'll give me the first waltz after
+supper?"
+
+She met his bold, eager gaze pensively, her splendid dreamy eyes
+expressing a slight hesitation.
+
+"You know I don't care for dancing," she said.
+
+"Yes, I know.  But... just one waltz!"  He leaned nearer to her.  "You
+won't disappoint me? ...  I have waited through the entire evening for
+this."
+
+She smiled at the extravagance, but faintly, and looked away across the
+crowded room with its numberless small tables, and the gay, careless,
+laughing company that filled them.
+
+"Oh! if you make so much of it!" she said.
+
+Mrs Smythe, who was also gazing about her with more interest in the
+company than in the supper, here interposed with the irrelevant remark:
+
+"I think Colonel Grey is the most distinguished-looking man I know."
+
+Van Bleit grunted.
+
+"Oh!  I know you don't like him, Karl...  It's obvious that the
+antipathy is mutual.  But that doesn't make him any the less interesting
+from a woman's point of view.  What do you think, Zoe?"
+
+"I think he is exactly what you describe him."
+
+Mrs Smythe looked at her in surprise.  It was not the words, but the
+manner in which they were delivered, that arrested her attention.
+
+"You don't like him either," she said.
+
+Mrs Lawless smiled.
+
+"_He_ doesn't like _me_," she corrected.  "And though I find that
+attitude interesting, it does not encourage affection on my side."
+
+"Impossible!"  Van Bleit exclaimed incredulously.  "Dear lady, you must
+be mistaken.  I haven't much of an opinion of him, but he can't be such
+an unappreciative hog."
+
+The man referred to had risen, and, with his supper companion, now
+prepared to leave the room.  They were not the first to make a move; the
+tables had thinned considerably since the entry of Van Bleit's party.
+He paused for a second by Mrs Smythe's chair and spoke to her, and
+bowed to Mrs Lawless.  He did not see Van Bleit.  Neither did he see
+Lawless.  When he passed his table his head was turned towards his
+companion and he was deep in conversation with her.
+
+Van Bleit watched him curiously, and the finely pointed ends of his
+moustache lifted slightly as the lips beneath it smiled.
+
+"He rather overdoes it," he murmured.
+
+"Overdoes what?" his cousin questioned.
+
+Van Bleit looked at her.  He had not, as a matter of fact, intended the
+remark to be heard.
+
+"His diplomacy."
+
+"You are pleased to be cryptic," Mrs Smythe returned.
+
+He suddenly laughed.
+
+"I must have made my meaning very obscure when you're not on it," he
+said.  "I was merely criticising the fellow's habit of ignoring the
+people it doesn't suit him to see.  But come...  Shall we go?  You are
+neither of you eating, and I don't care to feed alone."
+
+Lawless rose when they did, and, with his partner on his arm, followed
+them to the ball-room.  The band was playing an extra, a waltz.  He
+passed his arm around his companion's waist and joined the throng of
+dancers, whose numbers momentarily increased as the supper-room emptied
+itself of diners.
+
+Van Bleit was waltzing with Mrs Lawless.  He had persuaded her to try
+the floor when it was not so crowded; but before the dance was far
+advanced the room had filled surprisingly, and dancing became difficult.
+A slight block occurred in one corner, and Van Bleit found himself held
+up temporarily with his partner, so closely wedged that he had much ado
+to keep the crowd from pressing on her.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said.  "When we get out of this we'll find a seat
+somewhere outside."
+
+Mrs Lawless did not answer him.  She was conscious of an arm pressing
+against her shoulder, pressing hard, and, looking up, met fully the keen
+grey piercing eyes of the man whom before that night she had not seen
+since the afternoon when he had called upon her at her house in
+Rondebosch.  The arm, the shoulder of which pressed her shoulder,
+belonged to him.  It encircled the girl who had sat beside him during
+supper, the girl in the white frock with the string of pearls about her
+neck.  She leant against him, laughing, flushed, and happy, her eager
+eyes alight with excitement.  It was all enjoyment to her; the crush
+with that strong arm to shield her was part of the fun.
+
+Mrs Lawless scarcely noticed the girl; she looked above her, and for a
+long moment gazed back into the sombre dominating eyes, the owner of
+which surveyed her as he might have surveyed a stranger, with an intense
+yet aloof curiosity.  In the quiet, steady, concentrated look he bent
+upon her, and in his grave, unsmiling face, there was an amount of
+interest, even of admiration, but no outward sign of recognition.  The
+initiative, Mrs Lawless realised, was with her.  She smiled faintly, a
+smile that was half-diffident, half-wistful; and then suddenly the crowd
+swayed, parted, and moved forward again; and Van Bleit steered his
+partner between the revolving couples to the nearest exit.
+
+"What a beastly squeeze," he said, when they emerged into the fresh air.
+"I'm afraid you will blame me for letting you in for that."
+
+Mrs Lawless sat down on a settee on the stoep.  She was flushed and a
+little breathless; but it was not owing to the crush in the ball-room;
+she had been so well guarded that she had scarcely felt the
+inconvenience of the crowd.  She looked at Van Bleit, and there was a
+gleam that was almost triumphant in her eyes.
+
+"I'm not blaming you...  As an experience, I enjoyed it," she said, and
+laughed.
+
+She put up a hand to her shoulder.  She could still feel the impression
+of a man's sleeve against her flesh.  It had pressed hard.  The man had
+stood like a rock, immovable and as firm; there had been no give in the
+shoulder that had, as it were, set itself against hers.  In all
+probability, she decided, there was a red mark upon her arm.  If Van
+Bleit had not been present she would have made an examination.
+
+"I wish you would go and find me a wrap," she asked him suddenly.  "I
+brought one with me.  It isn't altogether wise to sit here without after
+getting so hot dancing."
+
+And when he had gone she moved deliberately into the brighter light that
+streamed forth through the open doorway of the ball-room, and pulling
+her sleeve aside examined the arm.  The mark she had expected to
+discover was there, a faint pink stain upon the whiteness of the soft
+flesh.  She lowered the sleeve over it gently, and her face quivered.
+And yet it was only a small matter that could not have caused her the
+least pain.
+
+"I trust you were not hurt a while since?" a voice addressed her curtly
+from the doorway, and lifting her eyes for the second time that night,
+they encountered the keen gaze of the man who was responsible for the
+injury.  She flushed quickly.
+
+"No," she answered, and hesitated, confused and obviously nervous.
+
+He stepped out on to the stoep.
+
+"Where's your partner?" he asked abruptly.
+
+She explained, and he turned and walked beside her away from the bright
+light and the sight and sound of the dancers.  His own partner had been
+compelled to retire to the dressing-room to have some damage to her
+frock repaired.  She would not be back to finish the dance, which was
+practically finished then; the music was getting faster and faster, and
+so were the hurrying feet.
+
+"Do you care to sit down?" he asked, pausing before a couple of low
+chairs arranged in a sheltered corner of the less-frequented side of the
+stoep.  She seated herself in one, and he took up a position behind the
+second, leaning forward with his arms on the back of it.
+
+"Shall I stay... until Van Bleit returns?" he asked.
+
+"Please do."
+
+She clutched at the arm of her chair, grasping it firmly.  There were so
+many things she wanted to say to this man, and time was so short; at any
+moment they might be interrupted...  The precious moments were slipping
+away...  And he gave her so little help.  His manner was so curt as to
+be almost repellent.
+
+"Do you think it necessary," she asked, "that when we meet it should be
+as strangers--almost enemies?"
+
+"Aren't we that?" he said.  "I understood that I represented both to
+you."
+
+She was silent because his last words had recalled a hard thing she had
+once in the years gone by written to him in an hour of wounded anger: "I
+do not know you...  I think I have never known you.  You are a stranger
+to me, and, I see now, my greatest enemy..."
+
+"It is for you," he added, filling in the pause, "to determine our
+future relations...  I am a little surprised that you should meet me as
+you have done.  And I'm not sure that it wouldn't have been happier for
+both if you had acted differently...  The fires of yesterday are ashes
+on the hearth of to-day...  I don't know how it is with you, but the
+sight of greying embers chills me."
+
+She sat leaning forward, her eyes fixed unseeingly straight before her
+as though they sought to pierce the blackness that lay beyond the stoep.
+Some of the pain and bitterness that was in her heart shone through
+them, so that they looked tortured in the soft glow of the artificial
+lights.  She gripped the arm of her chair more tightly, and, still
+staring into the darkness, said tonelessly:
+
+"With women it is not usual to leave ashes lying on the hearth."
+
+"You sweep them up and throw them away," he answered.  "It is wiser
+so...  One forgets."
+
+"Some do," she rejoined slowly.  "And others--collect their ashes
+carefully and kindle them anew."
+
+He looked at her closely.
+
+"Foolish and futile," he said.  "Ashes can never give forth the glow and
+the heat of unspoilt fuel.  A thing that is dead has served its end.  It
+should then be applied to other uses; for it is impossible that it
+should ever again serve its original purpose."
+
+"If that is your philosophy," she began.
+
+"It is," he interrupted shortly.
+
+"Then with you the ashes remain ashes to despoil the hearth of to-day!"
+
+"I brush them out of sight," he returned lightly.  "I have lived so long
+now amid the dust of such memories that I have learnt to turn my back
+upon the muddle till it no longer inconveniences me..."  He smiled
+cynically, and added: "There was room for a retort there.  You might
+have flung out at me that I have always shown a propensity for turning
+my back."
+
+She winced.  His speech cut her more than he would have believed any
+words of his could wound her.  It was with great difficulty that she
+kept back the tears.
+
+"That wasn't worthy of you," she said.
+
+He reddened suddenly.
+
+"I beg your pardon...  It was an ill-considered remark.  But it's one of
+the memories that sticks closest...  The dust of it lies thick upon
+everything and clouds the rest of life."
+
+She sat back in the depths of her chair and turned her white face up to
+his; a great sadness and a great yearning showed in the beautiful eyes.
+
+"I think you make too much of it," she said...  "The accident of a
+moment!"
+
+"An accident that ruined my career," he returned with great bitterness.
+
+"Not ruined it," she expostulated,--"checked it.  You could have made a
+name and a place for yourself in spite of it."
+
+"And I didn't."
+
+"And you have not," she corrected,--"yet."
+
+He laughed abruptly.
+
+"Think of the time that has been wasted," he said.  "You might have said
+all this to me years ago.  I don't say it would have made any
+difference... unless it were to keep green some corner of my heart.  But
+encouragement to be efficacious should be given when life is hardest,
+not when one has learnt to adapt it to one's needs.  But it's generous
+of you to offer even a belated encouragement.  I don't wish to appear
+ungrateful.  It's more than I have deserved--or, indeed, expected of
+you."
+
+She stretched out a hand and laid it on his arm.
+
+"Don't be bitter, Hugh...  We both have made mistakes."
+
+He looked down at the white glove that rested on his sleeve, and his
+lips tightened.  The arm inside the sleeve was tense.  There was no more
+response than if she had touched instead the stuffed arm of the chair.
+
+"Perhaps," he allowed.  "But we won't add to our mistakes by growing
+sentimental."
+
+She removed her hand without speaking, and sat silent with strained
+face, curiously still and composed.  He watched her in his aloof
+fashion.  If he felt any interest in her beyond the ordinary interest
+that a man experiences in a beautiful woman, he concealed it admirably.
+He betrayed not the slightest regret when Van Bleit came hurrying up to
+them with a light wrap over his arm.  He had had some difficulty in
+finding it.  Mrs Smythe eventually assisted in the search.  He was
+voluble and apologetic.  He shot a suspicious glance at Lawless,
+standing at the back of the chair in the same position, leaning forward
+with his arms on the top of it, and then turned again to the quiet
+figure of the woman who had not spoken after the first smiling word of
+thanks.
+
+"You moved," he said.  "I looked for you where I left you, but the seat
+was unoccupied."
+
+"It was quieter here," she explained.  She rose and stood while Van
+Bleit put the wrap around her shoulders, and, with an exaggerated air of
+devotion, drew it close about her throat.  Lawless bowed to her and
+moved away, making a slow progress along the stoep against the stream of
+dancers, pouring forth from the ball-room in quest of air.
+
+"Gods!" he mused, avoiding the stream mechanically while seeming not to
+see it.  "What a queer trick of fate!  What has brought her out here, I
+wonder? ...  That's what I should like to get at...  What has brought
+her out here?"
+
+When in the early hours of the morning Mrs Lawless appeared on the
+pavement on Van Bleit's arm, Lawless was standing on the kerb beside the
+waiting motor in the act of lighting a cigar.  He tossed away the match,
+and opened the door for her.  Then he raised his hat, and turning
+silently, disappeared into the blackness beyond the lights of the car.
+She turned her head to look after him; but the darkness had swallowed
+the tall figure, and the throbbing of the engine drowned the sound of
+his rapidly retreating steps.
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+Colonel Grey sat alone on his stoep in the darkness and listened, as
+once before he had listened, to the quick, measured step of the man
+whose claim upon his consideration had rested solely on a reputation for
+valour.
+
+The Colonel had believed strongly hitherto in his own discernment.  Now
+he doubted, not only his judgment in human affairs, but his
+qualification for the responsible mission he had undertaken to carry
+successfully through.  Twice he had been mistaken in the persons he had
+employed.  He had paid off the one a month before, and had satisfied
+himself that the boy had taken his passage to Durban, and gone aboard
+with his broken head still encased in bandages, and with more money in
+his pockets than was good for him.  The other case could not be disposed
+of in the same manner.  In so far as their dealings together went, the
+man had given no cause either for satisfaction or complaint.  Up to the
+present nothing definite had been accomplished.  Colonel Grey doubted
+that anything would be accomplished.  He mistrusted his man--the man
+whose reputation for courage he now knew to be spurious,--who was
+further accredited with being a traitor.  The thing stuck in the
+Colonel's mind and inflamed it.  In a quiet, controlled way he was
+furious that he should have been led into having anything to do with the
+scoundrel.  He was impatient to face him, to confound him with the
+knowledge of his disgrace.  He wondered whether the fellow would try to
+bluff it, or if he would cave in...
+
+And then the man he was thinking about arrived, and stepping up to the
+stoep with his firm, decided tread, stood before him, as he had stood on
+the night of their first meeting, looking at him inquiringly with those
+strangely penetrating, inscrutable grey eyes.
+
+"You sent for me," he said briefly, and waited to learn the reason of
+the summons.
+
+The other man rose without speaking, and led the way into the house,
+closing the French windows behind them as he had done before.
+
+"You are sure you were not followed?" he asked, as he drew a chair out
+from the table and seated himself.
+
+"I think not.  I saw no one."
+
+"Ah! ...  I fancied I heard footsteps in the road."
+
+"You have good ears," Lawless answered.  "I heard nothing, and I was on
+the alert."
+
+Colonel Grey regarded him attentively.  It was an extraordinary thing,
+but the sight of the purposeful face, with the steady eyes, and the
+deep, slanting scar, was strangely reassuring.  Unaccountably, he felt
+his resentment dying.  Against his reason, against his volition, he had
+a liking for the man.  In face of his liking the charges against him
+seemed monstrous.  It was almost incredible that he should have been
+cashiered from the Army for cowardice--"misbehaviour in the Field in the
+face of the enemy," that was the wording of the indictment.  He had
+received the information from an unquestionable source.  Through the
+same channel he had learnt that subsequently, under another name, he had
+taken up arms against his country.  The first was a grave enough offence
+in the Colonel's opinion, the second was unpardonable.
+
+"Have you no news for me?" he asked abruptly, sitting very straight in
+his chair, his brows drawn fiercely together while he watched his
+companion from under them with a curiously intent gaze.  "It is many
+weeks since we met."
+
+Lawless leant back negligently, his knees crossed, one arm, with the
+hand lying loosely open, resting on the table.  At his last remark he
+looked over at the speaker in his quick, direct way, and said:
+
+"I supposed that was why you had summoned me.  You've been wondering
+what I have been doing with your time and your money...  Well, not
+much...  I've learnt one thing, that Van Bleit carries the papers on his
+person for their greater safety, and a loaded revolver for his own.
+Apart from that we are not more forward."
+
+"You've no plan for getting the packet from him?"
+
+"Not so far.  The fellow does not give me a chance.  If I spent
+forty-eight hours beneath the same roof with him, I'd manage it...  Of
+course, I could get hold of what you want at any time if I chose to kill
+the brute; but I've a strong disinclination to swing for him."
+
+"Yes."  Colonel Grey looked thoughtful.  "That wouldn't do," he said.
+"No! ...  We don't want murder done...  Risky...  And awkward too...
+afterwards... too many questions asked."
+
+There was silence between them for a space.  Inside the room a
+death-watch ticked loudly against the wainscot, and without a large
+white moth beat with futile insistence upon the window-pane in its
+endeavours to reach the light.  The noise of its soft body thudding
+against the glass drew Colonel Grey's attention to the fact that the
+blinds were not drawn.  He rose promptly and lowered them.
+
+"Quite unnecessary," Lawless observed.  "I saw to it when I took this
+seat that no one, unless he stood on the stoep and stared deliberately
+in at the window, could see me sitting here."
+
+The Colonel wheeled round and faced him.
+
+"Your forethought is quite extraordinary," he said, "for a novice at the
+game."
+
+The other laughed carelessly.
+
+"During an adventurous life," he replied, "I've had rogues to deal with
+before."
+
+The speech, as the Colonel heard it, was almost a challenge.  His mind
+reverted to the serious indictment against this man who sat there so
+coolly, with the half-derisive smile lingering on the thin, handsome
+face; and the fierce feeling of indignation against him surged up
+afresh.  He walked deliberately back to his seat and sat down.
+
+"Yours has certainly been no ordinary career," he said bluntly.  "For
+the honour of my countrymen, I'm glad to think that is so...  You will
+be less surprised at my taking this tone when I tell you that I have
+received information concerning you of a very unsatisfactory nature.
+Subsequent to our first meeting I instituted inquiries relative to
+certain matters we touched upon at that interview.  The reply to those
+inquiries reached me by last mail."
+
+"Yes."  Lawless did not change his lounging attitude, but his face
+hardened perceptibly, and his voice rang like steel.  "After our talk I
+supposed you would," he said.  "The only thing that surprised me was
+that you didn't pursue your inquiries before making arrangements with
+me."
+
+"That was where I made my mistake," the Colonel replied stiffly.
+
+"And how do you purpose rectifying that? ...  Do you think that the
+charges against me, as you have heard them, unfit me for the dirty work
+you have given me to do?  I've had some strange billets in my time, and
+this, in my opinion, is the least honourable of all.  A case of
+blackmail that can't be entrusted to the proper authorities is a
+precious shady business."
+
+"There are reasons," the Colonel began, and stopped suddenly.  Why
+should he attempt explanations?  Whatever the business, the employment
+was worthy the man.
+
+"Well, no matter!"  Lawless said.  "Let that pass.  But I should like to
+hear what you have against me...  When it is one's misfortune to only
+win notoriety through misdeeds it is interesting to know the limit of
+such publicity...  What part of my record have you?"
+
+"I have no interest in your affairs, Mr Lawless, beyond your one-time
+connection with the Army," Colonel Grey answered quietly.  "When you
+informed me you had been cashiered, I was curious to know the reason.  I
+am now in possession of the details, and the further discreditable
+information that you sold your sword arm to the enemies of your
+country...  Have you anything to say to that charge?"
+
+"Nothing...  Your information is quite correct."
+
+"Then, sir, I will tell you to your face you are a damned traitor."
+
+The Colonel was leaning forward in his excitement, his arm stretched out
+along the table.  The man he addressed, and thus deliberately insulted,
+drew himself up straighter, his face set and stern, a cold glint in the
+steel-grey eyes that narrowed dangerously as they met the other's angry
+gaze.
+
+"I can excuse your heat, sir," he replied with amazing control, "in
+consideration of your ignorance of the circumstances.  Had things been
+otherwise, and it had been my privilege to criticise another's disgrace,
+I should probably have made use of the same forcible language that you
+give utterance to...  When we have been through the mire we recognise a
+different quality in the mud.  Men have been reduced to the ranks for
+the misdemeanour for which I was dismissed the Service...  Had I been
+reduced to the ranks I should have made a good soldier.  My punishment,
+I contend, was unjust."
+
+"By which specious reasoning, I presume, you excuse the crime of
+treachery, and seek to justify a spirit of revenge?--or gain, was it?"
+
+Lawless frowned.
+
+"I make no excuses," he returned curtly.  "I don't recognise that my
+actions need condoning.  And I did not join the Boers' side with thought
+either of revenge or gain..."
+
+He halted abruptly, and, for the first time taking his eyes off the
+other's face, stared hard at the unshaded lamp.
+
+"It appears," the Colonel interposed drily, "that you were actuated by
+blind impulse."
+
+Lawless drummed on the table with his fingers and said nothing.  He felt
+strangely annoyed.  And yet he had known positively that the facts must
+come to this man's knowledge before long.  In the circumstances it was
+little likely that he would make no inquiries concerning one he had
+employed in a secret and confidential matter.  That he regretted his
+haste in having employed him was obvious.  It was the term traitor that
+stuck in the Colonel's gorge.  He found it particularly distasteful to
+hold further intercourse with one so steeped in dishonour.
+
+"Perhaps it would be as well to bury the past," he said with an effort
+after a while.  "In the lives of many men there are matters which it is
+not profitable to discuss.  I can only add that I wish I had known of
+this before."
+
+Lawless got upon his feet, and stood stiffly upright, his face grim, and
+colourless under the sunburn, like the face of a man whose blood is at
+white heat with hardly repressed passion.
+
+"Am I to understand that you dispense with my services?" he asked
+curtly.
+
+Colonel Grey was somewhat slow in replying.  Discretion weighed in the
+balance against a strong personal objection to working with the man, and
+won.
+
+"I don't know as to that," he replied at last uncertainly.  "We've gone
+so far...  You have a dangerous knowledge...  I prefer to have you on
+our side."
+
+"I see."  Lawless' manner was icy.  "Then, you mean me to go on with the
+job?"
+
+"Yes, I think so...  Yes! ...  I do."
+
+"You don't ask me whether I am satisfied to go on with it."
+
+His hearer's eyebrows went up with a jerk.
+
+"Why shouldn't you?" he asked, surprised.  "You're well paid."
+
+"True!  The pay's good.  It would be absurd to throw away good money for
+a scruple..."
+
+"I was under the impression that you had buried your scruples," the
+other answered, and was amazed at the sudden passion that blazed in the
+sombre eyes.
+
+"Never in my life before have I permitted a man to insult me as you have
+insulted me," was the angry reply.  "I've swallowed as much as I intend
+to swallow...  Whatever you have learnt concerning my past does not
+invest you with the right of insulting me."
+
+"Your complaint is quite reasonable," Colonel Grey returned with a
+certain quiet dignity that partially disarmed the other's math.  "I have
+allowed my feelings to lead me away.  I regret it.  Will you please be
+seated, Mr Lawless?  There are one or two things which I wish to say to
+you, if you are satisfied to go on with this business."
+
+He paused deliberately; and, after a moment's hesitation, Lawless sat
+down.
+
+"In the first place," he added, when Lawless was again occupying the
+chair from which he had risen, "I think we should have a time limit for
+the carrying out of this enterprise.  Is that agreeable to you?"
+
+"Perfectly," came the brief response.
+
+"Then, suppose we say six months...  How does that strike you?"
+
+"It's fair enough."
+
+"You haven't any suggestion of your own to make on that head?"
+
+"None...  Only I shall get the papers before six months are up."
+
+"You are very confident," the Colonel said.
+
+Lawless looked thoughtful.
+
+"I take a peculiar personal interest in this affair," he said.  "If I
+did not I should not go on with it...  I told you I would get those
+papers for you, or kill your man...  I mean to do one or the other--or
+both."
+
+Colonel Grey scrutinised him earnestly.  His lips parted as though he
+would say something, and then shut with a snap on the unspoken words.
+Lawless sat up suddenly.
+
+"There isn't any use in your seeing me," he said.  "Give me my head, the
+funds to go on with for a few months, and then leave the matter in my
+hands.  You shall have those papers...  It's not that I take a
+particular interest in them, or in your client, but it pleases me to do
+this thing.  When I make up my mind to carry a thing through I do it.
+You may call that tall talking--but it amounts simply to this, that I
+hold life cheaply; the only law I recognise is the unwritten law.  I've
+lived among the social outcasts--I'm one of them, and so, perhaps, I am
+well suited to carry through a matter that is outside the law.  You
+don't trust me...  Because of what you have heard you doubt even that I
+have the courage which this affair may demand.  It's natural that you
+should doubt.  But if you can bring yourself to accept my word, this
+matter is safe in my hands."
+
+There was a long silence.  Then the Colonel spoke abruptly, and, as it
+sounded, greatly against his inclination.  But in spite of himself, in
+spite of all the evidence against him, he liked and trusted this man.
+Perhaps the fact that he had not attempted to explain, or to excuse an
+inexcusable crime, prejudiced him favourably.
+
+"I do accept your word," he said bluntly.  "I confess I have entertained
+misgivings...  That is hardly surprising, I think, considering how much
+is at stake.  But I'll take your word, Mr Lawless...  And I accept your
+conditions.  When you have anything of importance to communicate you
+will let me hear from you..."
+
+When Lawless got back to his hotel that night he was astonished to find
+a visitor waiting for him--a woman.  She had been shown into a private
+room.  The hour was unusual, so were the circumstances; but the
+management had no wish to offend so good a client as Lawless; therefore
+the lady was, after a little difficulty, admitted; and Lawless on his
+return was discreetly informed of her presence.  He received the
+information in silence, betraying none of the astonishment that moved
+him, which was considerable.  He could not for the life of him imagine
+who the lady could be.
+
+He was no wiser on entering the room where she was.  She was a tall
+woman of commanding presence, very fashionably dressed--almost too
+fashionably to suggest a perfect taste.  There was--Lawless was quick to
+observe it--the unmistakable stamp of the demi-mondaine about her.  She
+looked round as he entered and closed the door behind him, and then very
+slowly got up from the sofa on which she had been seated.  Her movements
+were extraordinarily languid for a woman of such splendid physique, and
+less graceful than deliberately sensuous, Lawless decided.  Something
+about the woman stirred a chord of memory in his mind, as he stood
+critically surveying her with a look of cool inquiry in his eyes.  The
+figure was vaguely familiar.  The face he could not see; she was so
+heavily veiled that he could only trace a shadowy outline of her
+features.
+
+"This is an unexpected honour," he said, with ironical politeness.  "May
+I ask to what I am indebted, and to whom, for this amazing
+condescension?"
+
+She held out a pair of well-gloved hands towards him.
+
+"You have forgotten... so soon?" she said in a low voice, the deep tones
+of which sounded nervously tremulous.
+
+"I've a memory no longer and no shorter than most men's," he retorted,
+not touching the outstretched hands.  "If you'd raise your veil..."
+
+She put up one hand to the dense folds that concealed her face, but she
+did not lift them.  She waited, looking at him through their disfiguring
+thickness with wide, smiling, observant eyes.
+
+"And this is your welcome after all this while! ... your welcome to
+_me_! ...  No wonder those tiresome people downstairs were so reluctant
+to admit me! ...  I only got round them by telling them I was your
+wife."
+
+"The devil you did!" ejaculated Lawless.
+
+He did not speak loudly His voice had dropped to a low note of caution.
+He approached nearer.  Astonishment had driven the irony out of his
+eyes, and left in its stead an expression of strong curiosity.
+
+"Oh, Hughie!" she said reproachfully...  "To think that you could
+forget..."
+
+Lawless seized her by the arm.  Then quickly, almost roughly, he lifted
+the disguising veil and stared hard into the handsome, painted face,
+with the smiling vermilion lips, and the mocking eyes.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed, and fell back a step or two in sheer
+amazement.
+
+The woman laughed suddenly.
+
+"I thought I should surprise you, Hughie," she said.
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+It is a generally accepted fact that the social life of the Colonies is
+less conventional than the social life of England.  It is broader in
+outlook, wider in sympathy, not less critical, perhaps, but certainly
+more understanding.  This is to be accounted for by the continual
+inpouring of fresh blood, the infusion of fresh ideas.  The Colonies
+adapt themselves more readily to change than the older civilisation;
+they represent a younger, more vigorous generation, and, if behind the
+mother country in many respects, are ahead of her in others of quite
+vital importance.  But though life in South Africa is unconventional,
+strenuous, and--as is inevitable in a land that attracts to its shores
+the more ardent and adventurous spirits--more impulsive, more passionate
+and unrestrained, it has its fixed code of morality, and the man or
+woman who defies its laws must be prepared to accept the reward of
+ostracism.
+
+Lawless' sudden leap to popularity suffered an equally sudden rebound
+when it became apparent how utterly contemptuous he was of public
+opinion, as it concerned his private life.  His life became an open
+scandal.  The woman who had visited him at his hotel late one night was
+installed in rooms that he had taken for her, and regularly every day he
+visited her, and frequently took her driving in the public
+thoroughfares.  The women of his acquaintance cut him, and not a few of
+the men.  His behaviour was too flagrant to be passed over.  Van Bleit
+alone was interested and sympathetic.  He coveted an introduction to his
+friend's handsome inamorata, and on occasions when he deemed it quite
+safe put himself deliberately in the way.  But Lawless was blind to
+these devices.  He cared neither for the disapproval of the many, nor
+for Van Bleit's furtive approbation.  He was entirely indifferent to
+outside criticism.  It pleased him to do this thing, and he did it.
+Society had not treated him so well as to give it a right to be
+exacting; and, in any case, he had no intention of considering it in
+this or any other matter.
+
+There were two women in Cape Town who were most unhappily affected by
+this sordid intrigue, Mrs Lawless, and the girl who had made a hero of
+the man, and who worshipped him with the extravagance of a youthful,
+unsophisticated mind.  For a long while Julie Weeber refused to admit
+that there was anything unusual in Lawless' friendship with the handsome
+demi-mondaine; but in her heart she was jealous of the friendship, and
+when she saw them together she hated the woman with the complacently
+smiling, painted lips, and the mocking eyes.  Her distress was primarily
+due to the knowledge that by his actions he was separating himself from
+her.  She would have condoned anything for the gratification of seeing
+and talking with him occasionally.  But intercourse was out of the
+question; not only did her mother assert that she would neither receive
+him in future nor permit her daughters to acknowledge him, but Lawless
+himself held aloof.  Once when she passed him in the street driving with
+the woman, although she knew he had seen her, he deliberately turned his
+face aside.  It wounded the girl deeply.
+
+"Why should he treat me like that?" she asked herself passionately...
+"It isn't fair to me."
+
+She encountered him again a few days later.  He was alone, walking
+towards the city.  Julie had been to see a friend some distance out, and
+was cycling homeward when she overtook him.  It was evening.  The sun
+had dipped below the horizon; where it had disappeared the sky still
+glowed with changing colours that paled perceptibly before the oncome of
+precipitate night which in Africa follows rapidly on the path of the
+vanished day.  A shaft of the fading colour in the sky glanced
+earthwards and glowed in Julie Weeber's cheeks when she recognised the
+solitary pedestrian striding along the middle of the road.  She
+slackened speed as she drew near to him, and glanced swiftly about her.
+No one was in sight, not even a Kaffir; though had a crowd been there to
+witness her actions she would probably have behaved in exactly the same
+way.  She pedalled her machine alongside the tall, familiar figure, and
+slipped to the ground.  Lawless glanced round.  He looked surprised, he
+also looked--Julie observed it--pleased.
+
+"How do you do?" she said, deliberately holding out her hand.  "Isn't it
+a beautiful evening?"
+
+He smiled involuntarily at this determined effort at conversation, and
+answered that such was his opinion also.
+
+"Are you walking into town?" she asked.  "I am, too."
+
+"You mean, you are riding," he corrected.
+
+"I'm not," the girl returned imperturbably.  "I hate cycling against the
+wind.  I only stuck to my machine because it's lonely walking by
+oneself."
+
+"In that case," he said, stepping behind her and relieving her of the
+charge of the cycle, "you must let me wheel this."
+
+Julie walked along beside him for a few yards without speaking.  Then
+abruptly she turned her face towards him.  He was looking down at the
+machine, a very old one with well-worn tyres and rusty handlebars of a
+pattern quite out of date.  His face was grave and somewhat preoccupied.
+
+"You cut me the other day in Adderly Street," she said bluntly...  "You
+saw me..."
+
+"Yes," he admitted.
+
+It did not seem to occur to him to turn the speech aside.  During their
+brief, but rapid, acquaintance they had always been extraordinarily
+frank with one another.
+
+"Why did you?" she asked almost fiercely.  "It wasn't kind."
+
+"In that I differ from you," he replied.  "It was the only kind act I
+have ever performed towards you."
+
+A pained flush leapt to her cheeks.  She looked away from him down the
+dusty road, along a vista of flowering gum trees, with eyes that were
+clouded and misty and rebellious, and a mind that for all its
+youthfulness dimly discerned his meaning.
+
+"I thought we were--friends," she said falteringly.
+
+And then he made use of one of the remarks that were responsible for the
+development of her understanding.
+
+"There is no such thing as friendship between the sexes."
+
+The flush in her cheeks deepened.  There was a strained air of
+embarrassment about her, noticeable even in her walk.
+
+"And so... you don't wish to know me?" she said with an effort.
+
+"My dear child!"  He looked at her earnestly.  "It's not a matter in
+which I am entitled to consider my wishes."
+
+"And what of mine?" she asked in a low voice that was tremulous, as
+though the speaker were on the verge of tears.
+
+He looked down awkwardly, and fidgeted with the handle of the brake.
+
+"I don't consider that I am entitled to consult your wishes either," he
+replied.  "My friendship, according to the accepted standard, is neither
+good nor safe for you...  Haven't you been so informed?"
+
+"Yes," she answered, and added sullenly: "I don't care...  I want your
+friendship more than I want anything.  It has meant so much to me...
+And I miss... things so.  You never come to the house now...  You never
+go anywhere."
+
+"No," he returned briefly.
+
+There was silence between them for a while.  Then suddenly Julie put out
+a hand and touched his hand where it hung at his side.
+
+"You won't--cut me again?" she pleaded.
+
+"No," he answered as briefly as before, but in a kinder tone with a ring
+of determination in it that carried conviction.
+
+"I want to see you sometimes," she said... "to talk with you sometimes.
+I know that I'm not intellectual, that I'm undeveloped and silly, and
+altogether too young to be companionable to you; but you have taken
+pleasure in my society--you have," she exclaimed with vehemence,
+"haven't you?"
+
+"Yes," he acknowledged, "I have...  I do.  And it's just because of that
+I deem it best to let the thing end."
+
+"Oh no!" she cried quickly...  "No!"
+
+"When you talk like that," he said, smiling at her pleasantly, "you
+convince me that my judgment is right...  Oh! don't worry," he added in
+response to a quick gesture of protest; "I'm not going to rely on
+anything so stodgy.  I'm going to follow inclination.  Remain my dear
+little friend...  If there is no great good to you in it, there shall be
+no great harm in it either...  And, in any case, it won't matter much...
+I am going away shortly."
+
+"Going away!" she echoed blankly.  "Leaving Cape Town, do you mean?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She turned to him with a swift abandonment that proved how strong was
+the influence he already exerted over her, and with white face, and
+distressful, tear-filled eyes, cried out--
+
+"Oh! don't go! don't go! ...  Or--couldn't you--take me with you?"
+
+He came to an abrupt standstill, and leaning towards her, with his hand
+resting on the saddle of the cycle, looked steadily into the shamed,
+young, piteous face.  His look brought the colour flaming back into the
+white cheeks.
+
+"Ah! now you think me unwomanly," she said, and her voice shook
+pitifully...  "You won't like me any more..."
+
+"My dear!" he replied, "you are talking nonsense."
+
+Her head drooped lower and lower like a flower that is beaten down in a
+storm.  She stared down at the strong, sunburnt hand gripping the
+saddle, and the slow tears overflowed and fell, big, shining drops, into
+the dust of the road.  She made no effort to stay them or to wipe them
+away; and the man, watching her with his keen, observant eyes, was
+stirred with an unwonted sense of compassion, and a swift self-hatred
+because of what he had in idle selfishness done.
+
+"If you knew me for what I am," he said gravely, "you would not honour
+me with your friendship.  I'm not the hero your fancy has painted.  A
+man rates himself at a higher valuation usually than his deserts, but as
+high as I can place the standard it leaves me still unworthy of your
+regard."
+
+"And you don't feel... contempt for me?" she faltered.
+
+"No...  The only contempt I feel is for myself."  He held out his hand
+to her.  "We are coming to the more frequented part," he said.  "I would
+prefer that you mounted and rode into town."
+
+She gave him her hand shyly, but still she hesitated.
+
+"You promise not to withdraw your friendship?" she pleaded.  "I--I don't
+know what I should do if--if you wouldn't let me be--just a friend."
+
+Her eyes as well as her voice implored him; they dragged a reluctant
+consent from his lips.  When she had mounted and cycled out of his
+sight, turning at the bend of the road to wave him a last farewell, he
+regretted that he had allowed his better judgment to be overruled by her
+girlish pleading.  Public opinion was right in this instance; there was
+danger in the friendship.  There had been danger for the girl from the
+beginning; since intercourse in the future could only be by stealth that
+danger was considerably increased.  The secret friendship of a young
+girl for a man of notorious character must be disastrous in its results
+even if the man act towards her honourably according to his lights.
+
+When Lawless reached his hotel he found two letters waiting for him in
+the rack.  He carried them to his room.  The first, so ill-written as to
+be scarcely legible, was signed "Tottie."  The writer stated that she
+was bored to death, and commanded him to come round and amuse her.  The
+second was also in the nature of a command.  It was very short--only one
+line.
+
+"Will you come to see me?--Zoe."
+
+He read the second note twice, and then remained for a long while
+motionless with the letter in his hand, staring at the big, firm
+characters thoughtfully, his brows puckered in a heavy frown.  Why had
+she written to him? ...  Why should she wish to see him, when all
+self-respecting women held their skirts aside? ...  The frown deepened.
+He was baffled by the very simplicity of the brief message, the meaning
+of which was so purely conjectural and obscure.  He read the note for
+the third time, seeking enlightenment from a greater familiarity with
+the words.  But the purpose of the message still eluded him.  He could
+not imagine what was in the writer's mind to move her to pen such a
+note.  It was inconsistent with her attitude in the past.  He felt
+strangely irritated, even suspicious, as he stared at the sheet of paper
+in his hand.  It was a little late in the day for her to think of
+starting an "influence."
+
+He seated himself at a writing-table in a corner of the room and
+answered the note.  His reply was laconic in its brevity.  "No," he
+wrote, and signed it simply, "H.L."  Then he addressed it and slipped it
+into the pocket of his coat with the idea of posting it himself.  She
+would probably expect him that evening, he decided, and smiled
+ironically, thinking of the writer of the other letter, who was also
+expecting him, and whom he had no intention to disappoint.  In the
+morning she would receive the answer to her note; then she would
+understand.
+
+But the answer was not posted.  Lawless was delayed as he was leaving
+the hotel; when later he set forth his mood had changed, and he tore the
+reply he had written into fragments and scattered them on the pavement,
+to be further scattered by the boisterous wind that swept them into
+corners, only to dislodge them and scatter them anew.  A few of the
+fragments fluttered under his feet as he strode along.  He trod them
+heavily underfoot and walked on.  Would she conclude from his silence
+that he would obey the summons? ...  He was not quite sure whether by
+his action in destroying his answer he meant to accede to her wish, or
+simply to ignore it.  A strong curiosity as to her reason for wishing to
+see him strove against his disinclination to comply with the request.
+Finally he decided to leave the matter in abeyance.  If the humour took
+him he would go to her the following day.  But the humour did not take
+him.  The next day came and passed, and the note remained in his pocket
+still unanswered.
+
+Mrs Lawless waited at home each day in the hope of his coming, and
+denied herself to other visitors.  On the third day she made an
+exception in favour of Mrs Smythe.
+
+"I came to inquire if you were ill," Mrs Smythe exclaimed as she
+entered the drawing-room.  "You were not at the Frenches' the other
+evening, and we missed you yesterday at the Admiral's At Home.  You
+aren't ill, Zoe...  I don't think I ever saw you look better."
+
+She surveyed her friend critically.  There was no indication of
+ill-health in the dark splendour of Zoe Lawless' face, nor in the
+graceful, beautiful body, but in the sun-flecked eyes was a hint of
+sadness which Mrs Smythe detected.
+
+"You are tired," she said.
+
+"No."  Mrs Lawless drew her to the sofa and sat down beside her...  "At
+least not physically tired," she added...  "I'm feeling old.  I'm
+thirty-three to-day, Kate."  She lifted the dark hair at her temples.
+"Grey hairs there already, plenty of them.  I spent some time this
+morning pulling them out, until it occurred to me as rather trivial...
+and futile, too.  It's like stripping the red leaves from the trees in
+autumn in a poor pretence that the summer is not past...  It only
+advances winter."
+
+"My dear girl!"  Mrs Smythe said briskly, "when you are sixty-three you
+will be privileged to talk like that...  Don't say too much about your
+age; I'm thirty-five."
+
+Zoe laughed, and as suddenly grew grave again.
+
+"With you age doesn't signify," she said.  "You've had your years, and
+lived them, and each one has brought its past year's satisfaction; but
+with me there has been waste."  She leant back against the cushions,
+with one arm flung out over the head of the sofa.  "The years that the
+locusts have eaten!" ... she murmured...  "It's when you have let the
+locusts eat into the precious years that you feel the bitterness of the
+loss of the golden hours.  If I'd had my golden hours--if I'd enjoyed
+them, I shouldn't feel sorrowful at the coming of silver hairs.  Youth
+that is wasted is like a day when the sunshine has been obscured by
+clouds.  Towards evening the clouds pass, and the sun shines forth,
+perhaps, for a few minutes before it sets.  But the clouds have spoilt
+the morning and rendered the tardy radiance ineffectual...  The time has
+passed."
+
+"Your philosophy would be less painful if it were not so
+incontrovertible," Mrs Smythe returned quietly.  "But if there has been
+waste, Zoe, isn't it adding to it to spend the hours mourning over those
+already gone?  It would be far more sensible if you were to get out of
+that ridiculously becoming tea-gown and come out driving with me.  I'm
+not surprised at your depression if you have spent the last few days
+dwelling on uncomfortable things."
+
+Mrs Lawless smiled faintly.
+
+"It's not so bad as that," she answered.  "I'm a creature of moods.  Had
+you called yesterday you would have found me quite cheerful."
+
+"Then I'm glad that my visit has fitted in with the heavier mood.
+Cheerfulness needs no distraction.  Change your gown, Zoe, and come out
+with me."
+
+Mrs Lawless shook her head in response to her friend's inquiring look.
+Her fingers were playing absently with one of the heavy tassels of a
+sofa cushion, twisting and pulling at it, and entwining themselves with
+the silky strands.  She looked down at the tassel pensively, and at the
+busy fingers fidgeting with it continually as though their purposeless
+occupation held an interest for her.
+
+"Thank you for suggesting it," she said slowly.  "I would have been glad
+to go; but I am expecting Mr Lawless."
+
+Mrs Smythe stared at her.  Amazement bereft her of her customary tact.
+
+"Expecting him! ... this afternoon?...  Why, my dear, I passed him
+driving with--"
+
+She came to an abrupt halt, and gazed at her quiet companion with
+dismayed and apologetic eyes.
+
+"His mistress," Zoe finished for her, looking up.  "You needn't mind
+saying it...  I have accustomed myself to the idea.  He may not come
+this afternoon, of course...  But--I think I prefer to stay at home."
+
+Mrs Smythe was silent for a while.
+
+"I never was so disappointed in anyone in my life as I am in him," she
+remarked at length.
+
+Zoe's big eyes showed a faint surprise.
+
+"No!" she said.
+
+"Aren't you disappointed in him?"  Mrs Smythe asked wonderingly.
+
+"Oh!  I don't know..."  She sat up suddenly.  "I try not to think of
+it," she said...  "It's another instance of waste... waste and failure.
+All the years I've known him--"
+
+She looked at the other woman, and her eyes softened.  "Perhaps if he
+had felt the influence of a good woman he might have made a better thing
+of life."
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+Mrs Lawless stood on the stoep in the fading light and watched her
+friend drive away.  In the east the intense blue of the sky had deepened
+to purple, and here and there a pale star lay, like a jewel in its azure
+setting, ready to adorn the sombre robes of night.  The light breeze had
+dropped at sundown.  There was no stir, no movement anywhere, no sound
+to awake the stillness.  The strong scent of many flowers perfumed the
+languid, sensuous air which as yet gave no sign of the near approach of
+winter... if there can be any winter in a land where there is always
+sunshine, where the trees never bare their branches, and the flowers are
+ever in bloom.
+
+She leaned her arms on the broad rail, and stared unseeingly before her
+through the foliage of the mimosa trees into the blue distance.  The
+expression of her face was troubled, and a gleam of resentment shone in
+the proud eyes.  So her summons was to be disregarded!  His mistress
+claimed all his leisure, and he had no time to spare for anyone else.
+She had waited in three days in the hope that he would come, had spent
+three lonely evenings so that if he chose to call on her at night he
+would find her ready to receive him.  And he had neither come nor sent a
+message.  She had almost ceased to expect him, had almost ceased to wish
+to see him.  The mood that had moved her to write to him had passed.
+She felt cold now, and indifferent; and the futility of the task she had
+thought to undertake struck her in a new and more forcible light.  Was
+it worth it? ...  Was she not wasting time that might be more profitably
+employed? ...  Was she not harrowing her feelings to no purpose?
+
+She went indoors and sat down at the piano and played to herself.  She
+was a brilliant pianist, and it was a custom of long standing to soothe
+herself with music when her mind was disturbed.  It was in her sad
+moments--occasionally also in her moods of anger--that she oftenest
+played.
+
+The light outside faded; it grew dark in the room.  A native entered,
+lighted the shaded lamps, and noiselessly retired.  Zoe Lawless played
+on.  She did not hear the ring at the bell that followed shortly on the
+servant's exit; she was not aware that anyone had come until the door
+was thrown open by the same quiet servitor, who ushered in Mr Lawless,
+and then again retired and closed the door behind him.
+
+Mrs Lawless turned slowly on the stool, and then stood up.  She gave
+the visitor no greeting, and, beyond a slight bow, he made no move to
+greet her either.  But he looked at her curiously as she stood facing
+him, and she observed with failing courage that his eyes were stern and
+hard.
+
+"I had almost given up expecting you," she said.
+
+"You sent for me," he answered curtly...  "Whenever you send for me I
+will come."
+
+She regarded him long and earnestly.  There was that in his speech
+which, despite the harshness of his manner, inclined her towards a
+softer mood.  She no longer saw the picture which Mrs Smythe had
+unconsciously drawn for her of him driving with his mistress, instead
+she recognised a man whom life had dealt hardly with accepting
+obligations which another man in similar circumstances would have
+ignored.
+
+"Thank you," she said at last gently, and with a faintly wondering
+hesitation.  "I did not know...  I--felt scarcely justified in writing
+my request...  But,"--she put self-consciousness behind her, and spoke
+from her heart simply, and with great earnestness--"I could not look on
+in silence while you deliberately spoilt your life.  You were making
+your way in Cape Town...  You could, if you chose, make it anywhere.
+But you are so indifferent to the world's opinion."
+
+"I have never found the world's opinion especially intelligent," he
+answered bluntly.  "If it were worth studying, I might study it."
+
+"Is it not, rather," she returned unexpectedly, "that you are over prone
+to yield to the influence of the hour? ...  The opinion of others has
+never counted for much with you."
+
+"You are mistaken," he said.  "It is the opinion of others that has made
+me what I am.  In the past I have been far too susceptible of public
+criticism.  Had I been as indifferent as you imagine I should not be the
+failure that you see to-day."
+
+She threw out a protesting hand.
+
+"You always speak as though there was nothing ahead, as though you had
+shuttered all the exits of the soul...  When you talk like that I feel
+that I cannot breathe."
+
+"It's only a first impression," he answered sarcastically; "respiration
+becomes easier when you grow accustomed to the shutters...  There _is_
+nothing ahead.  I reconciled myself to the want of outlook years ago;
+now I adapt,--not myself to circumstances, but circumstances to suit me.
+It's astonishing how one can bend events to one's service.  The doing
+so contrives to add a peculiar satisfaction of its own.  I don't wish
+you to suppose that I've been sitting all these years with my head
+between my hands--the image is depressing.  My hands have been otherwise
+employed.  I've had them on the throat of life, and when it has used me
+spitefully I've pressed it hard in return.  I've had some bad knocks, I
+admit; but, believe me, I'm not beaten yet.  And the bruises have
+healed.  The marks may be apparent, but there is no soreness...  And
+those blows served a purpose too.  They confirmed me in a resolve I made
+more than eight years ago,--to live my life independently of my
+fellows,--to enjoy such pleasures as the moment offered,--to deny myself
+no single desire that I had the means of gratifying.  I have not gone
+back on that through all these years."
+
+"Not a very lofty resolve," she said, as she sank into a chair.
+
+"No...  Not from your point of view...  I suppose not."
+
+"And from your point of view?" she asked.
+
+He laughed.
+
+"You forget the shutters," he said.  "My view is enclosed.  I am unable
+to gaze up at the heights."
+
+"You could open the shutters if you would," she said in a voice that was
+only a little louder than a whisper.
+
+"Perhaps I don't wish to," he answered.
+
+He moved nearer to her.  He did not sit down, but he leant with his arms
+on the back of a chair, looking at her, as he had leant the night of the
+ball when they had talked together on the stoep.
+
+"I'm satisfied with things as they are," he said.  "I've got used to the
+rough and tumble of my lot.  And I've become so thoroughly saturated
+with the belief that it is no concern of anyone's what I do that it's
+very unlikely I will submit to interference.  I'm behaving quite
+abominably, I know," he added, in response to the quick, pained flush
+that warmed the pallor of her skin from the smooth brow to the slender
+white column of her throat; "but it would be a satisfaction to me if you
+would only realise that I'm not worth your distress.  I understand what
+your idea is--most good women fall into the same error.  But when a man
+has no desire to be influenced it is waste of time to attempt it."
+
+Her glance fell under his direct, steady look, and the embarrassed
+colour that had flamed into her cheeks retreated and left them whiter
+than before.  She put up a hand for a second as if to screen her eyes
+from the light, and he knew that she was pressing back the starting
+tears.
+
+"I know," she said very low, and without looking at him, "that I've no
+right to interfere.  But whatever you say,--whatever you think, we can
+none of us act independently of our fellows.  When we do wrong we are
+bound to hurt someone--as well as ourselves."
+
+There was a brief silence during which both still figures remained so
+rigidly quiet that the subdued ticking of the dresden clock on the
+mantelpiece sounded intrusively loud in the stillness.  Then Lawless
+moved abruptly.
+
+"You mean," he said, "that I am hurting you."
+
+"Yes...  You are hurting me."
+
+He straightened himself and walked away to the window, where he stood
+looking out at the quiet night.  A young moon shone like a white curved
+flame in the purple dome, casting its pure reflection on the misty
+beauty of the garden that, like a picture painted without colour, lay
+motionless under the starry heavens,--patches of black shadow, and
+splashes of white where the pale flowers showed in clusters in the
+uncertain light.
+
+"I never thought of it touching you," he said after a pause.  "I
+suppose... the scandal--"
+
+"Oh! the scandal!"  She looked up with a quick resentment in her eyes.
+"Can't you get deeper than just the part that shows?"
+
+"In this instance," he returned quite quietly, "it's the part that shows
+which matters--only the part that shows.  If I were doing this thing
+secretly I should be reckoned decent living, and be well considered of
+my fellows.  And it would never have offended your susceptibilities, nor
+disgusted other women whose feelings I have not a jot of respect for.
+You simply wouldn't have known...  It appears to me that it is the part
+that shows which means everything."
+
+She answered nothing.  She sat still, watching him, with her fine eyes
+clouded and disapproving, and her lips closed in a thin, determined line
+of scarlet that looked the more brilliant because of the set whiteness
+of her face.  He swung round suddenly and faced her.
+
+"I might have anticipated this," he said.  "But, oddly enough, I never
+took you into consideration.  After all, you've a right to complain...
+The same name! ...  Yes, it's awkward--very... and unpleasant."
+
+He crossed the room and stood in front of her chair, looking down at her
+with an almost hostile expression in his sombre eyes.
+
+"In your opinion," he asked, a hard resentment in his voice, "is there
+any reason why I should especially consider you?"
+
+She looked back at him steadily.  "Have I not already acknowledged that
+my interference is unjustifiable?"
+
+"True!" he allowed, and thought for a moment.
+
+"One condition alone would give you any right to take exception at
+anything I do," he added--"and that is such an unlikely condition that
+we need not reckon it in...  But, however dead I may be to all sense of
+honour and decency, I have still sufficient perception to realise that
+the situation is--uncomfortable for you.  It shall cease to annoy you.
+I leave Cape Town this week."
+
+The expression of glad hopefulness that had momentarily lighted her eyes
+died out as suddenly as it had kindled.  She understood him perfectly.
+Because this thing was humiliating to her he was going to remove it from
+her path.  That much he would concede--and that was all.
+
+"You are going away?" she said in a low voice, leaning towards
+him.--"And you will take your mistress with you?"
+
+"And I take my mistress with me," he answered firmly...  "Yes."
+
+She winced.  He was standing so close to her chair that she could not
+rise without touching him.  She sat farther back, and leant her dark
+head against the cushions as a woman who is weary might do.  This was
+but another of the many bitter moments she had endured on his account.
+An icy coldness crept over her and seemed to grip her heart.  She had
+battled with her pride so fiercely and persistently, setting up an ideal
+of duty to be followed despite every difficulty, with this man's
+salvation as its ultimate aim; and at the very outset she owned herself
+defeated.  She could not plead with him; a certain intolerant hardness
+in her nature awoke and set a seal on her lips.  If he was so lost to
+all fine thinking, to all sense of decent living and restraint, let him
+go with this woman who was a fitting companion for the ill-spent hours.
+She would not undertake so futile a mission as to attempt to dissuade
+him.
+
+"If that is final," she remarked at last, "there is nothing more to be
+said."
+
+"It is final," he answered.
+
+He moved away.  She did not rise, but she turned her head and looked
+after him, the proud eyes darkened with trouble that was not caused only
+by distress at what he purposed doing, but by her lack of power to hold
+him back.
+
+At the door he paused, and glanced quickly in her direction.
+
+"This interview has been unsatisfactory," he said abruptly.  "I have
+disappointed you.  I regret it, because on a former occasion when I
+solicited an interview you were more considerate.  If you didn't send
+for me solely with a view to improving my morals, but were content to
+accept me as I am, the result might be more satisfactory for both of us.
+Good-night."
+
+He went out and shut the door sharply behind him, and Mrs Lawless,
+sitting still where he had left her, listened to the bang of the hall
+door, and to the crunching of his steps upon the gravelled path as he
+walked past the drawing-room windows to the gate.  She heard the gate
+open and swing to after him, and then followed silence--silence so
+profound, so prolonged, that to the woman seated alone in the quiet room
+it was an immense relief when presently the sound of a concertina
+floated in through the open windows from the direction of the servants'
+quarters.  The sound broke the tension.  She moved slightly, and her
+eyes lost their fixed expression.  She plucked at a soft fold of the
+silken tea-gown with nervous fingers, and listened absently to the
+strains that drifted towards her on the evening air.  A Kaffir was
+singing in a rich, deep voice to his own untaught accompaniment.
+
+"_All de world am sad an' dreary everywhere I roam_."
+
+The haunting, familiar air with its tender pathos, its hopelessness, its
+strange beauty, moved her to an extraordinary degree, perhaps because
+she was so deeply moved already.  A sob caught her throat, and the
+unaccustomed tears started to her eyes for the second time that evening.
+As before, she put up a hand to press them back, but they pushed their
+way under her lids and between the restraining fingers, and coursed
+rapidly down her cheeks...
+
+"_Oh! darkies, how my heart grows weary_!"
+
+The sob was louder this time...
+
+"_Oh! darkies, how my heart grows weary_!"
+
+Swiftly she turned and buried her face in the cushion of the chair and
+wept unrestrainedly.
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+Lawless made hasty preparations for leaving Cape Town.  He did not give
+up his room at the hotel.  When a man is spending other people's money
+there is no particular need for him to study economy.  His headquarters
+were at Cape Town--he was merely taking a holiday while he matured his
+plans.  On the day before he left he lunched with Van Bleit at the
+latter's invitation.  Van Bleit was openly admiring, and not a little
+envious.
+
+"Going on your honeymoon," he murmured, growing maudlin over his wine.
+"You lucky devil!  But the luck was always with you, Grit."
+
+"It depends on what one reckons luck," was the dry response.
+
+"That's just like you favoured chaps--always grudging in your thanks.
+You expect the world to come to heel, and it usually does."
+
+"Yes; and yaps at your trouser hems until it frays them.  I've been out
+at elbow and empty in pocket...  If that's luck I don't appreciate it.
+I've no desire to have the world at my heels, with its sneaking hands
+dipping into my pockets, and its servile lips smiling while its teeth
+worry holes in my clothes.  I like to face the enemy and have my foot on
+it."
+
+"You, to talk of the world as your enemy!  Why, man alive, it gives you
+all you ask for."
+
+Lawless looked gloomy enough for a wealthy and successful lover.  The
+other's envying admiration gave him no pleasure.  He took up his glass
+and drained it.  Both men had been drinking freely, but both were well
+seasoned, and, save for their flushed faces, there was no outward sign
+of the quantity of wine they had imbibed.
+
+"I wish to God," Van Bleit said, "that I were as successful in my wooing
+as you.  Give me your secret, Grit...  I believe it's that damned scar
+on your jaw that helps you with the women--that, and a certain dash you
+have."
+
+"Oh! call it swagger," growled Lawless.
+
+"No,--damn you!--I would if I could; but it's not that.  All things
+considered, you're a fairly modest beast."
+
+"I've not had so much to make me vain as you imagine," Lawless answered,
+and added curtly: "Look here, Karl, if you don't wish to be offensive,
+give over personalities.  I'm sick of myself."
+
+Van Bleit looked slightly annoyed.
+
+"You're so devilishly unsympathetic," he complained sulkily.  "I notice
+you take no interest in another man's affairs...  You never trouble to
+inquire how my suit prospers."
+
+Lawless made no immediate response.  He took a cigar from a case of Van
+Bleit's that lay open on the table, snipped the end deliberately, and
+proceeded to light it.  When he had had two or three whiffs at it, he
+took it from his mouth, leant forward with his elbows on the table and
+looked squarely at his host.
+
+"I don't need to inquire," he said.  "I've been observing...  You are
+making no headway at all."
+
+"That's true enough," Van Bleit replied, reddening.  "Though, dash it
+all! you needn't be quite so brutally frank.  I'm not making headway.
+Sometimes I fancy I have gone back a few paces.  At one time she liked
+me--I'll swear she did.  She used to appear glad to see me.  That was
+before you turned up."
+
+He paused, and eyed Lawless for a moment suspiciously.  The alteration
+in Mrs Lawless' manner and the advent of Lawless on the scene being
+contemporaneous roused a sudden doubt in his mind.
+
+"You've not been giving me away?" he asked...  "You haven't told her of
+any of our little sprees?  If I thought you'd made mischief! ...  I've
+noticed you talking with her, though you as good as told me she'd sooner
+talk with the devil."
+
+Lawless puffed away at his cigar indifferently.
+
+"My good fellow," he said, "she has not the faintest idea that you are a
+friend of mine.  And we do not discuss sprees, or anything of that
+nature.  The only topic she ever gets on with me is that of my morals,
+which ever since I have known her have caused her distress and
+annoyance.  It is a topic which you may easily imagine holds no interest
+for me."
+
+Van Bleit looked only half convinced.
+
+"I'd let a woman like that talk to me about anything," he returned.
+"I'd let her try her hand at reforming me--I _would_ reform for her
+sake."
+
+"You might--for a month or so... yes."
+
+"Oh, go to blazes!" ejaculated Van Bleit irritably.  "You don't believe
+in anything."
+
+"I don't believe in a nimbus for you, Karl, old man," Lawless replied
+with unruffled serenity.  "All the same, I'm glad to see you in earnest
+for once.  When a man is in downright earnest he generally wins."
+
+He smoked for a few moments in silence.
+
+"Have you put your luck to the test yet?" he asked, trimming the ash of
+his cigar with careful deliberation.
+
+"No."
+
+Van Bleit drummed on the table, and stared moodily at the cloth.
+
+"She never gives me a chance," he said.  "She's cleverer than any woman
+I ever knew at putting one off.  She makes a man realise that if he
+persists in coming to his point he'll get the wrong answer, and, of
+course, when a fellow's in earnest he isn't going to risk that."
+
+"Naturally."
+
+There was silence for a few seconds.  Then Lawless spoke again.
+
+"You might win if you'd try the right tactics," he said.  "But I know
+that it's no use advising a man in love...  You simply wouldn't take the
+advice."
+
+"Well, let's hear it, anyway," Van Bleit said churlishly, still drumming
+on the tablecloth with his big, coarse fingers.  "If I think it's worth
+anything, I'll follow it, I daresay."
+
+"Keep away from her for a time."
+
+Van Bleit looked up at him sharply.
+
+"You say that!" he cried...  "You!--just off on a honeymoon of your own!
+What would you reply if a man advised you to chuck it?"
+
+"If you were off on your honeymoon," Lawless returned calmly, "my advice
+would be unnecessary."
+
+"But why," Van Bleit persisted, "should I keep out of her way?  What
+purpose could it possibly serve? ...  It would give others a chance,
+that's all."
+
+"She would probably miss you," Lawless answered.  "When she realised
+that, she would want you; and when you returned you would be sure of
+your welcome...  You needn't scowl.  You asked for the advice.  I didn't
+suppose you would take it, and I shan't feel offended if you don't."
+
+"I don't believe in the efficacy of that plan," Van Bleit said shortly.
+
+"A man in love wouldn't," Lawless returned indifferently.  "The moth has
+to make for the light."
+
+"Well, but--"
+
+Van Bleit appeared to be wavering.  He stared hard at the inscrutable
+face opposite, trying to gauge the purpose of the carelessly given
+advice that accorded so ill with his own inclinations.  But he could
+make nothing of it.  The man baffled him as he baffled many another.
+Although he had given the advice, it seemed to be a matter of supreme
+indifference to him whether it were acted upon or not.
+
+"I've a great belief in your knowledge of women," he said slowly.
+
+Lawless smiled.
+
+"It's faith in my disinterestedness you lack," he threw in, and Van
+Bleit did not deny it.
+
+"You've never been keen on it, somehow," he observed.  "I noticed that
+when I first told you about it...  Seems as though you couldn't get out
+of the manger.  I suppose it is human nature that a man should object to
+seeing another fellow's success in the case of a beautiful woman, even
+though he knows himself out of the running."
+
+Lawless leant back in his seat and puffed a number of blue rings into
+the air.
+
+"You may know a lot about human nature, Karl," he said presently,
+"you're very human yourself--but you don't know me.  If I've been
+somewhat unsympathetic over this affair it's because I happen to know
+something of both of you.  I realised that you were serious, but I never
+imagined you stood anything of a chance...  It wasn't until I saw you
+together that it occurred to me that, if your chance was not great, she
+certainly liked you.  She is not prodigal of her favour, so I think you
+have grounds to feel flattered.  But women, when they grow accustomed to
+having a man at their beck and call, are inclined to take it rather as a
+matter of course.  Relegate him to a distance, and they appreciate a
+service they have not realised until they are called upon to do without
+it.  That's my experience...  But go your own way, old man, and if you
+find your tactics fail then follow mine."
+
+Lawless left Cape Town that night.  He did not go alone, a fact that
+transpired very quickly, and caused consternation in more breasts than
+one.  Colonel Grey was beside himself with fury.  The man was an
+adventurer of the worst kind.  He was living riotously on the money that
+was allowed him for a definite purpose, and that purpose, which was
+hazardous and dangerous and highly important, was being neglected while
+he amused himself after his own loose fashion with the funds that should
+only have been applied to one end.
+
+The Colonel summoned Simmonds to a consultation, and told him in the
+plainest language what he thought of the man he had recommended.
+
+"I did not recommend him," Simmonds returned.  "I told you I knew very
+little about him.  His noted pluck was the only qualification I gave
+you."
+
+The Colonel stared at him.
+
+"True!" he muttered.  "His courage! ...  Yes!  I accepted that without
+proof.  And when I saw the man I accepted him.  This is where it leaves
+me."
+
+He looked at the other for a while without speaking, thinking deeply.
+This man--the traitor, the coward, the licentious liver--was in his pay
+for a term of six months.  He had agreed to that, knowing what he did of
+the man's past life.  He had believed in him.  The strong, virile
+personality had been strangely convincing, all the more so in view of
+the fact that he had made no attempt to vindicate himself, nor sought to
+explain away facts.  There had been something almost attractive in the
+curt directness of speech and manner that had seemed to repudiate the
+necessity for self-justification.  That he had allowed himself to be
+deceived in this matter was entirely his own fault.  It was only
+consistent with his record that the man should misuse the funds
+entrusted to him.  And there was no redress possible because of the
+secret nature of the undertaking.
+
+"It's a bad business," he said at last--"the worst bungle that has been
+made so far.  The fellow is entirely unprincipled.  A man of that
+unscrupulous order is capable of turning the knowledge he has acquired
+to his own account.  I feel now that I shall never see those letters."
+
+Simmonds did not feel particularly sanguine either.  But he sought to
+encourage his chief.
+
+"In a case where a man is governed by his passions, you can't tell," he
+said.  "This escapade is possibly merely an interlude.  He'll come up to
+the mark later."
+
+His hearer did not look reassured.
+
+"It's somewhat of a coincidence," he added, after a moment's reflection,
+"that a woman has stepped in in two instances to the frustrating of your
+plans."
+
+Colonel Grey glanced up sharply.
+
+"The other affair was a matter of outwitting," he said.  "This is
+different altogether.  We've put ourselves in the power of a rogue, and
+we shall have to pay for it--dearly."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Simmonds looked at the other inquiringly.  The Colonel was staring hard
+at the light that stood on the table between them, swiftly revolving, in
+a mind much given to scheming of late, plan after plan which, after a
+brief consideration, he put successively on one side as ineffectual or
+unfeasible.  While he thought he smoked in a state of inward fume,
+oblivious of his companion altogether.  It was very evident that the
+last check had hit him hard.  He saw no opening for his next move.
+
+"There is one thing fairly certain," he remarked at length, "we shall
+have to pull this off without assistance.  Van Bleit knows we are both
+his enemies; we must fight openly.  We can't trust this matter to other
+hands."
+
+"I agree with you there," Simmonds answered.  "You might keep all the
+rogues in the Colony.  It's the soft sort of billet they would tumble to
+promptly.  And there's no possible guarantee of good faith--save their
+word."
+
+"Their word!"  Colonel Grey repeated sourly.  "Lawless passed me his
+word--and I accepted it."
+
+He thought for a moment.
+
+"One piece of information he gave me which may prove of service," he
+said, suddenly looking up.  "Van Bleit carries the letters on his
+person--and a loaded revolver.  I'm not scared of revolvers.  I'd like
+to see this one of Van Bleit's at close range--here, in this room."
+
+"You've got a plan?" said Simmonds interrogatively.
+
+"Not much of one...  It may not work.  We must get him here, if
+possible...  You must see him...  Ask him to come here to treat with
+me...  Tell him I've a new proposal to make.  Then, when we've got him,
+we'll lock the door; and if there should be any firing, no one will be
+any the wiser--unless someone gets hurt."
+
+"He won't come," Simmonds answered confidently.
+
+"He's slim, is Van Bleit, and a coward--of the bullying sort.  He'll
+scent danger."
+
+"We can but try it," Colonel Grey said.  And added grimly: "If we once
+get him inside this room he doesn't leave it until we get those
+letters."
+
+Simmonds smiled drily.
+
+"If I know anything of the man," he said, "he'll not bring them with
+him.  He may carry them around as a rule, but he isn't at all likely to
+march into the enemy's camp with them.  You forget Denzil's in this.  He
+will leave the letters with him."
+
+"He may do."
+
+The Colonel spoke with a slight irritation, the result of
+discouragement.  He had been many months striving to get hold of these
+papers, and he was no nearer success than when he first landed in Cape
+Town.  The rogue he had to deal with was insatiable, unprincipled, and
+unrelenting.  He had attempted in the first instance straightforward
+methods; but Van Bleit, being possessed of a crooked mind, was
+suspicious of straightforward dealings, and he had been forced to resort
+to more subtle and underhand means.  It was, he felt sure, by no open
+and honest device that he would prevail against him--if, indeed, he ever
+prevailed.  To-night, baffled and disheartened, he believed that he
+would be forced to throw down the cards and acknowledge himself beaten.
+
+"I'd give five years of my life," he said--"and my years are not so many
+now that I can spare them--to best that scoundrel.  To think that a
+contemptible hound like that should have the power to intimidate anyone
+with a Damocles' sword in the form of a packet of damning letters!  The
+law of the land ought to permit one to shoot blackmailers on sight."
+
+"I rather fancy the law--out here, anyway--would bring it in
+manslaughter," Simmonds replied coolly.  He knocked the ash out of his
+pipe.  "Then, I understand you wish me to try to induce him to come
+here?"
+
+"Yes, that's it."
+
+The Colonel was still meditating on the unsatisfactoriness of the law.
+
+"I'd bring it in justifiable homicide," he said at last.
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+Poor little Julie Weeber was having a bad time of it.
+
+She was, to the scornful surprise of her family, which was neither
+sympathetic nor particularly wise in its mode of condemnation, grieving
+for a man who was utterly worthless.  Her sister declared that she was
+wanting in proper pride, and her mother regarded her as a silly,
+sentimental child, and refused to consider the trouble seriously.  So
+Julie nursed her heart-hunger in silence, and the round, young face grew
+thinner, the laughter died out of her eyes, and her lips lost the
+humorous twist that had made her many admirers want to kiss them.  It
+was but a pale reflection of the old Julie they met at dances and
+parties, a Julie who would not flirt with them, and whose once ready
+repartee failed her utterly and left her with curiously little to say.
+She had been good sport once, and the youths with whom she had been
+popular found it difficult to realise the change.  When they discovered
+that the change was enduring and not merely a passing mood, they
+deserted her for more amusing company, and Julie found herself neglected
+with a programme half filled at dances, and only one staunch ally to
+depend upon for an escort.  The ally was Teddy Bolitho, whose great
+ambition was to earn a sufficient income on which to set up
+housekeeping, and to win Julie's consent to become mistress of his home.
+But the ambition was distant of fulfilment.  Young Bolitho had as much
+as he could do to pay his modest way.
+
+Julie liked Teddy Bolitho.  Before the advent of Lawless she had liked
+him better than any man she had ever met.  Bolitho had stood aside when
+the older man claimed her attention.  It had been a blow for him, but he
+had taken it pluckily with his back against the wall.  He had quickly
+recognised that he stood no chance against Lawless, who had everything
+in his favour so far as outward seeming went, and despite his successful
+rivalry, he entertained a half-reluctant liking for the man.  It was not
+surprising that Julie should find him fascinating; and it would be a
+very much better match for her, he had decided, judging--as Julie's
+mother had judged when she encouraged Lawless to visit at the house--by
+externals.
+
+And then had arisen the scandal concerning Lawless, and his subsequent
+disappearance; and Bolitho had quietly stepped out from the background,
+and taken his place again quite naturally at Julie's side.  She accepted
+his action without comment.  He was the only one in her world who
+understood.  She felt instinctively that he did understand, that she
+could count on his sympathy, though neither by word nor sign did he
+allude to what was past; and she repaid him in the trust and regard of
+an earnest friendship, which is the next best thing to love.  But an
+earnest friendship is not what a man covets from the girl who holds his
+heart.  Bolitho was acquiring patience in the hard school of necessity;
+nevertheless, there were times when his spirit chafed sorely, times when
+he felt thoroughly disheartened and discouraged; despite the happy
+optimism of his nature, the outlook was not promising.
+
+"I don't know why you bother about me," she said to him one evening at a
+dance, when he came upon her sitting out in a corner by herself.  He had
+only just arrived, having been detained at the store, where they were
+short-handed through the illness of a clerk.  He had looked for Julie as
+soon as he entered the room, and caught sight of her in her corner
+looking wretched and forlorn.  At her speech he sat down beside her,
+and, with a smile, possessed himself of her programme.
+
+"It's curious that I should, isn't it?" he said.  "But I've always been
+in the habit of pleasing myself.  What are you going to give me, Julie?"
+
+"Oh! anything you like," she answered dispiritedly.  "You'll find any
+amount of blanks.  I have spent most of the time so far adorning the
+walls."
+
+He looked at her steadily.
+
+"You do it very prettily," he answered.
+
+"Thank you, Teddy."
+
+She moved a little closer to him, and her face brightened.
+
+"I don't mind now you've come," she said.  "But I was feeling--hurt
+before.  I've seen girls sitting out often--the dull ones, and I've
+felt, not so much sorry for them, as surprised that they couldn't get
+partners.  Now I know what it feels like."  Her eyes flashed with sudden
+anger.  "It's beastly, the selfishness of people," she said with a note
+of disgust in her tones.  "So long as you are amusing, or interesting,
+or pretty, you are wanted and sought after... you're popular; but lose
+your looks, or, worse still, your gift of amusing others, and you might
+as well be buried for all the attention you get...  You simply don't
+exist.  The amusing person can always command friends, but the poor dull
+person who most needs friendship is invariably shunned...  Now I'm being
+bitter and hateful, and, perhaps, even you--But I know you are not like
+that...  It was horrid of me to have said that.  I'm often horrid now,
+Teddy.  I get more horrid every day."
+
+"Look here," he returned quickly, "I'm not dancing with anyone--most of
+the girls have filled their cards by now.  Every dance that you have
+open we'll have, or sit out, together, and those that you're fixed up
+for I'll dance with anyone I can discover who is sitting out.  We'll
+square matters that way."
+
+"Oh, Teddy! you are a good sort," she said.
+
+She watched him while he marked his programme, comparing it with hers.
+He had reddened slightly at her words of approbation, but by the time he
+had finished pencilling his programme his embarrassment had vanished,
+and he returned her card with his usual cheerful smile.
+
+"I've stolen all the blanks," he said.  "You don't mind--if it's
+remarked?"
+
+"No...  I don't care," she answered stubbornly.
+
+He rose and offered her his arm.
+
+"We won't sit here inhaling the dust they're kicking up," he said.
+"There are one or two jolly little retreats, Julie, where we can talk at
+our ease."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"You always had a genius for discovery," she returned.  As she took the
+proffered arm she gave it a little grateful squeeze.  "Oh!  I'm so glad
+to get out of this room."
+
+Outside the ball-room they came face to face with Mrs Lawless and Van
+Bleit.  There was a block at the entrance.  Many couples were leaving
+the room, and new-comers pressed forward, and for several minutes people
+were forcibly restrained in the narrow passage.
+
+Mrs Lawless looked searchingly into the young face, as she recognised
+the girl who had been Lawless' partner in the dance when they had been
+held up by the crowd as they were now.  It was obvious that the girl
+also recognised her.  The older woman smiled.
+
+"It seems fated that we should meet in a crush," she said in her
+peculiarly soothing voice.  "On the last occasion we both were slightly
+damaged.  May we have better luck this time."
+
+Julie smiled back at her and flushed warmly.  She felt strangely shy in
+the presence of this beautiful, composed woman, with the sweet voice and
+easy manner, and the so distressingly familiar name.  But the owner of
+the familiar name looked gracious, and--Julie could not but notice it--
+sad, despite the ready smile.  The girlish heart went out to her
+unquestioningly, recognising instinctively a common bond.  She did not
+know why the lovely sun-flecked eyes held shadows, she only saw that the
+shadows were there, and felt drawn towards their owner in consequence.
+Her shyness left her suddenly.  She drew her hand from Teddy Bolitho's
+arm, and shielded the other woman's body with two young, vigorous arms.
+
+"You shall not be damaged this time," she said, and laughed.
+
+Mrs Lawless laughed with her.
+
+"What a valiant champion you make," she said.  "Trust a woman to protect
+a woman in any serious crisis."
+
+And then the press suddenly ceased.  Julie's arms fell to her side, and
+with a further smile of friendship and understanding, Mrs Lawless
+passed on with her companion.
+
+"Who is that girl?" she inquired as they passed through into the
+ball-room.
+
+She was not dancing.  She had merely come for an hour to look on; and
+she chose a seat not too far away from the exit, so that she could make
+her escape without inconvenience as soon as she desired.  Van Bleit sat
+down beside her, and, following his customary tactics, sought by his
+impressive manner to draw attention to themselves.  He was usually a
+daring wooer, but Mrs Lawless so baffled him that he was forced to
+resort to more insidious methods.
+
+"The girl who embraced you? ...  That's Miss Julie Weeber...  Quite a
+nice little thing.  Not exactly in your set, you know."
+
+She regarded him strangely.
+
+"And the boy she was with?"
+
+Van Bleit laughed.
+
+"Oh! that's Bolitho, her faithful squire.  He's clerk in a wool-store.
+Miss Weeber has slighted him of late, but he's in favour again
+apparently.  She'd be well advised to stick to him."
+
+"I like the look of him," said Mrs Lawless slowly, "and I like her.  I
+shall cultivate the acquaintance.  If I were to remain so long, couldn't
+you manage that we sat together at supper?"
+
+Van Bleit would have contrived anything to have kept her longer at the
+dance.  When she left it would be for home, he knew; and it was never
+permitted him to accompany her on the homeward drive.  He had several
+times suggested doing so, but he had always met with the same pleasant
+but firm refusal.
+
+It was a surprise for Julie to find herself _tete-a-tete_ with the
+beautiful Mrs Lawless at supper.  Van Bleit so managed matters that it
+appeared wholly accidental when he and his companion took the vacant
+seats opposite herself and young Bolitho, and he exerted himself to an
+unusual degree to make the meal a success.  Julie was astonished at the
+fun she was getting out of the evening.
+
+"Why, I'm really enjoying myself," she remarked naively in a pause
+between the laughter.  "And I had feared it was going to be such a slow
+affair."
+
+"At your age," Mrs Lawless answered, "no dance should prove slow."
+
+"That depends," retorted Julie.  "But, of course, you've never
+experienced the pain of sitting out."
+
+"I usually sit out," Mrs Lawless answered.  "I am no dancer.  But there
+is pleasure in watching others enjoy themselves."
+
+"Oh yes!"  Julie replied.  "Anyone could enjoy that when the sitting out
+wasn't compulsory."
+
+"I see."  Mrs Lawless laughed.  "A little discipline of that nature
+isn't exactly harmful," she said.
+
+Julie laughed too.
+
+"I always hated discipline," she said.
+
+"I can't understand any girl sitting out," Van Bleit interposed.  "That
+men can't find partners is common enough.  There are plenty of fellows
+supporting the door-posts to-night."
+
+"Yes; but they want amusing," Julie returned brightly.  "They won't give
+their services for nothing."
+
+"There is something very decadent in the sound of that," Mrs Lawless
+remarked.
+
+Before rising, she leaned across the table and addressed herself
+directly to the girl.
+
+"Do you ever get as far as Rondebosch?" she asked.
+
+"I get farther than that," Julie answered.  "I cycle, you know."
+
+"Then, take pity on my loneliness.  I am an Englishwoman, unused to the
+Colony.  Will you ride out to see me some day?"
+
+"Of course I will...  Any time you wish."
+
+"Come to-morrow...  I will be at home to no one else..."
+
+"Lucky little girl!" murmured Van Bleit, as he escorted Mrs Lawless
+from the supper-room.  "She enjoys a privilege that many would envy
+her...  You never ask _me_ to visit you..."
+
+She looked at him steadily.
+
+"Perhaps some day I shall do that," she answered, and smiled at him, a
+smile so kind and gentle that it set Van Bleit's heart beating high with
+expectation, and a hope he did not often dare to indulge.
+
+When he had assisted her into her motor and shut the door upon her, he
+took the hand she extended to him and raised it to his lips.  The car
+drove off and left him standing in the roadway, looking after it with a
+complacent smile widening the corners of his sensual mouth.  Truly he
+had a way with women!  He had never known any woman who could stand out
+against him for long.
+
+As he turned and started to walk in the opposite direction from that
+taken by the car, a figure loomed suddenly out of the darkness and, with
+a word of greeting, came to a halt in front of him.  Van Bleit
+recognised the sallow, bearded face, the darkness notwithstanding, and
+instinctively his right hand went to his breast pocket in a manner that
+brought a smile to the lips of the man who had accosted him.  Recovering
+himself almost immediately, he feigned to be searching for his
+cigar-case, which eventually he produced, and leisurely proceeded to
+abstract a cigar therefrom.  While thus employed, he replied to the
+brief salutation of the new-comer with the sarcastic observation:
+
+"Still taking an interest in my movements, Mr Simmonds?  I thought your
+gang had tired of me."
+
+"You pay yourself a poor compliment, Mr Van Bleit," was the dry
+response.  "The Colonel seems keener on your society just now than on
+any other.  He'd like to see you.  I've been hanging about outside this
+social ballet for some time with the express object of telling you so."
+
+"A dull amusement," Van Bleit returned, lighting his cigar, "which you
+might have spared yourself.  Colonel Grey and I have given free vent to
+our opinions of one another sufficiently often to obviate the necessity
+of a repetition of our views.  Mine have undergone no change--I doubt
+that his have."
+
+"I doubt it too," Simmonds replied.  "But this matter he has in mind has
+no bearing on his personal feelings.  He has had a letter recalling him
+to England."
+
+"I'm glad of that at least," said Van Bleit.
+
+"There were other matters contained in the letter besides his recall
+which concern you," Simmonds added.  "He wishes to see you on the
+subject."
+
+"You may tell him from me," Van Bleit answered rudely, "that his postal
+communications, as his movements, have not the slightest interest for
+me."
+
+He started to walk again.  Simmonds, wholly unmoved, walked beside him.
+
+"You speak without knowledge, Mr Van Bleit," he said.  "The
+instructions contained in this imperative and important letter concern
+you very particularly.  Colonel Grey has a further proposal to lay
+before you, which you will be well advised to consider.  Failing a
+satisfactory issue to these final negotiations, he is instructed to
+place the matter in the hands of the police and return to England."
+
+Van Bleit, his assurance notwithstanding, was taken aback.  He had not
+foreseen this move, and was totally unprepared for it.  It was merely
+bluff, he told himself, and really believed it was so; but at the back
+of the belief lurked the fear that his victim might have grown reckless,
+and, with the courage that is sometimes born of despair, be prepared to
+face the worst.
+
+"Faugh!" he exclaimed impatiently.  "That's an old dodge."  But his
+voice had lost its confidence and resumed its natural bullying tones.
+"Go and tell your chief to do his worst, and be damned to him!"
+
+"Go and tell him yourself," returned Simmonds.  "You could at least then
+hear what he has to say."
+
+"And how do I know you are not up to some treachery?" demanded Van
+Bleit, his suspicions at once on the alert.
+
+"I suppose it is natural you should judge other men by your own
+standard," Simmonds answered indifferently.  "If you are afraid we may
+arrange a trap, why not go and see him to-night when he is unprepared
+for your visit?"
+
+"What makes you so confident we should find him at home?"  Van Bleit
+asked quickly.
+
+"Because, until I set out to look for you, I was seated on his stoep
+with him, smoking."
+
+"--And discussing me?"
+
+"And discussing the letter and its conditions as they concerned you--
+yes."
+
+"He keeps late hours if he is out of bed when we get there," Van Bleit
+remarked.  "It's after midnight."
+
+Simmonds, who had been instructed to fetch Van Bleit to the bungalow
+that night if possible, with difficulty repressed a smile.
+
+"I imagine he does keep late hours," he said.  "The only occasions I
+have surprised him in bed have been in the daytime.  But if he were abed
+I don't doubt he would see you.  Nevertheless, if you prefer some other
+time, I am sure it will be equally convenient to him."
+
+"And if I refuse to go at all?"
+
+"Then, I expect he will drop down on you.  You see his instructions are
+imperative.  He has no voice in the matter."
+
+Van Bleit swung round suddenly and stared in the other's face.
+
+"It's a game of bluff you're playing," he said.  "I don't trust you.
+I'll go with you to-night--yes.  I'll hear the proposal this precious
+letter contains.  But, remember, I'm armed, and I shan't hesitate to use
+my weapon if I see the slightest occasion."
+
+"You may reassure yourself.  Great as you know our interest in you to
+be," Simmonds replied imperturbably, "I don't suppose either of us
+covets the distinction of hanging for you."
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+Karl Van Bleit was neither popular nor especially respected among his
+fellows, nevertheless a sensation that had in it something of
+consternation supervened when the news burst like a bomb over Cape Town
+that he had been arrested on a charge of murder.  His connection with
+the Smythes added considerably to the interest, and lent a social
+importance to the affair.  Speculation was rife concerning the crime,
+the details of which were tardy in forthcoming; only the barest facts
+were known, and these were sufficiently unusual to strain public
+curiosity to the utmost.  A sense of mystery enveloped the affair: the
+lonely bungalow; the hour; the unexplained connection between the three
+men, who had met by arrangement seemingly, for what reason had not
+transpired; the shooting affray, in which one man, Simmonds, had been
+killed; and finally the arrest of Van Bleit, who had on leaving the
+bungalow walked into town and given himself up to the authorities.
+
+The whole business was, in the opinion of Theodore Smythe, worthy the
+shady character of his wife's undesirable connection.  Out of a feeling
+of delicacy he kept the verbal expression of his views from her.  He did
+his utmost to console her; for she was not only inexpressibly shocked,
+but acutely alive to the danger of Van Bleit's position.  He even
+promised to secure for his defence the best services that money could
+procure.  But he entertained no great belief that Karl would get out of
+the present mess.  He had been extraordinarily lucky hitherto through a
+career of suspected crime; nothing beyond suspicion had clung to him;
+but it seemed as though this time at least the law had got its iron grip
+on him and would not be likely to let go.  Putting his wife's feelings
+out of the question, Smythe had a distinct dislike to the idea of a
+connection of his own suffering the penalty of the law.
+
+"It's such a beastly low-down, undignified position," he complained.
+
+Mrs Lawless read the news while she lingered over her breakfast.  The
+midnight tragedy had already been seized upon to fill a column of the
+daily paper.  Her face turned paler as she read, and the hand that held
+the newspaper was not quite steady.  When she had read to the last line
+she laid the paper down beside her plate and sat staring out at the
+sunshine with wide startled eyes...  Murder! ...  There was something
+terrible in the mere sight of the word in print--something horribly
+revolting.  Could it be possible that this man with whom she had talked
+so often, who had touched her with his hands, was guilty of this foul
+crime?  She shivered at the mere remembrance that only the night before
+he had held her hand and touched it with his lips.  He had parted from
+her and had gone straightway and done this thing...  What violent deeds
+men who engage in desperate ventures will commit!
+
+She rose from the table, and leaving her unfinished breakfast, went out
+into the garden.  The news had shocked her.  She looked like a woman who
+is frightened and at the same time infinitely relieved.  As she paced up
+and down beneath the trees that cast their pleasant shade upon the path,
+one thought kept beating upon her brain with an insistence that drove
+out every other thought and lulled a long-endured pain at her heart like
+some blessed anodyne.  She smiled as she looked up into the green
+tracery above her head.
+
+"If she by her evil influence over him has saved him from danger," her
+thought ran, "then I am grateful to her for coming into his life."
+
+And so she put behind her her jealousy of the woman who for the present
+dominated Lawless' life.
+
+Later in the morning Mrs Lawless ordered the car and drove into Cape
+Town to call on her friend.
+
+She found Mrs Smythe reclining on a cane lounge on the stoep, a book
+beside her, which she was not reading, and the morning paper open at the
+page with the gruesome headline lying in her lap.  She looked round as
+Zoe Lawless mounted the steps, and seeing who it was, got up and went to
+meet her.
+
+"Oh! how good of you to come," she said.  "I have been thinking of
+you...  Zoe, isn't it awful? ...  I can't believe it.  I can scarcely
+realise it yet."
+
+Tears rose in her eyes, already spoiled with futile weeping for a man so
+little worthy of her grief.  She dabbed at them ineffectually with a wet
+handkerchief, and added with unconscious absurdity:
+
+"Karl couldn't have done it...  He wouldn't hurt a fly."
+
+Mrs Lawless put her hands upon her shoulders, and bending from her
+superior height, kissed the tremulous mouth.
+
+"Poor Kate!" she said, and led her gently back to her seat.
+
+"I feel," said Mrs Smythe plaintively, "as though he were dead
+already... as though he, and not the other man, had met with a violent
+end.  Oh! surely he will be able to explain...  They were two to one...
+What could they have wanted with him?  And why were they armed?  Men who
+are peaceable citizens don't carry firearms.  Karl must have distrusted
+them to take a revolver with him...  And yet, Colonel Grey--"
+
+She broke off suddenly, and added in a voice of puzzled questioning:
+
+"Zoe, you never liked Colonel Grey!"
+
+Mrs Lawless leant back in a chair, her chin tilted slightly upward,
+gazing into the remote blueness of the sky.  The flicker of a smile
+shone in the dark eyes, but the gravity of her features remained
+otherwise unchanged.
+
+"That isn't quite a correct statement," she said.  "As I told you
+before, it is Colonel Grey who doesn't like me."
+
+Mrs Smythe regarded her doubtfully.
+
+"I thought you were joking when you said that," she replied.  "If you
+really believe it, I think you are mistaken.  He has often spoken of
+you, and it seemed to me that he greatly admires you.  It is a strange
+thing to say in face of what has happened, but I always felt he was a
+man to be trusted."
+
+"You can't be certain," replied Zoe, "that your first impression of him
+is wrong.  Quarrels between men--even violent quarrels--don't
+necessarily make them rogues.  I feel the same about him.  I think he is
+an eminently trustworthy person."
+
+"But," objected Mrs Smythe, "there is this affair with Karl...  Karl
+always disliked him--he was rude to him once in this house.  He made me
+angry, I remember, poor fellow!"
+
+She sighed and again dabbed at her eyes with her ruined
+pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"We've been more like brother and sister than cousins," she explained
+apologetically.  "He has confided his troubles to me since he was a boy,
+and now in this great trouble I can't even help."
+
+She did not think it necessary to explain that in those early days, when
+he was an impecunious young man and she a good-looking girl with a
+larger dowry than most girls, he had expended much time and eloquence in
+endeavouring to persuade her to accept his name in exchange for her
+fortune.  She had believed then in the honesty of his professions of
+love, though she had felt too sisterly towards him to yield to his
+wishes; and it had been her one desire ever since her own happy marriage
+to see him happily married also.  In Mrs Lawless she believed she had
+found a worthy mate for him.
+
+"Zoe," she exclaimed suddenly, turning appealingly towards her friend,
+"you won't let this shocking affair prejudice you against the poor boy!
+He may be able to justify himself.  I can't believe that there isn't
+some explanation.  It seems a horrible gigantic mistake...  You won't be
+prejudiced, will you?" she pleaded.
+
+"I am not prejudiced, Kate," the other answered.
+
+There was in the steady voice, in the expression of the composed face,
+so little encouragement to be read that Mrs Smythe for the first time
+entertained serious doubts of Karl's success.  She had imagined that his
+suit was prospering satisfactorily; now, like a further darkening of the
+already dark cloud that depressed her spirit, it was borne in upon her
+consciousness that Zoe Lawless did not love him.  She could not love him
+and remain so entirely unmoved in face of the awful fate that
+overshadowed him.
+
+"Of course," she went on, still more dejectedly, for her heart was
+sorely troubled, "no woman cares to have her name mixed up in a scandal
+like this.  It would be only a great love that could live through such
+an ordeal.  I suppose I'm foolish, Zoe, but I had hoped--"
+
+She paused, unable to complete the sentence, and surveyed the dark
+glowing beauty of her silent companion with added distress in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, Zoe!" she burst out impulsively.  "He thinks the world of you...
+There's a new quality comes into his voice whenever he speaks of you.
+You are the sunshine of the land to him--it's his own phrase.  If he
+thought he stood no chance of winning you, I don't believe he would
+attempt to defend himself against this awful charge--I truly don't."
+
+A wave of colour swept over Zoe Lawless' face, but beyond the swift
+blush she showed no sign of embarrassment.
+
+"My dear," she said, "you are mistaken--utterly mistaken."
+
+"How can I be mistaken, Zoe, when I had it from his own lips?  He would
+never forgive me for telling you...  And, indeed, I ought to have held
+my peace.  He could tell you so much more convincingly himself.  I'm a
+fool to have spoken...  It's the wrong time to speak of such things.
+But my mind's so full of him, poor boy!"
+
+Mrs Lawless got up, and stooping over her chair kissed her
+affectionately.
+
+"Don't worry.  You have done no harm," she said.  "If anyone could plead
+for him it would be you, you kind, dear soul.  You make me feel--" She
+hesitated, and straightening herself stood slowly upright, looking
+gravely into the lifted face,--"mean," she added, after a pause.
+
+She clasped her hands behind her, and turning her back to the puzzled,
+questioning, tear-swollen eyes that stared up at her in helpless
+wonderment, gazed out upon the view.  Through a break in the trees the
+great square rock that is Table Mountain showed in the clear atmosphere
+so surprisingly near that it seemed as though it formed a boundary to
+the garden.  The sunlight lay warmly on its rugged prominences leaving
+the clefts and crannies in its grey sides cold and dark and secretive,
+the lurking-places of mystery and shadows, hiding ever from the light
+like the evil thoughts of a man's mind.  Zoe Lawless gazed at the
+mountain, looking blue in the brilliant sunshine, and her eyes were
+clouded as the dark clefts in its sides.  She was ashamed of the part
+she had deliberately played, ashamed above all of having deceived this
+woman who was her friend.
+
+"I'm wondering what you are thinking of me," she said quickly.  "And it
+hurts.  I care... so much.  You tempt me to tell you things--things that
+I keep double-locked in my heart--in order to justify myself."
+
+She turned round suddenly, frowning, and tapped her foot impatiently on
+the stone floor of the stoep.
+
+"Merely to justify myself!" she repeated...  "Was ever a more paltry
+reason given than that?  Shall I tell you, Kate? ...  Shall I show you
+the wound in my breast... the ugly, raw, unhealing wound that I am for
+ever tearing open with my own hand?  I would tell you what I would not
+tell another human being sooner than you should think ill of me."
+
+"If that is your only reason for giving me your confidence, there is no
+need," the other answered.  "It's just because I think so highly of you,
+Zoe, that I feel the disappointment so keenly.  But perhaps it's as well
+that you don't care, because... in the event of..."
+
+Here she broke down completely, her thoughts so charged with gruesome
+possibilities that Mrs Lawless' efforts at reassurance were futile.  It
+was impossible, she declared, to accept comfort with the idea of the
+hangman's rope ever present in her mind.
+
+"I'm waiting for Theo to come up from town," she said tearfully.  "He's
+gone to interview lawyers and barristers, and anyone who is likely to be
+able to help.  Thank Heaven the assizes are on this month!  I don't know
+how I should bear a longer suspense."
+
+Mr Smythe reached home as Mrs Lawless was driving away.  She stopped
+the car when she saw him, and he got out of the taxi he had driven up
+from town in and went to speak to her.
+
+"You've been with Kate," he said.  "I'm glad of that.  She's horribly
+cut up, poor girl!  It's a bad business... very.  Looks black for Karl."
+
+"You think,"--Mrs Lawless shivered involuntarily--"that he won't be
+able to clear himself?"
+
+At sight of the shiver and her white face he remembered her friendly
+relations with Van Bleit, and hesitated to give free expression to his
+thoughts.
+
+"Oh!  I don't know," he said...  "You see, we know so little.  The only
+thing that is positive is that he killed the man...  He admits it.  But
+men have done that before, you know, and haven't swung for it.  We won't
+look on the worst side until we've got to."
+
+She realised that his desire was to spare her feelings, and a soft blush
+mantled her cheeks at the knowledge of what he was thinking.
+
+"I'm not Kate," she said quietly.  "I wish you wouldn't hold out hopes
+you don't in the least entertain.  You are afraid the case will go
+against him...  Why don't you say so frankly?"
+
+"Because," he answered jerkily, "I've got no grounds for supposing
+anything of the sort.  But I've been interviewing men this morning whose
+business it is to see the more serious side, and it doesn't tend to
+reassure one.  Don't let that worry you, though, Mrs Lawless; we are
+going to do the best we can for him."
+
+Again the swift rush of embarrassed colour warmed her face.  The
+tell-tale crimson strengthened his misapprehension.  He fell to
+wondering what women saw in Van Bleit that won their liking.  His wife's
+partiality for her cousin was the greatest unsolved puzzle of his life.
+
+"We'll do our best," he repeated, wishful to allay her anxiety.  "If it
+wasn't for Grey...  It'll be rather like two dogs worrying over a bone.
+It will be interesting to see who wins.  The odds are against us...  But
+we'll do our best."
+
+That phrase rang in Zoe Lawless' ears like a refrain as she drove on...
+"We'll do our best." ...  So Theodore Smythe, as well as his wife,
+imagined that Karl Van Bleit's danger mattered to her.  He had sought to
+hearten her with encouraging words; the very pressure of his hand when
+he bade her good-bye had conveyed a silent kindly sympathy, and his
+smile was meant to be reassuring.  Apart from the shock the news had
+occasioned her, Van Bleit's danger concerned her no more than the danger
+of the man in the street.  Yet she by her actions had led these people
+to the inference they had drawn.
+
+She frowned as the car spun along the dusty road, under the huge
+straggling trees that lined it on either side, and waved their long
+gaunt arms musically in the wind.  It troubled her to remember now, in
+face of all that had happened, that she had stooped to such deception,
+even though her motive had not been entirely unworthy.  She had taken
+advantage of Van Bleit's attitude towards herself, had sought
+deliberately--as some women seek from motives of vanity--to attain an
+influence over him, and she had succeeded so far beyond her expectation.
+Her object had been to get possession of the letters that men were
+risking and sacrificing their lives to obtain.  She had meant to destroy
+the letters had they come into her possession, and so put it out of the
+power of any man to turn them to his own use.  In the accomplishment of
+this her one hope had been to save from danger the man who had so
+recklessly, for a sordid compensation, undertaken their recovery.  Van
+Bleit's feelings, as also to what extent she would have to lower her
+pride in the pursuance of her project, had scarcely been taken into
+consideration.  All that had seemed up to now beside the main issue.
+But now things had undergone a change, and the man for whose sake she
+had been willing to sacrifice her own prejudices, had gone out of her
+life, slaying by his own act all possible hope of intercourse between
+them in the future...
+
+She leant back in her seat, and closed her eyes to the sunshine, the
+garish, laughing, intrusive sunshine that seemed to mock her pain.  She
+was mourning for him, setting up a headstone to him in her memory; for
+he was as dead to her as though Van Bleit's bullet after effecting its
+deed of violence had sped through the darkness and spent itself in his
+heart.  And upon the headstone she inscribed the one word "Waste."
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+Mrs Lawless was like a sick woman whose illness increased as the day
+advanced.  She had recognised the finality of things on the night when
+Lawless walked out of her presence--out of her house, to return to the
+woman with whose lot he had thrown in his own.  It was another of the
+mad, reckless acts that had governed his undisciplined nature.  But
+to-day, with her mind disturbed with thoughts of death and deeds of
+violence, the memory of how she had let him go without exerting every
+effort to persuade him to reconsider his decision troubled her greatly.
+Why had she not humbled her pride and pleaded with him? ...  Why had she
+let the thought that it would be derogatory to her dignity deter her
+from freely avowing her love for him? ...  Might not the strength of her
+love have stood between him and this evil? ...  She felt as though hers
+had been the hand to thrust him forth into the darkness for the second
+time.  Once before, in the years that were gone, she had thrust him
+forth; and in the empty years that had succeeded she had learnt bitterly
+to regret the hard unforgivingness of that act.  Her one cry then had
+been: "I didn't understand...  Oh! if only I could have the chance
+again."  The opportunity had been given her, and she had failed to
+recognise it.  "He was so cold," she excused herself.  "I was afraid of
+him."  And then: "I could not have prevented him from doing what he had
+made up his mind to do...  My power over him is dead..."
+
+In that knowledge lay the bitterness of the sting...
+
+In the afternoon, according to her promise, Julie Weeber arrived.  She
+was somewhat diffident of intruding, uncertain how Mrs Lawless felt the
+news of Van Bleit's arrest.  Julie shared the popular belief that it
+would be a grievous shock to the woman whose name had been bandied about
+in connection with his for months.  To make sure, she inquired of the
+native who opened the door to her whether Mrs Lawless were receiving.
+
+"I would come another day, if it were more convenient," she said.
+
+"Missis is expecting you," he answered, and showed her into the
+drawing-room.
+
+Zoe Lawless was seated in a low chair near one of the windows, with her
+hands lying idly in her lap.  She was very pale.  Julie decided that she
+looked ill, and imagined that she understood the reason of her pallor.
+
+"I came," she explained, "because I said I would.  But if you'd rather
+have me some other day, I'll go away again."
+
+"I'd rather that you stayed," Mrs Lawless answered, rising and shaking
+hands.  "You see, I'm lonely.  Why should you condemn me to my own
+society to-day?"
+
+"I thought perhaps--"
+
+Julie stammered and came upon an awkward pause, whereupon Mrs Lawless
+went quickly to her assistance.
+
+"I know," she said.  "This shocking news is all so fresh.  But,
+obviously, I cannot assist my friends by becoming a recluse, can I?  We
+won't speak of the subject, if you don't mind.  It is sufficiently
+painful to make the discussion of it depressing.  My sympathy with Mrs
+Smythe is great.  She is very fond of her cousin, and feels this deeply.
+And I am very fond of her...  Sit here--will you?--with your back to
+the light.  It's more restful."
+
+Julie sat down wondering.  She was beginning to reconstruct her ideas.
+There was nothing in Mrs Lawless' manner to bear out the supposition
+that she was in love with Van Bleit.  She did not suspect that Mrs
+Lawless was intentionally correcting her error, nor did she guess how
+her assumption of the truth of the common report embarrassed her
+hostess.  This ugly misapprehension had struck at her on three separate
+occasions that day.  It was strange that she had not realised before the
+construction that might be put on her friendship with Van Bleit.  She
+wondered whether Lawless had shared the same belief.  And then she
+remembered how in her first interview with him he had warned her against
+the man.  Why, if he was so entirely indifferent, need he have concerned
+himself about her acquaintance?
+
+She looked up suddenly and surprised Julie's inquisitive eyes studying
+her intently.  The girl smiled.
+
+"It's awfully sweet of you to have asked me to come and see you," she
+said.  "I've wanted to know you--oh! for ever so long."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I don't know--unless it is because you are so beautiful.  Women do
+admire other women whatever's said to the contrary.  I've watched you
+motoring past our house...  I saw you pass this morning."
+
+She did not add that she had thought how sad she looked.
+
+"Yes," Mrs Lawless answered.  "I went to see Mrs Smythe.  If my
+thoughts had not been so occupied with other matters I would have
+stopped and driven you out with me then.  It's rather selfish to let you
+cycle out here when I have a car."
+
+"Oh no!"  Julie contradicted eagerly.  "I make nothing of this journey."
+
+"Nevertheless, I shall drive you next time.  I want you to come out
+often.  You play tennis, of course?  There is a beautiful lawn there--
+wasting...  Nobody plays on it."
+
+She pointed through the window to a stretch of green sward which the
+Hottentot gardener kept surreptitiously watered during the dry season,
+so that whatever else suffered from the long droughts the grass was
+always green.
+
+"I should like that," Julie said.  "Do you play?"
+
+"Not much.  I'm a lazy person.  But I have thought I should like to get
+a few young people out for a game occasionally.  I enjoy looking on.  If
+you would bring Mr Bolitho, I could manage to make up the numbers."
+
+Julie did not answer immediately.  She sat looking out into the garden
+with heightened colour and vaguely perplexed eyes.  She wondered why
+Mrs Lawless should have singled out Teddy Bolitho from the host of
+young men who would all have been willing to come.  She wished that she
+had mentioned any name rather than his.
+
+"You don't like my plan?"  Mrs Lawless said quietly.
+
+Julie looked up.
+
+"Yes...  Yes, I do," she said.  "I was only--thinking.  Of course Teddy
+Bolitho would come--anybody would, if you asked them.  And it's heavenly
+playing on a grass court; there are so few in the Colony.  It'll spoil
+it, though."
+
+"I would rather it were spoilt with use than wasted," Mrs Lawless
+said...  "We waste so much."
+
+She had risen, and now, moving nearer to the girl, she laid a strong,
+well-shaped hand upon her shoulder.
+
+"Don't you make waste too," she added gently.  "I did when I was
+young... and it leaves me full of vain regrets.  Some people think that
+youth is the best gift of the gods: but it is far from a perfect gift;
+for the proper appreciation of it is withheld.  It is only when the gift
+is withdrawn that we realise all that it meant.  If one could have one's
+youth a second time, one would get the full value of the hours.  You've
+got it now--that priceless gift; and you are inclined to be careless of
+it."
+
+"I wonder why you say this to me?"  Julie murmured.
+
+"Because I've been looking on.  You say you have observed me...
+Interest is usually mutual.  I have certainly felt interested in you."
+
+Julie coloured awkwardly, and looked down.  She wondered whether Mrs
+Lawless had observed her friendship for the man whose name was the same
+as her own, and if she disapproved of it.
+
+"I don't think it altogether depends on oneself what one makes of one's
+youth," she said.
+
+"There is much to be said for that argument," Mrs Lawless answered.
+"But I could wish you had not found it out so soon."
+
+Julie looked up quickly.
+
+"You mustn't pity me," she said.  "I wouldn't retrace one step of the
+past...  It's the future I would alter, if I could."
+
+"And how can you tell," Mrs Lawless inquired, "what the future holds?"
+
+The girl smiled drearily.
+
+"I know very well what it doesn't hold," she answered.  "That's as far
+as I care to go."
+
+And then suddenly her wandering gaze fell on a photograph that stood in
+a silver frame on the piano, and she became silent, regarding it with an
+intensity that drew Mrs Lawless' eyes to the object that excited her
+interest.
+
+"You recognise it?" she said, and there was a quality in her voice such
+as Julie had never heard in any voice before.  "That was taken before--
+he left the Army."
+
+It was a portrait of Lawless in regimentals, younger and handsomer than
+the man Julie knew; but there was lacking in the younger face something
+which the older face possessed.  Julie could not determine what that
+something was.
+
+"Yes, I recognise it...  But I miss--the scar," she said.
+
+She blushed violently.  It was the scar that had appealed so strongly to
+her youthful imagination.  And then, raising her glance furtively to see
+whether her embarrassment were observed, she was profoundly disconcerted
+at the sight of the tears that were standing in the other woman's eyes.
+Mrs Lawless moved away.
+
+"I don't know," she said, "why I put that portrait there to-day...
+There's a connection, I suppose, between it and one's wasted youth.  The
+portrait stands for waste...  It is the sight of it that has set me
+thinking back."
+
+She crossed to the piano and lifted the frame as though her purpose were
+to remove it.  Then, changing her mind, she set it again in its place,
+and came slowly back.
+
+"I wonder what you think of my getting you here and depressing you with
+my reminiscences," she said in a lighter tone.  "It wasn't my intention.
+I suppose it's due to reaction following the shock of recent events.
+We'll flee from gloomy subjects, shall we? ...  Come out with me.  I
+want to show you my garden..."
+
+Whether it was owing to Mrs Lawless' display of emotion, or the
+unexpected sight of the photograph in her room, or to both reasons
+combined, added to the strange new quality in her voice when she spoke
+of the portrait's original, Julie conceived the idea that she too loved
+this man with the dominating personality,--the strangely aloof manner,--
+the air of quiet detachment that made him at once a figure attractive
+and unapproachable, so that women, while desirous of knowing him,
+hesitated to solicit an introduction.  It was not strange that she
+should love him--that to Julie was a natural, almost an inevitable,
+consequence of knowing him--but it was incredible that he could remain
+indifferent to her regard.  The only explanation she could arrive at was
+that he was ignorant of it.  Julie understood at last the tragedy that
+occasionally looked out from Mrs Lawless' beautiful eyes; and in her
+sympathy with her the pain at her own heart grew less.  She had no
+thought of competing against this peerlessly lovely woman.  It was
+unaccountable to her by the light of her new understanding that Lawless
+should have troubled to show any interest in her at all.  She wondered
+whether, if she ever saw him again, she would find the courage to tell
+him the secret she had surprised...
+
+That evening, after Julie had left her, Mrs Lawless took the portrait
+of Lawless from the piano, and sat with it in her hands examining it
+closely.  She was wondering whether the woman he had gone away with now
+was the same woman he had wrecked his happiness for eight years ago--
+wondering in a quite impersonal, dulled sort of way.  The thing was past
+remedying and altogether beyond her control.  She remembered that in the
+past it had been the wound to her self-esteem she had felt the most
+bitterly.  Her feelings had changed during the long years.  She
+experienced little of the grief, the anger, the disgust that had moved
+her then.  Her present sorrow was less a selfish emotion than sorrow for
+the man because of the waste he was making of life.  She scarcely
+considered the woman outside her connection with Lawless, save, after
+the tragedy of the previous night, to be relieved that, since she was to
+influence him, she had removed him from other influences of a more
+actively dangerous nature.  She was glad that he was out of Cape Town,
+otherwise she knew he would have been concerned in the affair that had
+cost one life and might yet cost another.
+
+And while she sat there musing on these matters with the photograph in
+her hands, the door of the room opened, and to her astonishment Colonel
+Grey was announced.  He followed quickly on his name, as though
+anticipating and anxious to prevent a refusal on her part to receive
+him, offering an apology for intruding on her as he entered.
+
+Mrs Lawless laid the photograph face downwards on the sofa and rose to
+greet him.  Her face expressed her surprise; his was grey and tired and
+haggard, and his blood-shot eyes looked like the eyes of a man who has
+not slept.
+
+"I fear I have disturbed you," he said.  "I'm sorry to intrude, but I
+wish to see you."
+
+"You have disturbed me doing nothing," she answered composedly.  "I was
+wearied of my thoughts.  Sit down and tell me what you wanted to see me
+for...  Will you take anything?" she added, on a sudden thought, as he
+dropped wearily into a chair.  "You look tired."
+
+"Thank you, no," he answered.  "I am less tired than worried.  But I
+won't distress you by going into that.  I quite understand that the
+subject is painful to you, and for that reason I regret to inflict my
+company on you."
+
+Mrs Lawless looked slightly impatient.  This man too! ...  Was everyone
+she met to say the same thing to her, only in different words?
+
+"Please disabuse your mind of any such impression," she said.  "Of
+course I feel sympathy with the trouble of my friends, but your presence
+cannot possibly increase my distress.  Why should it?"
+
+"I feared you might hold me responsible for what has occurred," he said
+simply.  "And the sight of me cannot fail to call up painful thoughts.
+I do not profess to be other than an enemy of the man you regard as a
+friend.  You know too much of the matter for me to impose on you--even
+if I wished to do so.  I can only say that I regret that our interests
+are opposed."
+
+She smiled faintly.
+
+"You take rather much for granted, I think," she said.  "Why should you
+suppose I am interested in the matter at all?  Women do not usually
+meddle in such dangerous and discreditable enterprises--you will forgive
+me for speaking of this as I feel...  I cannot see that it is creditable
+to be concerned in this business of yours."
+
+"Perhaps not," he said.  "But then, again, perhaps you don't fully
+understand.  And aren't you judging a little by results?"
+
+"I think it is reasonable to draw conclusions from results in most
+instances," she answered.
+
+"From final results," he returned...  "But not at this stage."
+
+"I had hoped this was the last stage," she said.
+
+"I had hoped it might be," he returned with some grimness of manner...
+"But we haven't won yet."
+
+"Nor lost?"
+
+"We can't lose, Mrs Lawless.  It has to be a fight to the finish."
+
+He regarded her fixedly.  As was usual when in her presence, the
+distrust which he entertained for her at other times vanished to yield
+to a liking and confidence which he admitted with some reluctance, but
+which he was unable to subdue.  Hers was a magnetic personality, and
+this in conjunction with her beauty robbed a man of his wits.  At his
+age he should be impervious to the charm of women.  But man is never too
+old to be influenced by the sex.
+
+"It's rather a big check we've come upon," he resumed, after a momentary
+pause.  "I'm sadly in need of assistance...  That's why I have come to
+you."
+
+She opened her eyes wide in astonishment.
+
+"You never supposed that I might assist you?" she said.
+
+"I am hoping you will," he answered... "in a way in which only you can.
+I want you--if you will be so kind--to furnish me with Mr Lawless'
+present address.  He ought to be here, on the spot."
+
+She sat very still for a while, looking beyond him out through the
+window.
+
+"Isn't one broken head and one life sufficient?" she asked presently in
+a low, strangely controlled, unemotional voice.  "It seems to me that
+your view of things is out of proportion, Colonel Grey, when you can
+sacrifice the lives of men for a packet of scandalous letters."
+
+"That means," he said, "that you decline to give me the information?"
+
+"I have not the information to give," she answered with dignity.--"I
+should certainly not give it, if I had. ...  My one fear is that Mr
+Lawless will hear of this affair and return."
+
+"I could wish I shared your belief," he replied.  "But I fancy you may
+ease your mind on that score...  And there is less danger in this than
+you imagine... the dog that bites is chained."
+
+He eyed her narrowly as he referred thus to Van Bleit's arrest; but he
+could make nothing of the calm, unchanging face, the quiet eyes that
+looked steadily back into his.
+
+"You hate that man," she said slowly.  "You will--hang him, if you can."
+
+He sat forward and peered at her queerly from under his bent brows.  He
+had half expected when he went there that evening that she would make an
+appeal to his clemency on behalf of the man against whom he would appear
+as principal witness.  That she did not, spoke well for her pride and
+self-control.  Such courage and restraint moved him to admiration.  She
+hid her feelings magnificently, he decided, ignorant of how little she
+had to conceal.
+
+"You think so," he said, rising, and standing, hat in hand, in front of
+her, preparatory to taking his leave after his fruitless errand.  "I
+should have thought you might have perceived that until I have got
+possession of the letters I have nothing to gain by his death.  Denzil
+has the packet in his keeping, I believe.  If I can get hold of it
+before the case comes on, Van Bleit shall account for the life he has
+taken."
+
+"And that is your reason for coming to me for the address?" she
+observed.
+
+"That," he answered bluntly, "is my reason.  I want Grit Lawless for the
+job."
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+In a lonely shanty on the veld, twenty good miles from the nearest town.
+Lawless took up his quarters with the woman in whose society he had
+left Cape Town.  The shanty was of corrugated iron lined with planks,
+and consisted of two small bedrooms and a living-room, divided from one
+another by matchboard partitions.  There were primitive out-buildings
+that had served a former occupier for stables, and a disused mud hut
+stood in a sort of blank isolation some quarter of a mile distant.
+Behind the hut on steeply shelving ground was densely wooded cover, the
+only sign of shade in the whole picture.  The hut had been used by
+natives apparently quite recently.  The wooden blocks, curved to fit the
+neck, that serve the black man for pillow, stood on the ground.  These
+blocks were joined together by a wooden chain, as is the marital custom
+of the land.  Beside them was a worn and dirty blanket, and a calabash
+and mealie stamper lay against the wall close to the doorless opening.
+This primitive native home, with its rude implements and poor
+accommodation, was seemingly deserted.  Probably the coloured occupants,
+having no lawful possession of the place, had fled precipitately at the
+coming of strangers who might question their right to be there, and were
+doubtless watching at no great distance until the white man should
+depart, as he always departed after the briefest of sojourns in that
+lonely spot.  That they would return eventually was certain; no native,
+save under compulsion, vacates a place and leaves his blanket behind.
+
+Lawless and his companion settled into their temporary home and
+proceeded to do for themselves.  The woman set the house to rights,
+while Lawless stabled the horses he had hired from the town, and went
+out to gather wood to make a fire.  When he had collected a sufficient
+quantity, he returned to the house, piled the logs upon the hearth, and
+set light to them.  They had brought provisions with them, and he filled
+a new tin kettle from his water-bag and set it on the flames.  The woman
+emerged from the bedroom while he knelt upon the hearth, and stood in
+the doorway watching him with a light of admiration in her eyes.
+
+"Say, baas, there are no sheets to the beds," she drawled,--"nor
+blankets."
+
+He was intent on his occupation, and did not look round.
+
+"Damn it!" he muttered.  "I never thought of that...  Of course not...
+We'll have to sleep in our clothes."
+
+"Been jumped, I expect," she said.
+
+"Very likely.  What an ass I was not to come better prepared."
+
+"Oh! what does it matter?" she returned.  "We've both roughed it before.
+It's a picnic.  Get up, Grit.  The cooking's my department.  You unpack
+the food stuff.  I tumbled on a gridiron under one of the beds.  It's a
+bit rusty, but I'll clean it in the flame; then we'll cook some of those
+chops you bought.  I'm hungry."
+
+He was hungry also, and he fell to with appetite, the roughness of the
+fare notwithstanding, when she placed the fizzling chops on a tin plate
+and brought them to the table.  He cleared a space for them, and cut a
+chunk of bread from the loaf for himself and another for her, while she
+made the tea.  Then they sat down to the first meal in their new
+quarters.
+
+It was a silent meal.  They were too hungry to talk, and both were tired
+after a long day in the saddle.  It was more than three weeks since they
+had left Cape Town.  They had stayed at different places, until, hearing
+of the shanty from a man in Stellenbosch, who was anxious to let it, and
+who told wonderful fairy-tales of the sport to be enjoyed in the
+neighbourhood.  Lawless had decided to take it, and having paid the
+first month's rent in advance, bought provisions and hired horses and
+set out with his companion to take possession of what the owner
+described as a comfortably furnished shooting-box.  Comfort is largely a
+matter of comparison.  Lawless had roughed it often, had fared worse,
+and been worse housed; but his new surroundings depressed him.  It was
+probably the contrast between them and the recent comfort he had enjoyed
+that forced home the sordidness of the present life.
+
+When they had supped he dragged his chair nearer the doorway and sat
+smoking, while the woman cleared away the remains of their meal.  She
+joined him when she had finished her task, drawing up a chair opposite
+to his on the other side of the opening.  Then she took a packet of
+cigarette-papers and tobacco from her pocket, and rolled herself a
+cigarette.
+
+"You are dull, dear boy," she remarked, as she caught the box of matches
+which Lawless tossed her in silence.  "You are a man of action, and the
+solitudes are not to your taste.  This life is the silly sort of mistake
+made by most honeymooners."
+
+Lawless looked across at her, a queer expression in his eyes.  In the
+dim light, which mercifully concealed the thickness of the paint upon
+her face, she was really strikingly handsome.  She looked younger than
+she appeared in the daytime.
+
+"You ought always to sit in the twilight," he said with brutal
+frankness.
+
+She laughed good-naturedly.
+
+"If you pay me compliments like that, Hughie, you'll make me vain," she
+said.
+
+She drew at her cigarette, inhaling the smoke and discharging it through
+her nostrils.  He watched her with an odd feeling of disgust.  The bond
+between them was peculiar.  The affection was without doubt stronger on
+her side than on his.  But he ungrudgingly admitted she made a man a
+capital chum; and since throwing in his lot with hers he was keenly
+alive to the fact that many men envied him his possession.  It had been
+a source of much annoyance to him, and of great gratification to Tottie,
+that she had been the object of offensive admiration at every place they
+visited.  She had declared that it was because he was jealous that he
+determined to bury her in the wilds of the veld.
+
+"You are the type of man who would be capable of murdering a woman,
+Grit," she said.
+
+"There you are mistaken," he had answered.  "If a woman once washed her
+hands of me, I should simply have done with her."
+
+"One can't turn one's back on an incident so as to forget it
+altogether," she had objected.
+
+"For the matter of that," he had returned, "a man can't command memory,
+but he can so put a thing out of mind that it ceases to disturb him."
+
+"Then, if ever I chance to elope with Van Bleit," Tottie had flung at
+him audaciously, "I shall have the satisfaction of knowing my memory is
+relegated to the ashbin..."
+
+They sat on until the light failed and darkness settled upon the veld,
+closing about them stealthily, and shutting out the immensity of the
+endless stretch of treeless waste that was all that could be seen from
+the house, a wide expanse of undulating veld held in the blue hollow of
+the sky.  The darkness crept closer.  It shut out the face of each from
+the other's view.  A small red glow marked where Tottie still held a
+cigarette between her painted lips, and a larger duller glow shone from
+the bowl of Lawless' pipe.
+
+"The moon will be up in a short while," he said abruptly, and the words,
+quietly as he had spoken, snapped the silence almost violently, as a
+voice raised above a whisper in a death-chamber might do.  "Shall we
+stay and see it rise?"
+
+"Yes, if you like."
+
+She flung the end of her cigarette out into the darkness, and watched it
+where it lay like a somewhat fiery glow-worm until it smouldered out.
+
+And then slowly the darkness began less to roll away than to disclose
+itself.  Black objects stood out dimly from the shade, and the line of
+the horizon defined itself and almost imperceptibly, so gradual was the
+change, grew lighter.  Tones of colour appeared in the picture; the
+black melted into purple, so rich and deep as to seem more dense than
+the sombre shade it superseded.  And then abruptly the scene brightened.
+A soft yellow glow appeared in the sky, and the inverted curve of a
+blood-red moon showed above the horizon.
+
+Lawless stood up, and knocking the ash from his pipe, leant with his
+shoulder pressed against the framework of the door, and watched the
+rising of the moon in silence until, like a thing released from
+restraining bonds, new-dipped in the life-blood of departed day, it shot
+up into the sky.  He was not aware how long he remained thus, he was not
+aware that his companion had risen also and stood beside him, until he
+felt the touch of a hand upon his shoulder.
+
+"Grit, it's cold," a voice said, rousing him from his meditations.--"And
+we haven't any bedclothes."
+
+He turned his head slowly and surveyed her by the increasing light of
+the moon.  Then he pushed her inside and shut the door.
+
+"We'll take a mattress off one of the beds," he said, "and sleep in
+front of the fire..."
+
+The next day Lawless announced his intention of going into town in quest
+of a further supply of comforts.  Tottie suggested accompanying him, but
+he negatived the idea.
+
+"I want your mount for a pack-horse," he said.
+
+"That's all very fine," she grumbled.  "What am I to do all day by
+myself?  Think of the risk in a place like this...  The white woman and
+the black man, you know."
+
+He laughed grimly.
+
+"You have a revolver.  I'd back you against any nigger that happened
+along."
+
+He rode away in the morning sunshine with the second horse on a lead.
+For the first mile the woman accompanied him, walking beside him with
+her hand on his stirrup.  Once or twice she looked up at him as he sat,
+a straight soldierly figure, in the saddle, with the strong stern face
+shaded by the wide-brimmed hat, and the keen sombre eyes fixed steadily
+ahead, and in her own eyes shone the light of loyal affection and
+admiration which so often appeared in them when they rested on him
+unseen.
+
+"Bring some sort of a newspaper back with you, Grit," she begged.
+"It'll help to keep up the fiction that we're still in the world,
+somehow."
+
+Then she parted from him and started to walk back alone, and he put the
+horses at a canter and rode forward into the blue haze that shrouded and
+softened the scene.  The morning air was delicately fresh and crisp with
+a touch of sharpness in it like the feel of an English spring.  The
+African winter, with its warm sunshiny days and cold nights, is the most
+perfect season in a land that boasts one of the finest climates in the
+world.  White man's weather, it is called; and it sets the white man
+thinking pleasantly of the land he speaks of and thinks of as Home.  It
+set Lawless thinking of Home as he rode across the veld,--of a gabled
+grey-walled house set down in a pretty garden that gave upon a lane.
+The lane in summer was gay with wild flowers and shaded by find old
+elms, and he had walked there often with the beautiful woman who had
+lived in the grey stone house, the woman who had professed to love him,
+and who had written to him later that she never wished to see him again.
+
+As he thought of it now a wave of bitterness surged over him.  He
+recalled a sentence in her letter that had stung him at the time--that
+stung him still with a no less poignant pain: "_I do not know you...  I
+think I have never known you.  You are a stranger to me, and, I see now,
+my greatest enemy_." ...  There were other things in the letter that had
+hurt; but that sentence stood out luridly with no whit of the bitterness
+gone from it after all the years...
+
+And so he rode, haunted by memories, his consciousness lashed with the
+knowledge that what she had written was true.  And he knew that the pain
+of it all was still fresh in her memory as in his.  He had read that in
+her face, and in the tones of her voice, when, at what cost to her pride
+he dimly understood, she had met and spoken with him again.  And he was
+consciously, deliberately, adding to her distress.  At the time it had
+been a matter of indifference to him what she thought of the life he was
+leading; now, with his thoughts of her softened by distance, he
+regretted that he had not deceived her as to the manner of his leaving
+Cape Town.  It had been a poor sort of revenge to flout his mistress in
+her face--and unnecessary.  A man usually conceals such ugly facts.  But
+it could avail little to harbour regrets at this stage.  The thing was
+at an end for ever.  He was out of her life now.  If she allowed her
+thoughts to dwell upon him at all, it would only be, he felt, as upon
+one who was dead to her, and who had caused her no less pain in his
+dying than he had caused her in his life.
+
+Lawless was late in getting back to the shanty.  The light had fallen
+and night was settling upon the land.  While he was still a good way off
+he discerned the house by the flickering yellow glimmer of the candles
+Tottie had put in the window as a landmark for him.  It was the only
+means of illumination she had at hand.  There was an oil lamp in the
+house, but the paraffin, which Lawless was bringing with him, had been
+forgotten on the day of their arrival.
+
+He gave a short sharp whistle as he rode up, and she opened the door and
+came forth to meet him.
+
+"Lend a hand at unloading," he said, swinging himself out of the saddle.
+"The pack's heavy.  Come round this side."
+
+She helped him lift the sacks from the back of the led horse, and
+accompanied him to the stable to settle the animals for the night,
+carrying a dripping tallow-candle in her hand, by the feeble light of
+which they accomplished their task.
+
+Lawless was very silent, almost taciturn, while he off-saddled and
+rubbed down his weary horse, giving to Tottie's gossiping inquiries curt
+monosyllabic replies.
+
+"Tired, Grit?" she asked, noting his preoccupation.
+
+He swore.
+
+"It's something more than tired," he said.
+
+They left the stables, and walking back to where they had deposited the
+sacks, lifted them, and carried them indoors.
+
+"Got my paper?" she inquired.
+
+He took the newspaper from his pocket and flung it on the table with an
+oath.  The woman looked at him searchingly.  It occurred to her that he
+had been drinking.  If it were not that, something had happened to put
+him out.
+
+Lawless suddenly approached the table and struck the paper, lying where
+he had flung it, with his open hand.
+
+"They've bungled this business again," he said savagely,--"that pompous
+fool, Grey, and his crony, Simmonds...  Simmonds has gone to his
+account, poor devil!  And Van Bleit's in tronk, awaiting his trial for
+murder."
+
+Tottie's mouth fell open.
+
+"And the letters?" she gasped.
+
+Having fired his bomb.  Lawless cooled down.  He took out his pipe,
+filled, and lighted it, and dropped wearily into a chair.
+
+"You'll read it all in the paper," he said.  "There's no mention of the
+letters."  He gave a short laugh.  "My little plan, which I've rehearsed
+to you, in which you were to help, is knocked on the head.  I might just
+as well never have come here.  It's that crass, pig-headed, officious
+old muddler's doing.  He never trusted me...  He fancies I've done a
+bunk...  That's because you're in it."  He laughed again.  "It hasn't
+occurred to them that you might be useful--I'm supposed to be simply
+enjoying myself."
+
+He smoked for a few minutes at a furious rate, while Tottie opened and
+read the paper with her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands.
+
+"It's a case of the biter bit," observed Lawless.  "Looks as though they
+had intended murdering him...  A silly sort of a game."
+
+"Do you think Van Bleit will hang for it?" she asked presently.
+
+"It's impossible to say.  If it pans out at a term of imprisonment it's
+checkmate.  I've a mind to wash my hands of the job."
+
+Tottie looked up.
+
+"Don't do that," she said earnestly.  "The Colonel might take it that
+his suspicions were justified, if you did."
+
+"I don't care a damn what he thinks.  If a man can't trust me, he can do
+the other thing."
+
+"But I care," she said quickly.  "I'm jealous for your honour, Grit."
+
+He lifted his head and surveyed her in surprise.
+
+"You!" he said.
+
+Then he laughed awkwardly at the half-shamed admiration he surprised in
+the woman's eyes.  She turned her face aside quickly, and resumed her
+reading of the paper.
+
+"All right!" he said sheepishly.
+
+When she had finished the case, she got up and stood opposite him on the
+other side of the hearth.
+
+"What is your next move?" she asked.
+
+"I don't move," he answered quietly, "until after the case is finished."
+
+"And in the meantime?"
+
+"In the meantime," he replied, smiling across at her, "you stay here
+with me in this God-forsaken hole."
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+Van Bleit's trial occupied considerably less time than was anticipated.
+It came on early in the session, and was quickly disposed of.  The
+evidence was contradictory and unsatisfactory.  Van Bleit, who was put
+in the witness box by his counsel, gave the only clear and unreserved
+account of the night's doings.  His plea was that he killed Simmonds in
+self-defence.  There had been ill-feeling between himself and Simmonds
+for some time.  On the night in question he had gone to the bungalow in
+perfect good faith.  There was nothing remarkable in his being armed.
+He had carried a revolver ever since he had roughed it in Rhodesia.  At
+the bungalow he had met with a hostile reception.  Simmonds had locked
+the door of the room and put the key in his pocket.  He had then drawn a
+revolver from his coat pocket and had covered Van Bleit with it.
+
+"I recognised that I must defend my life," Van Bleit finished with fine
+dramatic effect.  "A man hasn't time to consider on such occasions; he
+acts on impulse.  But I solemnly declare I had no intention to kill the
+man.  I fired wildly, and I am certain no one could have been more
+distressed than myself when I discovered that my shot had proved fatal.
+I was scarcely conscious that I had fired until Simmonds fell."
+
+Colonel Grey corroborated his statement as to the locking of the door;
+but he added that there was nothing hostile in the act.  He believed it
+had been done to guard against interruption.  He further allowed that
+Simmonds had been somewhat hasty.  He had been the first to produce a
+revolver.  He had not, however, covered the prisoner with it.  The
+prisoner had been excited and had fired without provocation.
+
+The jury retired for about ten minutes.  When they returned they
+pronounced the prisoner Not Guilty.  The verdict was received with
+cheers.  When a man has stood on trial for his life the tension of
+feeling is sufficiently strained to cause a strong reaction on his
+acquittal in favour of the accused.
+
+Van Bleit left the court with his friends, and Smythe, who was as much
+astonished as relieved at the turn affairs had taken, drove him home to
+his wife as the surest proof he could offer her that her cousin was a
+free man.
+
+"I don't know how he does it," he confided in Van Bleit's counsel, who
+was a personal friend, and whose fee he was responsible for.  "I take
+it, he's reserved for something worse than hanging."
+
+The strain had told on Van Bleit.  He had recognised that he stood in a
+particularly tight place.  Death had been his constant companion
+sleeping and waking for so long that his nerve was shattered for the
+time.  Excitement had kept him up hitherto, now that the necessity to
+brace himself was ended he collapsed like a deflated paper bag.
+
+When he got alone with his cousin he gave way and blubbered feebly as a
+child blubbers who has been beaten and desires to but cannot retaliate.
+Mrs Smythe was shocked.  She pressed whisky on him with a heart
+overflowing with pity, and he helped himself liberally from the decanter
+until his lachrymose condition gave place to a bombastic assurance that
+was almost as pitiful to witness.  Mrs Smythe sent her husband off to
+his club, unmindful that he should encounter Karl in his present mood,
+and she and her cousin dined alone.
+
+"We'll have a nice quiet time together," she said gently.  "You'll sleep
+here to-night, Karl?"
+
+"I might as well--yes," he replied.
+
+He got up, wandered aimlessly round the room, and then came back, put
+his arms round her shoulders and kissed her.
+
+"You haven't told me anything about Her yet," he said.  "Has she been
+upset? ... anxious? ...  I've thought about her day and night."
+
+Mrs Smythe looked troubled.
+
+"You mean--Zoe?"
+
+He stared at her in surprise.
+
+"Why, who else?" he asked.
+
+"She has been with me a lot," she answered evasively.  "She's very kind,
+Karl--so sympathetic."
+
+"Of course she didn't believe me guilty?" he questioned, his bold dark
+eyes holding hers, confident in the remembrance of his last interview
+with Mrs Lawless that she could not have thought unkindly of him in the
+interval.
+
+"I don't know...  She never spoke of you," Mrs Smythe returned
+unwillingly.  "Zoe is very reserved."
+
+He smiled with some complacence.
+
+"She won't be reserved with me," he said, "when I see her to-morrow.
+I'm living for to-morrow.  I would have gone to her this evening only--"
+
+He hesitated to complete the sentence, but Mrs Smythe understood.
+
+"I think it just as well not to be too precipitate," she said.
+
+Something in her manner arrested him.  He glanced at her sharply.
+
+"You don't know... you haven't heard anything?" he stammered.
+
+She had neither the heart nor the courage to shatter his hopes.  She
+smiled at him and shook her head.
+
+"Women don't bare their hearts to one another," she answered.  "But I
+always feel with Zoe Lawless that she lives in the past."
+
+"Pshaw!" he returned easily.  "You're a sentimentalist, Kate."
+
+The following day when Van Bleit called upon Mrs Lawless he had
+occasion to remember his cousin's words, and to wonder whether she might
+not have some grounds for her opinion.  The message he received at the
+door was that Mrs Lawless was out.  He left the magnificent basket of
+flowers he had brought with him, and scribbled hastily on a visiting
+card that he would call again on the morrow, and went away dissatisfied.
+She must have known that he would call that day.  If she had felt
+kindly towards him she would have remained at home to receive him.  He
+was undecided whether to infer from her action that she no longer had
+any wish to meet him, or if she was merely piqued that he had not gone
+straightway to her after his liberation, and desired to show by her
+coldness her displeasure at his negligence.  The latter view appealing
+more to his self-esteem he inclined towards adopting it; though a
+knowledge of Zoe Lawless' character should have dispelled any such
+supposition.
+
+The next day when he reached the house and rang the bell, with
+considerably less confidence than on the former occasion, he was met
+with the same disconcerting message as before.  Mrs Lawless was not at
+home.  There could be no mistake this time as to the intention of the
+rebuff.
+
+He ground his heel savagely into the gravel of the path and turned away.
+It was the trial and the charge of murder, he decided, which had
+probably shocked her.  It was not sufficient apparently that he had been
+acquitted of the charge; womanlike, she held him responsible for the
+life he had taken.
+
+He went back to his own rooms.  He had left the Smythes.  The animosity
+that existed between himself and Smythe rendered it inadvisable for them
+to remain long beneath the same roof.  And he had no inclination for his
+cousin's society.  He shrank from the thought of her sympathy.  It was
+humiliating beyond measure to have to acknowledge his defeat to her.
+
+Then, like an inspiration, the advice Lawless had given him on the last
+occasion when they had lunched together flashed into his mind.  He
+decided to adopt it, to leave Cape Town immediately.  It did not seem to
+occur to him that had absence been likely to further his cause his
+recent detention should have considerably advanced him in favour.
+
+At this crisis a telegraphic message arrived from Lawless himself.
+
+"_Congrats try change of air bed board and welcome here grit_."
+
+Van Bleit read this message many times, and considered it for fully half
+an hour before he wrote a reply.  He considered his reply with equal
+care, and made several alterations in the form before finally writing it
+out on a fresh form and dispatching it.
+
+"_good travelling with denzil might as well come your way karl_."
+
+He put on his hat and went out.  It remained for him to look up Denzil
+and inform him of the holiday he had planned.  He had taken all the
+risks he intended taking.  He had had experience of two men against one;
+on this occasion he determined the strength of numbers should be on his
+side.
+
+Denzil was astonished, and not altogether delighted, when he heard Van
+Bleit's proposal.  He had no particular fancy for wintering on the high
+veld, and he did not desire to leave Cape Town.
+
+"What makes you suspect treachery in Grit Lawless?" he asked.  "I
+thought he was a particular chum of yours."
+
+"I thought so myself until I found out he was in Colonel Grey's pay."
+
+"And how did you discover that?" the other inquired sceptically.  "Told
+you, I suppose?"
+
+"Not much," Van Bleit answered craftily.  "But I keep a watch on the
+Colonel's doings, and I know fairly accurately all the visitors he
+receives at the bungalow.  It was the greatest surprise in the world to
+me when I tracked Grit Lawless there.  I watched him unseen go in and
+out on three separate occasions.  He has passed me so close that by
+stretching out a hand he could have touched me, and bade me good-night
+in response to my `Good-night, baas,' taking me for the Kaffir I
+disguised myself to represent.  He is very wide awake is Grit Lawless,
+but I'm wider awake still.  I've followed him up to the stoep of the
+bungalow and heard him greet the old man, unconscious of a listener.  He
+can't kid me.  The only thing that puzzles me is his absconding with
+that she-devil.  It's just possible that he has had a split with the
+Colonel.  But that doesn't make him any friend of ours, you understand.
+Grit is cunning enough to play the game off his own bat.  I'm not for
+trusting any man.  We'll go, but we'll need to be wide awake."
+
+Denzil looked at the speaker admiringly.  He was cunning himself; it was
+due to his fertile brain that the letters had fallen into Van Bleit's
+hands, otherwise he would never have participated in the profits; but
+his cunning was not equal to the Dutchman's, nor his courage.  He was a
+nervous little fellow, and would gladly have parted with the letters for
+the handsome sum offered by the other side.  He was always keenly alive
+to the danger of his profession as blackmailer.  It was only his fear of
+Van Bleit that kept him in subjection.  And he was sorely afraid that
+Van Bleit would overreach himself and land them both some day into
+difficulties with the law.
+
+"Why go," he asked sensibly, "if you don't trust the man?"
+
+Van Bleit shrugged his huge shoulders.
+
+"It suits me to go somewhere," he answered.  "And I'd like to test the
+fellow."
+
+"You're more than a match for him," Denzil remarked tentatively.
+
+Van Bleit smiled drily.
+
+"I daresay, Dick," he said.  "But I've a fancy for your company...  I
+shouldn't like the Colonel to get worrying you just now."
+
+"You mean," Denzil said stiffly, "that you distrust me?"
+
+"Not you, my dear fellow, but your judgment," Van Bleit replied easily.
+"If it hadn't been for me you would have parted with a fortune for a
+beggarly sum long since."
+
+"I'd be content," observed Denzil in an injured tone, "with a handsome
+sum down.  Where's the sense in squeezing a man past his endurance?"
+
+"We've got to find out how far his endurance goes," the other answered.
+"Your conscience is over sensitive, my boy, for a job of this kind.
+We've a handsome annuity in those letters...  Why on earth should we
+sink it in a sum we should both squander in a year?  There's no reason
+in it, and no commercial instinct.  Apart from that, I've gone through
+an experience that entitles me to redress.  Do you suppose I've endured
+nothing in standing on my trial?  I wasn't responsible for Simmonds'
+death; it was his own silly fault.  But I might have had to pay for it.
+The other side has got to make that good to me, and it isn't to be done
+cheaply.  Putting a man's private feelings on one side, think of the
+expense of counsel's fees, and such things?"
+
+Van Bleit was careful not to mention that all the expenses of his trial
+had been borne by Theodore Smythe, who laboured under the delusion that
+his wife's cousin had very little ready money at his command.  It was a
+mystery to him how Van Bleit lived.  Had he suspected him of
+blackmailing, he would not have lifted a finger to save his neck from
+the rope.
+
+Denzil nodded shortly.
+
+"Yes, of course...  I quite see your point," he said.  "At the same
+time, I wish you could come to some sort of agreement.  I think after
+this Grey might meet you quite handsomely.  And it would be satisfactory
+to me, at least, to be finished with the business.  Men have got twenty
+years for blackmail before now."
+
+Van Bleit drew himself up and eyed his subordinate aggressively.
+
+"If you're funking it," he said, "say so, and be done with it.  I'm not
+going to work with a man I can't be sure of.  We have worked together so
+far satisfactorily that it will be regrettable if you separate our
+interests now.  But it has to be now or never.  I'm not throwing this up
+for any scruple.  Do you, or do you not, stand in with me?"
+
+Denzil's nature was weak, prone to any influence; and the dominating
+personality of the other man bore him down easily.
+
+"Of course I stand in with you," he said.  "Our interests are
+identical."
+
+"Good!"  Van Bleit rejoined.  "You're a wobbler, Dick; but you generally
+rise to the occasion.  Then you go with me to-morrow?  You won't find it
+very amusing, though it may have its exciting moments...  Unless, of
+course, the lady is still keeping house for Grit.  But from the invite I
+imagine she has left him in the lurch."
+
+"He'd scarcely ask you up there if he'd got any women about," was the
+reply, which Van Bleit construed into a compliment.  He smiled
+complacently.
+
+"I wouldn't mind hunting down the quarry on my own account," he said.
+"She was devilishly handsome--and a dashed bad lot."
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+The result of the trial was as great a surprise for Lawless as it had
+been for Theodore Smythe.  Lawless had ridden into Stellenbosch daily
+for the paper, and had scanned the columns eagerly for any mention of
+the case.  On the day that he read of Van Bleit's acquittal he sent off
+the telegram, the receipt of which had decided Van Bleit on a change of
+air.
+
+He had ridden into town alone; Tottie, who usually accompanied him, had
+remained at home to attend, as she informed him, to the ravages her
+wardrobe had sustained through the hard wear of the veld.  When Lawless
+got back he flung the paper in through the open doorway and rode on to
+the stable, where he off-saddled, and then returned to the house.
+Tottie, when he entered, was seated at the table in her favourite
+attitude, with her elbows upon it and her chin in her hands, devouring
+the paper with avidity.  She looked up as his tall figure blocked the
+doorway and laughed.
+
+"He's got the devil's own luck," she said.  "But this is all right for
+you, old man."
+
+Lawless walked up to the table.
+
+"I've sent off a wire asking him here," he said.
+
+She laughed again.
+
+"You don't lose time...  And what's to become of me?  Plainly, you
+wouldn't expose me to such a risk as that."
+
+"I shall banish you to the hut we looked at on our arrival.  It's
+quarter of a mile away, and the bush just behind it.  You'll sleep there
+and spend your days in the bush."
+
+"What a lively programme!" she ejaculated.
+
+"Fairly dull--yes."  He went nearer to her and laid a hand on her
+shoulder.  "I'm not going to pretend that you'll get much joy of it," he
+said.  "But you wanted to help me."
+
+She looked up and nodded.
+
+"Yes, I wanted to help...  If I had to spend my nights as well as my
+days in the bush, I'd do it."
+
+His hand gripped her shoulder till it hurt.
+
+"You're the right stuff," he said,--"the best stuff.  You and I together
+will pull this off."
+
+That night was destined to be a night of surprises.  Hardly had they
+supped, while they yet lingered at the table discussing their plans, a
+sound broke suddenly upon the silence, a sound so unusual that Lawless
+stopped abruptly in the middle of his talk, and Tottie's head went up
+with a jerk like the head of a wild thing scenting danger.  And so they
+remained for a while listening in attitudes of strained attention.  The
+sounds were unmistakably made by the heavy creaking wheels of a waggon
+travelling towards them across the veld.  Tottie looked at her companion
+inquiringly.
+
+"It's a surprise party, baas," she said.  "They've seen our light and
+are for outspanning."
+
+For answer Lawless pushed back his chair, and, rising, started to clear
+away the evidence of the _tete-a-tete_ meal.  She helped him swiftly and
+in silence, pausing every now and again to listen to the sounds that
+were gradually getting nearer, growing momentarily louder and more
+distinctive.  The cracking of a whip was heard, and above it the noise
+of men's voices raised in a rollicking song.
+
+"Get into the bedroom," Lawless commanded.  "You must make your escape
+by the window, and sleep in the hut."
+
+"But--strangers!" she protested.  "Why shouldn't I participate in the
+fun?"
+
+"We can't run the risk," he said.--"No!  You make yourself scarce, and
+leave this to me.  Strangers or no, they're rowdy...  I would rather
+have no woman in this."
+
+She demurred still, foreseeing a merry evening, and not relishing the
+part allotted to her; but he carried his point; and reluctantly she went
+into the bedroom and fastened the door upon herself.  He waited until
+she was secure from observation, then he opened the outer door and stood
+in the lighted aperture, looking into the night.
+
+"Hallo!" shouted a voice in English out of the darkness.
+
+"Hallo!" he answered back.
+
+A young man came forward, swinging a lantern in his hand.
+
+"We're outspanning here," he said.  "I never expected such luck as that
+this place was occupied.  A fire is all we need.  We carry provisions
+with us."
+
+"Come in and welcome," Lawless answered.  "How many of you are there?
+Whatever accommodation I have is at your service."
+
+"We are five," the other answered.  "They're unharnessing the mules.  We
+lost our driver at the last uitspan."  He lifted his lantern and looked
+about him.  "This is a slice of luck.  For two nights we've been jolly
+near frozen, sleeping in the wain."
+
+"I'm glad," Lawless said, "that you happened this way.  I was just about
+fed up with my own society.  Let's lend a hand with unharnessing the
+mules.  It's a Godsend a visitation like this."
+
+The young man looked at him curiously.
+
+"If you're so out of conceit with it all, why do you stay?" he asked.
+
+"Because," Lawless answered, and smiled strangely, "I was under the
+delusion I'd have companionship when I took the place.  My tenancy
+expires shortly, and I shan't renew it."
+
+The new-comer understood.  He looked away from his companion and spat
+noisily on the ground.
+
+"I'm glad we chanced by while you were still in possession," he said.
+
+They walked together by the fitful light of the lantern to where the
+rest of the party were busy with the mules.  They lent a hand, and when
+the team was outspanned and haltered to the disselboom inside a hastily
+improvised laager, they repaired to the house, carrying provisions with
+them.  Amongst the provisions was a limited quantity of whisky and any
+amount of Cape dop.  Most of the party were already drunk.  It was
+evident from the outset that they meant to make a night of it.
+
+"I expect," Lawless said, as he preceded his visitors into the
+living-room, "that you'll be glad of a hot supper.  My culinary powers
+are not great, such as they are I'll be happy to cook for you."
+
+"Don't you bother, baas," the young man who had first introduced himself
+exclaimed.  "I'll cook for them.  You supply the fire and the roof,
+that's quite enough."
+
+Lawless was immeasurably relieved.  Tottie had done all the cooking
+their simple household had required; he had very little idea of the art
+himself.  But he knew where the cooking utensils were kept, and supplied
+them; and the young man set about making a stew that smelt very
+appetising as it heated over the fire.  The others sprawled before the
+hearth and drank while they waited for the meal.  Before it was ready a
+further interruption occurred that made an addition to the numbers
+already assembled.  It was indeed a night of surprises for the man who
+acted as host to these unexpected and none too welcome guests.
+
+The new-comer made his appearance on horseback, and rode right up to the
+window before anyone suspected his approach.  The sound of his horse's
+hoofs was deadened by the noisy chaff round the fire.  He looked in
+through the open window upon the rowdy group, and, leaning from the
+saddle, gripped the sill with his hand.
+
+"Hallo, there!" he shouted in a cheery voice.  "Got room for another?
+I've lost my bearings on this tractless waste, and seeing your uitspan
+calculated some sort of hospitality was going forward.  I'm going to
+stable my mount.  May I come in?  I'm Tom Hayhurst."
+
+Lawless started, and looked round.  The name conveyed much to him.  It
+conveyed something to several others present; they looked up with a grin
+of welcome.
+
+"Good old Tom!" said one man.  "I haven't seen him since we were at the
+poor man's diggings together."
+
+Tom Hayhurst's face beamed in upon them.
+
+"Who's baas here?" he asked.
+
+"I am," Lawless answered quietly, stepping forward to the aperture.
+"There's room for your mount in the stable.  Come in."
+
+"Right!" the young man answered.  "I don't know you from the devil.  Got
+a lantern, anyone?"
+
+Someone handed him a lantern through the window, and he rode away,
+whistling.  One of the men laughed.
+
+"Old Tom has been missing lately.  Wonder where he's been?" he mused.
+
+"There are plenty of us can't always account for our movements," someone
+else answered, amid a fresh guffaw of mirth.  "But wherever he's been in
+the interval, he's always good company.  Say, baas, you've got a picnic
+to-night."
+
+Lawless made no reply.  The name of Tom Hayhurst had roused memories,
+had taken him back to a lonely bungalow in Cape Town, where a man had
+related to him briefly how Tom Hayhurst had failed him in an important
+mission.  He had been for wringing Tom Hayhurst's neck at the time.  He
+did not feel especially friendly towards him on that particular night;
+but Hayhurst had happened upon his dwelling out of the darkness, and
+claimed his hospitality, as was customary in the veld.
+
+He moved back to the ring round the fire, and seated himself on an
+upturned box and stared thoughtfully into the flame.  The arrival of the
+new-comer was strangely annoying to him.
+
+Hayhurst came in noisily, and shaking hands with the man who had been at
+the diggings with him, nodded to the rest.  They made way for him at the
+fire.  He stood in front of it, looking curiously at Lawless while he
+warmed his hands at the blaze.  The scar on Lawless' face seemed to hold
+his attention.
+
+"My name's Hayhurst," he remarked somewhat pointedly.
+
+Lawless surveyed him with an air of quiet aloofness, and, without
+removing the pipe from his mouth, replied:
+
+"So you said before."
+
+Hayhurst was not easily disconcerted, but he reddened slightly and gave
+an awkward laugh.
+
+"It's damned cold," he said.  "I'm chilled to the bone.  If anyone
+presses me, I'll take a glass of dop...  Don't overdo it with water."
+
+Stephens, the man from the diggings, handed him a glass.  Young Hayhurst
+drank the contents, and remained a while staring into the empty tumbler
+with a thoughtful smile on his face.  Then he put the tumbler down, and
+returned to his occupation of warming his hands.  He glanced again at
+Lawless.
+
+"I've heard of you," he said,--"from a chap who won't tell any more
+tales of anyone, good or bad...  That mark on your face gives you away."
+
+"Don't be personal, Tom," hiccoughed his friend.
+
+Lawless got up.
+
+"I've heard of you, too," he returned curtly.  "The repetition of the
+information wouldn't be likely to make you vain, so we won't go into
+that."
+
+There was a perceptible hang in the conversation.  The men broke off in
+their talk to listen, and the man who was cooking the supper looked up
+from his task to stare.  The sense of something in the air penetrated
+even to the dulled wit of the most intoxicated of the party, a man of
+rough appearance and no education, who spent all his spare time in
+getting drunk, and crowded as much work into his sober hours as three
+ordinary men would have accomplished.  He shook his head gravely, and
+then with solemn deliberation refilled his ever-empty glass from the
+bottle of dop at his elbow.
+
+"Don't mix your drinks," he counselled... "bad for the constitootion--
+very."
+
+He maundered on, but nobody heeded him.  Hayhurst was looking steadily
+into the keen eyes of the man whom he recognised from the description he
+had once listened to of the peculiar scar on his face.  He had no shadow
+of a doubt as to the man's identity.
+
+"Since what I have heard of you," he returned, "might be calculated to
+make you vain, I'll spare your modesty.  As for my own reputation!"  He
+laughed suddenly.  "That wouldn't pay for whitewashing, would it, boys?"
+
+He gazed round on the group with the laugh still in his eyes.  Rentoul,
+who had given the advice against mixing one's liquor, looked up
+owlishly.
+
+"You never done a dirty trick, Tom," he said...  "Nothin' mean about
+you.  Gimme your 'and, me boy.  No need for whitewashing...  What say?--
+Tom's all ri', ain't 'e?"
+
+Hayhurst flung himself down on the hearth beside him, and stretched his
+legs, encased in dusty gaiters, towards the fire.
+
+"Tom's a good sort," Rentoul continued, blinking round on the rest...
+"Always said so--goo' sort!--but fond of his liquor.  You're drunk,
+Tom...  Been takin' wets along the road."
+
+Hayhurst laughed again.
+
+"The veld's so overstocked with pubs--ain't it?" he said.
+
+"Here, hand out the plates, someone--will you?--this mess is ready,"
+announced the chef.
+
+There was a general move.  The clattering of plates and knives
+superseded the talk; and for a fairly lengthy interval conversation gave
+place entirely to the sound of hungry men feeding noisily in rude and
+primitive fashion.
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+When supper was ended the plates were pushed into a bucket of water and
+left to soak until they should be required again.  One of the men got
+hold of the newspaper, and read it aloud to the rest.  The names of Van
+Bleit and Simmonds were familiar to everyone present.  Some of them had
+been personally acquainted with the owners of the names, and all were
+interested more or less in the case.
+
+"It's the best man that has reached his terminus," Stephens remarked.
+"I could spin a yarn or two about Van Bleit."
+
+"Who couldn't?" laughed another man.  "But he always comes up smiling,
+somehow.  I should say this let off was the biggest surprise he ever
+had."
+
+"'E served me an ugly trick once," muttered Rentoul darkly, endeavouring
+to obtain a further supply of dop from the empty bottle beside him...
+"Over a woman that was...  When I was down with dysentery too."
+
+He sat up with a poor attempt to look sober, and leaning forward tried
+to push the floor away, which, in the most annoying manner, threatened
+to hit him in the face.  To avoid collision with it, he stood upon his
+feet, and turning round two or three times to get his balance, raised
+his arms and solemnly addressed the grinning group of listeners.
+
+"Dysentery's a crool complaint, gets a grip on a man.  Reg'lar epidemic
+it was in camp that year.  Doctor done 'is best to stamp it out, but
+whot could 'e do in that beastly 'ole?  I done whot I could to 'elp 'im.
+`Boys, the doctor's right,' I says.  `You're a dirty lot o' swine.
+Look at your camps.  D'you expect the doctor to go round an' stick 'is
+nose into your stinking places?  Why don't you clean up? ...  Personal
+cleanliness...  I know...  I've seen it afore.'"  He pointed at the
+grinning faces about him, and became personal and aggressive.  "You
+wouldn't wash your dirty mugs if you could 'elp it, any of you."
+
+"That'll do, Mat," someone interrupted.
+
+"Neither would I," resumed the orator in a more conciliatory tone,
+"unless I 'ad to.  But we've got to be clean...  We've got to 'elp the
+doctor...  We've got to fight this thing.  Coming events cast their
+shadders before.  It'll be here amongst us next.  And it ain't no use
+waitin' for the Government.  What's the use of the Government when
+you're out prospecting with six boys, an' the lions come on you an' kill
+three of them?  Whot d'you do?  S'pose you got a gun loaded in two
+barrels...  Do you run back to call the p'lice? ...  Do you go for the
+magistrate to come an' 'elp yer?  Where'd you an' your boys be? ...  No!
+You put your barrel into their guts and pull the trigger--yes, every
+time.  An' we got to do the same with the dysentery.  'E don't come on
+you with a bound; 'e crawls through the grass, like a snake.  'E comes
+on gradually and slow... takes you unawares.  We've got to stamp 'im
+out.  We've got to pull the trigger, and not wait for the Government..."
+
+"Sit down, Mat, and give somebody else a chance," Stephens interrupted,
+with a wink at the rest.
+
+"You can 'ave your say," retorted Mat, "when I've finished."  He turned
+round and round, emphasising his remarks with repeated blows of one hard
+soiled fist upon the grimy palm of the other hand.  "We've got to stamp
+it out," he shouted.  "We've got to fight it.  I remember when I was
+young--"
+
+"For God's sake, dry up!" interposed another.  "You've missed your
+vocation."
+
+"Who're you gettin' at with yer `vocation'?"  Rentoul demanded with
+bitter superiority.  "I don't know anything about vocation.  I picked up
+my eddication off jam tins and pickle bottles.  I've no time for
+vocation.  If you'd been in Jo'burg when I was there, you'd 'ave 'ad no
+time for eddication either.  You'd 'ave been in tronk, where they makes
+yer wash yer face every morning--behind the ears too.  To hell with yer!
+I've said all I want ter say...  We've got to stamp it out."
+
+He fell to muttering, and eyeing the last interrupter malevolently, sat
+down again.
+
+"We've got to stamp it out," he said.  "Gimme the bottle, Tom.  You've
+swilled too much of that dysentery mixture, me boy.  You're drunk--tha's
+what you are."
+
+"Van Bleit was running some quarry in Cape Town," an older man observed,
+continuing the conversation from where it had been broken off.  He
+sucked thoughtfully at his pipe and stared into the fire...  "Woman with
+lots of money, I heard--and looks too.  Must be hard up for an honest
+man if she takes on Karl."
+
+"This case will have about finished that game, I should fancy," the chef
+of the party remarked.
+
+Lawless got up, and flung a fresh log on the fire.  He kicked it into
+position with his boot, and pressed it down among the glowing embers,
+pressing heavily as though it were some enemy he trod beneath his foot.
+Then he turned slowly round.
+
+"Time's been standing still for some of you," he said.  "I've been in
+Cape Town recently.  There's nothing in that report."
+
+Rentoul looked up from his corner.
+
+"Whot you talking about?" he asked.  "Time always stands still...  We
+move--Time don't move.  If you come back in a thousand years, Time will
+still be 'ere, I tell you...  I read it in them magazines."
+
+"Did you see Van Bleit when you were there?" someone asked, ignoring the
+dissertation on Time.
+
+"I did.  I lunched with him the day I left.  He is by way of being a--
+chum of mine."
+
+Rentoul made a clumsy effort to get upon his feet.
+
+"Then I'm goin' to 'it you," he said.  "I can't get at 'im, but I'll
+bash your mug in, see if I don't."
+
+"Oh! sit down, and don't be a silly ass," Lawless returned irritably.
+
+Tom Hayhurst pulled the quarrelsome member back into his place.
+
+"Go easy, Mat; he's baas here," he said.
+
+Rentoul scowled darkly.
+
+"I don't own any man baas," he muttered thickly.  "I don't care a damn
+for any man breathing...  All men are equal.  I don't care for you, nor
+anyone.  In a few years we'll all be the same.  When some digger comes
+along and digs up my skull and Cecil Rhodes' skull, who'll tell which
+was Mat Rentoul's, and which Rhodes'?"
+
+Somebody laughed.
+
+"They'll only need to look at the size of the cavity in the craniums,
+Mat," he said.
+
+"There you go again!"  Rentoul rejoined acrimoniously.  "Fancies yerself
+a British encyclopaedia don't yer?"
+
+The oldest of the party, who was slightly grizzled, and had the
+appearance of one who might have done something in the world and had
+somehow missed his opportunities, looked hard at Lawless.
+
+"Weren't you in the C.M. at one time?" he asked.  "The name conveys
+nothing, but I seem to remember your face."
+
+Lawless nodded.
+
+"That's right," he said.  "I knew you the minute I saw you.  But as I
+stood for law and order in those days and you didn't, I did not insist
+on the acquaintance.  It was only the accident of the different sources
+from which we drew our pay that put me in the right and you seemingly in
+the wrong.  The Police were too damned interfering with the privileges
+of humanity for my taste.  That's why I chucked it."
+
+"Good!"  The grizzled man smiled in appreciation of the speaker's
+sentiments, and tossed his nearly empty tobacco-pouch across to him.
+"Fill up," he said.  "That's good stuff."
+
+Lawless caught the pouch, filled his pipe, and tossed it back again to
+the owner.
+
+"It was while I was in the Police I got chummy with Van Bleit," he
+volunteered.
+
+Tom Hayhurst rose unexpectedly and swaggered through the group sprawling
+before the hearth, until he stood close to Lawless, with his back
+towards the fire.
+
+"I wouldn't mind making a wager there isn't a man here who hasn't heard
+of `Grit,'" he said.
+
+His face was flushed, his mien slightly defiant, as though he
+challenged, not only the men he addressed, but the stern, keen-eyed man
+who surveyed him disapprovingly with his strangely penetrating,
+inscrutable grey eyes.
+
+"`Grit'!"  The grizzled man looked up with a laugh.  "Of course.  That
+was the name you went by in the days when you weren't Lawless either in
+name or occupation.  To think I should forget!"
+
+"You're too damned modest," yelled a youngster.  "The chaps tell stories
+about you up in Rhodesia to-day."
+
+"Fairy-tales," Lawless responded, smoking indifferently.
+
+"That's a lie, anyway," retorted Hayhurst.  "I know one or two facts."
+
+"Among facts I know about you," Lawless replied sharply, "is that you
+gab too freely.  Sit down, and shut up."
+
+Hayhurst looked nettled.  He lost his ready assurance and lapsed into a
+sulky mood.
+
+"I'll knock any man's head off who says that about me," he muttered.
+
+"Well, come and knock mine off," was the curt invitation; and during the
+derisive laughter that followed Hayhurst sat down.
+
+"Shake!"
+
+Mat Rentoul had emerged from his corner, and, swaying at Lawless' elbow,
+unsteadily advanced his huge fist.
+
+"Shake!" he repeated peremptorily.  And on the command being complied
+with, he turned about and harangued the rest.  "Said I'd 'it 'im, didn't
+I?  Well, 'e can 'it me, if 'e likes.  I'll 'it any man whot isn't a
+friend of 'is.  That woman I spoke of--"
+
+"Oh! dry up," shouted Lawless, beginning to lose his temper.
+
+"'It me, if you like," returned Mat imperturbably...  "I've said you
+might...  Gave 'er 'is last thick 'un, 'e did, and 'elped 'er back to
+'er friends.  She told me 'erself...  You did--you lie!--an' took in yer
+belt two 'oles when you fancied she wasn't looking.  I don't care what
+hell's scum you chum with... they won't do you any 'arm."
+
+"Oh! let him alone, Grit," the man whose pouch he had shared, and who
+was called Graves, interposed carelessly.  "Nobody's listening.  Send
+round the bottle, boys.  There's been too much leakage in one quarter.
+Play fair."
+
+Somebody produced a tin whistle, and after a very creditable performance
+on it, took a draught from a glass another man offered him, wiped his
+lips with the back of his hand, and started a familiar music-hall ditty.
+
+"You take solo, Tom," Stephens suggested.
+
+Hayhurst, who was lying sulking, with his elbow on the floor and his
+hand supporting his head, kicked out a dusty riding-boot aggressively,
+but made no other move.
+
+"I'm holding my jaw," he said.
+
+"Don't be a jackass.  If you won't take the solo, I will."
+
+The other rolled over and sat up.
+
+"There's one thing I object to more strongly than singing myself on the
+present occasion," he remarked, "and that's listening to you.  Give me
+the note, Bill, and then go ahead."
+
+The men sat round, smoking and listening, while Bill played his little
+tin whistle, and the youngster sang in a throaty tenor some jingling
+absurdity about a girl and a balloon.  Each in his way was an artist,
+and made music out of the poor material.  Mat Rentoul grew noisily
+hilarious, and then tearful; but he joined in the chorus with the rest.
+Lusty and strong rang out the voices from half a dozen stalwart throats,
+all of which needed lubricating when the song was finished before they
+started afresh.  Through the open window the sound floated out into the
+night.  The stars that hung low in the purple heavens blinked as it were
+with astonishment at this rude breaking of the surrounding peace, and
+someone, crouching in the darkness against the mud wall of the hut, with
+the dirty blanket wrapped around her to protect her from the cold,
+opened wide eyes and listened intently to the unfamiliar noise.
+
+One by one the voices trailed off, till only the tenor was left singing
+to the thin accompaniment of the tireless tin whistle.  Then that too
+ceased, and the night was silent again, given over to the watchful stars
+and the stirless air, as they waited for the dawn.
+
+Lawless looked round on his sleeping guests, and stirred the fire
+noisily with his boot until it leapt into flame.  Slumber had overtaken
+these men where they sprawled before the hearth.  Some rested easily
+with their heads pillowed on their arms; one--it was Rentoul--lay like a
+log on his back, his great mouth open, breathing stertorously, and his
+twitching limbs flung wide.
+
+"Hogs!" he muttered.
+
+He fetched a pillow from one of the bedrooms, and lifting Rentoul's
+inert head slipped it underneath.  As he straightened himself after the
+performance of this office he became aware of a pair of eyes that
+followed his movements with interest, and perceived that among those
+silent figures one at least was wakeful and alert.
+
+Hayhurst sat up, and then got upon his feet.
+
+"Not all hogs this journey," he said.  And added: "The bed where that
+pillow came from will serve me better than the floor."
+
+Lawless nodded.
+
+"There's a bed apiece," he answered.  "The floor to-night is good enough
+for these."
+
+He flung on fresh logs, and stepping between the closely packed forms,
+took up the lamp from the table and led the way to the bedrooms.  Before
+separating for the night Hayhurst held out his hand.
+
+"To show there's no ill-feeling," he explained with a self-conscious
+laugh.
+
+Notwithstanding the late carousal of the previous night, the morning
+found the men early astir.  Rentoul awoke only half sober, and had to
+sharpen his faculties with a nip before he rose, and, despite his
+overnight homily on personal cleanliness, wiped the dust from his hair
+and beard with a grimy hand and sat down to breakfast unwashed.  In the
+clear light of day they were a rough, strangely assorted lot; only the
+older man, Graves, with his air of distinction and education, stood out
+from the rest, like a man-of-war among a flotilla of "tramps"--but a
+man-of-war that has been in battle and come out of it badly damaged.
+
+"Rum go, our meeting again, like this," he said to Lawless, while they
+stood in the sunshine together and watched the others inspanning the
+mules.  "I'd ask you to make a return call, only,"--he lifted his
+shoulders and smiled--"I'm a descendant of Cain--a wanderer upon the
+earth.  I'll own my six feet some day, I suppose, and come to anchor."
+
+Lawless glanced at the speaker with interest.
+
+"I'm something of a rolling stone myself," he answered.  "I doubt I
+shall ever lay claim to greater acreage than you."
+
+"Ah!"  Graves stroked the back of his head reflectively, and stared
+vaguely away into space.  "Failures!" he muttered...  "Eh?...  And to
+think of some of the fellows who're on top!"
+
+"It's another form of selfishness, theirs," Lawless replied.  "They've
+gone for the one thing, and stuck to it.  A single idea would never
+satisfy either you or me.  One man takes Wealth for his mistress;
+another, being polygamous, goes for a bevy of mistresses that we may
+bring under a common heading--Pleasure.  The fool pursues Ambition, and
+the sentimentalist his Ideal...  And when it comes to the finish--as
+Rentoul says--who shall say which man's skull it is he turns up?"
+Graves nodded assent.
+
+"And yet," he said--"a man's talents...  It seems rotten things should
+pan out like that.  I was never a white-haired boy exactly, but I had
+ideas once of doing something...  Rot, of course--damned rot!  And
+queer, too, how ideas run to seed before they fruit.  I tell you a man
+needs to be ever on the alert, watching his ideas to prevent the growth
+exceeding the vitality.  We don't prune and tend enough.  We're so proud
+of our ideas that we let 'em run up rank and weedy, till they seed
+before time.  It's the man with the strength of mind to nip the young
+shoots and exert patience who sees the fruition of his ideas."
+
+"I confess I don't understand," said Lawless, "how you came to allow all
+yours to seed.  With men like those," and he waved his hand in the
+direction of the swearing, noisy group hitching the mules to the
+disselboom with many loud and unnecessary oaths, "it's easy of
+comprehension.  But--"
+
+Graves filled in the pause with a laugh.  "Ah well!" he returned...
+"Who can say?  The secret to the riddle lies in what you spoke of just
+now...  I'm a polygamist."
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+Lawless stood in the sunshine and watched the departure of this strange
+aggregate of human limitation setting forth on its journey into the
+infinitudes.  The clumsy waggon, drawn by its team of four mules, with
+the dirty faded hood of yellowish green shading the wain, bumped and
+rumbled over the uneven ground.  The jingling of the harness, the
+creaking of the heavy wheels, and the loud and too frequent cracking of
+the long whip, struck separate and not inharmonious notes of sound in
+the stillness of the morning air.  And above these sounds a strong voice
+rang out heartily:
+
+"Good-bye, Grit."
+
+The men in the waggon started to sing, "_For he's a jolly good fellow_."
+The rude music of their voices came back strongly to Lawless' ears, and
+then grew fainter, and yet more faint, until only the silence reigned
+about him, and the waggon showed smaller and smaller as it trailed
+slowly across the veld, farther and farther into the illimitable blue
+distance.  Hayhurst had ridden off some time before, taking an opposite
+direction to that followed by the waggon.  The occupant of the shanty
+was left alone.  The world seemed to have emptied suddenly and to have
+overlooked himself in its indiscriminate sweeping away of all life.
+
+He gazed about him at the solitudes--waste land on all sides, stretching
+away league upon league in one great sameness,--vast, unchanging open
+spaces of veld, green and brown and orange, in which the yellow stones
+shone warmly in the sunshine, and the dew that lay heavily on the ground
+like a veil of silver flashed a prismatic defiance with the fire of
+myriads of gems.
+
+He turned about and went into the house.  The advent of these men had
+been unwelcome, their departure left a blank feeling of desolation
+behind.  He had had as much of the solitudes as was good for him, he
+decided; if Van Bleit arrived, he would settle matters with him speedily
+and return to the beaten track.  He felt depressed, and knew not that it
+was the influence of Graves' personality working upon his mind.  This
+man who had stirred up thoughts of failure by his talk, who in his
+person stood for waste--the result of neither competition nor
+intellectual incapacity, but of his own ineffectually--had set him
+thinking of the purposelessness of his life, its want of aim, of every
+high and right intention that once had actuated him, and which he had
+flung aside and trampled on in weak resentment against the tide of
+circumstances he had himself set loose and made no attempt to stem.  He
+also stood for waste--the waste of powers which had left him stunted
+mentally and morally enervated.  It is waste that is responsible for the
+world's great failures.
+
+He made an effort to shake off the mood that held him, and moving across
+the littered room surveyed the disordered breakfast-table with disgust.
+Empty bottles stood upon the table, and lay under it where they had been
+rolled the night before when they had yielded the last drop of their
+contents.  They had been thirsty souls, these men who had happened out
+of the darkness and vanished again with the light,--failures, in a
+certain sense, each one of them,--a queer conglomerate of misdirected
+energy.
+
+Lawless had a feeling that he ought to reduce the muddle to order, but
+he had only a vague idea how to set about it.  He caught up the empty
+bottles, and going outside with them flung them out upon the veld.
+
+"It's no use, Grit, playing Aunt Sally with those bottles.  You can't
+hide your debauch from me."
+
+He turned his face with a laugh and a look of quick relief in the
+direction of the voice, and there stood Tottie in her short tweed skirt,
+with a golden lock straggling rakishly over one eye, and her lips
+unusually pallid.
+
+"You!  Gods!  I'm glad," he cried.
+
+"Don't stare at me like that," she exclaimed,--"look somewhere else,
+can't you?  I won't have the eye of man upon me until I have attended to
+my toilet.  There wasn't the vestige of a glass in the hut, you
+lunatic."
+
+He followed her into the house.
+
+"What an orgy!" she exclaimed, with a swift glance round the untidy
+room.  Her wandering gaze came back to his face and rested upon it
+curiously.  "Reaction!" she murmured.
+
+"Eh?" he said.
+
+She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him towards the door.
+
+"You're looking cheap.  Clear out of this.  I'll put things right.  Come
+back in half an hour, and you'll find breakfast ready."
+
+"I've breakfasted," he answered indifferently.
+
+"Have you?  Then you can return in half an hour and repeat the
+performance with me."
+
+"I want to ride into town," he said.
+
+"Yes, of course.  I'll go with you.  You might put in your time now
+grooming the horses.  It'll keep you out of mischief, anyhow...  It may
+be the last ride we'll take together for many a day."
+
+He looked swiftly at her.  She was trying to hide her feelings, but it
+was evident that the near termination of this life in the wilds which he
+had been contemplating with satisfaction, affected her differently.  She
+had enjoyed the uneventful weeks with only his society to companion the
+long days.  It had been a fresh experience which a really strong
+affection for him had made altogether agreeable.  She turned her back on
+him, and putting up a hand jerked back the straying lock of hair
+impatiently.
+
+"Get out, Grit.  You're in the way," she said.
+
+He faced about, and without a word strode out into the sunshine.
+
+It was rather a silent ride they took--that last ride together into
+Stellenbosch.  Lawless was preoccupied, and the woman too appeared busy
+with her thoughts.  She asked him once what he purposed doing if Van
+Bleit decided not to come up, and he answered shortly:
+
+"If he doesn't come to me, I go to him."
+
+She looked him straight in the eyes.
+
+"You mean to best him, Grit," she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Remember, I'm your lieutenant."
+
+"Yes," he said again.  And they fell into silence as before.
+
+Van Bleit's answer acted somewhat as a set-back to their plans.  Lawless
+had never contemplated the addition of Denzil to their numbers.  It came
+altogether as a surprise.
+
+"This complicates matters," he said.  "Looks fishy... rather as though
+he had his doubts of me.  And yet I'll swear when I last saw him--"
+
+He broke off and thought about the matter.
+
+"It won't be so easy to outwit two," he said.  Then a smile of
+satisfaction dawned in his eyes.  "It's safe to predict, if they're both
+up here, we shall have a chance of seeing those letters..."
+
+Van Bleit and Denzil on their arrival hired a Cape cart from the town
+and drove the twenty miles across the veld.  They congratulated
+themselves long ere they reached their destination on the foresight that
+had decided them to bring only a small amount of luggage.
+
+"No man," Van Bleit observed to his companion, "could stick it here for
+long.  What a cheek the fellow has to imagine a woman--and such a
+woman--is going to find his companionship sufficient to reconcile her to
+this sort of thing!  It's not surprising Tottie scooted."
+
+Denzil looked out across the unvarying scene with increasing
+dissatisfaction.
+
+"Lots of chaps have the Turk in them.  They'd like to veil their women,"
+he returned, with no particular interest in the subject.
+
+He was watching without appreciation the wonderful effects of the
+sunshine on the inimitable blending of colour in the veld, and the
+slowly moving shadows that swept across it where the clouds veiled the
+golden light.  A soft wind was blowing, a wind that had the warm feel of
+the spring in it with its promise of early summer.  The Cape winter was
+passing, going its way unmarked, even as it had come.  But here on the
+high veld the nights were cold yet, and the crispness of the mornings
+still reminded a man of the feel of an English spring.
+
+Van Bleit examined his finger-nails--which was a habit with him--and
+laughed.
+
+"That would be all right if the women didn't prefer being looked at," he
+said.  "The Turk will have to awake to the fact one day that the veil is
+out of fashion."
+
+It was afternoon when they reached the shanty.  They had had three
+stoppages on the journey owing to the breaking of different parts of the
+harness, that was, native fashion, repaired with string.  The horses
+were outspanned, and left to graze, while the coloured driver flung
+himself face downwards in the full rays of the sun to sleep for a couple
+of hours before making the return journey.  Van Bleit settled with him,
+and bade him return for them in three days.
+
+"Make it four," urged Lawless.  "You're in a devil of a hurry to quit."
+
+"I should think so," Van Bleit responded.  But he made the alteration in
+the time.  "What on earth do you do with yourself up here?  I'd want to
+cut my throat if I stayed a week."
+
+"Oh! it hasn't been half bad.  I was getting a bit sick of my own
+company, though."
+
+"All alone, eh?"
+
+"All alone," Lawless answered.  "It was all right while she was here;
+but the life was too domesticated for her taste.  I was on the point of
+chucking it myself when I sent you that wire.  It occurred to me that
+this might suit your book."
+
+"Awfully decent of you," Van Bleit replied.  But his eyes narrowed
+vindictively.  He had a score to pay off against this man.  His
+treatment at the hands of Mrs Lawless was, he felt convinced,
+attributable to him somehow.  Grit had played him false in more ways
+than one.
+
+"It's not a bad little hutch," he said, as he looked round the interior.
+
+"Oh! it's all right...  A bit cramped."  Lawless threw open a door.
+"The bedrooms lead out," he explained,--"two of them.  Boxes, of course;
+but they serve for single rooms.  You and Denzil can make shift for a
+few nights.  I'll bunk up in here."
+
+Van Bleit walked into the bedroom.
+
+"Nonsense!" he replied decidedly.  "We aren't turning you out of your
+room.  Denzil and I will sleep together.  I'll not hear of any other
+arrangement, Grit."
+
+"As you like," Lawless answered.
+
+Van Bleit went into the inner room.
+
+"Check number one, Master Grit," he murmured.  Aloud he said: "I'd like
+a wash, old man.  And then, if you've anything to eat, we won't say no."
+
+When they were alone together, Van Bleit drew Denzil's attention to the
+thinness of the partition between the two rooms, and laid a significant
+finger upon his lips.
+
+"Leaks," he said, and winked expressively.
+
+He put his eye to a crack in the boarding.
+
+"That's where he'll spy upon us when he thinks we're unsuspecting," he
+whispered, coming back.  Then, whistling cheerily, he divested himself
+of his coat and plunged his face into a basin of cold water.
+
+Later, when, having eaten, they sat outside smoking and talking, while
+the sun dipped below the horizon and the low wind died away, Van Bleit
+spoke of his trial and the night at the bungalow, giving a word picture
+of the shooting which by constant repetition he was beginning to
+believe.  The recital made him something of a hero, but it did not
+reflect well on Colonel Grey.
+
+"It was a damned trap," he finished, and blew a cloud of smoke into the
+quiet air.  "People who set traps for me are apt to find themselves
+ensnared."
+
+"I knew Simmonds.  He seemed a decent, harmless sort of chap," Lawless
+remarked after a pause.  "I can't associate him with traps, somehow.  He
+lent me ten pounds once, and never bothered me to return it.  I'm glad
+to remember now that I settled my account with him."
+
+"I've settled my account with him too," Van Bleit rejoined...  "I don't
+go back on my word whatever the consequences."
+
+He was growing excited.  Denzil, whose impulses did not lead him into
+indiscretions, brought him up suddenly with the quietly uttered remark:
+
+"No one could have been more upset than you were over Simmonds' death,
+dear fellow."
+
+"That's a fact," Van Bleit returned readily.  "It was a shock to me.
+But it was my life against his.  I fancy most men value their own lives
+more highly than another's.  Simmonds tricked me to the bungalow, and he
+paid the cost.  He meant mischief.  It isn't wise for any man to attempt
+that sort of game with me."
+
+Lawless smoked in silence, and Denzil, under the pretext of getting a
+light for his pipe, nudged his friend significantly.  Van Bleit in his
+excitement was giving himself away.
+
+"Well, anyway," Van Bleit resumed more collectedly after a pause, "he's
+gone, poor devil!  Let him Rip.  My resentment doesn't cross the
+border."  He laughed.  "I require a certain amount of the commodity this
+side the Styx... most chaps do.  I reckon you've got an enemy or so
+yourself, Grit?"
+
+"I'm pretty well at enmity with all mankind," Lawless answered.  "And my
+greatest enemy, I take it, is myself."
+
+"That's rot," Van Bleit returned.  "Every man has at least a sneaking
+affection for himself, and no enemy entertains the slightest regard for
+the object of his animosity."
+
+"There is something in that," Lawless agreed, and thought for a moment.
+"Nevertheless, a man who makes enemies has an enemy in himself," he
+added with conviction.  "It is so much easier to win friends."
+
+"My experience hasn't tended to that conclusion," Van Bleit replied.
+"Friends are like the diamonds men dig out of the bowels of the earth at
+great expense of time and labour, valuable on account of their
+scarcity."
+
+"You've had some good friends yourself, Karl," Denzil interposed with a
+wink.  "Take Lawless, for instance.  How many men would stay on in this
+God-forsaken hole solely to accommodate another?"
+
+"There wasn't much sacrifice in that," Lawless replied.  "The house is
+mine till the end of the month.  So long as I can get anyone to bear me
+company there isn't any incentive to leave it.  When you go I clear out
+also.  I can't stick it here alone.  The place has served its purpose.
+I've had a good time on the whole.  But, as anyone can see, it's not
+intended for a single man.  In all these weeks I haven't seen a soul
+besides yourselves, except for a party of prospectors who outspanned one
+night."
+
+He rose and knocked the ash from his pipe.  Away in the distance he had
+seen a pinpoint of light like a dull star low down upon the horizon, and
+he knew that Tottie had lighted her candle in the lonely hut a quarter
+of a mile away.  He planted himself between Van Bleit's vision and the
+hut.
+
+"It's getting chilly," he said.  "I've no particular fancy for watching
+the stars: Have you?"
+
+"No," Van Bleit answered, and he and Denzil rose and accompanied their
+host indoors.
+
+"It's a dashed sight more comfortable inside," he remarked.
+
+Lawless drew the outer door to and fastened it.  Neither of them had
+observed that pinpoint of flickering yellow light that was more like the
+elusive glimmer of a firefly than the luminous brilliance of a star.  He
+wondered how he would have explained it had they remarked on the
+unexpected illumination in the hut.
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+The following morning Lawless suggested a ride as the only entertainment
+he had to offer.  There were only two mounts, he explained, and looked
+at Van Bleit.  Van Bleit remarked that it would be fairly slow for the
+third man.
+
+"Let's take our guns and tramp," he said.  "There ought to be something
+in that bush yonder."
+
+"There isn't," Lawless answered.  "I've been there myself."
+
+"It would give some sort of object for the walk," Van Bleit observed.
+
+"I can loaf about here very well by myself," Denzil put in obligingly,
+missing the venom of the glance Van Bleit shot at him, a glance that
+Lawless intercepted and read aright.  Van Bleit was not minded to trust
+himself alone in his company.  There was not a shadow of doubt in his
+mind any longer that the Dutchman was suspicious of his intentions.  It
+remained for him to lull those suspicions if possible.
+
+"Come on, Karl," he said.  "Take your gun with you if you're keen on
+potting things.  But don't expect much.  I've been over the ground too
+often to hamper myself with carrying a gun.  I'll leave the killing to
+you.  Sure you don't mind?" he asked, turning to Denzil.
+
+"Not in the least.  I'll potter about here.  It's more in my line."
+
+Van Bleit did not like the arrangement, but he went.  When a man has a
+gun loaded in both barrels slung across his shoulders, and a revolver
+charged in all six chambers in his right-hand pocket, he is fairly well
+provided against attack.  It amused Lawless to observe how careful his
+companion was to ride on his left, and how persistently he kept his
+right hand in his pocket.  He rode himself with both hands quite as
+ostentatiously displayed on the reins.  Whenever he moved the right in
+the performance of the most simple office he was conscious of being
+observed until he returned it to its position on the rein.  The
+knowledge that Van Bleit distrusted him gave him a peculiar sense of
+satisfaction.  It was more to his liking to outwit a rogue who was
+prepared than to take advantage of a man's trust.  He was glad to feel
+at this stage that they faced one another as foes.
+
+During that ride, between the fragments of conversation, Lawless decided
+that on some such expedition as the present he would lead Van Bleit to a
+given place, and, with Tottie's assistance, overpower him and get hold
+of what he wanted.  In view of the shortness of the time in which to
+carry out his designs, it was necessary to put his plans into prompt
+effect.  He determined upon seeing Tottie that night.  He would slip out
+when the others were asleep and make his way to the hut.  Then, if he
+could induce Van Bleit to fall in with his arrangements in the morning,
+success would be fairly assured.  His policy in the meantime was to
+allay Van Bleit's suspicions.  In this he had succeeded fairly well so
+far.  On the homeward journey Van Bleit rode most of the way with his
+right hand on his thigh; and once, Lawless noticed, when he plunged his
+own right hand into his pocket his companion did not appear in the least
+apprehensive.  However much he doubted him, it was plain he had given up
+all thought of treachery on that occasion.
+
+"I suggest we stick indoors and play cards this afternoon," Van Bleit
+proposed when they got back.  He swung his heavy frame out of the
+saddle.  "It's warm," he said.
+
+Van Bleit was lucky at cards.  He played for high stakes; it was one of
+his varied methods of obtaining a livelihood.  Certainly that afternoon
+he became no poorer.  He and Denzil between them swept in the stakes.
+
+"We'll give you your revenge," he said to Lawless.
+
+And after supper they resumed their game and played far into the night.
+It was Lawless who eventually insisted on leaving off.  He had been
+chafing for some time, thinking of his thwarted plans.  Van Bleit, he
+knew, was likely enough to play through into the dawn.  He pushed back
+his chair at last and rose.
+
+"If you fellows don't want any sleep," he said, "I do.  We've another
+day before us."
+
+Van Bleit laughed, rose, and stretched himself with a huge yawn.
+
+"Late, is it?  I never regard the time I spend over cards--or women," he
+said.  He finished his glass of whisky and scooped in his gains.
+"To-morrow I'll give you a chance of winning some of this back."
+
+Lawless lighted the candles.
+
+"Right!" he said.  "I have a feeling that the luck is on the turn."
+
+"Then you ought to play on...  She's a fickle jade, and will change her
+mind in the daylight."
+
+"I'll risk that.  A man can't be expected to play cards if he's dead
+asleep."
+
+Lawless' look of alertness when he was alone in the bedroom belied the
+plea of fatigue.  He made such sounds and preparations as he deemed
+suitable for a man retiring to rest, and kicking off his boots, blew out
+the light, and flung himself dressed upon the bed.  He listened intently
+to the sounds from the adjoining room.  The jerky scraps of conversation
+between the two men were perfectly audible to him.  It was rather like
+people talking in the same apartment with a screen dividing them.  It
+would require the exercise of the utmost caution to leave the house
+without arousing their attention.
+
+"Old Grit always had the rottenest luck at cards," he heard Van Bleit
+mumbling.  "But it's made up to him in other ways."
+
+And Denzil in a sleepy drawl replied:
+
+"Don't believe in luck...  When a man gets a thing it's because he goes
+for it in the right way."
+
+Van Bleit's response to that sapience was a grunted "Good-night."
+
+For a long while after they had ceased to talk Lawless lay still,
+staring wide-eyed into the darkness, until by the continued silence,--
+the heavy soundlessness that enwrapped the house like some listening
+mystery, he judged the two men were asleep.  Nevertheless, it was very
+warily he slipped his stockinged feet to the floor and then stood up.
+Noiselessly, one step at a time, feeling his way in the darkness with
+the unerring judgment of a man who has already in the light measured the
+distance carefully from wall to wall, he crept towards the door.
+Cautiously as he proceeded, his hand came in contact with the rickety
+washstand, and in the general hush the noise he made, though slight
+enough, sounded tremendous in his imagination.  It brought him up all
+standing, the pulses in his ears beating like so many hammers.  He
+remained quite still and almost held his breath while he listened for
+the faintest movement from the next room, where Van Bleit and Denzil lay
+in the dark waiting, as he waited, until they felt the time was ripe for
+discussing certain plans of their own.
+
+Perfect silence reigned.
+
+Lawless drew a slow breath of relief.  There was no sound in the
+stillness other than that dull hammering of pulses in his ears.  The
+noise he had made, he rightly conjectured, was not so audible as he had
+feared.  But he did not mean running any risks; and so he remained where
+he was, rigid, waiting, listening, while the minutes slipped away, and
+the silence, heavy, portentous of lurking evil, remained absolutely
+unbroken.
+
+He was about to advance a further step when an extraordinary
+interruption occurred.  Stealthily, as though the striker sought to
+stifle the sound, a match was rubbed lightly against its box, and the
+next instant a light shone through the chinks in the partition, and from
+the sounds Lawless judged that someone was getting off the bed, and that
+in so cautious a manner as to suggest that whoever it was he was anxious
+not to be heard.  For a few moments Lawless suspected that his own
+movements had aroused attention, and he waited, quiet-eyed and grim, for
+the next move in the game.  But after a while he began to think that he
+was altogether mistaken.  The occupants in the next room were as anxious
+as he had been not to be overheard.  They were whispering together, and
+one of them moved stealthily across the floor, and a sound that was like
+the crackle of paper reached Lawless' ears.
+
+With even greater caution than he had used to cross the floor to the
+door he now retraced his steps and softly advanced towards the glimmer
+of light that showed through the chinks in the partition.  He put his
+eye to the biggest crack.  Van Bleit stood in his pyjamas beside the bed
+facing Lawless, a sealed packet, the sight of which gave the watcher a
+queer start, in his hand.  He was speaking to Denzil, who, sitting up in
+bed, listened attentively with his eyes on the speaker.  Van Bleit spoke
+in so low a tone that had he been facing the other way it was doubtful
+that Lawless could have heard.  As it was he only made out part of what
+was said.
+
+"I daren't risk it," Van Bleit was murmuring.  "I don't trust him...
+ride this morning...  If it hadn't been that I was armed he would...
+letters must be got out of this..."
+
+He began to speak more slowly and with greater distinctness.
+
+"We'll wait for the dawn... there's no hurry.  If he hears you, I'll say
+you have gone for a ride before breakfast... out of the window... no
+need to make a noise... ride slowly for the first half-mile, and keep
+going towards the bush.  If he should happen to catch sight of you, he'd
+never suppose you were making for the town.  I may be quite out in this,
+of course, but I have my suspicions... satisfied when those letters are
+safely out of..."
+
+Lawless caught nothing more.  But he had heard enough.  He saw Denzil
+take charge of the packet, and he caught sight of the butt of a revolver
+sticking out obliquely from beneath the pillow.
+
+He drew back softly, and smiled grimly to himself in the dark.  Van
+Bleit in his eagerness to save the letters from falling into his hands
+was deliberately placing them there.  The wily scoundrel had overreached
+himself.
+
+He stepped softly back to the bed, and lying down, waited for the dawn.
+It seemed long in coming.  And when at last the first pale glimmer of
+light showed wanly in the sky he began to think that sleep had overcome
+his companions.  There was no stir from within.  He lay quite still,
+listening.  After a while he fancied, but could not be sure, that he
+heard someone moving.  He listened more attentively.  Without a doubt
+someone was pattering about the floor in bare feet while he struggled
+into his clothes as noiselessly as possible.  He heard the window-sash
+slide open, and raising himself and looking out, saw Denzil drop from
+the low sill and pass beneath his window.  He gave him time to reach the
+stable and saddle a horse.  Then he got up quietly and made his careful
+exit by the door.
+
+Once outside his movements were less cautious.  He hurried to the
+stable, and saddling the second horse, started in pursuit.  He rode
+behind the house, trusting that Van Bleit if he heard would ascribe the
+sounds to Denzil, and followed the directions he had heard given in the
+whispered instructions of the previous night.
+
+It was not long before he descried his quarry.  Denzil was riding
+easily, as a man rides for exercise with no particular object in view.
+He did not once turn his head to look back, but jogging quietly on his
+way made steadily for the dense cover behind the hut.  Lawless quickened
+his pace and overtook him about a mile from the house.  On hearing
+someone behind him Denzil looked round, and reining in his horse waited
+for him to come up.
+
+"Hallo!" he said, a trifle uneasily, it seemed to Lawless.  "You're
+early astir.  I thought I had the day to myself."
+
+"Any objection," Lawless asked, "to a companion on your ride?"
+
+Denzil laughed awkwardly.
+
+"On the contrary," he said.  "I hate riding alone.  But I thought you
+chaps were dead asleep.  This to my thinking is the best time of the
+day."
+
+"Yes," Lawless agreed.  "I usually ride before the sun is up."
+
+They drew abreast, and walked their horses alongside the dense bush.
+Denzil talked continuously as a man might who was ill at ease and
+anxious to gain time.  It was evident to Lawless that he scented danger,
+and would gladly have been without his companionship.  Once or twice he
+looked about him furtively, as though some idea of flight possessed his
+mind; but either his nerve was not equal to the attempt or the
+possibility of being mistaken in his deductions suggested the prudence
+of awaiting developments.
+
+The development, when it came, was startling and unpleasant.
+
+He had been looking about him in his furtive, shifty, nervous way, as
+though wishful yet fearful of attempting escape, when suddenly facing
+about, impelled by some force other than conscious volition, he found
+himself staring blankly into the shining barrel of a revolver.
+
+"If you so much as lift a finger," Lawless said coolly, "I'll blow your
+brains out.  Halt!"
+
+The horses came to a standstill.  Lawless, still covering the other man,
+freed his foot from the stirrup and swung himself out of the saddle.
+
+"Dismount!" he said, standing with the rein over his left arm, the right
+raised with the revolver gripped in his hand.
+
+Denzil reddened, but complied with the curt command.
+
+"What's your game?" he stuttered, as he stood on the veld facing that
+business-like weapon at uncomfortably close quarters.  "What are you up
+to?"
+
+"Hands up!"  Lawless said.  And Denzil, alarmed and reluctant, held his
+hands high above his head.
+
+"I'll not keep you in that undignified and uncomfortable position longer
+than necessary," Lawless went on.  "It depends upon yourself how long
+you have to endure the annoyance.  You have in your possession a packet
+of letters which it is my intention to relieve you of.  You will save me
+trouble, and yourself continued inconvenience, by telling me in which
+pocket I shall find what I require."
+
+"Oh! that's it, is it?"  Denzil smiled uneasily.  "You might have spared
+yourself trouble.  Van Bleit has the packet.  He wouldn't trust it with
+me."
+
+Lawless dropped the rein, leaving it hanging down in front of the
+forelegs after the Colonial custom with standing horses, and advanced
+upon the speaker.
+
+"If you waste my time by lying," he said, "I'll shoot you.  Which pocket
+is it in?"
+
+Denzil's eyes snapped; but he was too genuinely alarmed at the cold feel
+of the revolver against his temples to attempt further procrastination.
+
+"Breast... right-hand side," he answered shortly.
+
+"This spells ruin for me," he muttered, as Lawless plunged his left hand
+inside his coat and drew out the sealed packet Van Bleit had given into
+his charge in the bedroom a few hours before.  "I don't know how I'll
+face Karl.  He'll be for shooting me himself."
+
+"He's had one escape from hanging," Lawless responded drily; "he'll not
+risk a second."
+
+He withdrew to a short distance, briefly examined the packet, and
+slipped it into his own breast pocket with an extraordinary sense of
+exultation.  He had succeeded where others had failed.  He had boasted
+to Colonel Grey that he would get the letters or kill his man, and here
+were the letters that had cost so much safely in his possession...
+
+He walked to where he had left his horse standing, and putting his foot
+in the stirrup, vaulted into the saddle.  Then he gathered up his rein,
+and caught at the rein of the other horse.
+
+"You can lower your hands," he said; "but be careful what you do with
+them; I'm not uncovering you yet."
+
+Denzil dropped his hands to his sides, and watched with considerable
+interest the movements of the man who had so completely outwitted him.
+
+"You are leaving me to tramp it, I suppose?" he said.
+
+"I'm depriving you and Van Bleit of the means of following me," was the
+brief answer.
+
+"Van Bleit will never believe how entirely you surprised me," Denzil
+returned dejectedly.  "He'll think I ought to have stuck to the packet
+at all costs.  Man, I wonder if you know the value of what you've got
+there?  Look here! ...  Stop a bit!" ...  His manner became eager and
+confidential.  "Can't we do a deal, you and I? ...  Let me stand in with
+you--or, better still, give me a sum down, and I'll let you into the
+know how to work those letters to the best advantage...  What do you
+say, eh?"
+
+"What I have to say won't interest you," Lawless replied.  "If I hadn't
+passed my word, I wouldn't touch the damned letters, and the first thing
+I mean to do with them is to get rid of their charge...  But not to
+you...  If you had your deserts you would find yourself on the
+breakwater.  Now, march!" he added.  "Turn your back, and keep going."
+
+He had hardly issued the order when something happened that put an
+altogether different aspect upon the face of things.  Inexplicably, he
+saw Denzil grinning as he abruptly turned about, and the next moment
+something hurtled through the air and fell about his shoulders,
+tightening with a suddenness that pinned his arms to his sides.  The
+revolver flew from his hand, and simultaneously he was jerked violently
+out of the saddle.  He fell heavily to the accompaniment of raucous
+laughter, and, lying on the veld, straining impotently at the cords that
+held him, he realised with bitter mortification that Karl Van Bleit had
+securely lassoed him by a cowboy trick he was an adept in.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+"Check number two, Master Grit Lawless!"
+
+Van Bleit stood over his victim with a smile of satisfaction widening
+his features, the end of the long rope which he had used to such purpose
+coiled upon his arm.  He took a shorter length from his pocket and
+tossed it to Denzil, who, in thorough appreciation of the trick, was
+still laughing immoderately over the discomfiture of the man who had
+believed himself upper dog.  Lawless sat up and swore vigorously.
+
+"Fasten his wrists," Van Bleit commanded.
+
+He twirled the ends of his moustache complacently while he watched the
+execution of this order, and offered a few suggestions for the more
+efficacious tightening of the bonds.
+
+"Oh! you can squirm as much as you like," he said.  "You are about as
+helpless as a trussed fowl."
+
+When Lawless' hands were securely bound behind him, Van Bleit loosened
+the noose that had tightened until it stopped the circulation, and drew
+the loop over the captive's head.  Then he picked up the revolver that
+lay on the veld and sat down facing him.  He was enjoying himself
+immensely.  The security of his position as captor, Lawless' utter
+helplessness, and the certainty of no outside interference, completed a
+situation which, having no element of risk about it, appealed to him
+amazingly.  He rested his right elbow on his knee, and levelled the
+revolver at Lawless' breast.
+
+"It would be so simple and so safe to settle you for ever," he remarked
+pleasantly, "that I wonder I don't do it...  Denzil, just hobble those
+left-overs from the Ark.  We shall need them presently.  They look as
+though they'd stand till the crack of doom, but there's just a chance
+that if this revolver should happen to go off we might lose them, and
+that would be awkward.  When you have done that you can relieve
+long-eared Grit of what he sneaked from you."
+
+Lawless set his teeth and said nothing.  He was beginning to understand
+that while he had been busy trying to devise a trap for Van Bleit, the
+Dutchman had got ahead of him, and that in so wily a manner that he had
+not had the faintest suspicion of trickery when he had listened at the
+partition with his eye to the crack.  And yet the mere lighting of the
+candle should have warned him...  There would have been no need for a
+light had it not been intended that he should see.  He cursed his folly
+for tumbling into a pit the digging of which he had been permitted to
+witness.  And the letters! ...  The letters that he had been allowed to
+handle, that he believed he had got so secure...
+
+When Denzil bent over him and drew the sealed packet from his pocket, he
+made a frantic but futile effort to burst the bonds that fastened his
+wrists.  The rope, already uncomfortably tight, cut into the flesh and
+caused such pain he was fain to desist.  Denzil dangled the packet
+before his face, jeering, then he gripped it tighter and struck him with
+it across the eyes.
+
+"One day," Lawless said grimly, "when my hands aren't tied, you'll pay
+for that."
+
+Van Bleit laughed loudly.  The bully in him enjoyed watching aggression
+that feared no retaliation.  To strike a man with his hands tied was
+infinitely amusing.
+
+"Thought you had a wonderful find in that packet, eh?" he sneered.
+"Going to make your fortune--were you?--in another man's gold mine."
+
+"I shouldn't have objected to that idea so much," Denzil interposed in a
+tone of deep disgust.  "But he wouldn't confess to that...  He was
+posing virtuous."
+
+"Ah!" returned Van Bleit, grinning.  "Looks virtuous, don't he? ...  Job
+on his rubbish heap!  Well, it may ease his virtuous mind to know that
+so far as the value of that packet is concerned he might be allowed to
+keep it.  It's a fake, old man... got up for your amusement, and that of
+other fellows of an inquiring turn of mind.  Almachtig! you don't
+imagine I'm so green as to carry around letters that are worth a
+fortune?"  He snapped his fingers in derision.  "For a cute boy, Grit,
+you are surprisingly credulous.  Those letters that so many mouths are
+watering for are safe--where you won't get them.  I don't cart them
+round in my suit-case."
+
+He laughed again at the expression of Lawless' face.
+
+"Sold all round, eh?  Lord! ain't it funny?"
+
+Then, his mood changing suddenly, he fell to scowling, and eyed Lawless
+malevolently above the revolver that still pointed direct at his heart.
+
+"You fancy because Tom Hayhurst got hold of them once, it's any man's
+job.  Well, it isn't.  And Tom wouldn't have had the chance, only I was
+fool enough to bring them from Jo'burg to Cape Town.  I deserved to lose
+them for not leaving them safe where they were.  But I'm not taking any
+further risks.  That packet of dummy letters is all I carry about...
+And I carry them with a purpose--the purpose of discovering such
+treacherous scoundrels as yourself.  You're in Grey's pay.  I know
+that...  I found it out long ago.  And you profess friendship for me...
+start out to win my confidence with the intention of robbing me--killing
+me, perhaps.  You deserve to pay dearly for that.  I've half a mind to
+shoot you...  I'll punish you somehow."
+
+He got up, and, pocketing the revolver, approached menacingly.  Lawless
+watched him in silence.  Van Bleit, it was clear, meant mischief; and he
+was powerless to defend himself, incapable of hitting back.  The
+knowledge of his helplessness galled him unspeakably.  To have had his
+hands free! ... just his bare hands, and nothing more...
+
+"It's a safe game you're playing," he observed drily.  "If I faced you
+with my bare fists you wouldn't take this tone."
+
+"Safe game or not," Van Bleit shouted, "I'm going to punish you, my boy.
+There's a treatment for treachery that has been found efficacious
+before."
+
+He snatched at a riding-whip which one of the men had dropped, and
+struck the strong quiet face he hated again and again with it, raising a
+dozen weals on the thin tanned cheeks.  One blow cut Lawless' lip open,
+and the blood spurted out and ran down his chin, and stained the blonde
+moustache.  At each blow he winced though he made no sound, but the
+wince gave Van Bleit immense satisfaction.  The score he had to pay off
+against this man was heavy.  To his influence he attributed the coldness
+of Zoe Lawless...  That could only be expatiated with his life; but the
+taking of human life meant a risk Karl Van Bleit would not again lightly
+undertake.  He had a morbid horror of the hangman's rope since it had
+dangled so perilously near his own neck.
+
+When he had flogged Lawless in the face, he flogged him again across the
+shoulders with even greater venom.  This being borne without flinching,
+soon ceased to amuse him, and he flung the whip from him with an oath.
+
+"That's enough for the present, damn you!  If we meet again you'll know
+what to expect.  I shan't spare your life a second time...  It's almost
+a pity," he reflected, inclination weighing against discretion, "to lose
+this chance of quieting you.  Who's to know if I settle your account for
+ever?"
+
+For the next few seconds Lawless felt his life hung in the balance.  His
+whole being revolted against the thought of death at this man's hands
+without ever a chance of repaying the insult he had suffered.  If his
+life were spared that day he vowed he would never rest until he had
+squared their account finally.  Some idea of this probability seemed to
+possess Van Bleit, and inclined him strongly toward committing the foul
+deed he contemplated; but Denzil, the more timorous, stood out against
+murder.
+
+"There are the horses, Karl," he urged...  "Any amount of awkward
+questions may be asked."
+
+"All right," Van Bleit said shortly.  "We'll leave him as he is.  It
+will take him all he knows to worry his hands free."
+
+He struck his foe again in the face with his open hand, and turning
+away, walked towards the horses.  He mounted, and Denzil following his
+example, they rode off, leaving their victim seated on the veld, his
+wrists securely bound, without, so far as they knew, any prospect of
+freeing them, and with no available means of pursuit.  It was a safe
+game, as Lawless had said.
+
+He remained seated until they were out of sight.  Not on any
+consideration would he have given Van Bleit the satisfaction of watching
+him rise and proceed on his way with his arms in their present
+undignified position.  When the two men finally disappeared from view he
+got up, and walking painfully, for the fall from his horse had injured
+him, made his way slowly back towards the hut.  The riders had passed
+quite close behind it after climbing the rise, little guessing that it
+was tenanted.  The noise of the horses' hoofs awoke Tottie.  She rubbed
+her eyes, and half sat up, and so, resting on her elbow, remained still,
+listening, till the sounds died away in the distance and complete
+silence reigned once more.  No suspicion crossed her mind that anything
+was amiss.
+
+"Grit's early astir," her thoughts ran as she settled down to sleep
+again.
+
+She was half-wakeful, half-dozing, when something happened that roused
+her fully and brought the languid eyes open with a jerk.  Abruptly,
+without warning, the light from the doorless exit was obscured, and a
+man's figure, bending from the waist, entered, and, straightening
+itself, stood upright, looking uncertainly about with eyes unaccustomed
+to the dimness, upon unfamiliar surroundings.
+
+Tottie sat up on her improvised mattress of bush and dried rushes and
+stared in amaze at the appearance presented by the intruder.  The
+swollen, inflamed face with the ugly weals across it was scarcely
+recognisable, the blood running down the chin on to the front of his
+shirt gave it a savage, even a sinister look, that was strangely
+repellent.  She wondered why he made no effort to wipe the blood away,
+and noticed that he kept his hands behind him, but did not realise that
+this was owing to compulsion, until he turned suddenly about and
+requested her shortly to undo the "damned knots."
+
+"Good God!  Grit," she said, "what's happened?"
+
+"Van Bleit's scored this time," he answered.  "It's first game to him...
+But the rubber isn't won yet.  I've merely got my deserts for being a
+gullible idiot."
+
+She worked at the knots with her teeth, and after a while unbound his
+raw and bleeding wrists and flung the rope to the floor.
+
+"My word! but they've used you ill," she said...  "If I'd only
+guessed..."
+
+Lawless made no response.  He was peering with half-blinded eyes at a
+huddled object on the ground that he had taken for a bundle of old rags,
+but now that his sight was growing used to the obscurity discovered to
+be the sleeping form of a native woman, who lay curled up against the
+mud wall, like an animal, with her superb arms flung high above her
+head.  She was either fast asleep or feigning slumber, for she made
+neither sound nor movement, but lay like a dead woman, save for the
+gentle rise and fall of her bosom under the ochre blanket that formed
+its sole covering.
+
+"What is the meaning of that?" he said sternly, pointing to the
+recumbent figure, his burning gaze on Tottie's face.
+
+She laughed with a slight embarrassment.  In the surprise of his entry
+she had forgotten that the woman was there.
+
+"Oh! that's all right," she answered jerkily.  "Couldn't turn her out,
+you know...  The hut belongs to her--in a way.  She happened along the
+first evening, and was for running like a scared rabbit at sight of me,
+but,"--Tottie laughed again.  "Even a nigger is companionable," she
+said.
+
+Lawless looked hard at her.
+
+"She's raw," Tottie explained...  "Zulu... only speaks her own tongue.
+I know a few words, and so we rub along."
+
+"And her belongings?"  Lawless asked.  "Has it occurred to you that
+there's a nigger husband somewhere?  If she makes this place her home
+she doesn't live alone here."
+
+"He hasn't shown up so far," Tottie answered comfortably.  She touched
+significantly a holster at her waist.  "I'm not scared of niggers,
+Grit."
+
+"Well, it doesn't matter," he said.  "You've done with this.  Van
+Bleit's gone--Denzil too...  And they've taken the horses.  It's twenty
+miles to the town, but we've got to do it."
+
+Tottie looked thoughtful.
+
+"There's a nearer way than that, baas," she said.  She jerked her head
+in the direction of the sleeping native.  "There's some sort of a farm
+within reasonable walking distance...  _She_ makes the journey for sour
+milk.  They'd let us have a conveyance if we paid enough, I expect...
+It's better than tramping, anyhow.  We'll rouse her, and make her show
+us the way."
+
+She stood up, shook out the folds of her skirt, and surveyed herself in
+the glass she had brought from the house and hung by a nail on the wall.
+One cheek was hectic with artificial colour, the other, on which she
+had been lying, was white and red in streaks.
+
+"What a guy!" she murmured.  "I'll need to repair the ravages before we
+start, old man...  You wouldn't look any the worse for a wash yourself."
+
+She laid a hand affectionately on his arm.
+
+"We'll wipe out that score--you and I--pretty thoroughly.  It's come to
+a point now where I shall be able to help.  It won't do for you to
+follow him, because, plainly, he'll be expecting you.  He'll be on the
+look out.  I don't know whether you've got a plan, but I have.  We won't
+follow him...  He shall follow me."  She chuckled wickedly.  "I've
+always had an idea I should elope with old Karl...  You go back to Cape
+Town, Grit, and leave this to me.  When I've got him safely in tow, I'll
+communicate with you, and you can drop down on us and finish him, if
+necessary."
+
+Lawless regarded her earnestly.
+
+"How will you get on his trail?" he asked.
+
+She smiled significantly.
+
+"I'm going to turn up in the same town; then, if I know anything of him,
+the pursuit will be all on his side.  You must give me a cheque for
+something killing in the way of a trousseau...  I'll manage the rest."
+
+He appeared not altogether pleased with the arrangement.
+
+"You'll overplay the part," he objected.
+
+"You trust me," she answered confidently.
+
+"Besides, he doesn't carry the letters on him...  He boasted this
+morning that they were safely out of reach."
+
+She turned round from the glass to stare at him.
+
+"Then what's the good--Well, in any case," she finished, in the manner
+of one who clinches an argument, "there's got to be a settlement over
+that bashed face of yours."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+Late that afternoon, with their scant belongings, Lawless and his
+companion drove into Stellenbosch in the broken-springed buggy which,
+after much persuasion, they had induced the owner of the farm to which
+the Zulu woman had led them to hire out to them.
+
+The difficulty had arisen, not from disinclination to oblige a stranger,
+but on account of having no spare hand to act as driver.  In the end the
+farmer drove them himself, not because he could best spare the time, but
+because he knew he was least likely to waste it.  He and a small son of
+the house harnessed the horse, while Lawless looked on, and Tottie
+waited in the shade of the stoep where the farmer's wife sewed, and eyed
+her askance, responding distantly to her tentatives towards
+conversation.
+
+Afterwards she observed to her husband: "I was glad you gave in over the
+buggy.  It was a relief when that woman was out of sight.  One could
+have grown a crop of mealies in the dirt on her face, only nothing so
+wholesome could thrive in such rubbish.  I didn't see her left hand
+because she kept her gloves on; but if there was a wedding-ring on every
+finger, I'd know she wasn't married to that man.  It's one of those
+cases one recognises by instinct."
+
+"The man's no good either," the farmer answered...  "Been fighting--
+unless he drinks, and she mauled him like that when he couldn't defend
+himself.  She looks capable of it...  She's fond of him too.  Did you
+notice how she helped him into the cart, seeing he was a bit sick?"
+
+"Oh, that!"  The wife looked unconvinced.  "She's probably afraid of him
+when he's sober; he's a savage-looking man."
+
+"Well, I'm glad we're quit of them," he returned.  "One's best without
+neighbours if one can't have them respectable...  But they paid me
+well."
+
+"Ah! he's one of that sort," she responded... "more money than morals.
+The want of money's a curse, and the having it is a curse as often as
+not."
+
+"The latter," her husband said, smiling, "is a curse that would be to my
+taste."
+
+She smiled too.
+
+"That's because you know you'll never have it, you old stodger, you."
+
+Lawless learnt on inquiry after arriving in Stellenbosch that Denzil and
+Van Bleit had separated, the former having departed earlier for the
+coast, while Van Bleit had left only a quarter of an hour before they
+arrived.  He had taken a ticket for Worcester.
+
+"That, then, is my destination," Tottie announced, when he told her the
+result of his investigations.
+
+"Better take a ticket for a couple of stations beyond, and work your way
+back to Worcester," he advised.
+
+"Not a bad idea," she returned readily.  "But I'm going to stay a couple
+of days here with you before running after Karl."
+
+"What for?" he asked.  "It's losing time."
+
+"You're a bit keen to get rid of me, Grit," she said.
+
+He wheeled round abruptly and took her by the arm.
+
+"Don't get any of those fool ideas into your head," he said quickly.
+"When we've put this job successfully through, we'll go on the spree
+together--to Jo'burg, or anywhere you've a fancy for.  You're a
+first-class chum."
+
+She flushed with pleasure even through the paint, and emitted a little
+awkward laugh.
+
+"I'd enjoy that more than enough.  Just ourselves, and no need for this
+fooling round.  But I'd like to stay and do first aid for twenty-four
+hours, anyhow...  You won't go down to the coast with your face like
+that?"
+
+"Then, stay," he said, giving in with the spiritless manner of a man
+unequal to further contention.  "I'll be glad enough of your company.
+I'm stiff and sore and jolly well out of conceit with myself.  If anyone
+can reinstate me in my own opinion it's you."
+
+They put up at the hotel, and Tottie, whose ideas of first aid were
+practical if crude, was only deterred from putting them into effect by
+Lawless' irritable refusal to be touched.  He bathed his sore and
+swollen face himself with warm water, and swore at the stiffness and its
+unfamiliar contours.  In the morning the face was even less comfortable
+than on the day of assault, and he could not see out of one eye.  But he
+was firm in insisting that Tottie should start on her journey.  He
+bought her ticket and saw her off by the train.  She parted from him
+reluctantly, and leaning half-way out of her compartment as the train
+was moving out, called to him:
+
+"Go and see a doctor, Grit.  I don't like that eye of yours."
+
+He nodded to her, and because he was in haste to be rid of the
+inconvenience of his injury, took her advice; and for the next few days
+was forced to go about wearing a shade, to his no small discomfort and
+disgust.
+
+As soon as he was able to dispense with the shade he started for Cape
+Town.
+
+A strong south-east was blowing when he reached the capital.  The
+pavements were greasy and wet, and the sticky thickness of the
+atmosphere, laden with salt and a mist that swept in from the sea, clung
+to his garments, and wetted his face and hair as with fine rain.  He
+took a cab and drove to his hotel.  The management seemed relieved to
+see him back.  There had been several inquiries, and one or two letters
+had arrived during his absence.  These they could not forward, having no
+address.
+
+He took the letters and went to his room with them.  They were for the
+greater part unimportant, bills most of them.  There were one or two
+personal communications, and one imperative epistle marked, "Private.
+Please Forward," from Colonel Grey.  The wording of it was brief:
+
+  "Dear Mr Lawless,--I stand in urgent need of your services and
+  advice.  Kindly report yourself at the earliest possible.--Yours
+  faithfully, F.W. Grey."
+
+Lawless glanced at the date of the letter; it was more than a month old.
+He smiled drily.  Doubtless Colonel Grey would consider it a tardy
+response were he to present himself at the bungalow that night, and yet
+there could be no more prompt compliance with a command.
+
+He changed his dusty garments, dined, and having no inclination for
+walking on so damp and boisterous a night, hired a taxi and drove the
+mile and a half to the quiet road where Colonel Grey's bungalow stood in
+its wild, luxuriant garden behind the undipped hedges of plumbago.  He
+dismissed the taxi, and walking up the path to the stoep made for a
+window where a light was burning, and tapped upon the glass.  There was
+an immediate response from within.  Lawless heard someone move and walk
+heavily across the floor, then the French window was flung wide, and
+Colonel Grey himself stood in the aperture facing him with an expression
+of cold surprise and inquiry in his look.
+
+"I got your letter," Lawless explained, "to-night.  I am here in
+accordance with the request contained in it."
+
+"Come inside."
+
+Colonel Grey moved aside for him to pass, and, closing the window, sat
+down.  It was not the same room in which Lawless had been received
+before; that, on the other side of the hall, had been locked since the
+shooting affray.  He dropped into an easy-chair opposite his host.  He
+was tired with travelling and was glad to stretch his limbs, but the
+older man, with his ingrained ideas of discipline, taking note of the
+relaxed attitude, drew his own inference.  He frowned as he sat
+straighter himself.
+
+"After all this while I had given up every expectation of seeing you
+again," he said in a curt manner that betrayed his disapprobation.  "You
+have not, I imagine, brought me any special news?"
+
+"I have not," Lawless answered.  "All the happenings have been going
+forward here during my absence.  I have come to receive, not to give,
+explanations."
+
+The frown on the Colonel's brow showed heavier and more fierce.  He sat
+forward and stared at the speaker, who, still relaxing his inert
+muscles, lay indolently back in his chair.
+
+"Damn your impudence!" he said.  "What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why," asked Lawless imperturbably, "were you so anxious a month ago for
+my services and advice?"
+
+"It was before Van Bleit's trial I wrote that letter...  If you'd been
+on the spot we'd have hanged the brute."
+
+"And why was my presence necessary to the carrying out of justice?"
+
+The Colonel pulled savagely at his moustache.  He was thinking, not so
+much of his present annoyance, but of the chance he believed had been
+lost of getting hold of the letters.  He had come to consider it a
+practical certainty that had Lawless remained at his post success would
+have been achieved.  He looked at the thin, scarred face, at the
+indolent grace of the outstretched limbs, and his strong sense of
+indignation, of having been somehow defrauded, increased.  He had paid
+well for this man's services; he had a right to command them.
+
+"Plainly, I couldn't hang him before getting hold of the letters," he
+said.  "It might have been defeating my own ends.  Had you been on the
+spot--as I had every right to expect you to be--we could have recovered
+them."
+
+"Do you happen to know where they are?"  Lawless asked.
+
+"Denzil had them then...  And Denzil without Van Bleit would be easy to
+deal with."
+
+The man lounging in the chair suddenly sat up.
+
+"You've been misinformed," he said.  "Denzil never had those letters at
+any time in his charge.  Van Bleit doesn't trust him... he's wise not
+to.  We've assumed too much because Hayhurst got hold of them once...
+That is the first and only time Van Bleit has risked having them in his
+possession.  Those letters are safe--where you and I can't get them.
+Van Bleit alone can touch them."  He laughed shortly.  "The search has
+narrowed considerably since we met."
+
+"What the devil are you driving at? ...  You talk as though you know
+where the letters are," the Colonel said sharply.
+
+"So I do, man...  They're in the Bank, of course."
+
+"In the Bank!"  There was silence for a few seconds.  Then in a voice
+that had lost its quick tone of authority Colonel Grey asked quietly:
+"How do you know?"
+
+"Know!  I don't know...  And yet I do know.  Where would _you_ keep
+important papers that you feared might be stolen? ... where would I? ...
+In the Bank, of course.  I wonder we never thought of it before.  It
+was Hayhurst misled us.  Because he got hold of them, we took Van Bleit
+for a fool--which he isn't...  Scoundrel every inch of him, but no fool.
+I had it from himself that the letters were safe from us.  He didn't
+mean to give me a clue...  I jumped to it.  I've had him staying with me
+since his acquittal."
+
+He laughed mirthlessly at the expression of astonishment in his
+listener's face, and, as though the recollection of his recent meeting
+with Van Bleit excited him, got up from his chair and took a turn the
+length of the room, and then came back.
+
+"I thought I had a good game on... that I had only to get hold of Van
+Bleit and the letters were mine," he said.  "You nearly upset my plans
+by that unexpected move of yours which cost so dear in the end...  As it
+chanced, it wouldn't have mattered had you frustrated them altogether.
+What made you interfere, as you did, when you had entrusted me with the
+affair?"
+
+He paused in front of the Colonel, and waited for his answer, regarding
+him fixedly with his keen, penetrating eyes.  The Colonel appeared, not
+so much unequal, as disinclined to reply.
+
+"I thought you had lost your head," he said at last.  "Your manner of
+leaving Cape Town was not calculated to inspire confidence."
+
+"And that's the reason you failed to pay the amount agreed upon into my
+account last month?"
+
+"That was my reason--yes."  He stared back into the dominating,
+inscrutable grey eyes, and his own were stern and unyielding.  "You've
+come to me to-night with a request for more money, I suppose?"
+
+"I have.  I'm short--in debt, in fact.  I must have something at once to
+go on with."  There was a perceptible pause.  The Colonel ended it.
+
+"I'm not paying for work that isn't performed," was his curt response to
+this appeal.  "You'll have to satisfy me that you are earning your pay
+before you get anything further.  Suppose you give an account of what
+you have done up to the present,--of what you purpose doing in the near
+future that justifies a further outlay.  There has been nothing but a
+verbal agreement between us, which is no more binding on one side than
+on the other--save for the final agreement you hold for a sum down when
+you deliver, or cause to be delivered, the packet of letters into my
+hands.  When I undertook to make you a monthly allowance, it was on the
+understanding that you pursued your quest with conscientious
+persistence; there was no question of leisure for the following of your
+amusements.  I have not been exacting in demanding hitherto a full
+account of service rendered in exchange for money received.  It has
+occurred to me that you might have given a fuller account than you have
+done unasked."
+
+"Probably I should have," Lawless replied, "had I not been perfectly
+aware of the distrust with which you regard me, which you have never
+succeeded in controlling or concealing since you first engaged my
+services.  You have--whether intentionally or not, I can't say--insulted
+me more than enough.  You have openly questioned my honesty.  And you
+expect me to swallow all that--for a consideration...  And I do swallow
+it...  Why? ...  I hardly know...  For the consideration, perhaps."
+
+He moved away to the window, halted there, and turned sharply upon his
+heel.
+
+"You want to hear what I've done," he said, coming back, and hovering
+uncertainly between a small table on which a lamp burnt and the chair
+from which he had risen.  He was too excited to seat himself.  Colonel
+Grey watched him curiously, the old struggle between liking for the man
+and distrust of him still battling for the supremacy.  It was odd that,
+in spite of the distrust, in face of prejudice, the liking remained.
+"I've been in the Stellenbosch district ever since leaving Cape Town--"
+
+"Alone?" interrupted the Colonel.
+
+"Not alone--no! ...  I went there solely on your business--"
+
+"With a companion?"
+
+Lawless swore at this further interruption.
+
+"Damn it! ... yes," he answered almost violently.--"On your business--
+with a companion.  And, what's more to the point, that same companion is
+following up Van Bleit now."
+
+The Colonel leant forward and stared at the speaker aghast.
+
+"That--that _woman_!" he spluttered.
+
+"Have a care!"  Lawless said curtly.  "The agent that I have employed is
+working for my sake, not for yours; and is likely to prove more
+successful than either you or I could hope to be at the present stage of
+affairs.  Van Bleit recognises an enemy in me."
+
+"I won't have it," the Colonel shouted.  "You were not justified in
+employing an agent on your own authority...  A--woman like that is not
+to be trusted on such a delicate mission.  The letters would be as
+dangerous in her possession as they are in Van Bleit's...  You are a
+fool if you believe she would hand them over to you...  She mustn't be
+allowed to get hold of them."
+
+"She won't," Lawless replied calmly.  "You forget, I tell you he hasn't
+them in his charge."
+
+"How can you possibly be sure of that? ...  And if it's true, where's
+the use in following him?"
+
+"At our first meeting," Lawless reminded him, and took one of his short
+sharp turns between the table and chair and back again, "when I
+undertook this job, I told you that if I failed in getting the letters I
+would kill your man...  That's what I'm after now.  I'm keener on it
+than on anything else."
+
+Colonel Grey sat back in his seat and crossed one knee over the other.
+
+"You need reminding in your turn that you are not paid to follow your
+inclination...  Will you please go on with the story?  I am curious to
+learn how it came about that Van Bleit boasted to you that the letters
+were out of our reach.  What grounds have you for assuming such a
+statement to be true?"
+
+"Grounds!"  Lawless laughed again, with a savage sound in the mirth.
+His mind had reverted to the scene on the veld in the early morning when
+Van Bleit had sat with a revolver covering him, and a murderous finger
+crooked round the trigger.  "I have had what I believed to be those
+letters in my hands--a dummy packet got up in order to trick me.  I fell
+into the trap with an ease that astounds me when I think of it.  I've
+been flogged like a Kaffir--by Van Bleit... bound by the wrists and
+lashed."  He touched his inflamed and injured eye.  "I haven't recovered
+the proper use of that yet," he said.  "I doubt that I ever shall.  What
+little self-respect I had he has deprived me of...  Perhaps that's why I
+don't care a damn when you openly question my honesty.  That's a full
+report of my doings, up to the present.  I am now waiting until my decoy
+has got Van Bleit in tow--then I am going to face him again."
+
+He fell to pacing the floor once more with his hands clasped behind him,
+and his eyes filled with an expression of uncontrollable hate.
+
+"When a man holds life cheaply--as I do,--when he's nothing to look
+forward to, and very little to look back upon, he makes an ugly enemy...
+You know something--not much, but still something--of my past.  As I've
+gone along Life's High Road there has been a hand occasionally to rest
+in mine for a brief while; but at the first stumble it has been
+withdrawn,--not one has ever clasped mine more firmly to help me over
+the difficulties in the way...  I'm not whining to you in self-excuse.
+I've knocked up against hard facts all my life...  I'm hard myself,
+which may account for much.  If it were not for a military training, I
+should probably hit you in the face when you accuse me of applying to my
+own use the money I have received from you.  As it is, I ask you to
+withdraw that charge.  It's possibly the only creditable thing I have
+achieved in life, but I have managed to steer clear of fraud."
+
+He put a hand in his breast pocket, and, withdrawing a notebook, took
+from between its leaves a paper which he tossed upon the table.
+
+"There's the agreement you referred to a while since...  You can tear it
+across; it's not worth the paper it's written on.  I'll stick to my part
+of the bargain.  I'll get the letters for you, if they're to be got.
+But I want no other reward than the squaring of my account with Van
+Bleit.  For the rest--the funds to go on with--"
+
+The Colonel stopped him with a gesture, and, rising, crossed to a desk
+near the window.  He unlocked a drawer, took from it a cheque-book, and
+drawing up a cheque in Lawless' favour, and signing it, passed it to him
+with a pen to fill in the amount.  Lawless supplied the figures.
+
+"The usual sum," he said...  "And a month in arrears."
+
+Colonel Grey nodded.  Then he re-locked the desk and rose.
+
+"I have doubted you," he said.  "I admit it.  But--"
+
+"Oh! what in hell does it matter?"  Lawless interrupted roughly.  "I
+don't know why I have grown so suddenly sensitive on the point of my
+honour...  And what's the use of words?  You would probably skirt the
+question as nicely as a politician, but the fact remains--you distrust
+me still."
+
+Later, when he was alone, the Colonel pondered the subject for an hour
+while he smoked before retiring to bed.  Did he absolutely distrust the
+man?  Were not his suspicions wearing down?  He had no knowledge what
+was wearing them--certainly not that ill-considered act on Lawless' part
+in throwing up the formal agreement between them.  He picked up the
+agreement, but instead of tearing it across, he locked it away in the
+desk.  Its repudiation had been the final struggle after the respect he
+had spoken of as lost to him on the part of one who had wanted above all
+else to stand well in this man's regard, and who felt that he had failed
+in that as in most things.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+It is not only in the heroic moments of life that the depth of human
+feeling is sounded; occasionally in the simple and seemingly commonplace
+incident the stress of emotion is greater than at times of a higher
+mental tension.  Tragedy passes often unsuspected, and the eye of the
+casual observer rests without recognition on many intimate crises in the
+destiny of the race.  It is well that this is so.  The heart that is
+wounded prefers to cover its scars, and the breast that holds a sorrow
+carries usually a jealous dread of discovery.  For the eye of the world
+is unsympathetic towards what it fails to understand.  As the searching
+light of the sun reveals not only the beauties of life but all its
+sordid inequalities, so the judgment of humanity rests upon the obvious
+and appraises and condemns with relentless indiscrimination.  When Eve
+ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, she did not eat largely
+enough.  We recognise Good and Evil, but we miss the liner shades.
+
+It was but a commonplace incident that happened in the square close to
+Parliament buildings on the morning following Lawless' return to Cape
+Town, but for the two people concerned it marked a moment of intense
+significance,--a moment during which for them their world stood still.
+Quite a number of eyes witnessed the meeting, but in the slight
+encounter there was nothing to excite the faintest interest or comment--
+merely the swift advance of a motor-car, to allow which to pass the tall
+man with the scarred face, who was crossing the square at the moment,
+was obliged to fall back a few paces, or risk being run down.  The
+occupant of the car looked straight into his eyes for the fraction of
+time occupied in passing, and unsmiling, with white set face, slightly
+inclined her head.  He raised his hat, his own face quite as gravely
+set, and standing where he was, with the dust of the road which the car
+had raised upon his clothes, looked after it till it whirled out of
+sight.
+
+"Beastly things!" a stranger remarked to him sympathetically...  "Jolly
+nice when you're in 'em, but spoil the roads for pedestrians."
+
+Lawless nodded, and stepping on the pavement pursued his way.  The
+spring sunshine poured warmly on the glaring white surface in the
+square, and bathed in a yellow radiance the fine facades of the block of
+buildings where the administrative affairs of the Colony are directed.
+It was still blowing from the south-east, and little whirlpools of dust
+rose in unexpected places, catching in their vortex any straying scrap
+of paper, whirling it giddily and then ejecting it, or subsiding with it
+in untidy heaps that the next gust disturbed and roused into fresh
+activity.
+
+Lawless walked in aimless fashion along the street.  Time, since he had
+nothing to do but wait, hung heavy on his hands.  The men he had known
+before fought shy of him, less, he felt, for what he had done than the
+public manner of the doing.  If one sin, sin secretly, was their gospel.
+And what he had done had been done in the light of day before the eyes
+of all men.  It is easy when one lives in the world to become a cynic.
+
+He left the busier thoroughfares and turned into the road that led past
+the Weebers' house.  There was one person in Cape Town, he knew, who
+viewed his failures leniently, and just then he was curiously eager to
+meet her.  He had not sufficient effrontery to call at the house, but he
+passed it slowly, and even retraced his steps and passed it a second
+time, without, however, the result he had hoped for.  Disappointed, he
+returned to his hotel.
+
+It was a surprise encounter when eventually he met her.  He was walking
+along the road one afternoon towards Rondebosch when she overtook him on
+her cycle as she had done once before, only on this occasion she was not
+alone.  Young Bolitho was riding with her, and they both carried tennis
+rackets slung on the handlebars of their machines.
+
+She did not recognise him until her machine came abreast of him.  She
+had been unprepared for the encounter, not knowing that he was in Cape
+Town, and when she met his glance she flushed hotly, and losing control
+of her machine, swerved violently to one side.  Bolitho swerved after
+her, but she righted herself dexterously, and smiled into his anxious
+face.
+
+"I'm getting off, Teddy," she said.  "Don't wait for me.  I'll probably
+overtake you,--at any rate, I shan't be far behind...  Ride on, please."
+
+He nodded, and only dimly understanding, and greatly troubled in mind,
+kept on his course, while Julie slowed down her machine and alighted,
+and waited for Lawless to come up.
+
+"You!" she cried, and held out her hand to him in glad surprise.
+
+He took the hand, pressed it warmly, and relieved her of the charge of
+the cycle--the same old well-worn cycle he had wheeled for her before.
+
+"I didn't know you were back in town," she said, walking along beside
+him with flushed, glad young face and smiling eyes.  "You've come--to
+stay?"
+
+"For a few days only," he replied...  "I've spent three of them already.
+I began to fear I should miss seeing you."
+
+"Oh!" she said, and gasped with consternation at the mere thought.  "I
+wish I'd known..."
+
+"I've been past the house a few times," he said.
+
+"And I never saw you! ...  It was nice of you to take the trouble," she
+added, blushing.
+
+"When a man counts his friends on the fingers of one hand--and then has
+fingers to spare," he returned, looking into her eyes with a grave
+smile, "he can't afford to overlook the truest of them."
+
+"Not the truest," she contradicted quickly, her thoughts unconsciously
+reverting to a scene she was little likely to forget, when a woman with
+beautiful tear-filled eyes held in her hands a portrait of this man, and
+spoke of her wasted youth.
+
+Julie turned her face away from his and looked along the sunlit road.
+She was wondering whether she could find the courage to tell him what
+she knew.  It was so difficult to talk to one towards whom, perhaps on
+account of his reserve, she had always felt a certain shyness, of such
+private and intimate things.
+
+"No!" he said quietly.--"A very true friend, then...  And one I value
+highly,--perhaps because I know that I have her regard quite
+independently of any merit.  A man doesn't prize his fair-weather
+friends; it's the friends of his adversity he holds dear."
+
+"There is someone," Julie began, and hesitated, and then gathered fresh
+courage and essayed again...  "There is someone who--if you would let
+her--would be the best friend you ever had...  I don't understand why
+you won't see it,--there are many things about you I fail to understand.
+And I'm horribly afraid I'm going to annoy you.  It's so impertinent to
+interfere in other people's lives."
+
+"It's an impertinence a great many people are guilty of," he returned...
+"I don't fancy, myself, it ever does much good."
+
+"You aren't going to be very severe with me, are you?" she pleaded.
+
+"I'm not in the least likely to be severe with you," he answered.  "But
+since you feel like that about it, why not leave it alone?"
+
+"Because," Julie replied bravely, "it's the saddest thing in all the
+world that you shouldn't know what I do.  I'm convinced you can't
+know...  You'd act differently if you knew."
+
+"You are a little mystifying," he said, and looked at her uncertainly.
+"It sounds rather like a grammatical conundrum to which the key may be
+found in the tense.  I'm not good at riddles.  If you want me to
+understand, you'll have to take the plunge, and not stand shivering on
+the brink."
+
+So Julie took the plunge, but took it after a feminine method, going in
+by degrees with the instinctive aversion for putting her head under
+water.
+
+"I'm speaking of someone," she said, "I've grown to know and to love...
+I think she also loves me."
+
+"That wouldn't be very difficult," he interposed.
+
+"Because," Julie went on, as though there had been no interruption, "she
+talks to me sometimes of intimate things."
+
+He stared at her.
+
+"You are not going to repeat her confidence to me, surely?"
+
+"Why, no," she answered.  "But--I'm trying to explain."
+
+"You're doing it very badly," he said; and it occurred to Julie that he
+was anxious to prevent her explaining more fully.  But because this
+thing mattered to her, mattered tremendously, she persevered.
+
+"I'm sorry for that," she said...  "I so want you to understand.  Please
+try...  And be a little patient with me.  Once she spoke to me about
+you.  She didn't say much.  But she had your photograph in her room, and
+when she looked at it the tears were in her eyes.  And then--"
+
+Julie broke off abruptly and searched about after words.  He waited in
+silence.  She had at least succeeded in gaining his attention.  But his
+interest was not of an entirely agreeable order.  A heavy frown
+contracted his brows, and the grey eyes sought the dust of the road in
+preference to her earnest face.  There was that in the quality of the
+dust that was seemingly absorbing.
+
+"She spoke of her wasted youth," the girl went on in a voice scarcely
+above a whisper.  "I wish--oh! how I wish I could give you some idea of
+the sorrow in her voice,--the longing.  She's proud.  She tried to hide
+her emotion.  But I know."
+
+He turned towards her suddenly, making no pretence of misunderstanding,
+though she had mentioned no name, to whom she referred.
+
+"You've allowed your love of romance to lead you astray," he said
+curtly.  "I am a better judge than you are in this matter."
+
+"Ah! now," she cried quickly, "I have angered you, and done harm."
+
+"Not so," he returned.  "I shall cease to think of what you have told
+me.  You've jumped to a wrong conclusion, that's all.  The friend you
+speak of took away her friendship from me long ago.  It was her own
+doing.  She would not thank you for your intercession."
+
+"You are hard," she said unexpectedly.  The accusation hit him; it was
+what he had recently called himself.  "And you're wrong.  I understand
+better than you do--perhaps because I'm a woman, and have suffered
+myself."
+
+"You are not a woman," he said, with sudden gentleness of manner.  "You
+are a child almost, and to children their sorrows appear
+disproportionately great.  As for suffering! ...  Who among us can
+expect to escape his share?  And a little suffering is not harmful.  The
+human heart that hasn't been through the fire is inclined to be shallow.
+All the pleasant pools in life are shallow; the great thoughts and the
+great deeds come from the deep seas."
+
+They walked for a while in silence after his last speech.  When they had
+covered a few yards in this manner Julie stopped and offered to take the
+cycle.
+
+"Teddy will be wondering what has become of me," she said.  "We are
+playing tennis this afternoon at Mrs Lawless'."
+
+He stopped also and held the machine for her.
+
+"I should like to see you again before you go," she added.
+
+"Every evening at about five o'clock I will pass your house," he
+replied.
+
+She mounted and rode off, and Lawless, wheeling about, returned to the
+city, his mind, for all his assertion that he would think no more of
+what she had said, busy with the picture she had conjured up, a picture
+which in his larger knowledge of the circumstances struck him as
+exaggerated and unreal.
+
+Julie overtook Bolitho round the first bend.  He had dismounted and was
+waiting for her at the roadside.
+
+"I told you to go on," she said, when she came up with him.
+
+"I know," he answered.  "But I preferred to wait."
+
+She slipped from her saddle to the ground, and, seating herself beside
+him in the hedge, to the young man's intense embarrassment, dissolved
+into tears.
+
+"Oh, don't, Julie!" he pleaded...  "Don't!  I will go on and leave you,
+if you wish it, dear."
+
+"Silly!" she sobbed.  "I don't wish it.  You're the best fellow I ever
+knew.  Oh, Teddy!  I'm so miserable.  I've made a hash of things with
+the best intentions in the world.  There's nobody understands me, but
+you.  And you don't understand altogether."
+
+"If you'll give me the cue, I'll try," he declared earnestly, leaning
+towards her and encircling her with his arm.  "You know that I'd do
+anything on earth to please you.  Julie, my darling!  I love you so, I
+can't bear to see you cry."
+
+She suddenly sat up straighter, and laughed, and dabbed at her eyes.
+
+"I know," she said.  "I know...  Oh, goodness! what a scarecrow I must
+look!  And anyone might come along."
+
+She put up her hands and rearranged her hat.
+
+"Is it straight, Teddy!" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he answered, and looked her steadily in the eyes.
+
+"My dear, don't try to deceive me," he said...  "Better hurt my feelings
+now than later...  If it's the other fellow who wins I'll go my way."
+
+"Stupid!" she cried, leaning her wet cheek against his shoulder.
+"There's someone else for the other fellow--only he won't see it."
+
+"I can't blame him," Teddy answered, "when there's you."
+
+She laughed again.
+
+"There has never been me for anyone besides yourself," she said.  "If I
+lower the prize in your eyes by that admission I can't help it.  And
+there's still left to you the choice of grabbing your machine out of the
+hedge and riding away."
+
+Teddy Bolitho sat gravely stiff and expectant.  Beneath the light banter
+of her manner he caught at a deeper note.
+
+"Julie," he said nervously, "will you--If you don't mean anything, for
+God's sake I don't lead me to hope falsely...  You know that I've loved
+you for years with the whole force of my nature.  There's no one else
+for me though I live to be a hundred.  I've met you...  That's enough.
+It's you or no one.  I'm not much of a catch, but if you'll have me,
+such as I am, I'll spend my life in trying to make you happy."
+
+"You make me happy as it is, Teddy," she answered quietly.  "It is I who
+will need to spend my life in trying to satisfy you."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+Lawless' stay in Cape Town was so much longer than he had expected that
+he began to fear Tottie had not been so successful as her vanity had led
+her to suppose.  He looked daily for news of her; but she was no hand at
+corresponding; until she had something definite to tell him he knew she
+would not write.
+
+In the end it was not a letter but a telegram that reached him.  It had
+been handed in at Ceres Road.  Beyond this clue as to her whereabouts,
+the contents told him little.
+
+"_go to junction hotel kraaifontein find instructions there tottie_."
+
+He hunted up the trains.  There was nothing before the morning.  He
+packed a portmanteau in readiness, and sat down and wrote to Colonel
+Grey.
+
+"Dear Sir,--I have received my summons.  Am off up the line to-morrow.
+Junction Hotel, Kraaifontein, will find me.  I will keep you informed as
+to my movements.--Yours faithfully, H. Lawless."
+
+"That will keep the old boy quiet for a time," he mused, and went out
+and posted it himself.
+
+On turning away from the pillar-box he came face to face with Denzil.
+It was the first time they had met since the memorable occasion on the
+veld, and it was evident from the expression on their faces that that
+last occasion was in the minds of both.  The present encounter sprang
+upon them unawares.  Denzil had known that Lawless was in Cape Town, he
+had written to Van Bleit to inform him of the fact; but he had not
+happened across him before.  He would have felt infinitely happier had
+he not happened across him then.  Doubtless he remembered Lawless'
+words, when, having him at a disadvantage, he had struck him with the
+packet of letters across the face.  He fervently wished he had refrained
+from allowing his feelings to get the better of discretion in the hour
+of triumph.  Plainly, that hour no longer endured.  It was not
+inspiriting to meet fully the man whom, when his hands were bound, he
+had struck in the face, and recall his words that one day when his hands
+were free he would repay the insult.
+
+He eyed the tall figure nervously, and quickened his steps.  Lawless
+glanced him over with a speculative eye.  One blow from his fist would
+have knocked him down.  And he was sorely tempted to strike out, to
+punish this miserable little cur who had dared to insult a better man
+than himself.  But it was against his policy to endanger his liberty at
+that juncture; and to punish Denzil in the open street, with people
+passing continually, and a policeman standing at the corner, was
+courting arrest.  And so he allowed his man to slip past him; but there
+was in the keen grey eyes as they rested upon the foe such a look of
+quiet prospective vengeance that, though he passed unmolested, Denzil
+was not greatly reassured.  It was a temporary let-off, he felt.
+
+He hurried on, and Lawless pursued his way in an opposite direction.
+The evening was all before him.  He decided that with the uncertain
+promise of rest the following night held, he would turn in early and
+take all the sleep he could procure.  He might be glad during the next
+few days of a reserve to fall back upon.  He returned to his hotel to
+dine.  Against the kerb before the entrance a motor-car was stationed.
+It occurred to Lawless that he had seen the car before; but it was not
+until he entered the hotel that he realised its being there concerned
+him in any way.  A messenger was waiting for him in the vestibule with a
+note.  He had been waiting some time, and seemed immeasurably relieved
+when Lawless came in.
+
+"It requires an answer, sir," he said, as he presented the note.
+
+Lawless ripped open the envelope, and withdrawing the contents, glanced
+his eye down the page.
+
+"Very good," he said.  "Tell Mrs Lawless I will be with her in about an
+hour's time."
+
+The messenger looked at him calculatingly.
+
+"There's the car outside, sir.  If you'd like it to wait--"
+
+"I shouldn't," Lawless interrupted curtly.
+
+He tipped the man and went to his room to dress.  He wondered why she
+should wish to see him, and recalled with an unaccountable irritation
+what Julie Weeber had confided to him as the result of her unaided
+observation.  He had a natural antipathy towards scenes, and he disliked
+above all things listening to a dissertation on his moral delinquencies.
+
+When he had dined he hired a taxi and drove to Rondebosch.  He told the
+driver to wait for him, and went inside the garden and up the path to
+the door.  His visit was expected.  The servant who admitted him helped
+him out of the light overcoat he wore to cover his dress suit, and
+conducted him to the drawing-room, where Mrs Lawless waited to receive
+him, pacing restlessly up and down, up and down, her face white even in
+the warm glow of the lights, and her eyes darkly luminous in their pale
+setting.
+
+She came to a halt when she heard his step in the hall, and took up a
+book as though she would appear to occupy herself, but put it down again
+with instinctive dislike towards posing.  His step came nearer, she put
+out a hand and grasped the back of a chair, gripping it tightly, her
+nervousness painfully apparent in the trembling of her lips.
+
+And then the door opened...
+
+A sudden calm overspread her features at sight of him, her stiffened
+attitude relaxed.  The hand that had gripped the chair-back rested upon
+it easily; the other, that hung clenched at her side, fell loosely open.
+It seemed as though the appearance of this man for whom she had waited
+in a state of great nervous excitement quieted her agitation, as though
+his ready response to the summons that conflicting emotions had dictated
+and held her back from sending before, brought relief.  It was a very
+composed and dignified woman that confronted Lawless' gaze, a woman
+gowned simply in black, which suited her brilliant beauty, with a single
+deep red rose at her breast where the slight opening revealed the
+slender throat.
+
+He advanced into the room and stood quite close to her, looking steadily
+into the dark glowing eyes.
+
+"I don't know whether this prompt response to your note is
+inconvenient," he said.  "But it was now or not at all.  Had you left it
+until to-morrow you would have missed me."
+
+"You are leaving Cape Town again?" she asked...  "When?"
+
+"To-morrow morning."
+
+"And where do you go?"
+
+"Up the line," he answered...  "Not very far."
+
+She flushed quickly.  Some instinct told her that he was going to rejoin
+the companion in whose society he had left Cape Town before.  A chilled
+look came into her eyes.  It seemed that whenever she held out a hand
+across the distances that separated them a great wall of his making rose
+between them to divide them more certainly than before.  And he
+invariably made her aware of this wall at the very outset, so that her
+every effort during the difficult interviews between them was but an
+ineffectual hurling of herself against this impassable barrier.  She
+moved from behind the chair and seated herself.
+
+"I'm sorry," she said simply.  "Won't you sit down?"  He accepted the
+invitation, and leaning back surveyed her with a thoughtful interest
+that was critical rather than admiring, and intensely curious.  She had
+some purpose in sending for him, he supposed.  He wondered, with a
+slight impatience, why she distressed herself so unnecessarily.  They
+had come long ago to the parting of the ways,--it was a mistake to go
+out of one's road in order that the paths should recross merely to
+separate again.
+
+"I had no idea you would be leaving--so soon," she said.  "I wasn't
+aware you were in Cape Town until I passed you that morning in the car."
+
+"I had only just got back," he explained.
+
+"Afterwards I was sorry--that I didn't stop," she went on slowly,
+labouring somewhat over the sentences.  "But--I was surprised.  And I
+felt a little diffident about asking you to come out...  I knew you
+would come, of course...  That's why, perhaps."
+
+"My only wonder is that you take the trouble," he returned.  "Plainly,
+you don't get any joy of it...  And hasn't it ever occurred to you that
+it's painful for me as well?  My life hasn't been wholly without
+regrets.  You remind me of the old Inquisitorial system--continually
+stretching a man on the rack for some imaginary good purpose.  And you
+rack yourself in the process...  Where's the sense in it, anyway?"
+
+"I have thought," she said,--"I have tried--"
+
+She got up abruptly from her seat and turned her back on him and walked
+slowly down the long room, and stood by the fireplace with her elbow on
+the mantel and her face dropped on her hand.  He remained seated where
+he was, and leaning forward, his hands between his knees, watched her
+with interest.  She made a curiously striking and graceful picture,
+standing there with her half-averted face, the warm lamp-light falling
+on her black-robed figure.  There was a restrained yet dramatic appeal
+in her attitude that touched him, and in the long drooping line of neck
+and shoulder as it was turned towards him was a suggestion of weakness
+that commended itself to his masculine mind.  She looked lonely, and
+sad, he considered.
+
+"I know what you thought," he said.  "I know what you tried to do.  It
+was praiseworthy in many respects...  But it was too late.  If you would
+fashion the clay into a goodly shape you should hasten to do so while it
+is pliable.  When once it is set you can only break it."
+
+"You always make me feel," she said, without changing her position,
+"that I am directly responsible for the waste of your life."
+
+"I don't admit that my life stands for waste," he replied coldly.
+
+She lifted her face, and turning it slightly looked steadily in his
+direction.
+
+"Perhaps," she said, "I am not qualified to judge.  I only judge from
+what I see--from what I know you might have done if only you had willed
+it.  And now--"
+
+She looked away from him, and once more dropped her face upon her hand.
+
+"Hugh," she said, and her voice was so low as to be scarcely louder than
+a whisper, "I asked you to come here to-night, because I felt that there
+was much in the past on my side that needed your forgiveness.  I was
+hard...  I see that now...  When you wanted sympathy I failed you.  And
+things happened to separate us.  Perhaps it was less your fault than I
+imagined.  But--there are certain things a woman finds it difficult to
+pardon."
+
+"I have never blamed you," he interposed harshly.
+
+He too got up, but he did not follow her.  He stood leaning against one
+of the windows with his back to the outer air.
+
+"I have blamed myself," she answered gently,--"often."
+
+"You would," he said.  "You're made like that.  You'd bow your back to
+any burden you believed it to be your duty to bear.  But you needn't
+imagine it your especial mission to undertake any burden on my account.
+I wish from the bottom of my soul you could bring yourself to forget my
+existence."
+
+"I can't do that," she answered...  "I don't want to."
+
+She moved from her position and came to a standstill in front of him
+with her hands locked together in an attitude that was like a
+supplication in the nervous entwining of her fingers.
+
+"I want you to lead a life more worthy of yourself," she said...
+"worthier of the man I knew and loved.  Oh, my dear! if you only knew
+how all these years you have been steadily breaking my heart...  I can't
+bear it...  I can't bear it, that you should lead the life you are
+leading...  You are going back to that woman to-morrow...  I know it.
+Give her up, Hugh,--and this life of adventure,--for my sake--because I
+ask it.  Don't go to-morrow.  I hate the thought of your going...  Stay
+here."
+
+"Impossible," he answered with quiet decision.  "I am pledged.  I must
+go.  I have no choice in the matter."
+
+Her hands fell apart.  She made a quick, almost a despairing gesture.
+
+"And do I count for nothing in your life?" she asked passionately.  "You
+loved me once... in the years that are past--when you were younger.  And
+I was young too--a girl.  Ah! life, life!  How full of promise it seems,
+and how each successive year fades and dims that promise!  You were a
+king among men to me then...  And now--you lead the life of a common
+adventurer, following reckless and dangerous enterprises, and enjoying
+your idle moments after the manner of a loose liver.  Oh! my God! need
+this thing be? ...  Why will you wantonly subjugate all that is fine in
+your nature?  It was those finer qualities in you that I loved, and you
+are deliberately killing them."
+
+Lawless had drawn himself instinctively straighter under the shower of
+words.  He looked at her with hard, unresponsive eyes.
+
+"I have no use for that kind of love," he said coldly.  "It is of no
+human value.  To love the imaginary saint in a man is not going to help
+the man when you make the inevitable discovery that the saint isn't
+there.  If love is to be of any use it must be for the sinner as well."
+
+He went nearer to her, and laughed harshly when he observed how she drew
+back involuntarily from his advance.
+
+"When you can bring yourself," he said, "to suffer my touch without
+flinching; when you can feel glad for my lips to rest upon yours without
+consideration for where last they may have rested; when you can love me
+for myself--as I am--as you know me, a common adventurer, a profligate,
+then we may wipe out the intervening years... not before."
+
+She was silent for a while after he had finished; and he knew that she
+was considering what he had uttered with such brutal frankness, weighing
+it in her mind.
+
+Presently she said, moistening her dry lips before speaking:
+
+"Will you promise not to go to-morrow? ... to break with the old life
+finally?"
+
+"Bargain for bargain," he returned cynically.  "You can't give freely,
+you see."
+
+His face hardened, became more resolute.
+
+"I can't do what you ask...  It is out of the question.  I am pledged
+irrevocably--promised.  I can't draw back."
+
+She moved away with a gesture of bitterness, and with her back towards
+him, stood, a reluctant tragic figure, with one hand on the back of the
+chair where she had stood when he entered.
+
+"It is always the same," she whispered...  "Always the same.  Your
+desires--the desire of the moment, first.  I don't believe you ever
+loved me, though at one time you professed so much."
+
+"At least, I did not love an ideal," he answered.  "I loved the flesh
+and blood that is you."
+
+She turned her head slowly and looked at him.
+
+"That is it," she answered bitterly...  "The flesh and blood! ...  The
+fairness of the flesh...  All that the flesh means you care for."
+
+"Oh!  I'm materialistic," he admitted.  "I've no fancy for falling in
+love with a dream."
+
+He followed her, and took up his position again close to her, with his
+hands behind him, looking steadily into her eyes.
+
+"Until I met you," he said, "I never realised how closely allied vice
+and virtue are.  You are so very virtuous that to knock up against your
+purity flings a man back on himself and inclines him to the other
+extreme.  I've always looked on intolerance as a vice. ...  You are
+intolerant--most good people are.  If only intolerance realised the
+amount of evil it is directly responsible for!  But you'll wonder at my
+impertinence in preaching to you...  Indeed, I wonder at myself."
+
+"Go on," she said hoarsely.  "Perhaps--when you are gone--I shall
+remember."
+
+"Good Lord!" he cried.  "I don't want you to remember.  Put me out of
+your thoughts altogether."
+
+"Ah! if we could command our thoughts," she said.
+
+His face suddenly lost its hard look, a kinder light came into the keen
+eyes.  For a brief moment he rested a hand on the chair-back beside
+hers, then, recollecting, as suddenly removed it.
+
+"When I go out of this room to-night," he said, "I go out of your life
+finally.  If you send for me again, I shall not obey the summons.  God
+knows, I have injured you enough...  The least that I can do is to help
+you to forget.  This raking among the ashes is unprofitable.  You can't
+step down from your pedestal.  I can't stand with you on the heights.
+We look at life from different points of view, at different elevations.
+You see things from a height that obscures your perspective; I look upon
+life from a lower level, and behold its naked realities.  What seems to
+me natural, you would regard as gross.  It is one of the essential
+differences--only exaggerated--between man and woman.  I can't see the
+use in reviving through these unsatisfactory meetings all the stresses
+we lived through in the past...  I'll keep out of Cape Town as much as
+possible, and when my job here is ended I'll leave the country."
+
+"There is no need for that," she replied in so low a voice that he only
+just heard what she said.  "I came out because I knew you were out here.
+I wanted to see you.  Now that I have seen you I shall go Home."
+
+She looked at him quite calmly and held out her hand.
+
+"Good-bye," she said, that was all.
+
+He felt grateful to her after he had left that she had spared him a more
+emotional scene.  Could he have looked back into the room when he was
+speeding towards Cape Town he would have known that the emotion had
+merely been held in check.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
+
+Lawless reached Kraaifontein to find that there was neither word from
+nor sign of Tottie.  No person answering Tottie's description had been
+seen in the neighbourhood recently.
+
+He engaged a room at the hotel and prepared to wait.  Plainly, Tottie
+had not found Van Bleit come to heel as readily as she had supposed.  He
+found the waiting extraordinarily dull.  There was nothing for it but to
+tramp over the veld between meals.  That, the eating of the meals, and
+sleeping, were the sole means of enjoyment provided by the
+neighbourhood, so far as he could judge.  The sleeping, in Lawless'
+opinion, was the most amusing of these recreations.  During meals he was
+bored almost beyond endurance by the schoolmaster for the district, who
+had his lodging there; and the tramping, with no object beyond the
+exercise, proved a poor pastime.
+
+"It is good to meet a man of education in a place like this," the
+schoolmaster observed on the first day.  "Are you making any length of
+stay, may I inquire?"
+
+"God forbid!"  Lawless ejaculated.
+
+The other smiled a trifle deprecatingly.
+
+"We have not much to offer--no," he admitted thoughtfully.  "But if you
+are here for a few days I can show you some good walks, and introduce
+you to one or two nice families--quite nice, where you will be well
+received."
+
+"Your quite nice families may not be so glad of my acquaintance as you
+imagine," Lawless answered.
+
+"With my recommendation that will be all right," the other said.
+
+"What the devil do you know about me," Lawless demanded, "that you offer
+me a passport to the houses of your friends?  My good sir, you should be
+more discreet in the matter of your introductions."
+
+The schoolmaster, who had taken a liking to the new-comer, looked hurt.
+
+"I don't know anything about you," he replied.  "But during a fairly
+long and varied life I have learnt to trust my judgment of men."
+
+Lawless suddenly smiled.
+
+"And you judge a man as you find him," he said, "without looking beneath
+the surface?  You countenance him, even to introducing him to your
+friends... _quam diu se bene gesserit_."
+
+"What more is necessary?" inquired the schoolmaster promptly.
+
+"True!" acquiesced Lawless.  "If a man have seven devils what need their
+possession matter to anyone save himself so long as he keep them out of
+sight?"
+
+On the second day after his arrival the letter of instructions reached
+him.  It bore the Wellington postmark.  Tottie was gradually working her
+way down the line.  It was a scrawling, lengthy epistle, containing many
+interlineations and corrections and succinct marginal notes.  Lawless
+carried it to the garden, and sat on a bench under a huge eucalyptus
+tree while he deciphered the contents.  Properly adjusted, and omitting
+the evil spelling, it read:
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Dear old Grit,--I know you'll be chafing horribly at the delay; but
+there have been difficulties, and it was no use ringing up the curtain
+on this act before we had got things thoroughly in order, and every man
+knowing the part he has to play.  Poor old Karl is under the delusion he
+is to play hero to my heroine.  I have him properly in tow.  He tumbled
+to his part beautifully at our first accidental encounter.  He pursued,
+and I eluded.  I got him as far as Ceres Road in this manner.  Then one
+evening in the dusk I met and had a talk with him...  Such a talk! ...
+He kissed me...  He kept on kissing me--keep your hair on.  Grit.  I
+told him I was afraid of you,--that I'd bolted from you, and were scared
+to death you'd find me out.  I said you were mad to get me back, but I
+wasn't taking any.  He offered to take me under his protection.  I
+declined, but with less firmness than virtue should have displayed.  He
+fancied I only needed pressing.  I told him my idea was to get back to
+Cape Town and take the first boat up the coast, only I was scared of
+happening across you.  And then he said some fine brave manly things
+that made one feel your life wasn't worth an hour's purchase.  Bombastic
+fool!  Always crowing and flapping his wings when he gets among the
+hens...
+
+I let him talk.  The next day I left Ceres Road and came on here.  Of
+course he turned up almost immediately.  We met again in the dusk and
+had another talk.  Karl's a hot one...  The difficulty I have to keep
+him at arm's length! ...  I gave in to his pleading after a decent show
+of reluctance...  He fancies I was only holding out for personal gain.
+We are going to a little place across the river about ten miles from
+Kraaifontein.  It's known as Jager's Rest.  By the time you get this we
+shall be on our road thither in a Cape cart.  I've arranged with the
+nigger what route he drives, so if you follow my instructions all will
+be well; if you fail me now, devil knows what will happen.
+
+I enclose a map I've drawn of the route.  Just half-way between here and
+Kraaifontein--see my mark on the map--you'll take your stand, and wait
+for us to pass somewhere about noon.  There's cover there, and one can
+play highwayman without risk.  If I can get hold of Karl's revolver I'll
+spoil it for him, if I can't I'll hamper him in more feminine mode.  In
+any case, I am not afraid you won't be equal to him.  If you murder him,
+I'll stop and help you bury him.  Tottie.
+
+Lawless folded the letter, and carefully examined the map.  Then he
+folded that also, put both in his pocket, and went in to breakfast.  The
+schoolmaster, who had all but finished his meal, looked up to nod.
+
+"You are indefatigable," he said.  "You have been exercising before
+breakfast?"
+
+"Only loafing in the garden," Lawless answered as he sat down.
+
+"Yes."  The other glanced wistfully at the undisturbed end of the table,
+and then out through the window at the brilliant sunshine.  "I'd been
+counting on your company this morning," he said.  "But of course now."
+...  He looked keenly disappointed.  "It's going to be a hot day," he
+remarked.
+
+"Looks like it."
+
+Lawless unfolded his napkin and began on the eggs and bacon which the
+coloured boy placed before him.  In his preoccupation he was scarcely
+conscious of the presence of the other man, save when he spoke, and then
+it was to feel a slight irritation at the inconsequent remarks that
+called for attention and response.
+
+"Perhaps to-morrow," the little insignificant shabby man proceeded
+tentatively, "you might feel inclined to accompany me.  It's a pleasant
+walk, and--"
+
+Lawless looked up suddenly.
+
+"To-morrow, I am returning to the coast," he said.
+
+"So soon!"
+
+The speaker's increased disappointment was too marked to pass unnoticed.
+Lawless looked at him in some surprise, and was rather ashamed of
+himself because he found the little man such a bore.
+
+"It may seem soon to you," he said.  "You see, you lead a useful life;
+but when a man has nothing to occupy his time he quickly tires of a
+place like this.  I never intended to stay more than a day or two."
+
+"I shall miss your company," the other said, and rising from the table,
+lingered for a few moments with his hand upon it.  "I suppose the place
+has not many attractions for visitors.  For those who live here it is
+different.  I drifted here.  I scarcely know how.  I began at Port
+Nolleth, but the west coast fever drove me inland.  This little place
+suits me, and I suit it.  We're neither go-ahead."
+
+He smiled at his mild joke, but without mirth.  His lonely life appeared
+lonelier contrasted with the break which the vigorous personality of
+this chance acquaintance had made in the monotony of his days.  He had
+never met anyone whose going he so much regretted.
+
+"Well, I won't interrupt you at your breakfast any longer," he said
+apologetically.  "I must be starting.  We shall meet this evening."
+
+"We'll have our walk to-morrow, if it's agreeable to you," Lawless
+returned, and wondered at himself for being such a fool, yet was not
+ill-pleased with his folly when he caught the eager look that shone in
+the mild eyes behind the spectacles.
+
+"Awful bore, old Burton," he mused, looking through the window after the
+shabby figure as it disappeared in the sunshine.  "But I'm damned if he
+isn't rather a fine simple soul, after that!"
+
+When he had finished his breakfast he went out to see about a horse to
+ride.  There was a mare in the stable which, according to the
+proprietor, could go like the wind.  Appearance is not everything to
+judge by in the matter of a horse's paces.  The animal in question
+looked languid, Lawless considered; but that alone could not disprove
+her reputation as a racer.  He ordered the mare to be saddled, and went
+indoors to examine his revolver and make certain preparations for the
+encounter with Van Bleit.  He had very vividly in his mind the last
+encounter in which he had been so cunningly outwitted.  He meant to
+settle that score, which, like a debt of honour, weighed upon his mind.
+
+When he was ready he went to the stables, and, having made full
+inquiries as to the direction of Jager's Rest, rode off, a feeling of
+exhilaration swaying him as he felt the wind in his teeth, and listened
+to the rhythm of his horse's hoofs thudding over the veld.  After his
+compulsory inactivity the present adventure was particularly welcome.
+From choice he would have preferred to face Van Bleit with the odds
+equal; but in the circumstances, with all there was at stake, it had
+ceased to be a personal matter, it was a matter calling for the utmost
+discretion.
+
+When he arrived at the place marked for him by Tottie on the map, which,
+following her directions, he found without difficulty, he dismounted,
+and, being ahead of time, hobbled his horse and allowed it to graze
+while he enjoyed a pipe, lying full length on the veld with his eye
+fixed attentively along the line of route the Cape cart would travel,
+according to the information in his letter.  In many respects the lie of
+the land reminded him of the spot where Van Bleit had so cleverly
+tricked him.  The open, undulating stretch of veld, save that it was
+more thickly overgrown with scrub, was much the same, it presented the
+same wide desolate appearance; and in place of the dense bush was a belt
+of wattles,--the cover Tottie had mentioned, where a horseman could
+conceal himself without fear of detection.  Lawless approved the choice
+of ground.  Tottie had evidently been over the route and arranged it all
+beforehand.  So far everything had been contrived with the greatest
+forethought and discretion.
+
+He rose after a while, and pocketing his pipe, whistled to the mare,
+which, feeding on the veld some yards distant, lifted her head at the
+sound, and moved farther away.  Lawless followed her, and untying the
+rein with which he had hobbled her, patted her lean sides encouragingly.
+She had carried him well, thus disproving her appearance, and verifying
+to some extent her reputation.
+
+He led her into the shade of the trees, and standing with his shoulders
+resting against one of the trunks waited with the rein over his arm,
+peering between the interlacing branches for a sign of the cart.  It was
+late.  Tottie had mentioned noon.  He looked at his watch.  It was after
+the half-hour.
+
+And then, far off, he saw it coming.
+
+He remained quite still, not a muscle of his tense face relaxed, only
+into the grey eyes there leapt a sudden flash of stern, fierce joy.
+
+The cart came on at a fair pace.  It was drawn by two horses with a
+coloured man driving.  In the back seat, under the hood, were the
+figures of a man and woman.
+
+While it was still some distance off Lawless mounted, and keeping well
+under cover of the trees, rode his horse as near to the opening as he
+considered safe, and sat motionless in the saddle, waiting.  A shaft of
+sunlight that pierced its way between the branches glinted brightly on
+the barrel of a revolver which was gripped in his right hand.
+
+The cart drew nearer.  The sound of the wheels was audible,--nearer
+still.  Lawless could hear distinctly Tottie's deep, rather vulgar
+laugh.  She was talking incessantly in a high-pitched, unnatural voice
+that suggested a nervous desire to distract her companion's attention.
+When they drew parallel with the belt of trees, Lawless observed her
+call Van Bleit to look at something on the other side of the cart,
+something which was plainly not there, and which therefore Van Bleit,
+following her pointing finger with every desire in the world to oblige
+her, failed utterly to see.  What he did see the next minute, bringing
+his head round with a jerk at the unexpected sound of a horse's hoofs,
+was the barrel of Lawless' revolver unpleasantly close to his head.
+
+"Hands up?" cried Lawless.  "Or, by Jove! you're a dead man."
+
+Tottie shrieked, and flung her arms around Van Bleit with a grip the
+strength of which considerably surprised him.  He was quite convinced in
+his own mind that if she had not hampered him he could have defended
+himself.  He swore at her.  Then, his eye on the revolver, he nodded
+sulkily.
+
+"All right?" he said.  "You score this round."
+
+Lawless spoke to the driver, who, staring at the shining weapon in the
+stranger's hand with distended eyes and fallen jaw, reluctantly pulled
+in his horses and brought the cart to a standstill.
+
+"You'll oblige me," he then said to his discomfited foe in a voice like
+the click of steel, "by getting out of the cart.  I have business with
+you."
+
+Van Bleit obeyed with an alacrity he did not often display.  He
+recognised the seriousness of his case, but, unaware of Tottie's
+treachery, hoped rather forlornly that with her aid he might yet
+contrive some device whereby to get even with his assailant.  It was a
+bold game for a man to play, to hold up three persons, and one of them
+armed.
+
+Tottie alighted after him.  After the first shriek she had subsided into
+an extraordinary calm, and all that could be seen of her face through
+the thick blue veil gave no indication of alarm.  She was indeed broadly
+smiling.  She sidled up to Van Bleit and slipped a hand into his pocket.
+For the moment he imagined she was playing his game for him, the next
+he was quick to suspect she was not, and his hand came down
+spontaneously and grasped her wrist.  At the same time he felt something
+cold against his temple, and instantly perceived she held a revolver in
+her other hand.
+
+"I don't want to shoot you," Lawless said curtly; "but if you don't put
+your hands up I shall be forced to."
+
+Van Bleit's hands went up again, and he coughed and spat in disgust.  He
+realised fully now that he had been tricked.  It was apparent to the
+meanest intelligence that Lawless and the woman were acting in concert.
+
+The woman took his weapon from him and flung it out of reach.  Then an
+extraordinary thing happened.  It was the most humiliating and the most
+astounding moment in his life.  The woman put up a hand to her hat and
+dragged at it so that it seemed to him she was pulling, not only her
+hat, but her head with it.  And then the hat with its crown of roses and
+its big blue veil, and the wonderful golden hair, which Van Bleit had
+believed to be dyed but had never suspected of being a wig, hit him in
+the face, and so fell at his feet; and he stood with his upraised arms,
+his face purple with rage, staring into a painted, grinning, vaguely
+familiar countenance which, with its short fair hair, and prominent ears
+that the golden curls had hidden, he guessed at rather than recognised
+for Tom Hayhurst's.
+
+"There's a lock of my hair for remembrance, dear boy," said Tottie.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
+
+The amazement of Van Bleit was equalled by that of the Kaffir driver.
+He nearly tumbled out of his seat in his astonishment; but the child
+that is in the African was more tickled than anything else at this rapid
+change of sex.  He chuckled audibly, and uttered a succession of rapid
+clicks in expression of his appreciation.  With the cunning of his race
+he quickly perceived which was the winning side, and decided forthwith
+that if a choice had to be made he would submit himself to the orders of
+the new baas, and the baas-missis.  The native does not willingly risk
+his skin or his ultimate chance of reward.  Having arrived at this
+decision he settled himself comfortably in his seat, and with the reins
+held loosely in his hands, prepared to watch developments.  If there was
+to be murder done, which he firmly believed, he was going to see it.
+
+The same belief was in the mind of Van Bleit.  He looked into the hard
+cold face of the man on horseback, and recalled with very real regret
+how he had slashed that same thin, scarred face with his whip when he
+had the man at his mercy.  With still greater regret he remembered how
+he had refrained from shooting him on that occasion.  If he had only
+killed him then he would not be in this mess.
+
+He blinked stupidly, and dropped his eyes, and fell to thinking.  There
+was no way out.  He was fairly trapped, and that by two men who owed him
+each a very considerable grudge.  He thought of Tom Hayhurst's broken
+head.  It was easily seen where the blow had fallen by the deeper shade
+of the new hair that had grown over the place.  Then later thoughts of
+Tom Hayhurst in connection with his disguise obtruded themselves, and
+again the angry purple showed in his greying face.
+
+"Did you bring a length of rope, Grit?" he heard a voice inquire, and
+started involuntarily at the unfamiliar sound.  It was the voice of
+Hayhurst, no longer high-pitched in the affected drawl that was assumed
+and discarded with the wonderful golden wig, but the sharp clear tones
+of the young engineer as he had heard them in Cape Town.
+
+There was no verbal answer, but the man addressed took a short coil of
+rope from his coat pocket and threw it to the speaker.  Hayhurst caught
+it and approached Van Bleit.
+
+"Now, darling," he said, in the accents that were Tottie's, "put your
+hands behind you."
+
+Van Bleit complied because he dared not refuse.
+
+"I'd like," he said, and his hands wavered till the click of Lawless'
+revolver set at half-cock reluctantly compelled him to bring them into
+the required position, "to throttle you."
+
+Hayhurst laughed.
+
+"I don't doubt it," he answered.
+
+Not being particularly soft-hearted, and having in mind, besides his own
+injuries, those raw wrists of Lawless' which he had unbound in the early
+morning by the obscure light in the Kaffir hut, he drew the rope tightly
+about Van Bleit's thick wrists and fastened it securely with a
+vindictive satisfaction in the knowledge of the discomfort he caused.
+
+"You ought to feel flattered," he said, "that we admired your methods
+sufficiently to copy them."
+
+He stepped from behind and stood in front of him, jeering.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to kiss me? ...  It may be your last opportunity."
+
+Van Bleit's ashen face turned brick red, and from red changed again
+slowly to the dirty grey colour that told of the terror that possessed
+him.  He did not answer, but he spat at his tormentor in his rage.
+
+Lawless dismounted and hitched the rein of his horse to a limb of a
+tree.  He pocketed his weapon, and approached Van Bleit, who, expecting
+a personal attack, fell back hurriedly before his advance.
+
+"Stand still," he commanded.  And Van Bleit obeyed.
+
+"What are you up to?" he asked nervously...  "You're remembering things
+against me.  You've got a grudge--both of you.  Well, just you remember
+that I might have murdered you that morning--without risk... and I
+didn't."
+
+"I'm remembering," Lawless answered, "everything."
+
+He turned to Hayhurst.
+
+"Change your rig, Tom," he said quietly.  "And clean your face, if you
+can.  I may need you presently."
+
+And to the huge delight of the Kaffir, and the further mortification of
+Van Bleit, Hayhurst proceeded in a business-like manner, with an
+occasional lapse into fooling, to divest himself of pointed shoes, skirt
+and blouse, corsets and artificial bust, until with an exaggerated sigh
+of relief he stood in his pants and shirt and stretched himself
+luxuriously.
+
+"No, I wouldn't be a woman," he remarked,--"not even a successful
+woman...  And I've enjoyed a fair amount of popularity in the role."
+
+While he went to the cart for the portmanteau of male attire he had
+brought with him, Lawless occupied himself in going through the contents
+of Van Bleit's pockets, who, while asserting with a contemptuous laugh
+that there was nothing there of the least value to anyone beside
+himself, seemed none the less uneasy at being searched.
+
+"I suppose you don't believe me," he said sneeringly, "when I say that I
+don't carry that packet you want about with me?"
+
+"Oh!  I believe you," Lawless answered, calmly continuing the search.
+"I've a great faith in your veracity."
+
+He came upon Van Bleit's pocket-book, and withdrew a few paces to
+examine the contents at his leisure.  He had a strong idea that if Van
+Bleit carried what he was looking for, he would find it somewhere
+between the closely packed covers.  Van Bleit watched him with hardly
+controlled anxiety.
+
+"I don't see what concern you have with my private papers," he remarked
+bitterly.
+
+"Your vision will be clearer if I happen across what I want," Lawless
+replied.  "If I don't it will be so much the worse for you."
+
+He went through the contents carefully while Van Bleit looked on in
+almost painful interest, and Tom Hayhurst, having changed into a
+light-coloured suit, proceeded to remove by the aid of much grease the
+bloom of a complexion that had helped to Van Bleit's undoing.  The
+grinning native held a looking-glass for him, which Hayhurst carried
+with his make-up box.  He had studied the art of making-up from a
+professional for the innocent purpose of amateur theatricals at which he
+was remarkably clever.  He had acquired his knowledge of the manners and
+appearance of the demi-mondaine also at first hand, and had conceived
+the idea of turning his knowledge to practical account as a means of
+retrieving his former failure and avenging his broken head.
+
+As he stood in the brilliant sunshine in his shirt sleeves and removed
+the extraordinary quantity of grease paint with a soft rag, he felt
+satisfied that he had played a difficult part, and played it exceedingly
+well.  Anyone but a genius might have overplayed the part and given the
+thing away.  The finish of the game was in Grit's hands.
+
+He had an immense admiration for Lawless.  It had been aroused in the
+first instance by the tales Simmonds had told Colonel Grey of the man
+with the scar and the queer nickname and the reputation for courage.
+Other accounts he had heard later had fostered it, and his subsequent
+personal knowledge of the man had led to a hero-worship which, being shy
+of showing affection for his own sex, he contrived fairly successfully
+to hide.  But it was sufficiently real to allow him to contemplate
+without envy Lawless' final success in the matter of the letters.  He
+was satisfied that the credit of the affair should be his.  Moreover, he
+was curiously anxious that Colonel Grey should be forced to acknowledge
+the integrity of the man whose trustworthiness he seemed to doubt.
+
+He was in the act of removing the last traces of make-up from his
+eyebrows when a sudden exclamation from Lawless caused him to look up
+from his occupation.
+
+"Got the letters?" he asked.
+
+Lawless stood with a slip of paper in his hand.  The pocket-book and its
+further contents lay on the veld at his feet.
+
+"Yes," he answered briefly.
+
+Hayhurst whistled.  Then he stared at the slip of paper in the other's
+possession.
+
+"Clue to 'em, I suppose?" he said, a trifle disappointedly.
+
+"Hurry up, Tom, and finish.  I want you," Lawless returned, without
+vouchsafing any explanation.
+
+Van Bleit looked at the slip of paper, and scowled darkly.
+
+"That's no use to you," he said, with an attempt at bluff.  "If you hand
+in that receipt they won't give you the packet."
+
+"I know all about that," Lawless answered, and smiled quietly.  "Ever
+since you put it into my mind to guess where those letters were I've
+been waiting to get hold of this.  Are you ready, Tom?"
+
+He ran his eye over the metamorphosed figure, as Hayhurst, having
+removed the last of the paint, came forward in response to his inquiry,
+and the smile on his face deepened.
+
+"By Jove!" he said.
+
+Hayhurst laughed.
+
+"Old Karl don't seem to like me nearly so well," he complained, grinning
+at Van Bleit's scowling visage.  "Don't seem to want to tickle my ribs
+now? ...  Well, baas, what's my job?"
+
+"Get round to the left side and keep him covered while I free his hands.
+He's going to do a little writing, and if he attempts any tricks you
+have my orders to fire."
+
+"You don't try that game.  I'll see you to hell first," Van Bleit
+shouted.
+
+"You'll find yourself in hell very shortly, _if_ you give trouble,"
+Lawless answered grimly, as he proceeded to undo the ropes that bound
+his captive's arms.
+
+Van Bleit looked green.
+
+"You daren't do it," he stammered...  "There's the nigger for a
+witness."
+
+"I'll risk that.  Besides, there's such a thing as sending the nigger
+out of it... and the boy too."
+
+"Not much.  Grit," Hayhurst interposed, with his glance on Van Bleit and
+his finger on the trigger.  "If there's going to be any fun I'm in at
+the finish."
+
+Van Bleit gritted his teeth, and finding his hands free, looked eagerly
+round for a means of escape.  There was none.  Unarmed, he was helpless
+against these two.  The horse, hitched to the tree, was too far away to
+reach, the cart was not much nearer.  Before he could reach either
+Hayhurst would shoot him down.  And if he missed, Lawless was armed and
+could not fail to hit him.  He was like a rat in a trap in sight of the
+water in which he was to drown.  A cold sweat broke out on his brow.
+Life was very sweet...  And the letters! ...  The loss of the letters
+would be almost as great a disaster as the loss of life.
+
+"It's not a bit of use," he muttered, as Lawless produced a fountain pen
+and held it out to him; "the Bank won't hand the packet over to anyone
+but myself, even if he tender the receipt."
+
+"Don't you exercise your mind as to what the Bank will or will not do,"
+Lawless remarked.  "What you have to think about is to obey orders.
+You'd better concentrate all your attention on that."
+
+Van Bleit took the pen.
+
+"You can't make me sign," he said.
+
+"I can't make you--no.  But it amounts to this, if you refuse I send
+that nigger out of earshot and shoot you where you stand...  And mind
+this, if you attempt any tricks the threat holds good.  I know your
+signature.  If you don't write it fair and square on this you're a dead
+man.  You know me, Karl Van Bleit.  I don't suppose you've any reason to
+imagine I shall go back on my word."
+
+He held the Bank's receipt for the safe deposit of the sealed packet of
+letters on the back of a notebook which he took from his pocket, keeping
+his hands upon it, and holding it firmly against his chest for Van
+Bleit's greater convenience in writing.  Van Bleit hesitated.  Only the
+knowledge that Tom Hayhurst's revolver would go off as an inevitable
+consequence prevented him having a struggle for the paper.
+
+"My patience is not inexhaustible.  I give you one minute," Lawless
+said.
+
+The Dutchman started, raised his pen hand nervously, and again drew
+back.  This was slow torture.
+
+"I'll sell to you...  Give me a sum down," he muttered, thinking vainly
+of the handsome sum he had several times refused.  "They won't part with
+the packet in exchange for this...  But I'll sell it to you--for a sum
+down."
+
+Hayhurst chuckled.
+
+"Don't know when you're beaten, do you, old man?"
+
+"Write," was all Lawless vouchsafed...  "Here, the discharge across the
+back."
+
+Van Bleit obeyed.  He flung down the pen when he had finished with an
+oath.
+
+"I hope you are satisfied now," he remarked with great bitterness, as
+Lawless carefully placed the receipt in an envelope and slipped it
+inside his coat.
+
+"Not quite," he answered.  He stooped for the pen and handed it again to
+Van Bleit.  "We are not through yet.  You have played your game of bluff
+very well, but you know perfectly that I could not get that packet from
+the Bank even with your receipt without a letter of authority from you."
+
+Van Bleit completely lost his temper.  This man knew too much.  It was
+almost like parting with his life's blood, this plundering him of his
+treasure.
+
+"Damn you?" he spluttered.  "Damn you!  May my hand rot off before it
+writes any such letter for you!"
+
+Lawless took an envelope and paper from his pocket, and calmly placed
+and held in position the envelope on the improvised writing-pad.
+
+"Now," he said, presenting it as he had the official receipt, "you will
+please address this to the Manager."
+
+"That I never will," Van Bleit blustered.  "S'elp me, I never will."
+
+"Tom," said Lawless in a voice of deadly quiet, "when I give the word,
+don't hesitate to fire."
+
+"Right-ho?"  Hayhurst answered cheerfully.  "My only fear is that this
+weapon of mine is so eager it may go off on its own account."
+
+Lawless looked Van Bleit steadily in the eyes.
+
+"I want you to understand," he said, "that I am in earnest when I say
+that it is your life against these letters.  Personally, I would quite
+as soon it were your life.  The letters are nothing to me; but they are
+of considerable importance to other people...  I doubt, on the whole,
+whether I should not be doing them and society at large a greater
+service by putting an end to you.  I don't intend wasting my time in
+persuasion.  Either you write as I direct, or I put a bullet through
+your heart."
+
+In his chagrin and utter helplessness Van Bleit began to whimper.
+
+"What have I ever done to you," he asked, "that you should hunt me down
+as you have?  It's all spite--and jealousy.  I'd like to kill you...  I
+will kill you for this.  My turn will come."
+
+He took out his handkerchief and wiped the tears from his eyes
+impatiently.
+
+"If you'd only be reasonable," he said, "and come to terms..."
+
+"I've stated my terms," Lawless interrupted drily.  "Count ten, Tom;
+then if he doesn't write, blaze away."
+
+Hayhurst began to count audibly and fairly rapidly.  When he reached
+eight Van Bleit with the tears in his eyes put his pen to the envelope
+and hurriedly directed it.  Lawless examined it, put it away as he had
+the receipt, and spread, and held, the sheet of notepaper.  There was a
+hard look of satisfaction in his eyes as he fastened them on Van Bleit's
+livid convulsed face.  The knowledge of the exquisite torture he was
+inflicting gave him the peculiar pleasure that a man experiences when he
+is wiping out an injury.
+
+"Write briefly," he said, "to the Manager to the effect that you will be
+obliged if he will hand over to the bearer of this letter, Tom Hayhurst,
+the packet you deposited for safe keeping in the Bank, for which you
+enclose your receipt."
+
+With a hand that shook Van Bleit obeyed.  But half-way through he
+hesitated, and, with his shaking hand upraised, looked savagely at
+Lawless.
+
+"Count ten, Tom."
+
+The steely tones rang out commandingly, and had scarcely ceased when
+Hayhurst in audible response started his rapid counting.  Van Bleit
+finished the letter in desperate haste, and signed it.  Then with a
+bitter imprecation he snapped the pen between his hands and flung the
+broken pieces violently in Lawless' face.
+
+"Have you done with me now?" he demanded.
+
+"Not quite."
+
+The reply was unexpected.  Van Bleit paused irresolute, and stared with
+fallen countenance at this man who, not content with robbing him,
+demanded more.  He began to fear that having tricked him out of the
+letters he would now foully murder him.  The knowledge that, if so, he
+would in all probability hang for the crime was neither reassuring nor
+consoling.
+
+Lawless read the letter, folded it, and placed it in his breast pocket.
+Then he looked up and met Van Bleit's eye.
+
+"What are you after?"  Van Bleit asked dully.  "You've got what you
+wanted...  You let me go."
+
+The man he addressed smiled quietly, and taking his revolver from his
+pocket, covered the speaker with it.
+
+"You don't take me for quite such a fool, I hope?" he said.  "All right,
+Tom!  You're off guard now.  Just tie his hands again.  I shan't want
+him to use them further in my service."
+
+Van Bleit swung round as Hayhurst approached him, prepared to offer
+resistance.
+
+"No, no?" he cried quickly.  "I know what you're after...  None of
+that--no?"
+
+"It's not worth your while to resist," Lawless returned curtly.  "It's
+hands behind or a bullet in your leg.  I'm not particular which."
+
+Van Bleit faced round again and stared at him helplessly.
+
+"You b-bully!" he stammered.
+
+But he submitted quietly while Tom Hayhurst secured his wrists as
+before.  And then he gazed about him with his trapped-rat expression,
+his full cheeks flabby and grey, and his thick lip fallen, showing the
+big white teeth.  He was terribly afraid that his ease-taking,
+pleasure-loving body was about to suffer hurt.  If they did not purpose
+murdering him, Grit Lawless would wreak his vengeance in some violent
+manner for the lashing he had received at his hands.
+
+Lawless put the receipt with the letter inside the envelope which,
+taking Van Bleit's seed ring off his finger, and some wax and matches
+from his own pocket, he proceeded to seal.
+
+"You see, I came prepared," he said.
+
+Van Bleit scowled, but answered nothing.  He was now principally
+concerned for his personal safety.  If he could escape in time to wire
+to Denzil before the Bank opened in the morning, there was still a
+chance of saving the letters, even if Denzil had to pay for it with a
+couple of months for assault.  Telegraphing to the Bank to stop the
+delivery of the packet was, he felt, useless.
+
+Lawless gave the letter into Hayhurst's charge.
+
+"Take the horse, Tom," he said.  "I've a fancy for keeping the nigger in
+sight.  We're not running any risks this trip.  Tell 'em at the hotel
+that I'm spending the night with a friend, and will be back for
+breakfast in the morning.  You're in plenty of time for the train.  Get
+to the Bank as soon as it opens, and when you receive the packet take it
+to Colonel Grey, and deliver it into his hands."
+
+"And you?"  Hayhurst asked, eager to undertake the mission; yet firmly
+convinced that the final delivery of the letters to the Colonel was a
+privilege that by rights should be Lawless'.
+
+"I'm entertaining Van Bleit," Lawless replied.
+
+Tom Hayhurst glanced in the direction of their prisoner, and from him
+towards the cart where the whip stood invitingly in the socket,
+suggesting thoughts of retribution pleasing to dwell upon.
+
+"I'd like to see you mark his face before I go," he said.  He pointed to
+the whip.  "Shall I fetch it?" he asked.
+
+"You fetch your mount and clear out," Lawless answered.  "When I
+horsewhip a man I don't do it with his hands tied."
+
+Hayhurst gave the speaker a quick look.  Then he walked towards the tree
+where the horse was fastened, unhitched it, and sprang into the saddle.
+
+"So long, Grit," he sang out.
+
+He blew a kiss to Van Bleit as he cantered past.
+
+"You'll fancy yourself an Indian Brave when you wear my wig on your
+watch-chain," he cried.
+
+Van Bleit scowled yet more fiercely, and consoled himself with planning
+future vengeance against this impudent impostor to whom he owed his
+downfall.  If ever fortune played into his hands he would have Tom
+Hayhurst's life.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
+
+Lawless had during a chequered career spent many an eventful night round
+a camp fire, but no more strange experience had he passed through than
+on that night, guarding Van Bleit on the open veld.
+
+The night was cold, with a fresh wind blowing.  The Kaffir, who remained
+greatly against his will, but dared not openly refuse to stay for fear
+of the baas of the scarred face and compelling eye, gathered wood and
+made a fire, before which Lawless sat with his revolver at his hand, and
+Van Bleit stretched himself on the cushions that had been taken from the
+cart and flung down on the veld.  He feigned slumber, but did not
+actually close his eyes throughout the night.  He watched his captor
+incessantly, hoping that sleep would overtake him; but Lawless sat
+wakeful and alert, with his eyes upon the flames, only moving at long
+intervals when he rose to throw fresh wood upon the fire.
+
+There was nothing to eat, and only a small quantity of spirit in Van
+Bleit's flask.  The Kaffir had a pocketful of mealies which he chewed
+before the fire.  Close by their uitspan was a watercourse from whence
+he fetched water in small quantities in the empty flask.
+
+Van Bleit complained of hunger.  He also complained of cold, and of the
+tightness of the rope that bound his wrists.  In common humanity,
+Lawless loosened the knots.  He had no fancy to torture the man.  But if
+Van Bleit had hoped by this means to slip his bonds he was doomed to
+disappointment.  They were more comfortable, but none the less secure.
+
+He lay still afterwards for a long while feigning sleep; and Lawless,
+watching intently, observed by the uncertain flickering light, that now
+leapt upward in a tongue of brilliant flame, and again died down to a
+dull red glow that left all beyond the immediate circle round the fire
+in absolute darkness, that with every interval of obscurity Van Bleit
+drew himself stealthily nearer the fire.  When he lay quite close to the
+hot embers with his bound hands among them, Lawless rose, flung on fresh
+wood to make a blaze, and leisurely approaching the recumbent figure,
+stirred it with his boot.
+
+"Get back," he said.  "I don't mind you blistering your hands, that's
+your look out; but I object to you trying to burn that rope."
+
+Van Bleit rolled back on his cushions without replying, and lay still
+again; and Lawless sat as before, smoking his pipe to solace his empty
+stomach, with his revolver beside him, and his eyes on the leaping
+flames.  Only the Kaffir slept, and his rest was tranquil and unbroken,
+in strange contrast with the silent conflict that was going on close by
+him on the opposite side of the fire.
+
+The stars sloped to the westward, and the night grew darker, with the
+heavy blackness that precedes the dawn.  The wind died away.  Cold and
+still and strangely pure was the feel of the air.  Lawless kicked the
+fire into a blaze and looked down at Van Bleit.
+
+"Want a smoke?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Van Bleit's tone was sulky.  Lawless took his pipe from his pocket and
+filled it for him.  He put the stem in his mouth and held a match to the
+bowl.  Van Bleit was not gracious.  He wanted to smoke badly or he would
+have refused the offer.
+
+"Makes a man feel a precious fool," he said.
+
+"Makes him look one," Lawless answered.
+
+He returned to his place and sat silent and still, watching for the
+dawn.  It came with a faint breath of wind in the trees, just a
+whispering stir among the leaves.  Then silence again, and the light
+broke like a white line drawn horizontally upon the blackboard of the
+sky.  Lawless watched it broaden, grow brighter, till it dispersed the
+surrounding blackness, and objects and landmarks familiar in the
+daylight began to take definite shape and form.  He stretched himself
+wearily and looked about him.  His glance fell on Van Bleit, pallid,
+red-eyed, obviously suffering, observing him with the baleful look of
+some savage captive beast.
+
+He got up and took a few short rapid turns to circulate his blood.  It
+was cold in the dawn, and the fire was dying.  There was no more wood to
+throw on.  He had spent nights like this in the Boer lines during the
+war, but he had never been told off single-handed to guard a prisoner.
+
+He kept a watchful eye on the east for the first flushing of the clouds.
+Never had he welcomed the sun more gratefully than when it lifted
+itself indolently from the rose clouds that veiled its rising and soared
+above them into the blue of the morning sky.  Van Bleit stirred,
+stretched himself to the warmth as an animal does, and sat up.
+
+"Blast you!" he snarled.  "When are you going to make a move out of
+this?  I want some breakfast.  I'm famished...  And I've got a chill.
+My clothes are wet through with the dew."
+
+Lawless looked at his watch.
+
+"There's lots of time yet," he answered cheerfully.  "You won't hurt for
+a little fasting.  When a man habitually overfeeds it's good for his
+stomach to give it a rest."
+
+"How long are you for keeping me here?"  Van Bleit asked, his voice
+quivering with repressed rage.
+
+"I'm giving Tom his chance to get to the Bank," Lawless answered.
+"After that, I've no further interest in your movements."
+
+Van Bleit eyed him calculatingly.  His courage had returned to a certain
+degree since he had suffered no personal violence.  He felt reassured on
+that point.  But his respect for his captor was no greater on that
+account.  Had their relative positions been reversed he would have acted
+very differently.
+
+"My arms are numb," he grumbled.  "Can't you put me on parole and undo
+this cord?  It's the very devil I'm suffering in my wrists."
+
+But Lawless was wholly unmoved.
+
+"When we part company," he said, "I'll free them--which is more than you
+did for me.  As for your parole! ...  I wouldn't place greater trust in
+your word than I would in that of a Kaffir."
+
+Van Bleit controlled himself with an effort.
+
+"You're armed, and I'm not," he sneered.
+
+"Yes, I'm armed.  But I'm not going to put myself to the trouble of
+sitting with my finger on the trigger."
+
+Van Bleit got up and walked about.  He was stiff and hungry, and his
+head ached.  He believed he had a touch of fever.  He was subject to
+intermittent attacks, and lying out all night with no protection from
+the heavy dews was sufficient to bring on an attack.  He cursed volubly
+as he tramped about, and swore swift and dire vengeance on his enemy,
+who, exercising also with his hands in his coat pockets, was keeping a
+steady watch on his movements.
+
+The Kaffir awoke after a while, and, rolling over, stared about him as
+if wondering how he came to be amid his present surroundings.  Then his
+eye encountered the terrible eye of the strange baas with the scar upon
+his face, and he scrambled to his feet and grinned nervously.
+
+"In an hour's time I shall want the horses inspanned, John."
+
+"Ja, baas."
+
+The Kaffir made off.  There was in the woolly head instructed at the
+Mission-station a suspicion that the tall, stern-faced baas with the eye
+that pierced through one, and the ugly scar along his jaw, was, if not
+the Devil himself, a very near relation.  Had he suddenly disappeared in
+smoke with his captive, though it would have terrified the black man, it
+would not greatly have astonished him.
+
+As he moved rapidly away to where the horses were hitched to the pole of
+the cart he came upon one of his former gods, a strange-looking insect
+that, after the manner of the chameleon, took on the shade of the grass
+upon which it fed.  It closely resembled in form a forked blade of
+coarse grass.  With a surreptitious look about him to make certain he
+was not observed, the Kaffir bowed before his one-time god and uttered a
+weird invocation in his native tongue for protection against the white
+man's Devil.  Then in order to square the white man's God he looked up
+at the blue sky in the hope that the great mysterious Being, who was
+somewhere behind the clouds, was not conversant with the Kaffir
+language, and so had failed to understand his lapse into idolatry, and
+cried aloud, parrot-fashion, a prayer he had been taught in English when
+he became a convert at the Mission, because his brother Klaus had joined
+the Mission, and had a blanket given him, and plenty good things when he
+was zwak.  But the chance encounter with the little grass-god, which,
+being tangible, was easier of comprehension, did more to reassure him
+than the prayer sent into the blue distance which, having such a long
+way to travel, might never reach.
+
+The Kaffir's idea of time was vague.  He went by the sun.  One hour the
+sun him so much higher.  He rubbed down the horses as best he could,
+having nothing to groom them with save handfuls of grass, and led them
+away to the watercourse to drink.  He did not hasten to return, but kept
+an observant eye on the sun, fearful of incurring the baas' anger by
+overstaying the limit.  When he judged the hour up he returned to the
+uitspan and proceeded to harness the horses.  The baas still stood with
+his hands in his pockets; but he no longer watched the other baas, who
+was reclining again on the cushions of the cart, a huddled inert mass of
+misery.  The game was up, and he had lost finally.  He felt like a man
+who has toiled honestly and laboriously and been scandalously defrauded
+of the rewards of his industry.
+
+The Kaffir finished harnessing the horses, and then came up for the
+cushions.  Lawless spoke to Van Bleit, and he got up sullenly, kicking
+the native savagely as he stooped and reached out a dusky hand.  The
+Kaffir shot a venomous glance at him, but uttered no verbal protest.  He
+gathered up the cushions and carried them away and arranged them in the
+cart.  Then he mounted to his seat and sat with the reins in his hands,
+waiting.
+
+Lawless again addressed himself to Van Bleit.
+
+"Turn round," he said curtly, "and I'll unfasten your wrists."
+
+Van Bleit's arms were so cramped when eventually they were released that
+for some time he could only work them gently, moving his wrists and
+fingers and relaxing his stiffened muscles.  The inconvenience and the
+pain in them did not improve his temper.  And when it became clear to
+him there was no room in the cart for him, that he must walk many miles
+before he could get a conveyance or break his fast, his rage was beyond
+control.
+
+"You devil!" he shouted.  "You dirty low cad of a Kaffir!  Look out for
+your skin, that's all.  I keep my word regardless of consequences, and I
+say that for this you shall pay--and pay dearly, you hired spy who does
+another man's dirty work."
+
+"Drive on," said Lawless indifferently; and the Kaffir promptly whipped
+up his horses and drove off at a furious rate.
+
+The little schoolmaster was seated at breakfast when the Cape cart
+clattered noisily up the sunny street, and Lawless, descending from it,
+entered the hotel.  He went to his room, stripped, bathed, and changed
+his clothes; then he repaired in all haste to the dining-room, and
+nodding to Mr Burton, sat down at the end of the table.
+
+"I'm famished," he said.  "But if you'll give me a little time in which
+to take the brunt off an appetite that seems as though it would never be
+satisfied, I'll be ready to accompany you as we arranged."
+
+The mild eyes behind the glasses blinked their surprise and their
+pleasure in equal degrees.
+
+"Oh! plenty of time! plenty of time?" he asserted, and quietly pushed
+the butter and rolls and fruit nearer the new-comer's hand.  "It's
+early...  I am glad to see you.  I was afraid you might not be
+returning."
+
+Lawless fell to on his breakfast when it made its appearance with a zest
+that astonished his companion.
+
+"What a good thing it is to have a healthy appetite," he observed.
+"Early rising and a drive before breakfast suit you, my friend."
+
+Lawless laughed grimly.
+
+"For the first time I experience a sneaking sympathy with the
+cannibal...  I could almost eat you."
+
+Even a much neglected appetite reaches its limit in time.  The quantity
+of food that Lawless managed to dispose of was a revelation to the
+schoolmaster; he had never in all his life been equal to making such a
+meal.
+
+"You have a good digestion," he remarked.  "It is a fine thing."
+
+"No doubt," Lawless answered.  "But it becomes assertive when a man
+neglects to give it work.  And now, Mr Burton, I won't keep you waiting
+any longer.  Your patience has stood a test this morning that mine would
+not bear so well."
+
+"Indeed, I have been well entertained," the other assured him.
+
+"In watching the exhibition of a man's eating prowess!  You are more
+easily amused than I am."
+
+"I imagine that to be so.  I belong to a generation that enjoyed simpler
+pleasures than you men of the present day.  But I fancy we who took
+pleasure in simple things got more joy out of life...  I may be wrong."
+
+"Joy!  There's precious little joy in life that I can see," Lawless
+replied, and rose, scraping his chair noisily upon the carpetless floor.
+The little man looked at him earnestly.
+
+"I am not a philosopher," he said, "nor have I over much learning--just
+enough for the exercise of my profession, and no more.  But I can tell
+you the reason you find no joy in life; it is because you don't know
+where to look for it.  Joy lies in ourselves."
+
+Lawless laughed shortly.
+
+"I'm not a likely sort of subject to harbour joy," he returned.
+
+"Why not?" the other said quite simply...  "You shut the door in her
+face, my friend, or she would find her way in fast enough.  Give her a
+chance."
+
+He took up his hat, and lighted his old meerschaum pipe before going
+out.
+
+"On a day like this," he said, "it makes a man joyful merely to feel he
+is alive."
+
+It was a great pleasure to the schoolmaster to walk along beside his
+tall companion and point out to him the many beauties of the place,
+beauties which alone Lawless would assuredly have overlooked.  A lizard,
+peeping with bright eyes between the stones of a piece of broken wall,
+caught the little man's attention.  As they approached it darted into a
+crack and disappeared.  The schoolmaster pointed to it like an eager boy
+who discovers something rare.  Despite his boredom at such trifles,
+Lawless was faintly amused.  A wild flower, a humming-bird, a large
+green butterfly, each in turn excited interest, and called forth
+admiration and comment.
+
+The man was a botanist, and spoke learnedly of the flora of the
+neighbourhood.  The wild flowers of the Cape have yet to be properly
+classified; many of them are unnamed; they are simply "bloemetjes."  The
+schoolmaster had named many of them to please himself.  He picked a
+beautiful pure white bloom from the veld, and gave it to Lawless to
+admire.
+
+"It is so flawless, so pure," he said.  "I call that my Flower of
+Innocence.  The veld is full of them.  But they are scentless.  One day
+someone will take it, perhaps, and cultivate it and give it a scent.
+But I like it best as nature has made it.  To me it is perfect."
+
+Lawless placed it in his buttonhole, not that he cared for wearing
+flowers, but because--why he did not know--it pleased him to give
+pleasure to this simple-minded man.
+
+The schoolmaster introduced his friend to his pupils, a proceeding that
+was fraught with embarrassment to both sides.  Never in his life before
+had Lawless felt so great a fool.  He was glad to make his escape.
+
+Mr Burton parted from him reluctantly.  He went a little way with him
+on his backward journey, and stood for quite ten minutes looking after
+the tall figure as it strode away over the veld.  Afterwards he was
+heard to assert that Providence had without doubt moved him to act as he
+acted that morning.  No man was ever more conscientious in the
+performance of his duties than this man, yet here was he lingering in
+the sunshine, gazing after a departing acquaintance while his pupils
+idled their time away waiting for him in vain.
+
+Mr Burton held no class that morning.
+
+As he was about to turn back to his work he saw a strange sight.  The
+figure he was watching suddenly threw up its arms and fell and lay upon
+the veld quite motionless, so that had he not seen the falling of it he
+would not have known that it was there.  And galloping away from the
+spot where the man had fallen was another man seated on a raw-boned
+white horse.
+
+The schoolmaster was no athlete, but he put foot to ground and ran for
+all he was worth.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
+
+Colonel Grey lay in bed smoking his customary before-breakfast cigar.
+He was not an early riser--or, as he expressed it, he had had so much
+early rising during his life that he was justified in taking his
+leisure.
+
+He was unaccountably thinking of Lawless and the letters.  He still
+half-trusted and half-doubted his man.  That is to say, at times his
+belief in him was unbounded, and again at other moments, according to
+his mood, he mistrusted the man's honesty of purpose.  Reckless,
+impecunious, an admitted adventurer, were not the chances even that if
+he got hold of the letters he would turn them to his own purposes?  With
+such a source of profit in his possession, would he be likely to give it
+up for the sum originally agreed upon between them?  Colonel Grey could
+not altogether conquer his suspicions; the man's past life had
+prejudiced him.
+
+While he lay thinking, sending clouds of blue smoke-rings up from the
+pillow like smoke from a sacrificial altar, the bell of his front door
+was rung loudly and imperatively.  As it was not answered with the
+promptitude that could only have been possible had a doorkeeper been
+stationed in readiness, the bell pealed again.  Colonel Grey got out of
+bed and went to the window.  He had already paddled out of bed once to
+admit his boy, for no servant slept in the house; and he paddled across
+the room a second time, jerked open the window, and looked out.  It was
+with an involuntary exclamation of surprise that he recognised Tom
+Hayhurst.
+
+"Good Lord!" he ejaculated.
+
+And then, in accents of anger:
+
+"What the devil are you pulling that bell down for?"
+
+Hayhurst came forward, saluted the irate speaker, and followed him into
+the bedroom.
+
+"I thought I paid you to clear out," the Colonel observed sharply,
+eyeing with no great favour the spruce, confident young man he had last
+seen--or so he imagined--with a bandaged head, taking his passage to
+Durban.
+
+"You did, sir."
+
+Hayhurst controlled his countenance with difficulty.  In dealing with
+the Colonel he made it a practice to allow him to let off steam first.
+It gave a man a chance of second place, he used to say.
+
+"Then, why in hell are you back here? ...  I've no further use for you."
+
+"I'm not asking you to use me," Hayhurst answered coolly.  "I came by
+Lawless' orders, to give into your own hands the packet of letters which
+I've just received from the Bank."
+
+He put his hand inside his coat as he spoke, and withdrew a sealed
+packet from an inner pocket, which, in a matter-of-fact manner, he
+tendered the Colonel.  The Colonel nearly collapsed at sight of it.  The
+cigar dropped from his lips, his mouth fell helplessly open.
+
+"The--letters!" he gasped.
+
+He stretched forth an eager hand that shook with his excitement, and
+almost tore the packet from Hayhurst's grasp.
+
+"Sit down, my boy," he said...  "Sit down."  He turned the packet
+lovingly.  "Good God! the letters--at last!"
+
+Breaking the seal with fingers that in their feverish eagerness could
+scarce perform their office, he glanced through the contents, counted
+the letters, and finally, going to a drawer and unlocking it, he took
+out a notebook to which he referred continually while he went through
+the packet again.
+
+"It's all right," he said...  "They're all here."
+
+He snatched up a box of matches, and carrying the letters to the grate,
+thrust them between the bars and set light to them.  Hayhurst watched
+with him while they burnt, dividing his attention between the flaming
+papers and the intent set face of the man who crouched before the
+hearth, watching, watching, while the letters that had cost much money
+and a man's life were swiftly reduced to ashes.  When only the charred
+and blackened paper remained, Colonel Grey took the ashes up in his
+hands and crumbled them to powder.  He drew a long breath of relief.
+
+"They've cost dear," he muttered,--"too dear...  But they'll do no more
+harm."
+
+He rose and, turning, stared into the young man's eyes.
+
+"A moment since," he said, and his voice trembled with an emotion he
+could not altogether subdue, "it seemed to me that nothing mattered
+outside that," and he pointed to the ashes in the grate.  "Now I'm back
+in the world again, and I want to know how you came to have them in your
+possession."
+
+"It's a fairly long story," Hayhurst said.  "It's taken weeks to bring
+to a successful issue."
+
+The Colonel shook his head.
+
+"Don't you get into the habit of drinking before breakfast, my boy," he
+said.
+
+Tom Hayhurst laughed.  His eye had certainly travelled towards a syphon
+and bottle of whisky that stood on the washstand.
+
+"You don't know what I've been through," he said.  "Besides, I have
+breakfasted.  And I've been strict teetotal practically ever since I've
+been working with Lawless.  It was a condition he made in taking me on."
+
+The Colonel went to the washstand to cleanse his hands.
+
+"Pity to break it," he said.  "But help yourself, if you've a mind to."
+
+When he had washed he got back into bed, and Hayhurst sat on a chair
+facing him, with a glass of whisky in his hand.
+
+"We'll have to go back to the beginning," he said, "if you want to
+follow the yarn--that is, to the time when Lawless left Cape Town before
+poor Simmonds' murder.  You may remember he left Cape Town with a
+companion."
+
+"I do," Colonel Grey answered drily.  "I have reason to remember."
+
+"So have I," Hayhurst rejoined.
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"You see, I was with him," he explained, taking pleasure in the
+Colonel's open amazement.  "We were in Stellenbosch together."
+
+"You!--With that she--"
+
+"Devil," prompted the young man cheerfully.  "Yes!  She wasn't half a
+bad sort either.  You mustn't call her names.  I've a sneaking affection
+for her."
+
+"I can imagine you would have."
+
+The Colonel snipped a fresh cigar, and lighted it, and lay with his
+hands clasped behind his head eyeing the youngster curiously as, in
+obedience to a nod, he helped himself from the box of cigars that stood
+on the table beside the bed.
+
+"I suppose you wouldn't believe me," he hazarded, "if I were to tell you
+that that was the most platonic friendship Grit Lawless ever indulged
+in?"
+
+"I should say that your ideas and mine of platonism were widely
+different," was the response.
+
+Hayhurst laughed.
+
+"Did you ever see the lady at close quarters?" he asked.
+
+"No...  And have no wish to."
+
+"I fancy you are labouring under a mistake...  You are looking at her
+now."
+
+He stroked his clean-shaven lip to hide his amusement, and his blue eyes
+smiled at the Colonel, who, in incredulous amazement, stared back at him
+from the pillow.
+
+"I never reckoned myself an effeminate-looking fellow," he said; "but
+I'm a tremendous success in petticoats--though it took a thundering lot
+of paint, no matter how carefully I shaved."
+
+"You lying young devil!" the Colonel ejaculated.  "I don't believe a
+word of it."
+
+"Van Bleit wouldn't either," Hayhurst answered, calmly sipping his
+whisky, "if I hadn't changed my sex in front of him.  I left him my hair
+as a keepsake...  His friendship wasn't as platonic as old Grit's."
+
+The Colonel half sat up as a light broke in on him.
+
+"And that," he exclaimed with conviction, "is how you got hold of the
+letters?"
+
+"No."  Tom Hayhurst leant forward with his hand on the counterpane, his
+boyish face flushed and eager.  "All the credit for getting hold of the
+letters belongs to Lawless," he said.  "I was merely the decoy for
+leading Van Bleit into his hands.  He managed the rest.  He's fine, Grit
+Lawless--a man... a white man.  My conscience! you ought to have been
+with us yesterday and seen him handle Van Bleit."
+
+He furnished a description of the scene on the veld, and the Colonel
+listened in silence, save for an occasional appreciative grunt.
+
+"And I left him," the boy finished admiringly, "guarding the beast.  He
+might have put a bullet into him and saved himself the trouble; instead
+of which I expect he has been sitting by him all night.  I tell you,
+when Grit undertakes a thing he doesn't half do it."
+
+Colonel Grey looked thoughtfully at the speaker.  He was remembering how
+at their last meeting Lawless had said to him, with reference to Van
+Bleit, that he was keener on killing the man than anything else.
+
+"I wouldn't be too sure," he said, "that he didn't put his bullet into
+him after you were gone."
+
+But Tom Hayhurst had no doubts on that head.
+
+"Grit isn't the man to shoot another with his hands tied, and unarmed,"
+he said.  "He wouldn't even lash him so, although I wanted him to.  I've
+got a blunter sense of honour, I suppose; but I don't believe in being
+generous to swine like Karl Van Bleit."
+
+"No," the Colonel agreed.
+
+He smoked for a few moments in silence.  Then he put the end of the
+cigar down in the ashtray, and flung back the bedclothes.
+
+"You say you've breakfasted!  It must have been a fairly early meal.
+You'd better stay and breakfast with me.  When do you suppose Lawless
+will be coming down?"
+
+"To-night, I expect.  He didn't say.  But there's nothing to keep him
+there.  I shall meet the train anyway."
+
+"I'd like to see him."  The Colonel frowned thoughtfully.  "Pity!" he
+said.  "I'm dining out to-night--at the Smythes'.  If it had been any
+other house I would have sent an excuse.  But, owing to the trial,
+things have been a bit strained.  To-night will be the first time I have
+been to the house since that affair...  I can't very well get out of
+it."
+
+"Leave early, sir," Hayhurst suggested, "and come round to his hotel."
+
+"And suppose he shouldn't arrive?"
+
+"Oh! he'll arrive right enough...  If he doesn't, I'll manage to let you
+know."
+
+There was no happier man in Cape Town that day than Colonel Grey when he
+went into the city and cabled Home to the person it most concerned the
+news of success.  It had taken months to accomplish at a terrific cost,
+but the matter was ended, and the incriminating letters were beyond
+reach for any purpose evil or the reverse.
+
+Because his conscience accused him of having misjudged the man, quite as
+much as in recognition of his valuable services, he determined to use
+his influence with the greater influence behind him in getting Lawless
+some honourable occupation that would give him a fresh start.  There was
+use in the world for men like that.  The idea grew in his mind and took
+definite shape.  He decided to talk it over with Lawless when they met
+and then write home.  Whatever his past, he merited some consideration
+for his present services.  The impulse of the moment is no correct index
+to a man's nature, and only a crude sense of justice assigns life-long
+punishment for the sins of youth.  In Colonel Grey's opinion Grit
+Lawless had expiated his crime.
+
+He went to the Smythes' that evening with his thoughts still revolving
+around Lawless' future, which quite suddenly had become of immense
+importance to him.  It was his liking for the man, that strange
+unaccountable feeling he had had for him at their first meeting which,
+despite prejudice and later distrust, he had never managed to conquer,
+that made him so extraordinarily anxious to hold out a helping hand.
+Simmonds, the man who was dead, had had a similar regard for him; and
+the boy, Tom Hayhurst, in a more exaggerated degree realised the
+magnetic attraction of his personality.  Given a second chance.  Colonel
+Grey was fully convinced that Lawless would carve out a future for
+himself of which no man need be ashamed.  It remained for him to see
+that a suitable chance offered.
+
+By an odd coincidence the first person he came across in the Smythes'
+drawing-room after greeting his hostess was Mrs Lawless.  He was, he
+discovered later, to take her in to dinner.  He had not seen her to
+speak to since the evening he had called upon her at the time of
+Simmonds' murder, and he was not quite sure until she turned and spoke
+to him how he stood in her regard.
+
+She was looking very lovely, but older, he decided.  He had never
+observed anyone age as she had within a few months.  There were lines in
+her face that had not been there when he first knew her, and her eyes
+were sadder, her bearing altogether less confident.  Some people might
+have considered her less attractive on this account; but to him, in the
+clouded expression of the thoughtful eyes, in the thin line that ran
+from nose to mouth, there was a pathetic appeal that was infinitely
+womanly, and therefore more alluring than the proud defiance of youth.
+
+She held out her hand to him, and smiled a welcome.
+
+"I began to think that you and I were not to meet again," she said.
+
+"That is a very gracious speech," he answered, "for it permits me the
+belief that you were not unwilling for a meeting.  But there is a grim
+suggestion underlying the words that pleases me less.  Is it my speedy
+dissolution you anticipate?"
+
+"No," she answered quietly.  "But--I thought you might have heard--I'm
+going Home."
+
+"Indeed!" he said, and looked at her with quickened interest.  "That's
+news to me.  Do you leave shortly?"
+
+"Next week," she replied slowly, her fingers entwining themselves in the
+silver girdle at her waist.  "I never intended to stay very long, you
+know.  I came to...  Just on a visit."
+
+"And you return satisfied?" he asked, and knew not why he asked the
+question, nor why she should look at him so strangely with so sad an
+expression in the look.
+
+"No," she replied.
+
+There was a perceptible pause.  He pulled his heavy moustache, and his
+shrewd eyes met hers with a look of understanding and sympathy.  He did
+not know what her purpose had been in coming out, but he felt she had
+followed no idle whim, nor sought merely health or pleasure from the
+visit.  She had come, as he had come, for a definite purpose, and while
+he was leaving with his mission accomplished, she returned discouraged
+with her object unattained.
+
+"I'm sorry for that," he said...  "If there is any way in which I can be
+of service to you..."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I go back as I came," she said...  "It was a venture.  But at least I
+have the consolation of knowing that the attempt has been made.  One
+can't help one's failures."  She looked into the grave, distinguished
+face and smiled.  "We are in danger of growing serious," she said.
+
+"Look here," he cried quickly, moved by some inexplicable and
+irresistible impulse, a sense of chivalry perhaps that her evident
+depression roused in him.  "You say you are going home next week.  I
+propose going also.  If I can make my arrangements in the time, would it
+be agreeable to you that I should travel in the same boat?"
+
+"You!"  Her voice as well as her face expressed astonishment.  "Then
+you--Have you accomplished your purpose in coming out?" she asked.
+
+A glow of satisfaction overspread his features.
+
+"I have," he answered, and was conscious of feeling half ashamed to show
+his joy in the successful issue of his undertaking.
+
+She rested her hand, oblivious of the people about them, for a moment on
+his arm.
+
+"Oh!  I'm glad," she said...  "I'm glad.  That's finished with.  I have
+always felt those letters would cost another life."
+
+"God forbid!" he muttered, and added reassuringly: "They're past doing
+harm now...  They're destroyed.  I burnt them myself--to-day."
+
+She drew a long breath that was, he felt, a sigh of genuine relief.  He
+looked at her curiously.  He had never understood her interest in the
+letters, but he knew she was very greatly interested; and her relief in
+the knowledge of their destruction conclusively proved that in this
+matter at least she had no sympathy with Karl Van Bleit.  He sometimes
+wondered whether he had not been mistaken in his opinion as to her
+feeling for Van Bleit.
+
+"They are making a move," he said to her.  And then, as Theodore Smythe
+spoke to him in passing, he turned to her and offered her his arm.  "I
+have the pleasure of taking you in," he added.
+
+And neither of them remembered, then or later, that his question as to
+travelling Home with her remained unanswered.
+
+Colonel Grey left the Smythes' early as he had arranged to do, and Mrs
+Lawless, who was going on elsewhere, took her departure at the same
+time.
+
+"I am crowding all the dissipation possible into my last week," she
+explained, but withheld the reason for this feverish activity.
+
+He gave her his arm and led her out to the waiting motor.  As he came
+out of the gate Tom Hayhurst, who had been dawdling about for him for
+the past half-hour, stepped quickly forward; then seeing who was with
+him stopped abruptly, and drew back.  But Mrs Lawless had seen and
+recognised him.
+
+"Mr Hayhurst!" she exclaimed, in a voice of surprise, and held out her
+hand.
+
+"You were going to cut me," she said, as he came forward again.
+
+He laughed self-consciously.  He was a fool for harbouring malice.
+Whatever part she had played in the matter of his broken head, she was
+an alluringly beautiful woman, and that in his opinion excused a great
+deal.
+
+"Pardon!" he returned.  "I was merely diffident as to my welcome."
+
+She suddenly smiled.
+
+"I rather suspect," she said, "that you are accustomed to being
+forgiven.  I haven't any faith in your diffidence."
+
+Hayhurst opened the door of the car for her and she got in.
+
+"How is it you are not in evening dress?  If you had been I would have
+taken you on to the subscription dance, which is where you ought to be,
+instead of hanging about other people's doorways."
+
+"If I'd only known sooner..." he murmured regretfully.
+
+She looked at Colonel Grey, who, grave and silent, stood behind the
+younger man.
+
+"Can I drop you anywhere?" she asked.
+
+"Thank you, no," he answered.  "I've an engagement with Mr Lawless at
+his hotel."
+
+Mrs Lawless started.
+
+"He hasn't come, sir," she heard Tom Hayhurst saying.  And then, in
+reply to an inaudible question: "I met the train.  He wasn't there.  Van
+Bleit came by it."
+
+There was a muttered exclamation from the Colonel, and Hayhurst added:
+
+"Yes!  I don't like the look of it myself."
+
+"Well, tell me presently."
+
+The words were spoken as a caution.  Mrs Lawless leaned forward over
+the door, the light of the street lamp shining on her white face.
+
+"Tell him now," she said in a low voice.  "I want to hear."
+
+Hayhurst stared back at her.
+
+"There's nothing to tell," he stammered.  "We expected Lawless by the
+train this evening...  He didn't come.  That's all."
+
+"Where is he?" she asked.
+
+"At Kraaifontein."
+
+She thought for a moment.
+
+"And Karl Van Bleit was at Kraaifontein too?"
+
+"Yes...  He's back now."
+
+Mrs Lawless looked straight into the Colonel's eyes.
+
+"He got the letters for you," she said, and he knew that she referred to
+Lawless though she did not utter his name.
+
+"Yes."
+
+For the life of him the Colonel could think of nothing further to say.
+He was aware that the same suspicion that was in his own mind was in
+hers; and he had no reassurance to offer.  He could find no word to
+supplement his bald affirmative.  The pause lengthened.
+
+"Another life!" she whispered...  "I always felt--"
+
+She touched Tom Hayhurst's sleeve.
+
+"Tell him to drive home," she said, and sat back in her seat.
+
+Colonel Grey stepped quickly to the door.
+
+"Don't worry," he said...  "I'm going up to-morrow...  I'll let you know
+immediately."
+
+The car drove away, and the two men were left staring blankly into one
+another's eyes.
+
+"What's he to her?"  Tom Hayhurst asked.
+
+But the Colonel shook his head.  Here was a complication he had not
+foreseen.  They turned and walked on together.  Hayhurst was excited and
+inclined to hunt up Van Bleit and have an explanation, but his companion
+quashed the idea.
+
+"You are positive, I suppose, it was Van Bleit you saw?"
+
+"Of course I am.  I got quite close to him once, and he grinned at me.
+I tell you, I didn't like that grin.  I followed after him.  I wanted to
+hit his face for showing his teeth at me, but he got into a taxi and
+drove off.  He was looking sick too, beastly sick...  There's been foul
+play,--I'm certain of it.  I'd have suspected it by Van Bleit turning up
+and Grit not; but when I saw that beast's smug, vindictive grin, I knew
+it."
+
+"Well, I'll find out to-morrow," Colonel Grey said.
+
+"I'm going up the line with you.  If anything's happened to Grit,
+whatever hole Van Bleit sneaks into, I'll see he pays."
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
+
+Colonel Grey flung a suit of pyjamas and a few toilet accessories into a
+handbag and started out for the station.  He was very much perturbed.
+Against his judgment he was greatly affected by Mrs Lawless'
+forebodings of the previous night; her softly uttered, prophetic--they
+seemed to him prophetic--words: "I have always felt those letters would
+cost another life."
+
+And as a foundation for this belief, Tom Hayhurst had turned up with his
+tale of suspicion and his unreserved misgivings that had insensibly
+given rise to similar doubts in his own mind.  What a finish to a life
+of failure! ...  If this, indeed, should prove the end!  He recalled his
+recently formulated plans for the man's future... the chance he had
+thought to give him; and a hard look came into his eyes, his lips
+tightened.  Those ashes in the grate had indeed cost dear!
+
+Tom Hayhurst was already on the platform when he made his appearance
+from the direction of the booking-office.  He came forward quickly to
+meet him, his boyish face grave and concerned.
+
+"I saw Van Bleit come out of the shipping-office when I passed on my way
+here," he said.  "I tried to stop him, but he eluded me, and I daren't
+give chase for fear of missing the train.  I take it he was booking his
+passage to England.  He means clearing out...  Looks queer, eh?"
+
+Colonel Grey nodded briefly.
+
+"It'll take a bigger world than this for him to lose himself in, if he's
+killed Grit," the young man said.
+
+They turned and walked the length of the platform side by side.  The
+train was in the station, and passengers were leisurely selecting their
+seats.  From the door of the booking-office as they came opposite to it,
+among a hurrying group of late arrivals, Mrs Lawless emerged, tall and
+composed and very pale, with a cluster of early roses, fresh gathered
+with the dew still on them, drooping in her hands.  A servant
+accompanied her carrying luggage.  It was evident that she too was going
+by the train.
+
+The Colonel was the first to see her; Hayhurst in his preoccupation had
+eyes for no one.  He stopped, regarded her in surprise, and raised his
+hat.
+
+"Mrs Lawless!" he exclaimed.  "You! ...  Surely you are not thinking--"
+
+She looked him steadily in the eyes.
+
+"I am going to Kraaifontein, Colonel Grey," she interrupted him--"to
+find my husband."
+
+It was not often that the Colonel was startled beyond all power of lucid
+expression, but in the extremity of his amazement words failed him.
+
+"Your--Eh?" he said, and stood still on the platform and stared at her.
+
+He felt a touch on his arm.
+
+"Unless you want to be left behind, you'd better take your seat."
+
+Tom Hayhurst stood at his elbow, his blue eyes on the woman's face, with
+a mingling of respect in them and wondering resentment.  He hurried them
+to the train, opened the door of an empty carriage, and shut it on them
+with a bang.
+
+"Send me a wire," he said.
+
+The Colonel thrust his head out of the window.
+
+"You're not coming?"
+
+"No."  The young man gave an expressive glance in the direction of Mrs
+Lawless, seated in the far corner of the carriage with the fragrant
+drooping flowers in her lap.  "Grit wouldn't thank us for making a
+picnic, or a funeral party, of it with her there," he said.
+
+Colonel Grey understood.
+
+"I'll let you know immediately," he promised, and sank back on the
+cushions, taking off his hat and mopping his much perplexed and
+perspiring brow as the train moved slowly out.
+
+He looked across at Mrs Lawless.  She was gazing out of the window at
+the sunny country as it swept past her view with eyes that saw nothing
+consciously, and with thoughts, he rightly conjectured, far away from
+her surroundings.  He tried to think of her in this new connection that
+she had sprung on him so suddenly and for which he had been so wholly
+unprepared; tried, but failed to remember, what Lawless had said in
+respect of his relationship with her that had so entirely misled him.
+He recalled that he had asked point blank whether he was a connection of
+hers, recalled too the ambiguous answer to his question: "By marriage
+only."  Truly a man may usually be said to be related to his wife by
+marriage only.  But the answer had been given with intent to deceive.
+And Lawless had said other things that had tended to turn his mind from
+any such suspicion.  For private reasons he had desired to conceal the
+fact of his marriage.
+
+It was long before Mrs Lawless turned her face in his direction; when
+she did he saw that her eyes were filled with a great hopelessness, and
+something that resembled dread.  Unconsciously she fingered the roses in
+her lap, touching them with a nervous caressing hand.
+
+"I am afraid," she said, and looked at him wistfully.  "I have never
+imagined anything like this...  I thought I was going Home without ever
+seeing his face again.  I had reconciled myself to that.  And now...  It
+ought not to be more difficult to part from the dead than to part
+irrevocably from the living.  But it is."
+
+She looked down suddenly at the roses, and lifted them gently, and laid
+them against her face.
+
+"I brought them for him," she said simply.
+
+"I think it would be wiser," he returned, "not to make up your mind to
+misfortune.  It is quite possible that when we arrive we shall find Mr
+Lawless in perfect health.  There are absolutely no grounds for
+supposing otherwise."
+
+"I have a feeling that all is not well," she answered quietly.  "That
+feeling was with me throughout the night; and in my sleep I heard him
+call me...  My own imagination! ...  Yes, I know.  He wouldn't ask for
+me."
+
+She turned her face away and gazed out of the window again.
+
+"Do you think," she asked presently, after a further lengthy silence,
+and in her tone and manner it was apparent how great was the effort it
+cost her to touch upon the subject, "that she will be with him? ... that
+woman?"
+
+Colonel Grey sat up suddenly as though a bomb had been flung at him.  He
+had forgotten since his knowledge of Tottie's identity that this thing
+had been an open scandal, and that she must know of it.
+
+"Good Lord, no!" he answered.  And added quickly: "There wasn't any
+woman."
+
+He moved down to her end of the compartment, and leaning forward took
+both her hands and held them firmly.
+
+"You haven't allowed that to come between you?" he asked gently.
+
+The tears rose in her eyes.
+
+"It didn't help," she whispered...  "But you see--I am going to him in
+spite of it."
+
+"It was a cruel thing to let you believe that," he said, and dropped her
+hands, and sat back against the cushions, watching her.  "I'll tell you
+the story as I heard it myself yesterday."
+
+And he related to her unreservedly the history of Tottie and her
+connection with Lawless in the recovery of the letters.  When he had
+finished he found that she was quietly weeping with her face hidden in
+her gloveless hands.
+
+He left her to herself and returning to his former seat sat stiffly
+upright, staring out of the window with unseeing eyes beneath their
+knitted brows.  It would seem that those letters had more to answer for
+than even he had supposed.  He wondered whether, could he have foreseen
+all that this enterprise would involve, he would have consented to its
+undertaking.
+
+There was a prolonged silence.  Mrs Lawless rose after a while, moved
+by what impulse he failed to understand, and dropped the sweet scented
+roses from the window.  She turned round and faced him after doing so,
+and he felt that already she regretted the act.
+
+"They were dying," she explained, and went nearer to him and sat down
+opposite.  "It was a foolish thought to pick them."
+
+"It was a kind thought," he returned.
+
+She looked at him gravely.
+
+"Colonel Grey," she said, "a man must hate a woman when he can let her
+believe--what my husband allowed me to believe.  Nothing less than hate
+could be so cruel as that."
+
+He looked her straight in the eyes.
+
+"Dear lady, don't you know," he asked, "how closely love and hate are
+allied so that it is difficult to separate the one from the other?  It
+is possible for a man to hate the woman who is dear to him.  I've known
+such cases."
+
+"I can understand," she said, and looked thoughtfully out upon the
+passing country, "moments of impulsive hate.  But systematic hate...
+That's different."
+
+She pulled at the strap of the window absently, and continued to gaze
+out at the scenery, while the shadows darkened the sun-flecked eyes, and
+memories stirred in their troubled depths that, far away now but still
+unsoftened, covered over a space of hopeless years.  She had loved her
+husband with such an intensity of passion, and yet she had failed
+somehow to satisfy him.  She had failed him most at the moment he
+particularly needed help and sympathy--at the time of his disgrace.  Her
+love for him had had its root to a great extent in her pride in him.
+The fall of her pride was tremendous.  His dismissal from the Service
+cut her more deeply than at that time of hysterical patriotism his death
+could have.  The blow hardened her.  Instead of loving encouragement,
+unsympathetic silence was all she offered.  And he turned from her and
+sought comfort elsewhere.  Another woman came into his life.  Zoe
+Lawless did not know how brief had been that interval of madness.  She
+had refused to hear explanations, had withheld forgiveness.  He had
+written to her, offering facilities for her release.  To that she had
+replied that if he wished it, if he desired to give the woman the
+protection of his name, she would submit to the humiliation of having
+their affairs dragged through the courts.  He had answered that he was
+merely considering her, that he had no wishes in the matter, and should
+certainly not re-marry if she divorced him.
+
+After that there had been unbroken silence between them, and she lost
+sight of him for many years.  During those years, in the lonely watches
+of the night, she had often lain awake thinking of him, wondering about
+him; and her conscience had reproached her for throwing that
+undisciplined nature back upon itself.  When, unexpectedly, under the
+will of an eccentric relative she inherited a comfortable fortune she
+determined to follow after him.  She had heard from her cousin in Cape
+Town that Lawless was in Africa; and so she came to Africa to find him,
+with some vague idea in her mind that they might possibly pick up the
+dropped strands of their lives and interwind them anew.  She had
+earnestly desired this until she met him.  When they met she realised
+how vain had been her hope.  And now it was all over...  There remained
+only the bitterness of the empty years.
+
+When they reached Kraaifontein, and the Colonel got out of the train and
+turned to offer her assistance, she hung back, white and nervous, and
+caught at the luggage bracket as though to save herself from falling.
+He took her by the arm and assisted her on to the platform.
+
+"In a little while," he said, with a view to encouraging her, "you will
+be smiling at your fears.  Come now! be brave."
+
+He left her for a moment on the platform while he went to speak to an
+official.  When he returned he endeavoured without success to mask his
+gravity behind a reassuring smile.
+
+"We'll walk," he said, "it's close here.  I've arranged about the
+luggage."
+
+She looked at him swiftly.
+
+"You've heard something," she said.
+
+"Nothing definite," he answered,--"and nothing very alarming.  There is
+a visitor at the hotel who has met with an accident.  That tells us
+little, but at least it proves he is not dead."
+
+She took his arm and they started to walk.
+
+"If he's only slightly hurt," she said, as they proceeded, "I'll go back
+again.  It would only anger him, my being here.  But if he's too ill to
+notice--then surely I may stay? ...  You don't think that I should do
+him harm by staying, then?"
+
+Tears suddenly rose in her eyes, her voice broke.
+
+"Oh!  I'm so afraid," she whispered.  "Afraid most of all of his
+coldness."
+
+"I think," he said gently, "you may rest assured he can only feel
+grateful to you for your consideration."
+
+But notwithstanding his words of comfort she grew more nervous with
+every step they advanced.  Death she could have faced, and faced
+bravely; she had had to face worse things than that; but the thought of
+his further coldness--his displeasure, perhaps, at being followed--
+completely unnerved her.
+
+When they reached the hotel and entered from the sunshine into the
+small, plainly furnished hall, she sat down on one of the chairs inside
+the door and left it to Colonel Grey to make inquiries.  The first
+person he saw to put a question to was Mr Burton.  It chanced to be a
+holiday, and Mr Burton was spending his leisure in attendance on the
+man whom, brief though the acquaintance was in respect of time, he had
+come to regard with an esteem beyond the ordinary.  He crossed the hall
+at the moment of Mrs Lawless' entry with the Colonel on his way to the
+sick man's room, and seeing visitors, and one a lady, bowed with his
+customary courtesy as he passed.  The Colonel waylaid him, and taking
+him aside, stated the object of their visit.  Mr Burton looked puzzled.
+
+"His wife, you say!  Strange that he did not mention her.  I asked him
+if there was anyone he would wish informed of his condition; I was
+prepared to communicate with his friends; but he said no, and I knew no
+address to telegraph to.  He probably feared to alarm her.  Does Mrs
+Lawless realise what has happened?  He's badly hurt."
+
+"What's the damage?" the Colonel asked gruffly.  "We know nothing.  It
+is only surmise that has led us here.  We've heard no details."
+
+Mr Burton's mild eyes blinked their astonishment behind their glasses.
+He had never happened across such an extraordinary sequence of
+remarkable incidents in all his life before.  It fully bore out his
+oft-repeated assertion that it is not only in big cities that the great
+events occur.
+
+"He has been shot in the breast," he answered gravely.  "His condition
+is not critical, but it is sufficiently serious.  It was the most
+dastardly attempt upon his life.  I witnessed the whole affair,--indeed,
+Mr Lawless and I had but a few minutes previously parted company.  I am
+not a vindictive man, I hope, sir; but I should wish the man who was
+responsible for that cowardly attack to suffer punishment.  But I cannot
+persuade Mr Lawless to furnish me with a clue as to his identity, and I
+was too far away to see clearly.  Perhaps when Mr Lawless recovers he
+may speak of the matter, at present it is not wise to refer to it before
+him.  We have orders to keep him as quiet as possible."
+
+"Who's attending him? ...  Got a decent medical man?"  Colonel Grey
+asked, with some idea in his mind of sending to Cape Town for skilled
+advice and nurses.
+
+"Oh! we have an excellent man...  Out from England for his health.  Mr
+Lawless is quite well looked after in that respect."
+
+"And nurses?"
+
+The little man looked surprised.
+
+"The landlady does what is necessary," he explained.  "I help a
+little...  Yes."
+
+"But--good Lord, man!--he wants trained nursing."
+
+Colonel Grey turned round and spoke to Mrs Lawless, and she rose from
+her seat and approached them.  The pathos of her expression, her pallor,
+and her great personal charm, made a direct appeal to Mr Burton's
+kindly nature.  Her singular beauty impressed him vividly.  While
+sympathising strongly with her anxiety, he was none the less glad that
+she had come; it would be such an agreeable piece of news to break to
+the sufferer.
+
+"Tell me," she said.  "I have watched you talking till I am half afraid
+to ask.  He's ill...  He's very ill...  I know he is.  You are not going
+to tell me that he will die?"
+
+"God forbid!"  Mr Burton cried, and was slightly ashamed of his
+excitement.  "He is badly hurt, Mrs Lawless.  But he has a wonderful
+spirit.  He will get over this all right.  And with you here to nurse
+him, why, bless me! he'll enjoy being ill."
+
+She smiled, but so wanly that it was in his idea infinitely sadder than
+tears.
+
+"What do you think?" she said, and looked inquiringly at Colonel Grey...
+"Ought I to let him know that I am here?"
+
+"Well, he's got to know some time, I suppose," he answered, and appealed
+to the schoolmaster.  "He isn't so ill but that he can stand a little
+excitement, eh?"
+
+"Excitement of that nature would not be likely to hurt him," Mr Burton
+answered confidently out of his profound ignorance.  "I was just about
+to visit him.  I'm sitting with him to-day.  If it is agreeable to you I
+will break it to him that you are here."
+
+He left them and went upon his errand cheerfully, pleasantly
+anticipating Lawless' satisfaction in the news.  The patient's reception
+of his wonderful intelligence was an added astonishment to the many
+surprises of that day.  It chilled his gladness as completely as cold
+water flung upon a cheerful blaze.  There was a little spluttering, and
+the blaze was finally extinguished.
+
+"Help me into my clothes, Burton," the man in the bed said querulously.
+
+"No," Mr Burton refused.  "It would be the death of you."
+
+"Then, get out of this, and I'll dress myself."
+
+The schoolmaster deliberately approached the bed, and looked down kindly
+into the tormented eyes that stared up at him out of the pallid face
+upon the pillow.  He put out a restraining hand as the patient pushed
+the bedclothes fretfully aside and attempted to sit up.
+
+"You can't do it.  Lawless," he said, endeavouring to soothe him,
+fearing that he had been over hasty with his news.  Delirium alone could
+account in his opinion for this rash determination to get up.
+
+"Lie still," he entreated.  "They will come to you."
+
+"They will do nothing of the sort," Lawless replied, with a lucidity
+only to be equalled by his determination.  "You're an old fool, Burton,
+and you don't understand.  Hand me my clothes, there's a good chap, and
+so make this matter easier for me."
+
+In response Mr Burton gathered up the garments and made for the door.
+
+"Very well," Lawless answered grimly, "then I must make my appearance as
+I am."
+
+The other came back and stood, perplexed and troubled, with the clothes
+bundled together in his arms, and a guilty look in his eyes as though he
+had been surprised in the act of stealing.
+
+"You don't mean it?" he said.--"Not seriously?"
+
+"I'm perfectly serious, and entirely rational," Lawless replied quietly.
+"If you are really anxious that I shouldn't overtax my strength you'll
+stay and help me dress."
+
+And so it was that the Colonel and Mrs Lawless were kept waiting for
+the expected summons.
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
+
+Colonel Grey led Mrs Lawless into a room on the right of the hall and
+rang the bell.  He ordered wine, which he insisted on his companion
+drinking.  He also requested that two bedrooms should be in readiness
+and a meal prepared.  The ordinary affairs of life could not be
+neglected even if the issues at stake were distressingly serious.  The
+Colonel was feeling more settled in mind since he was in possession of
+the facts.  There was no immediate cause for alarm, he decided; and
+sought to hearten Mrs Lawless with his sanguine views.  But though she
+appeared to listen she was too obviously nervous to attend to what he
+said.  She sipped her wine, sitting by the fluttering curtains near the
+open window, looking out at the sunshine.
+
+"Perhaps I ought not to have come," she said once, and appeared while
+looking at nothing in particular to be watching the road with grave
+intentness.  "I don't think he'll consent to see me."
+
+She was remembering how recently he had said to her that if she sent for
+him again he would not come.  She had not sent, but her presence there
+amounted to the same thing.
+
+And then after a while the door opened and he came in.  The Colonel
+uttered a sudden exclamation.
+
+"My dear fellow!" he cried in astonishment, his manner charged with
+grave solicitude.  "My dear fellow!  Is this wise?"
+
+Mrs Lawless sprang up from her chair, but he put out a hand and
+motioned her back, and with her startled eyes on his leaden face, she
+sank down again without speaking.  Lawless took a seat.
+
+"I don't know how you came to hear of this," he said.  "I didn't intend
+it should get about.  They're making more of it than they need.  In a
+few days I should have been back in Cape Town."
+
+He looked inquiringly at the Colonel.
+
+"You've seen Hayhurst, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes.  He delivered the letters safely."  He sat forward and stared at
+the ghastly suffering face.  "He gave me a fairly graphic history of
+their recovery.  The whole circumstances were a huge surprise,--huge.
+It was a masterly undertaking.  The service you have rendered is
+incalculable.  When the time comes we shall know how to thank you more
+adequately, in the meanwhile you have our very earnest gratitude; and I
+can only express my sincere regret that the result should be so
+disastrous for you."
+
+Colonel Grey advanced his hand.  To his surprise Lawless refused to take
+it.
+
+"Disastrous!  Yes," he answered.  "Letters that are of a nature to lend
+themselves to blackmailing purposes are not worth the risk of a man's
+life--and character.  I suppose you might argue that I've boasted I hold
+life cheaply, and you doubtless consider I have no character to lose.
+Confess now," he added, in response to the other's hastily uttered
+protest, "that until those letters were safe in your hands you
+entertained a suspicion that I might misuse them?"
+
+The Colonel sought for words and sought vainly.  He was far too ruggedly
+honest to deny the charge.  After a moment or two of silence he tacitly
+admitted it.
+
+"Most men are liable to mistakes," he said.  "And...  I suppose I was
+prejudiced."
+
+The man lying back in the easy-chair smiled drily.
+
+"I am so unfortunate as to prejudice most people unfavourably.  A
+profligate adventurer can scarcely expect to do otherwise."
+
+An almost inaudible sound broke from Zoe Lawless' lips.  He did not look
+at her but continued in the same bitter strain to the pain and
+embarrassment of both his hearers.
+
+"For every offence of which I've been guilty I've had to pay to the
+uttermost farthing.  On appearance I've been convicted of sins I haven't
+committed.  It's the luck, I suppose, of the man who is marked for
+failure from the beginning of things."
+
+"I can understand," Colonel Grey said, making ready allowance for his
+mood, "your resentment of certain injuries.  I offer you my frank
+apologies for the very unworthy suspicions I have entertained.  But if I
+have harboured doubts of you, I have also had moments when I have felt
+that those doubts were unjustified.  I assert, in spite of your morbid
+imagining, that you more readily inspire confidence than distrust."
+
+"Then how comes it that I failed in inspiring you with confidence?"
+
+"It was probably," Colonel Grey began, and stopped, looking with some
+pity at the haggard face.  "Really, my dear fellow," he said, "is it
+wise to continue this painful subject?"
+
+"Why not?"  The man in the chair sat straighter and pulled himself
+together with an effort.  "I've a fancy somehow," he said, "for having
+the matter out...  You've had a down on me ever since you knew I fought
+against my own side in the Boer war.  It's natural, of course--most
+people would feel as you do about it.  And yet I don't regret it--even
+now."
+
+"That's an old story," the Colonel said.  "Why revive it?"
+
+"I've a feeling I should like to speak of it.  I've never explained my
+motive--no one would understand, or sympathise with it, if I did.  In
+your place, reversing the circumstances, I should feel as you do about
+it.  But when a man has been kicked out of the Service for cowardice,
+there's something he owes to himself as well as to his country.  I had
+to prove my nature for my own satisfaction.  If they'd given me a chance
+in the ranks I shouldn't have fought for the Boers.  But I had to face
+the bullets again...  I had to disprove for my personal satisfaction
+that quality of unaccountable fear that forced me to retreat in a
+dangerous and important crisis.  God knows what sudden and uncontrolled
+impulse governed me on that occasion! ...  I experienced that same cold
+terror once again when, unarmed, I faced one of my own Tommies with a
+fixed bayonet in his hand.  I can feel the horror of that terror now--
+the mad and well-nigh uncontrollable impulse to turn my back and run.
+But the motive that had led me to join the fighting proved stronger than
+my fear.  I went for him with my hands; and the horror left me, as a
+nightmare terror leaves a sleeper when he wakes...  That is the history
+of this scar on my face."
+
+He paused, pressed his hand to his brow as if weary, and then resumed
+with a sort of dogged determination to justify himself,--to make these
+two people, who both in their hearts he knew condemned utterly what he
+had felt to be a legitimate means of correcting a base tendency before
+it became confirmed in him as an incorrigible fault, understand in a
+sense,--see and feel with him.  It mattered to him so tremendously, the
+opinion of these two silent listeners, the one who sat with crossed
+knees, watching him intently, the other with her troubled eyes downcast,
+looking upon the ground.  And both, he felt, judging him,--condemning
+him.
+
+"You'll think it at one with the rest, no doubt," he said; "but I don't
+regret the thing I did which all Englishmen abhor.  I know now that I
+can face death without flinching.  I conquered fear.  The knowledge
+gives me all the satisfaction necessary to qualify the odium of the term
+traitor.  It's not the right way to look at the matter, perhaps; but
+that's how it is."
+
+"It's not the right spirit--no?"  The Colonel spoke gruffly.  "No man is
+justified in sacrificing honour and duty to his own ends.  I recognise
+that your object was not altogether unworthy.  But as a soldier you had
+no choice."
+
+Mrs Lawless looked up in silent appeal at the speaker.  Then abruptly
+she rose and stood with her back to the room, facing the window.
+Lawless rose also.  His face was grey, and the skin seemed to have
+tightened over the bones as it does after a sharp or a long illness.
+Colonel Grey had seen men look as he did who had fallen on the field; he
+had seen them too, lots of them, in hospital.
+
+Lawless put out a hand gropingly.  He was tired.  He had better get back
+to bed.  It was all finished.  He had not succeeded in convincing them.
+They saw things from a different level; they couldn't get down to him.
+
+"I daresay you're right," he said uncertainly.  "Anyway, it hardly seems
+to matter.  I'm derelict... and done for."
+
+Mrs Lawless turned quickly.  He did not see the swift rush of pity that
+suffused her face, the tears that streamed from her eyes.  He was not
+conscious that she sprang towards him, that it was her arm about him
+that saved him from falling when, having used up his last reserve of
+strength in attempting to gain the door, he stumbled over a mat in his
+progress, and fell forward a collapsed and pitiful object, with drawn
+and shrunken features, and pallid lips.
+
+The Colonel was at her side in an instant.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," he said.  "He's only fainted.  We'd better get him
+back to bed.  He ought never to have left it...  The folly of it!"
+
+"I ought to have come," she whispered, sobbing.  "You see--I did no
+good...  The sight of me distressed him.  I might have guessed..."
+
+She knelt on the floor beside him and pillowed his head on her knee.  It
+gave her infinite pleasure merely to hold him in her arms against the
+bosom that had hungered for him so long.  But oh! the pity of it! to see
+him reduced, this strong man, to a mere helpless wreck.  She drew him
+closer to her and her tears fell on his face.
+
+"I believe he's dying," she murmured...  "And he'll never know how
+greatly I loved him...  Why do we keep these things to ourselves till
+too late?"
+
+The Colonel rang for assistance.  To his infinite relief it was the
+schoolmaster who came to the door when it opened.  In his assumption of
+authority Mr Burton seemed a tower of strength.  He took in the
+situation at a glance, and, unaccountably, appeared not in the least
+surprised.  He assumed prompt and resolute command.  Between them he and
+the Colonel got the patient back to his room and into bed.  Mr Burton,
+anticipating something of the sort when Lawless insisted on dressing,
+had sent for the doctor, and the medical man arrived very shortly, and
+standing at the bedside looked with grave dissatisfaction at his
+patient.
+
+"What's the meaning of this?" he asked concisely.
+
+And Mr Burton explained.
+
+While they conferred and acted in the sick-room, Mrs Lawless remained
+outside the door, listening for any sound from within, her face tense
+with anxiety, and her eyes tormented.  After a while the door opened and
+the Colonel came forth, and seeing her there took her by the arm and led
+her back to the sitting-room.
+
+"They'll be some time in there," he said.  "You can't stand about
+waiting.  You shall see him before he leaves."
+
+"Was he better?" she asked, not heeding him.
+
+"He'd come round--Yes."
+
+She sat down at a small table, and stretched her arms upon it, and
+looked at him miserably.
+
+"I have felt all along," she said, "that that would be the end.  It's
+his life, Colonel Grey, that he's given--for a packet of letters.  A
+packet of letters! ...  Oh! dear God!" she cried, and dropped her face
+on her arms and broke down again and wept.
+
+"And what is his reward?" she flashed suddenly, looking up at him
+through her tears.  "He came to you,--to you--I don't know why, unless
+it's because you are a soldier and he felt that as a soldier you judged
+him--full of a human appeal, and you crushed ruthlessly the glimmering
+hope he cherished of justifying himself...  I saw the hope slain in his
+eyes, heard it die out of his voice.  It was the cruellest thing you
+could have done.  You knew, being a soldier, what your judgment meant."
+
+Colonel Grey flushed quickly.  He stood before her awkward,
+hesitating,--accused, judged, condemned, and powerless to defend
+himself.  It was the very devil to be censured with quiet vehemence by a
+beautiful weeping woman, and be unable to retort.  He felt that in a
+measure he deserved her censure.  His conscience was not entirely free
+from reproach.  He had realised the direct appeal in Lawless' attempt at
+self-justification, had recognised, as he had grudgingly admitted,
+extenuating circumstances, but if the man had been dying before him he
+doubted that he could have concealed his disapproval of conduct that no
+soldier could possibly defend.  He sympathised with the man; in many
+ways he admired him; but the crime of treachery must ever remain a crime
+in his eyes.  It was inexcusable, unjustifiable.
+
+"I think, Mrs Lawless, that your husband, having been a soldier
+himself, will understand what you, perhaps, cannot," he said.  "I'm glad
+he explained as he did; it gave one an insight into the motives that can
+move a man to commit unworthy and seemingly inexplicable acts.  I have
+both liking and respect for him apart from that grave offence, which I
+cannot in sincerity condone, though I appreciate his reason as he gave
+it.  He is a brave man guilty of a serious mistake."
+
+"Ah! if we all had to pay so dearly for our mistakes!" she said, and
+brushed away the tears impatiently as they flowed freely over her
+cheeks.  "But I don't know why I reproach you.  I felt once as you feel
+about it--and I let him see it.  That was the beginning of our
+estrangement.  I see things differently now.  I see points of honour
+differently.  Human beings can't be classed and judged by a code.  It is
+necessary to make distinctions.  The individual has direct and special
+claims which you men drilled in a system don't understand."
+
+"The judgment of human affairs is beyond human comprehension," Colonel
+Grey said quietly.
+
+"That is one way of evading responsibility," she replied.  "But we women
+understand these things--the mothers of the race.  Even the childless
+woman is a mother, for the maternal instinct is the birthright of her
+sex.  We mothers realise the needs of the children.  Hugh was my child,
+and I allowed the mother-instinct to be swamped in the pride of the
+wife.  I adopted the Army system, and judged him by your standard.  I
+wasn't true to my sex...  And so we drifted apart...  But he never
+attempted to justify himself to me.  I wonder whether, if he had, I
+should have understood."
+
+He walked across to the window and stood there looking out.  He felt
+distressed and troubled and extremely sorry for this woman in her
+anxiety with her burden of self-reproach.
+
+"It is so hard," the sorrowful voice went on tearfully, "to be facing
+this with the memory of all the years that have been wasted.  If I had
+stood by him in his dark hour..."
+
+Further utterance was stopped by the rush of tears that choked her.  She
+dropped her head on her arms again, and for a while the only audible
+sounds were those made by her bitter weeping.
+
+It was a distinct relief to Colonel Grey when the door opened to admit
+the doctor.  He entered abruptly, closing the door behind him, an
+undersized, delicate-looking man, with an unattractive manner at
+variance with a pair of sympathetic eyes.  The sympathetic eyes took in
+the scene rapidly.  They were accustomed to scenes, and the sight of a
+woman's tears failed to embarrass him.  He took a chair, drew it up to
+the table opposite Zoe Lawless, and regarded her attentively as he sat
+down.  She had raised her face at his entrance, and was vainly
+endeavouring to dry her tears.
+
+"Don't mind me," he said bluntly.  "Crying is often a relief.  Let it
+come.  You are Mr Lawless' wife, I understand?"
+
+She nodded, not trusting her voice, and looked at him appealingly.  What
+was he going to tell her, this man in whose power it lay to pass
+sentence of death, or hold out hope of life?
+
+"I understand further that you have had an interview with him which
+seems to have considerably excited him?"
+
+"I have seen him...  Yes," she faltered, her eyes filling anew.  She
+stretched out a hand to him impulsively.  "Tell me how he is," she
+entreated.  "Is he going to die?"
+
+"I hope not," he answered, but neither the words nor his manner of
+uttering them greatly reassured her.  "He is very ill.  You saw that."
+
+She nodded again.
+
+"He'll be worse before he's better.  We have to send for trained nurses.
+The care he is having at present is inadequate."
+
+"I'll nurse him," she cried eagerly, jealously.  "Oh! let me nurse him.
+It is something that I can do."
+
+He looked at her strangely.  For a second he hesitated, then he said,
+very slowly and deliberately, with his grave eyes on her face:
+
+"I'm going to be very unkind; but I'm sure you'll recognise the
+necessity for my veto when you consider how unfortunate in effect your
+presence has already been.  You must not think of nursing your husband,
+Mrs Lawless.  You must not, unless he asks for you, enter the room.
+Sick people have strange fancies," he added in pity for her wrung and
+suffering face.  "It is often necessary to make these unnatural
+restrictions."
+
+She stared at him with an unspeakable anguish in her eyes.
+
+"They'll call me," she said, "if--They won't let him die without
+allowing me to see him?"
+
+"Oh dear! no," he answered quickly.  "Of course not--no!"
+
+He rose and held out a sympathetic hand.
+
+"We won't talk of dying yet awhile.  He's got a splendid constitution.
+He ought to pull through.  But we won't risk any further excitement.
+Except for Mr Burton and the nurses, I don't wish anyone to go into his
+room.  Fresh faces set the mind working, and we must keep him tranquil
+and composed."
+
+"A very unpleasant duty," he remarked to the Colonel, who accompanied
+him outside.  "I am sorry for the wife; she takes it badly.  But in
+cases of sickness it is the patient we have to consider."
+
+"How's it going with him?" the Colonel asked bluntly.
+
+"At this stage, impossible to say.  It will be touch and go.  But as I
+dislike losing my patients, I never admit the go until the hammer
+falls."
+
+The Colonel looked after him as he walked away in the sunshine, feeling
+oddly discouraged, and very disinclined to re-enter the sitting-room.
+When, bracing himself to face it, he turned the door-handle and went in,
+he found that Mrs Lawless had dried her eyes, and was sitting very
+quiet and entirely composed, looking out of the window.
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY.
+
+Who shall tell of the moods and feelings, the alternating between hope
+and despair, that govern the mind of the looker-on at the conflict
+between life and death about the bed of one who is dear; the futility of
+tears, of intercession; the long drawn agony of suspense?  Day by day,
+hourly almost, the mood varies, hope fluctuates, till finally depression
+settles upon the spirit, crushes it, reduces it to a state of dull
+acquiescence in the inevitable ordering of things.
+
+Had Zoe Lawless been permitted to take an active part in the nursing the
+suspense would have told on her less, but it was almost beyond endurance
+to be denied all access to the room where the man she loved, and had so
+little understood, lay for the greater part of the time delirious,
+yielding up his life without a struggle for it, owning himself beaten,--
+done.
+
+Mr Burton gave her frequent bulletins, sometimes hopeful, sometimes,
+despite his utmost endeavour to appear sanguine before her, depressed.
+The final issue had become to him also a matter of tremendous
+importance.  He had a very warm regard for this man of striking
+personality, who had come into his quiet monotonous life and drawn him
+as a protagonist into the midst of startling and unusual events.  And he
+was profoundly sorry for the beautiful woman who was his wife, and yet
+appeared to have no place nor share in his life.  Mr Burton, knowing
+nothing of the circumstances surrounding the lives of these two,
+refrained from criticising either.  He formed his liking impartially,
+and reserved judgment.
+
+Every morning Mrs Lawless accompanied him part of the way to the
+school, and sometimes in the evening she would meet him coming home.  He
+was the only human being to whom she could talk unreservedly.  Colonel
+Grey had gone back to the coast after having arranged for a daily
+bulletin.  He told Mr Burton to telegraph for him if his presence was
+needed, and this Mr Burton also undertook to do, supposing him to mean
+in the event of a fatal termination.
+
+The days passed; they grew warmer; but Lawless made no progress towards
+recovery.
+
+"He is not going to get well," Zoe said with conviction one morning to
+the doctor when she interviewed him after he left the sick-room.
+
+The doctor looked nonplussed.
+
+"He makes no fight," he answered, as though puzzled to account for this
+ready giving in.  Then he added, with one of his rare attempts at
+encouragement: "But he is still with us."
+
+The hope thus sparingly dealt out was not sufficiently convincing to
+reassure her.  She felt that the sand in the glass was running low.  If
+only she might be allowed to sit beside him, to touch him! ...  She
+feared that he might slip from her in his sleep perhaps, and that she
+might not know in time.
+
+"You'll call me--you'll be sure to call me," she said to the nurses
+continually, "if there's any change for the worse?"
+
+And one morning the call came.  She was in bed when the nurse tapped at
+the door.  She did not stay to dress herself, but slipping on a loose
+wrapper, pinned her hair up carelessly, and hurried to the sick-room.
+The doctor had been sent for but had not yet arrived.  Both nurses were
+in the room.  The night-nurse, who was only then relieved, remained to
+be of assistance.  Lawless had been violently sick.  He now lay back on
+the pillow exhausted with closed eyes, breathing so slightly that he
+scarcely seemed to breathe at all.  He had all the appearance of a man
+who is rapidly sinking.
+
+"Is it the end?"  Zoe whispered to one of the nurses in an awestruck
+voice.
+
+"I'm afraid so," the woman answered, and placed a chair for her beside
+the bed.
+
+She sank into it, and leaning forward looked fearfully at the quiet
+figure, the closed eyes, the pinched grey features.  Almost she could
+fancy that he was dead already.  She took one of the listless hands.  It
+lay in hers limply, without response, without sense of feeling.  She
+drew it to her and kissed it.  Then she laid her head upon the pillow
+beside his and drew his face to hers, and held it pressed close against
+her cheek.
+
+And so the doctor found her when he entered with her jealous arms
+clasping the inert figure, satisfying their long starvation of denial by
+contact, and with the glowing beauty of her warm rounded cheek resting
+against the shrunken colourless face on the pillow that had given no
+sign of life or movement since her entry.  The doctor leant over the
+bed.  He placed a quiet hand upon her shoulder to prevent her moving,
+and bending, low looked intently into the still face.
+
+"He is asleep," he said, and straightened himself and moved noiselessly
+away.
+
+And Zoe Lawless remained where she was, undisturbed by everything and
+everyone about her, as oblivious as the sick man of external things.
+She was beyond thinking of the issues.  She had ceased to wonder whether
+this crisis in his illness which meant the turning-point one way or the
+other would decide in his favour or not.  He was hers.  That was all
+that mattered then.  Whether it were life or death that claimed him, it
+had given him to her.  In the detachment of the moment that was the only
+thing that held any reality for her.  She had got outside of life for a
+time.  The things that went on in the world did not concern her; she had
+drawn apart from it all to a remote distance and was happy in her
+isolation with the body of her love.
+
+All that day Lawless lay in the same comatose condition.  It was
+impossible to say when he slept and when he was awake.  He never
+appeared entirely conscious.  At intervals the nurse gave him
+nourishment or a dose of medicine.  She did not disturb Mrs Lawless,
+save at meal times to insist on her leaving the room in quest of food.
+Zoe went reluctantly, and wandered back after a brief absence, and took
+her place as before.  Whether she had eaten in the interval was
+problematical; but the change and movement were a relief.
+
+She stayed with him until nine o'clock that night.  When she left he was
+sleeping soundly and comfortably; and, white and weary but
+extraordinarily happy, she went to bed and fell promptly into a deep and
+dreamless sleep.
+
+And the next day the bedroom door was closed against her again.  He was
+better.  He was fully conscious, but he made no demand to see her; and
+in compliance with the doctor's wishes she remained outside.
+
+"Yesterday was the crisis," he said to her.  "He's turned the corner.
+He isn't out of the wood, but if there are no excitements he ought to
+pull through."
+
+She smiled when he unnecessarily cautioned her to keep out of sight.
+She was not at all likely to prejudice her husband's chances of
+recovery, even though she never saw him again.
+
+Her chief pleasure during the next few days was in listening to Mr
+Burton's scraps of information concerning the wonderful doings and
+sayings of the invalid on the occasions when he went, as he usually did
+twice a day, into the sick-room.  Even the accounts of the nourishment
+he took were absorbingly interesting.
+
+Mr Burton came out of the bedroom one morning laughing, and,
+accompanied by Zoe, set out for his work.  She looked at him wistfully
+as they left the hotel together.  The smile still lingered in his eyes
+when they were out upon the road.
+
+"I am all impatience," she said, "to hear what amuses you.  Was it
+something--Hugh said?"
+
+"He called me a fool," Mr Burton said, and chuckled,--"a very
+pronounced fool."  He had, as a matter of fact, called him a damned
+fool, but Mr Burton could not bring himself to use such an expression
+before a woman.  "That shows a very decided improvement.  I think if
+there had been anything handy he would have thrown it.  Impatience is a
+healthy sign."
+
+"Oh!" she said, and the tears welled in her eyes so that she turned
+aside her face to hide them.  "If you only knew how jealous I feel--of
+you!"  And on another occasion she asked him: "Does he never mention
+me?"
+
+"No," Mr Burton answered with obvious reluctance.  "You must remember,"
+he added in a kindly desire to soften the negative, "that since he saw
+you he has been so very ill that probably what happened before has been
+entirely wiped out.  It is possible that he has forgotten seeing you,
+that he does not know you are here."
+
+That day she gathered a great bunch of wild flowers, and arranged them
+in a vase, and asked him to carry them to the sick-room.
+
+"Say that a lady staying at the hotel sent them to him," she said.
+
+He did her bidding.  He carried the vase into the bedroom and placed it
+on the dressing-table where the tired eyes could rest on it without
+effort.
+
+"Bloemetjes," he explained, and smiled at the patient.
+
+"Ah!"  Lawless smiled too.  "Been botanising, have you?  And I benefit
+by the fruits of your labour.  It's kind of you to remember a poor devil
+who can't even crawl out into the sunshine.  It's precious dull work
+lying here, Burton.  I don't know what I should do if it wasn't for your
+visits--cut my throat, if they'd give me a chance."
+
+"Oh! you grow better now with every day," Mr Burton answered
+cheerfully.  "Discontent is a proof of convalescence.  You'll soon be
+able to do your own botanising.  By the way, I don't wish to appropriate
+thanks that are not due to me.  I had nothing to do with the gathering
+of those flowers.  A lady staying in the hotel sent them to you."
+
+Lawless made no immediate response.  His weary, fretful gaze sought the
+flowers, rested upon them a moment, and then turned deliberately away.
+
+"Very kind of her," he answered briefly, and was careful not to refer to
+the subject again.
+
+Mr Burton regretted that he had no more expansive message of
+appreciation to carry away with him.  But Mrs Lawless did not appear
+disappointed.  She had not expected more.  His want of curiosity as to
+the identity of the sender of the flowers told her what she desired to
+know.  He was fully aware that she was staying in the hotel.
+
+The next day she gathered fresh flowers, and Mr Burton carried them in
+as before.  On this occasion the recipient made no remark; so far as Mr
+Burton saw he did not even look at them.
+
+The little man carried away a sorely troubled heart.  After his simple
+fashion he had grown fond of Zoe Lawless.  It was a real delight to him
+to bear her any small crumb of comfort, to have to go to her
+empty-handed distressed him beyond measure.  She shook her head at sight
+of his serious face and smiled faintly.  She could always judge the
+nature of the news he brought before he imparted it by the gravity or
+gladness of his look.  To-day it was very grave, and since the patient's
+condition no longer called for serious anxiety, she knew her offering
+had not been well received.
+
+"He snubbed my poor little gift," she said.
+
+And he wondered how she had divined it, and sought, as he always did
+when he believed she was feeling hurt, to offer consolation.
+
+"He's rather peevish to-day," he explained excusingly.  "He gets weary
+of lying there with nothing to do, and it makes him irritable.  Not that
+he said anything unkind about the flowers...  He--he didn't appear to
+notice them."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I know," she said.
+
+That day the doctor removed his veto.
+
+"There is no reason why you shouldn't visit your husband now, Mrs
+Lawless," he informed her, "if you are careful not to excite him, nor
+stay long in the room."
+
+She looked at him for a while thoughtfully, and a soft rose crept into
+her cheeks.
+
+"Since he is so far recovered," she answered quietly, "I think I will
+not risk retarding his progress--unless he asks for me."
+
+On the following day she gathered her flowers as before, and sent them
+by her trusty messenger.
+
+"He has got to look at them this morning," she announced as she gave
+them into his hands.  "Take them to the bedside, and just say, `Zoe
+sends them.'"
+
+Mr Burton quite blushed at the idea of taking such a liberty with her
+name; but he seized the flowers and departed hastily upon his errand,
+with many misgivings as to the reception that would be accorded him when
+he presented this remarkable message to the invalid.
+
+When he entered the bedroom the nurse withdrew.  She usually did, but he
+had never appreciated the tact of the proceeding as he did on that
+particular morning.  Lawless was resting propped up against a quantity
+of pillows.  He was colourless and wretchedly thin in face, but the
+improvement in his appearance was already very marked.  He gained ground
+daily now.
+
+He smiled his welcome when Mr Burton entered, but when his glance fell
+on the bunch of bloemetjes he frowned.
+
+"I wish you didn't bring that litter with you every morning," he
+complained.
+
+Mr Burton, remembering his instructions, walked deliberately to the
+bedside and laid his offering on the pillow.
+
+"Zoe sent them," he explained.
+
+Lawless stared at him, and the blood mounted slowly to his hollow
+cheeks.
+
+"The devil!" he muttered.
+
+Then suddenly a wave of angry emotion swept over him.  He seized the
+flowers in both hands, and flung them with all his feeble strength at
+the surprised, concerned little man, who jumped aside to dodge the
+missile as though it were a bomb.
+
+"I was afraid you would resent the familiarity," he said apologetically.
+"But she told me to use her name."
+
+"Oh! go to blazes!"  Lawless muttered, already ashamed of the outburst.
+"What does it matter what you call her? ...  Take back those bloemetjes
+to her, you old idiot, and tell her that until her consideration moves
+her to make her inquiries and offerings in person they have no interest
+for me."
+
+Mr Burton gathered up the strewn, rejected gift.
+
+"She has got my white Flower of Innocence here, I see," he remarked, and
+smiled with pleasure at sight of the bloom.
+
+Lawless was lying with his face turned away, staring out of the window.
+
+"You can leave that with me," he said quietly,--"as being appropriate."
+
+Mr Burton carried the disordered bunch of flowers back to the giver
+with a beaming countenance.
+
+"He flung them at me," he explained delightedly.
+
+Mrs Lawless looked hurt.  The little man's pleasure in the scorn of her
+gift appeared to her unkind.
+
+"He kept back one bloom--a white one.  But so long as you choose an
+emissary to convey your gift, he is not interested in it, he says."
+
+She looked at him in silence for a moment, her face flushing and paling
+in turns.  Then she went close to him, took the despised flowers from
+him and rearranged them carefully.  She put a flower in his coat, and
+drawing back surveyed the effect and him with a tender, affectionate
+smile.
+
+"That is because this morning I shall not accompany you," she said.
+
+"No," he answered musingly, and looked at her attentively over the tops
+of his glasses.  "I suppose you won't.  I shall miss you; but I shall
+not be lonely because I carry with me the glad heart."
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.
+
+The greatest situations in life are invariably incomplete, inexorably
+limited by the very stress of feeling that should make them effective
+and convincing, as, for instance, it does on the stage, where effect is
+duly studied and considered irrespective of the sensitiveness of the
+human mind that shrinks from making a display of its deeper emotions.
+
+Because of the intensity of their feeling and the natural reserve that
+prompted them to its concealment, the meeting between husband and wife
+was commonplace in the extreme.  For years they had been apart, nursing
+resentment one against the other.  Each had failed the other in the
+great essentials of married life.  Both had made mistakes, and both had
+been unrelenting.  But death makes an extraordinary difference in human
+affairs, even when it is merely the overshadowing of death's wings,
+which, hovering for a while, pass on, the time being not yet fulfilled.
+
+The fear, the almost certainty that death would claim her husband had
+melted for ever the hardness in Zoe Lawless' heart.  She was prepared,
+had been prepared from the moment she determined to leave Cape Town in
+search of him, to forgive every injury that she had suffered at his
+hands,--to accept him as he was for her love's sake, unconditionally, as
+he had once told her was the only way possible to complete
+reconciliation.  He had less to forgive; but he also had come to regard
+life differently since he had stood on the borderland of the Great
+Eternal,--to realise its limitations and insufficiencies, the pettiness
+of ill-feeling, the seriousness of the huge human blunder that is called
+unkindness.  The overshadowing of death's wings had softened him, had
+given him pause to think.
+
+When the door opened in response to his querulously uttered invitation,
+and Zoe entered with her flowers in her hand, he looked towards her with
+a quick, sharp glance of inquiry.  Behind the look was a certain fierce
+shyness, a diffidence which he strove to conceal.  She approached the
+bed, placed the bloemetjes on the coverlet close to his hand and sat
+down in the chair she had occupied on the only other occasion that she
+had been permitted inside the room.
+
+"I am so glad you are better," she said.
+
+He removed his gaze from her face and played with the flowers.
+
+"You've been long enough in coming to see me," he returned ungraciously.
+
+"The doctor was afraid I might excite you," she explained.
+
+"Rot!" he ejaculated.
+
+He pulled the flowers about and did not look at her.
+
+"It's been a near thing with me," he went on, "I've had a closer look at
+death than I'm likely to get again, and come through...  It didn't seem
+to matter, somehow."  He still played with the flowers.  "It would have
+squared things, perhaps, if I'd made you a widow."
+
+She leant towards him, and spoke in a low voice, reproachfully.
+
+"You know it wouldn't have squared things.  It would have deprived both
+of us of the chance to make amends."
+
+"Still making a matter of conscience of it?" he said cynically.
+
+She put her hand quickly on his, and so stayed the restless fingers in
+their destructive task.
+
+"Hugh!  That isn't kind."
+
+"No," he agreed.  "But you see, it's easy for you to do the right thing
+under given circumstances."
+
+"Oh! my dear!" she said.  And then: "Easy!  If you knew what it cost me
+to reconcile myself to the thought of sharing in nursing you with that
+woman...  I was prepared to do that.  Oh yes!  I know the rights of that
+story now, but I didn't when I left Cape Town."
+
+Lawless flushed darkly.
+
+"I don't deserve that you should come near me, Zoe...  I behaved to you
+like a cad."
+
+"You didn't behave well," she returned.  "I wonder why you acted as you
+did.  When Colonel Grey told me the story, I felt that you must hate me
+to let me think that...  It made me bitter.  Afterwards, when death came
+so very close, such matters appeared less important, trivial even...  I
+ceased to think of them."
+
+"It makes a difference," he said.
+
+His hand twisted under hers until the palm came uppermost; his fingers
+closed upon her fingers, gripping them tightly.  A little thrill of
+happiness ran through her.  It was many a long year since his hand had
+gripped hers like that.  He turned his face suddenly and looked at her.
+
+"You are cold," he complained, but his eyes smiled with a look of
+complete satisfaction.  "You punish me by staying out of my room
+altogether until I become violent, commit an assault on a very harmless
+person, and practically send for you.  And now you are here--you permit
+me to hold your hand."
+
+She laughed and flushed warmly.
+
+"I'm leaving it all to you," she said softly.  "I want to leave it to
+you...  You ought to understand."
+
+"When I was sick," he said whimsically, "I suffered from delusions.  The
+most amazing as well as the pleasantest of these fancies was that one
+day you came and sat beside my bed where you are sitting now, only,
+inexplicably, your arms were about me, and your face was close to mine
+upon the pillow.  I was out of my body then.  I think I should have
+slipped away altogether but for those restraining arms.  I've lain often
+and tried to will the vision back, but it never reappeared."
+
+He turned in the bed and lifted himself slightly on his elbow.
+
+"You are far more elusive than that fancy of mine," he grumbled.
+
+He gripped the hand he held tighter, and pulled her towards him.
+
+"I thought you weren't conscious," she said, stooping lower.  "I didn't
+guess you knew..."
+
+"Zoe! my dear! my dear!" he cried, his face close to hers.  "All these
+years without you! ...  How have I borne it?  I have been a wanderer on
+the face of the earth,--a rudderless ship that has drifted with the
+current, that has had no helm to answer to, no one on the look-out.  I
+wonder that I didn't go aground a dozen times.  I should have got
+aground if there had not been the flame of my love for you alight in my
+heart to show me the danger places when I came to them.  You have been
+my guiding star throughout the years.  I never thought that we should
+meet, much less come together again; but I've always borne your
+goodness, your purity, in mind as things that counted, that kept a man
+from breaking himself on the reckless impulses of his own selfishness.
+I've been a limited, carnal-minded cad.  But whatever brief passion has
+possessed me, I have never loved anyone but you.  Zoe, I hate myself
+when I think of the past.  I want to get away and hide myself--from
+you."
+
+"Don't think of it," she said soothingly.  "We've done with all that."
+
+He looked at her wonderingly.
+
+"What made you follow me out here?" he asked.  "What brought you to this
+place, believing what you believed of me? ...  It puzzles me to
+understand."
+
+She put out her other hand and laid it upon his shoulder and pushed him
+gently but firmly back upon the pillow.
+
+"Why trouble about understanding?" she asked.  "I don't understand
+myself.  It was just love drew me."  She spoke lower.  "Whatever you
+have done, whatever you have been, I have never ceased to love you."
+
+He turned his face aside weakly.  There were tears in his eyes.  He
+endeavoured unsuccessfully to hide them from her.  She put her arms
+about him, and gathered the shrunken, suffering figure to her bosom.
+Then she laid her head beside his on the pillow and drew his face close
+to hers...
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Grit Lawless, by F.E. Mills Young
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