"He 's a nigger—yes," she said; "black as your hat, and all that. But there 's a difference. This—nigger—I hate that word—was taken away when he was six years old and brought up in England. He was properly educated and he 's a doctor, a real doctor with diplomas and degrees, and he 's come out here to try and help his own people. As yet, he can't even speak Kafir, and he 's had a fearful time ever since he landed. Talking to him is just like talking to any one else. He 's read books and knows a bit about art, and all that; and he 's ever so humble and grateful for just a few words of talk. He 's out there in the veld, all day and all night, lonely and hunted. Of course I spoke to him and was as friendly as I could be. Don't you see, Mr. Ford? Don't you see?"He nodded impartially."Yes, I see," he answered. "Well?""Well, that's all," said Margaret. "Oh, yes—you mean the—the kiss? That was absolutely nothing. I used to make him talk and he 'd been telling me about how hard it was to make a start with his work, and how grateful he was to me for listening to him, and I said there was no need to be so grateful, and that it was a noble thing he had undertaken and that—yes—that I 'd always be proud I 'd been a friend of his. I held out my hand as I was saying this, and instead of shaking it, he kissed it.""That was what the blackmailer saw, was it?" asked Ford. Margaret nodded. "By the way, who paid him?""Hedid," Margaret answered. "I wouldn't have paid a penny. He insisted on paying."She was watching him anxiously. He was frowning in deep thought. She felt her heart beat more rapidly as he remained for a time without answering."It was worth paying for, if the fellow had kept faith," he said at last. "The whole thing 's in that—you don't know what such a secret is worth. It 's the one thing that binds people together out here, Dutch and English, colonials and Transvaalers and all the rest—the color line. But you didn't know.""Oh, yes," Margaret made haste to correct him. "I did know. But I didn't care and I don't care now. I 'm not going to take that kind of thing into account at all. I won't be bullied by any amount of prejudices.""It isn't prejudice," said Ford wearily. "Still—we can't go into all that. I 'm glad you explained to me, though.""You 're wondering still about something," Margaret said. She could read the doubt and hesitation that he strove to hide from her. "Do let 's have the whole thing out. What is it?"He had half-closed his eyes but now he opened them and surveyed her keenly."You 've told me how reasonable the whole thing was," he said, in deliberate tones. "It was reasonable. That part of it 's as right as it can be. I understand the picturesqueness of it all and the sadness; it is a sad business. I could understand your connection with it, too, in spite of the man's hiding from the police, if only he wasn't a nigger. Beg pardon—a negro."Margaret was following his words intently."What has that got to do with it?" she asked."You don't see it?" inquired Ford. "Didn't you find it rather awful, being alone with him? Didn't it make you creepy when he touched your hand?"He was curious about it, apart from her share in the matter. He was interested in the impersonal aspect of the question as well."I didn't like his face, at first," admitted Margaret."And afterwards?""Afterwards I didn't mind it," she replied. "I 'd got used to it, you see."He nodded. Upon her answer he had dropped his eyes and was no longer looking at her."Well, that 's all," he said. "Don't trouble about it any more. You 've explained and—if you care to know—I 'm quite satisfied."Margaret sat slowly upright."No, you 're not," she answered. "That isn't true; you 're not satisfied. You 're disappointed that I did n't shrink from him and feel nervous of him. You are—you are! I 'm not as good as you thought I was, and you're disappointed. Why don't you say so? What's the use of pretending like this?"Ford wriggled between the sheets irritably."You 're making a row," he said. "They 'll hear you downstairs."Margaret had risen and was standing by her chair."I don't care," she said, lowering her voice at the same time. "But why are n't you honest with me? You say you 're satisfied and all the time you 're thinking: 'A nigger is as good as a white man to her.'""I 'm not," protested Ford vigorously."Idid n'tshrink," said Margaret. "My flesh didn't crawl once. When I shake his hand, it feels just the same as yours. That disgusts you—I know. There 's something wanting in me that you thought was there. Mrs. Jakes has got it; her flesh can crawl like a caterpillar; but I have n't. You did n't know that when you asked me not to go away, did you?""Sit down," begged Ford. "Sit down and let me ask you again.""No," said Margaret. "You shan't overlook things like that. I 'm going—going away from here as soon as I can. I 'm not ashamed and I won't be indulged."She walked towards the door. There was a need to get away before the tears that made her eyes smart should overflow and expose themselves."Come back," cried Ford. "I say—give a fellow a chance. Come back. I want to say something."She would not answer him without facing him, even though it revealed the tears."I 'm not coming," she replied, and went out.She had fulfilled her purpose; they had all had their cut at her, save Dr. Jakes, who would not take his turn, and Mrs. Jakes, to whom that privilege was not due. Only one of them had swung the whip effectually and left a wheal whose smart endured.Mrs. Jakes did not count on being left out of the festival. Her rod was in pickle. She was on hand when the girl came out of her room, serene again and ready to meet any number of Mrs. Jakeses."Oh, Miss Harding."Mrs. Jakes arrested her, glancing about to see that the corridor was empty."The doctor wishes me to tell you," said Mrs. Jakes, aiming her words at the girl's high tranquillity, "that he considers you had better make arrangements to remove to some other establishment. You understand, of course?""Of course," agreed Margaret."A month's notice, then," said Mrs. Jakes smoothly. "That is usual. But if it should be convenient for you to go before, the doctor will be happy to meet you.""Very good of the doctor," smiled Margaret, and walked on, her skirts rustling.CHAPTER XVIVoices below the window of her room that alternated briskly and yet guardedly, drew Margaret to look out. On the stoep beneath her, Fat Mary was exchanging badinage of the most elementary character with a dusty trooper of the Mounted Police, who stood on the ground under the railing with his bridle looped over his arm and his horse awaiting his pleasure at his elbow. Seen from above, the main feature of Fat Mary was her red-and-yellow headkerchief tied tightly over her large and globular skull, presenting the appearance of a strikingly-colored bubble at the summit of her person."You savvy tickle?" the trooper was saying. "By'-mby I come up there and tickle you. You like that plenty."Fat Mary giggled richly. "You lie," she returned, with immense enjoyment."Tickle do you good," rejoined the trooper.He was a tall lathy man, with the face of a tired Punchinello, all nose and chin with a thin fastidious mouth hidden between. His eyes wandered restlessly while he talked as though in search of better matter for his interest; and he chaffed the stout Kafir woman with a mechanical ease suggesting that this was a trick he had practised till it performed itself. The tight-fitting blue uniform, in spite of the dust that was thick upon it, and all his accoutrement of a horseman, lent a dandified touch to his negligent attitude; and he looked like—what he probably was—one of those gentlemen of sporting proclivities in whom the process of decay is arrested by the preservative discipline and toil of service in a Colonial force.Margaret, examining him unseen from above, with hatpins in her hands, found his miserable and well-bred face at once repellent and distantly terrible; he seemed to typify so completely what she had learned to fear in the police, a humanity at once weak and implacable. His spurs, his revolver, his authority were means of inflicting pain given into feeble hands to supply the place of power. Within a few days she had come to know the dread which the street-hawker in the gutter feels for the policeman on the pavement who can destroy him when he chooses. It did not call for much imagination to see how dreadful the bored perfunctory man below might become when once he had fastened on his quarry and had it to himself to exercise upon it the arts of which the revolver and the rest were the appliances.His presence under her window was a sign that the search for Kamis' hiding-place was still going forward. At any hour of the day now the inmates of the Sanatorium might lift up their eyes to see the unusual phenomenon of a human being sharing with them the solitude and the silence. Van Zyl had high hopes of laying his hands on the mysterious Kafir who had committed the crime of being incomprehensible to nervous kraals, whose occupants had a way of shaking off wonder and alarm by taking exercise with their weapons among the cattle of their neighbors. The Sanatorium, under his orders, was being watched for any indications of messages passing between Margaret and the Kafir, and the dusty, armed men came and went continually, a succession of drilled shoulders, tanned, unconcerned faces, and expressionless eyes puckered against the sun's stare.Their chief effect was to keep Margaret in a state of anxious fear lest their search should be successful, and she should be a witness of their return, riding past at the walk with a handcuffed figure trudging helplessly before them. She saw in painful dreams the dust that rose about them cloudily and the prisoner's bowed back as he labored to maintain the pace. The worst of the dreams followed their progress to a moment when the man on foot flagged, or perhaps fell, and one of the riders pressed forward with a foot disengaged from its stirrup and the spur lifted to rowel him to livelier efforts. Such was the fruit of Van Zyl's pregnant word when he spoke of prisoners who had had "the kick taken out of them."She had had no opportunity of seeing Paul, to send through him a warning message to Kamis, since her interview with Van Zyl; but on this day she had glimpsed him from the stoep, as he moved about among the farm buildings, and she lost no time in preparing to go to him. She was putting on her hat as she watched the trooper and Fat Mary.The couple of them were still at work upon their flirtation when she came out of the Sanatorium and descended the steps. The man's wandering eyes settled on her at once with grateful interest, and followed her as she went across to the path at a pace suited to the ardor of the sun. His Punchinello features brightened almost hopefully.Fat Mary, observing the direction of his gaze, giggled afresh and gave information in a whisper."What—her? That lady there?"Fat Mary nodded corroboratively. The trooper swore softly in mere amazement."You're sure that's her?" he demanded. "Well, I 'm—"He stared at Margaret's receding back with a frown of perplexity, then drew the reins over his horse's head and prepared to mount."You go now?" asked Fat Mary, disappointed at the effect of her news."You bet," was the answer, as he swung up into the saddle and moved his horse on.Margaret turned as the sound of hoofs padding on the dust approached from behind and was met by a salute and bold avaricious eyes above the drooping beak. He reined up beside her, looking down from the height of his saddle at her."Miss Harding, isn't it?" he said. "May I ask where you 're goin'?"There was jocular invitation in his manner of saying it, the gallantry of a man who despises women."I 'm going to the farm, there," Margaret answered. The unexpected encounter had made her nervous, and she found herself ill at ease under his regard. "Why?""Because I 'll ask you for the pleasure of accompanyin' you so far, if you don't mind," he returned. "I want a look at the happy man you 're goin' to see. Hope you don't object?""I can't stop you," replied Margaret. "You will do as you please, of course."She turned and walked on, careful not to hurry her steps. The trooper rode at her side, and though she did not look up, she felt his eyes resting on her profile as they went."Bit slow, livin' out here, Miss Harding," he remarked, after they had gone for a minute or so in silence. "Not what you 've been use to, I imagine. Found yourself rather short of men, didn't you?""No," replied Margaret thoughtfully; "no.""Oh, come now." The mounted man laughed thinly, failing utterly to get his tolerant and good-natured effect. "If you 'd had a supply of decent chaps to do the right thing by a girl as pretty as you—admire you, an' flirt, and all that, I mean—you wouldn't have fallen back on this nigger we 're lookin' for, would you, now?"This was what it meant, then, to have one's name linked with that of a Kafir. She was anybody's game; not the lowest need look upon her as inaccessible. She had to put a restraint upon herself to keep from quickening her pace, from breaking into a run and fleeing desperately from the man whose gaze never left her. Its persistence, though she was aware of it without seeing it, was an oppression; she imagined she could detect the taint of his breath blowing hot upon her as she walked.He saw the flush that rose in her cheek, and laughed again."You needn't answer," he said. "I can see for myself I 'm right. Lord, whenever was I wrong when it came to spottin' a girl's feelings? Say, Miss Harding—did n't I hit it first shot? Of course I did. Of course I did," he repeated two or three times, congratulating himself. "Trust me."I say," he began again presently. "This little meetin'—I hope it 's not goin' to be the last. I expect you 've learnt by now that niggers have their drawbacks, and it is n't a safe game for you to play. People simply won't stand it, you know. Now, what you want is a friend who 'll stand by you and show you how to make the row blow over. With savvy and a touch of tact, it can be done. Now, Miss Harding—I don't know your Christian name, but I fancy we could understand each other if you 'd only look up and smile."The farm was not far now. Paul had seen them coming and was standing at gaze to watch them approach, with that appearance of absorbed interest which almost anything could bring out. Soon he must see, he could not fail to see, that she was in distress and needing aid, and then he would come forward to meet them."No?" the trooper inquired, cajolingly. "Come now—one smile. No? No?"He waited for an answer."I wouldn't try the haughty style," he said then. "Lord, no. You wouldn't find it pay. After the nigger business, haughtiness is off. What I 'm offering you is more than most chaps would offer; it isn't everybody 'll put on a nigger's boots, not by a long sight. Now, we don't want to be nasty about it, do we? One smile, or just a word to say we understand each other, and it 'll be all right."It was insupportable, but now Paul was coming towards them, shyly and not very fast."Who 's this kid?" demanded the trooper. "Quick, now, before he 's here. Look up, or he 'll smell a rat."Margaret raised her eyes to his slowly, cold fear and disgust mingling in her mind. He met her with a smile in which relief was the salient character."When Mr. Van Zyl hears how you have insulted me," she began trembling."Eh?" He stared at her suspiciously. "Van Zyl?" He seemed suddenly enlightened. "I say, I could n't tell you 'd—you 'd made your arrangements. Could I, now? I would n't have dreamed—look here, Miss Harding; I 'm awfully sorry. Couldn't we agree to forget all this? You can't blame a chap for trying his luck."She did not entirely understand; she merely knew that what he said must be monstrous. No clean thing could issue from that hungry, fastidious mouth. She walked on, leaving him halted and staring after her, perturbed and apprehensive. His patient horse stood motionless with stretched neck; he sat in the saddle erect as to the body, with the easy secure seat which drill had made natural to him, but with the Punchinello face drooped forward, watching her as she went. He saw her meet Paul, saw the pair of them glance towards him and then turn their backs and walk down to the farm together. Pain, defeat and patience expressed themselves in his countenance, as in that of an ignoble Prometheus. Presently he pulled up the docile horse's head with a jerk of the bridoon."My luck," he said aloud, and swung his horse about.Paul had not time to question Margaret as to her trouble, for she spoke before he could frame his slow words."Paul," she cried, "I want to speak to you. But—oh, can I sit down somewhere? I feel—I feel—I must sit down."She looked over her shoulder nervously, and Paul's glance followed."Is it him?" he inquired. "Sit here. I 'll go to him.""No," she said vehemently. "Don't. You mustn't. Let 's go to your house. I want to sit down indoors."Her senses were jangled; she felt a need of relief from the empty immensity of sun and earth that surrounded her."Come on," said Paul. "We 'll go in."He did not offer her his arm; it was a trick he had yet to learn. He walked at her side between the kraals, and brought her to the little parlor which housed and was glorified by Mrs. du Preez's six rosewood chairs, upholstered in velvet, sofa to match, rosewood center-table and the other furniture of the shrine. He looked at her helplessly as she sank to a seat on the "sofa to match.""You want some water," he said, with an inspiration, and vanished.Margaret had time somewhat to recover herself before he returned with his mother and the water.Mrs. du Preez needed no explanations."Now you 'll have a bit of respect for our sun, Miss Harding," she said, after a single, narrow-eyed look at the girl. "Hand that water here, Paul; you didn't bring it for show, did you? Well, then. And just you let me take off this hat, Miss Harding. Bond Street, I 'll bet a pound. They don't build for this sun in Bond Street. Now jus' let me wet this handkerchief and lay it on your forehead. Now, ain't that better?"She turned her head to drive a fierce whisper at Paul."Get out o' this. Come in by an' by.""Thanks awfully." Margaret shivered as the dripping handkerchief pressed upon her brow let loose drops that gravitated to her neck and zigzagged under the collar of her blouse. "I 'm feeling much better now. I 'd rather sit up, really.""So long as you haven't got that tight feeling," conceded Mrs. du Preez.She stood off, watching the girl in a manner that expressed something striving within her mind."All right now?" she asked, when Margaret had got rid of the wet handkerchief."Quite," Margaret assured her. "Thanks ever so much."Mrs. du Preez arranged the glass and jug neatly upon the iron tray on which they had made their appearance."Miss Harding," she said suddenly. "I know.""Oh? What do you know?" inquired Margaret.Mrs. du Preez glanced round to see that Paul had obeyed her."I know all about it," she answered, with reassuring frowns and nods. "Your Fat Mary told my Christian Kafir and she told me. About—about Kamis;youknow.""I see."The story had the spreading quality of the plague; it was an infection that tainted every ear, it seemed."You mean—you 'd like me to go?" suggested Margaret."No!No! NO!"Mrs. du Preez brought both hands into play to aid her face in making the negatives emphatic. "Go? Why, if it was n't for the mercy of God I 'd be in the same box myself. I would—Me! I 've got nothing to come the heavy about, even if I was the sort that would do it. So now you know.""I don't understand," said Margaret. "Do you mean that you—?""I mean," interrupted Mrs. du Preez, "that if it wasn't for that Kafir I 'd ha' been hopping in hell before now; and if people only knew it—gosh! I 'd have to hide. I wanted to tell you so 's you should know there was some one that could n't throw any stones at you. You 're beginnin' to find things rather warm up there, aren't you?"Margaret smiled. The true kindness of Mrs. du Preez's intention moved her; charity in this quarter was the last thing she had expected to find."A little warm," she agreed. "Everybody 's rather shocked just now, and Mrs. Jakes has given me notice to leave.""Hasshe?" demanded Mrs. du Preez. "Well, I suppose it was to be expected. I 've known that woman now for more years than I could count on my fingers, and I 've always had my doubts of her. She 's no more got the spirit of a real lady than a cow has. That 's where it is, Miss Harding. She can't understand that a lady 's got to be trusted. For two pins I 'd tell her so, the old cross-eyedskellpot. So you 're going? Well, you won't be sorry.""But—how did you come across Kamis?" asked Margaret."Oh, it 's a long story. I was clearin' out of here—doing a bolt, you know, an' I got into trouble with a feller that was with me. It was a feller named Bailey that was stoppin' here," explained Mrs. du Preez, who had not heard the whole history of Margaret's exposure. "He was after a bit of money I 'd got with me, and he was startin' in to kick me when up jumps that nigger and down goes Bailey. See?"Margaret saw only vaguely, but she nodded."That 's Bailey," said Mrs. du Preez, drawing her attention to the Boy's photograph. "Christian warned me against smashing it when I wanted to. He 's got notions, Christian has. 'Leave it alone,' he says; 'we 're not afraid of it.' So of course I had to; but I 'd be more 'n a bit thankful if it was gone. I can't take any pleasure in the room with it there.""I could help you in that, perhaps," suggested Margaret. "You 've helped me. It was sweet of you to tell me what you did, the friendliest thing I ever knew.""I 'd rather you did n't speak about it to Christian," objected Mrs. du Preez."I did n't mean to," Margaret assured her, rising.She crossed to the narrow mantel as though to look more particularly at Boy Bailey's features. She lifted the plush frame from its place."There are people who would call this face handsome," she remarked."Heaps," agreed Mrs. du Preez. "In his best days, he 'd got a style—Lord! Miss Harding."Margaret had let the photograph fall face-downwards on the edge of the fender and the crash of its glass cut Mrs. du Preez short. She stared at Margaret in astonishment as the girl put a foot on the picture and broke it."Wasn't that clumsy of me?" she asked, smiling."Well, of all the cheek," declared Mrs. du Preez, slowly. "I never guessed what you were after. But I don't know what Christian will say.""He can't mend it, anyhow," replied Margaret. "You did want it gone, did n't you?""You bet," said Mrs. du Preez. "But—but that was a dodge. Here, let's make sure of it while we 're at it; those two pieces could be easily stuck together. I 'll stamp some of that smashed glass into it. Still—I should think, after this, you 'd be able to hold your own with Mrs. Jakes."She kicked the pieces of the now unrepairable photograph into a little heap."I 'll leave it like that for Christian to see," she said. "But, look here. Didn't you want to speak to Paul? You 'll be wondering when I 'm goin' to give you a chance. I 'll just tap the drum for him."Paul's whistle from behind the house answered the first strokes and Mrs. du Preez, with an unusual delicacy, did not return to the parlor with him."You 're all right now?" he asked, as he entered."Oh, yes. That was nothing," said Margaret.Paul took his stand by the window, leaning with a shoulder against it, looking abstractedly at her face, and waiting to hear her speak."Paul," asked Margaret, "do you know where Kamis is now?""Yes," he said."Do you see him? Can you speak to him for me?""I don't see him much now," answered Paul. "That is because the policemen are riding about looking for him. But I can speak to him to-night.""He must take care not to be caught," said Margaret. "They 're very anxious to find him just now. You 've heard, Paul, that they 've found out about me and him?""Ye-es," answered Paul. "I heard something.""It's true," said Margaret. "So I 've got to go away from here. They won't have me at the Sanatorium any longer and the police are watching to see if Kamis comes anywhere near me and to catch him if he does. You must warn him to keep right away, Paul. He mustn't send any messages, even.""I will tell him," said Paul. "But—you are going away? To England?""Perhaps," replied Margaret. "I expect I shall have to now. They tell me that people won't let me live in South Africa any more. I 'm a sort of leper, and I must keep my distance from healthy people. So we shan't see each other again after a few more days. Are you sorry, Paul?"He reddened boyishly and fidgeted."Oh, it is best for you to go," he answered, uncomfortably."Paul! But why?""It 's—it 's not your place," he said, facing the difficulty of putting an elusive thought into words. "This country—people don't know what 's good and what 's bad—and there isn't enough people. Not like London. You should go to London again. Kamis was telling me—theaters and streets and pictures to see, and people everywhere. He says one end of London is just like you and the other end is like that Bailey. That is where you should go—London, not here. I will go to London soon, too.""I see," said Margaret. "I was afraid at first that you were sick of me too, Paul. I needn't have been afraid of that, need I? Wouldn't it be fine if we could meet in London?""We can," said Paul seriously. "I have got a hundred and three pounds, and I will go.""That's a good deal," said Margaret."It's a lot," he agreed. "My father gave it to me the other day, all tied up tight in a little dirty bundle, and there was my mother's marriage lines in it too. He said he didn't mean me to have those but the money was for me. It was on the table in the morning and he rolled it over to me and said: 'Here, Paul. Take this and don't bring any more of your tramps in the house.' That was because I brought that Bailey here, you know. So now—soon—I will go to London and Paris and make models there. Kamis says—""What?" asked Margaret."He says I will think my eyes have gone mad at first when I see London. He says that coming to Waterloo Station will be like dying and waking in another world. But he says too—blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God even in Waterloo Station.""He ought to go back himself," said Margaret, with conviction. "He 's wasted here.""Will you see him before you go?" asked Paul."No," said Margaret. "No; I daren't. Tell him, Paul, please, that I 'd like to see him ever so much, but that it 's too dangerous. Say I wish him well with all my heart, and that I hope most earnestly that he won't let himself be caught.""He won't," said Paul, with confidence. "But I 'll tell him.""And say," continued Margaret—"say he 's not to feel sorry about what has happened to me. Tell him I 'm still proud that I was his friend, and that all this row is worth it. Can you remember all that?"Paul nodded. "I can remember," he assured her. "It is—it is so fine to hear, for me, too. I won't forget anything.""Please don't, if you can help it. I want him to have that message," said Margaret. "And now, Paul, I 'll have to say good-by to you, because I shan't come here again."Paul stood upright as she rose. His slow smile was very friendly."It doesn't matter," he said. "You are going to London, and soon I shall see you there.""I wonder," she said, giving him her hand. "I 'll write you my address and send it you before I leave, Paul.""I should find you anyhow," he assured her confidently.Mrs. du Preez, also, had to be taken leave of, and shed a tear or so at the last. In her, a strong emotion found a safety valve in ferocity."As for that Jakes woman," she said, in conclusion, "you tell her from me, Miss Harding—fromme, mind,—that it wouldn't cost me any pain to hand her a slap acrost the mug."Margaret went homeward through the late light dreamily. Far away, blurred by the sun's horizontal rays, the figure of the trooper occupied the empty distance, no larger than an ant against the flushed sky. Peace and melancholy were in the mood of the hour, a cue to lead her thoughts towards sadness. It caused her to realize that she would not leave it all without a sense of loss. She would miss its immensity, its effect of setting one at large on an earth without trimmings under a heaven without clouds, to make the most of one's own humanity. It would be a thing she had known in part, but which henceforth she would never know even as she herself was known. She could never now find the word that expressed its wonder and its appeal.Mr. Samson was on the stoep as she went up the steps to enter the Sanatorium. He put down his paper and toddled forward to open the door for her, anxiously punctilious."Ford was down for tea," he said. "Askin' for you, he was.""Oh, was he?" replied Margaret inanely, and went in.At supper that evening in the farmhouse kitchen, Christian du Preez, glancing up from the food which occupied him, observed by a certain frowning deliberation on Paul's face, that his son was about to deliver himself in speech."Well, what is it, Paul?" he inquired encouragingly.Paul looked up with a faint surprise at having his purpose thus forecasted."That money," he said doubtfully."Oh." The Boer glanced uneasily at his wife, who laid down her knife and fork and began to listen with startled interest."That 's all right," said Christian. "Do what you like with it. Go to the dorp and spend it; it 's yours. Now eat your supper.""I am going to London," said Paul then, seriously, and having got it off his mind, said, heard and done with, he resumed his meal with an appetite."London," echoed the Boer. "London?" exclaimed Mrs. du Preez."Yes," said Paul. "To make models. Here there is nobody to see them.""He is gone mad," said the Boer with conviction. "He has been queer for a long time and now he is mad. Paul, you are mad.""Am I?" asked Paul respectfully, and continued to eat.His father and mother had much to say, agitatedly, angrily, persuasively, but people were always saying things to him that had no real meaning. It was ridiculous, for instance, that the Boer should call him a dumb fool because at the close of a lecture he should ask for more coffee. He wasn't dumb and didn't believe he was a fool. People were n't fools because they went to London; on the contrary, they had to be rather clever and enterprising to get there at all. And at the back of his mind dwelt the thing he could not hope to convey and did not attempt to—a sense he had, which warmed and uplifted him, of nearing a goal after doubt and difficulty, the Pisgah exaltation and tenderness, the confidence that to him and to the work which his hands should perform, Canaan was reserved, virgin and welcoming. It was a strength he had in secret, and the Boer knew himself baffled when after an hour of exhortation to be sane and explanatory and obedient and comprehensible, he looked up and said, very thoughtfully:"In London, people pay a shilling to look at clays, father."CHAPTER XVIIFord's return to normal existence coincided with the arrival of mail-morning, when the breakfast menu was varied by home letters heaped upon the plates. Mrs. Jakes had one of her own this morning and was very conscious of it, affecting to find her correspondent's caligraphy hard to read. Old Mr. Samson had his usual pile and greeted him from behind a litter of torn wrappers and envelopes."Hullo, Ford," he cried, "up on your pins, again? Feelin' pretty bobbish—what?""Nice way you 've got of putting it," replied Ford, taking his seat before the three letters on his plate. "I 'm all right, though. You seem fairly well supplied with reading-matter this morning.""The usual, the usual," said Mr. Samson airily. "People gone to the country; got time to write, don't you know. Here 's a feller tells me that the foxes down his way are simply rotten with mange.""Awful," said Ford, glancing at the first of his own letters. "And here 's a feller tellsmethat he 's sent in the enclosed account nine times and must press for a cheque without delay. What 's the country coming to? Eh?""You be blowed," retorted Mr. Samson, and fell again to his reading.From behind the urn Mrs. Jakes made noises indicative of lady-like exasperation."The way some people write, you 'd never believe they 'd been educated and finished regardless of expense," she declared. "There 's a word here—she 's telling me about a lady I used to know in Town—and whether she suffers from her children (though I never knew she was married) or from a chaplain, I can't make out. Can you see what it is, Mr. Ford? There, where I 'm pointing?""Oh, yes," said Ford. "It 's worse than you think, Mrs. Jakes. It 's chilblains.""O-oh." Mrs. Jakes was enlightened. "Why, of course. I remember now. Even when she was a girl at school, she used to suffer dreadfully from them. I thought she couldn't have been married, with such feet. But is n't it a dreadful way to write?"She would have indulged them with further information regarding the lady who suffered, but Margaret's entrance drove her back behind the breastwork of the urn. She distrusted her own correctness when the girl's eyes were on her, and her sure belief that Margaret had revealed herself as anything but correct by every standard which Mrs. Jakes could apply, failed to reassure her."Good morning, Miss Harding," she said frostily. "You will take coffee?""Good morning," replied Margaret, passing to her place at the table. "Yes, it is lovely.""Er—the coffee?" asked Mrs. Jakes, suspicious and uncomprehending."Oh, coffee. Yes, please," said Margaret. "I thought you said something about the weather."Ford grinned at the letter he was reading and greeted her quietly."Glad you 're better," she replied, not returning his smile, and turned at once to the letters which awaited her.He was watching her while she sorted them, examining first the envelopes for indications of what they held. One seemed to puzzle her, and she took it up to decipher the postmark. Then she set it down and opened the fattest of all, a worthy, linen-enveloped affair, containing a couple of typewritten sheets as well as a short letter. She read it perfunctorily and looked through the business-like typescripts impatiently, folded them all up again and tucked them back into the linen envelope. Then followed the others, and the one with the smudged postmark last of all. She scrutinized the outside of this again before she opened it; it was not an English letter, but one from some unidentifiable postal district in South Africa. At last she opened it, and drew out the dashing black scrawl which it harbored. A glance at the end of the letter seemed to leave her in the dark, and Ford saw her delicate brows knit as she began to read.He found himself becoming absorbed in the mere contemplation of her. He was aware of a character in her presence at once familiar to him by long study and intangible; it had the quality of bloom, that a touch destroys. She had hair that coiled upon her head and left its shape discernible, and beneath it a certain breadth and frankness of brow upon which the eyebrows were etched marvelously. She was like a lantern which softens and tempers the impetuous flame within it, and turns its ardor into radiance. The Kafir and the shame and the imprudence of that affair did not suffice to darken that light; at the most, they could but cause it to waver and make strange shadows for a moment, like the candle one carries, behind a guarding hand, through a windy corridor. It did not cool the strong flame that was the heart of the combination.Suddenly Margaret laid the letter down. She put it back on her plate with an abrupt gesture and he noted that she had gone pale, and that her mouth was wry as though with a bitter taste. She even withdrew her fingers from the sheet with exactly the movement of one who has by accident set his hand on some unexpected piece of foulness.She went on with her breakfast quietly enough, but she did not look at her letters again. They were perhaps the first letters in years to come to the Sanatorium and be dismissed with a single perusal."Fog in London," said Mr. Samson, suddenly. "Feller writes as though it was the plague.Hedoes n't know what it is to have too much bally sun."The glare that shone through the window returned his glance unwinking."Fog?" responded Mrs. Jakes, alertly. "That is bad. Such dreadful things happen in fogs. I remember a lady at Home, who was divorced afterwards, who lost her way in a fog and didn't get home for two days, and even then she had somebody else's umbrella and could no more remember where she 'd got it than fly. And she was so confused and upset that all she could say to her husband was: 'Ed,'—his name was Edwin—'Ed, did you remember to have your hair cut?'""Had he remembered?" demanded Mr. Samson."I think not," replied Mrs. Jakes. "What with the worry, and the things the servant said, I don't believe he 'd thought of it. He always did wear it rather long.""Think of that," said Mr. Samson, with solemn surprise.Margaret finished her breakfast in silence and then gathered up her letters. Ford thought that as she picked up the sheet which had distressed her, she glanced involuntarily at him. But the look conveyed nothing and she departed in silence. He was careful not to follow her too soon.It was not difficult to find her. For some two hours after breakfast was over, the only part of the Sanatorium which it was possible to inhabit with comfort was the stoep. The other rooms were given over to Fat Mary and her colleagues for the daily ceremony known as "doing the rooms," a festival involving excursions and alarms, skylarking, breakages and fights. To seek seclusion in the drawing-room, for example, was to be subjected to a cinematograph impression of surprised and shocked black faces peering round the door and vanishing, to scuffling noises on the mat and finally to hints from Mrs. Jakes herself: "Wouldyou mind the girls just sweeping round your feet? They 're rather behindhand this morning."Margaret had betaken herself and her chair to the extreme end of the stoep, beyond the radius of Ford's art and Mr. Samson's meditations. Her letters were in her lap, but she was not looking at them. She was gazing straight before her at the emptiness which stretched out endlessly, affording no perch for the eye to rest on, an everlasting enigma to baffle sore minds.Ford was innocent of stratagem in his manner of approach."I say," he said, and she looked up listlessly. "I say—I 'm sorry. Can't we make it up?""All right," she answered.He looked at her closely."But is it all right?" he persisted. "You 're hurt about something; I can see you are; so it 's not all right yet. Look here, Miss Harding: you were wrong about what I was thinking.""Oh no." Margaret shifted in her chair with a tired impatience. "I wasn't wrong," she answered. "I could see; and I think you should n't go back on it now. The least you can do is stand by your beliefs. You won't find yourself alone. I had a letter from some one this morning who would back you up to the last drop of his blood, I 'm sure.""Who 's that?""I don't know," she answered. "It 's my first anonymous letter. Somebody has heard about me and therefore writes. He thinks just as you do. Would you like to see it?"She handed him the bold, crowded scrawl and sat back while he leaned on the rail to read it.At the second sentence in the letter he looked up sharply and restrained an ejaculation. She was not looking at him, but a tinge of pink had risen in her quiet face.It was an anonymous letter of the most villainous kind. Something like horror possessed him as he realized that her grave eyes had perused its gleeful and elaborate offense. The abominable thing was a vileness fished from the pit of a serious and blackguard mind. It had the baseness of ordure, and a sort of frivolity that transcended commonplace evil."I say," he cried, before the end of the ingenious thing was reached. "You have n't read this through?""Not quite," she answered."I—I should think not."With quick nervous jerks of his fingers which betrayed the hot anger he felt, he tore the letter into strips and the strips again into smaller fragments, and strewed them forth upon the stiff dead shrubs below."It's getting about, you see," said Margaret, with a sigh. "I suppose, before I manage to get away, I shall be accustomed to things of that kind.""But this is awful," cried Ford. "I can't bear this. You, of all people, to have to go through all that this means and threatens—it 's awful. Miss Harding, let me apologize, let me grovel, let me do anything that 'll give you the feeling that I 'm with you in this. You can't face it alone—you simply can't. I'm sorry enough to—to kick myself. Can't you let me stand in with you?"He stopped helplessly before Margaret's languid calm. She was not in the least stirred by his appeal. She lay back in her chair listlessly, and only withdrew her eyes from the veld to look at him as he ceased to speak."Oh, it doesn't matter," she said indifferently. "It's a silly business. Don't worry about it, please.""But—" began Ford, and stopped. "You mean—you won't have me with you, anyhow?" he asked. "What you thought I thought, upstairs—you can't forget that? Is that it?"She smiled slowly, and he stared at her in dismay. Nothing could have expressed so clearly as that faint smile her immunity from the passion that stirred in him."Perhaps it 's that," she answered, always in the same indifferent, low voice. "I 'm not thinking more about it than I can help.""I didn't think any harm of you," Ford protested earnestly, leaning forward from his perch on the rail and striving to compel her to look at him. "We 've been good friends, and you might have trusted me not to think evil of you. I simply didn't understand—nothing else. You can't seriously be offended because you imagined that I was thinking certain thoughts. It isn't fair.""I 'm not offended," she answered."Hurt, then," he substituted. "Anything you please."He stepped down from his seat and walked a few paces away, with his hands deeply sunk in his pockets, and then walked back again."I say," he said abruptly; "it 's a question of what I think of you, it seems. Let me tell you what I do think."Margaret turned her face towards him. He was frowning heavily, with an appearance of injury and annoyance. He spoke in curt jets."It 's only since I 've known you that I 've really worried over being a lunger," he said. "The Army—I could stand that. But seeing you and talking to you, and knowing I 'd no right to say a word—no right to try and lead things that way, even, for your sake as much as mine—it 's been hard. Because—this is what I do think—it 's seemed to me that you were worth more than everything else. I 'd have given the world to tell you so, and ask you—well, you know what I mean."Margaret was not so steeped in sorrows but she could mark this evasion of a plain statement with amusement.Ford, staring at her intently, clicked with impatience."Well, then," he said in the tone of one who is goaded to extreme lengths; "well then, Miss—er—Margaret—" he paused, seemingly struck by a pleasant flavor in the name as he spoke it—"Margaret," he repeated, less urgently; "I 'm hanged if I know how to say it, but—I love you."There was an appreciable interval while they remained gazing at each other, he breathless and discomposed, she grave and unresponding."Do you?" she said at last. "But—""I do," he urged. "On my soul, I do. Margaret, it 's true. I 've been—loving—you for a long time. I thought perhaps you might care a little, too, sometimes, and I 'd have told you if it was n't for this chest of mine. That 's what I meant when you said you were going away and I asked you to stay. I thought you understood then.""I did understand," she replied, and sat thoughtful.She wondered vaguely at the apathy that mastered her and would not suffer her to feel even a thrill. Some virtue had departed out of her and drawn with it the whole liveliness of her mind and spirit, so that what remained was mere deadness. She knew, in some subconscious and uninspiring manner, that Ford was what he had always been, with passion added to him; he was waiting in a tension of suspense for her to answer, with his thin face eager and glowing. It should have moved her with compassion and liking for the stubborn, faithful, upright soul she knew him to be. But the letter, the confident approaches of the Punchinello policeman, and even Mrs. Jakes' ill-restrained joy in bidding her leave the place, had been so many blows upon her function of susceptibility. The accumulation of them had a little stunned her, and she was not yet restored.Ford saw her lips hesitate before she spoke, and his heart beat more quickly.She looked up at him uncertainly and made a movement with her shoulders like a shrug."Oh, I can't," she said suddenly. "No, I can't. It 's no use; you must leave me alone, please."His look of sheer amazement, of pain and bewilderment, returned to her later. It was as though he had been struck in the face by some one he counted on as a friend. He stood for an instant rooted."Sorry," he said, then. "I might have seen I was worrying you. Sorry."His retreating feet sounded softly on the flags of the stoep, and she sank back in her chair, wondering wearily at the event and its inconsequent conclusion, with her eyes resting on the wide invitation of the veld."Am I going to be ill?" was the thought that came to her relief. "Am I going to be ill? I 'm not really like this."The ordeal of lunch had to be faced; she could not eat, but still less could she face the prospect of Mrs. Jakes with a tray. Afterwards, there was the dreary labor of writing letters to go before her to England and make ready the way for her return. There would have to be explanations of some kind, and it was a sure thing that her explanations would fail to satisfy a number of people who would consider themselves entitled to comment on her movements. There would have to be some mystery about it, at the best. For the present, she could not screw herself up to the task of composing euphemisms. "Expect me home by the boat after next. I will tell you why when I see you"; that had to suffice for the legal uncle, his lawful wife, the philosophic aunt and all the rest.Then came tea and afterwards dinner; the day dragged like a sick snake. Dr. Jakes made mournful eyes at her and talked feverishly to cover his nervousness and compunction, and now and again he looked down the table at his wife and Mr. Samson with furtive malevolence. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, Mrs. Jakes, having made an inspection of the doctor, played the intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" five times, and Ford and Samson spent the evening over a chessboard. Margaret, on the couch, found herself coming to the surface of the present again and again from depths of heavy and turgid thought, to find the intermezzo still limping along and Mr. Samson still apostrophizing his men in an undertone ("Take his bally bishop, old girl; help yourself. No, come back—he 'll have you with that knight"). It was interminable, a pocket eternity.Then the view of the stairs sloping up to the dimness above and the cool air of the hall upon her neck and face, and the sourness of Mrs. Jakes trying to give her "good night" the intonation of an insult—these intruded abruptly upon her straying faculties, and she came a little dazed into the light of the candles in her own room, where her eyes fell first on the breadth of Fat Mary's back, as that handmaid stood at the window with the blind in her hand and peered forth into the dark. As she turned, Margaret gained an impression that the stout woman's interest in something below was interrupted by her entrance.Fat Mary had been another of Margaret's disappointments since the exposure. The Kafir woman's manner to her had undergone a notable change. There was no longer the touch of reverence and gentleness with which she had tended Margaret at first, which had made endearing all her huge incompetence and playfulness. There had succeeded to it a manner of familiarity which manifested itself chiefly in the roughness of her handling. Margaret was being called upon to pay the penalty which the African native exacts from the European who encroaches upon the aloofness of the colored peoples.Fat Mary grinned as Margaret came through the door."Mo' stink," she observed, cheerfully, and pointed to the dressing-table.Margaret's eyes followed the big black finger to where a bunch of aloe plumes lay between the candles on the white cloth, brilliantly red. The sight of them startled the girl sharply. She went across and raised them."Where did they come from?" she asked quickly."That Kafir," grinned Fat Mary. "Missis's Kafir, he bring 'im.""What did he say? Did he give any message?""No," replied Fat Mary. "Jus' stink-flowers, an' give me Scotchman.""Scotchman" is Kafir slang for a florin; it has for an origin a myth reflecting on the probity of a great race. But Margaret did not inquire; she was pondering a possible significance in this gift of bitter blooms.Fat Mary eyed her acutely while she stood in thought."He say don't tell nobody," she remarked casually. "I say no fear—me! I don't tell. Missis like that Kafir plenty?""Mary," said Margaret. "You can go now. I shan't want you.""All a-right," replied Fat Mary willingly, and took herself off forthwith. She had her own uses for a present of spare time at this season.Margaret put the red flowers down as the door closed behind Fat Mary, and set herself before the mirror. There was still that haze between her thoughts and the realities about her, a drifting cloudiness that sometimes obscured them all together, and sometimes broke and let matters appear.She noted in the mirror the strange, familiar specter of her own face, and saw that the hectic was strong and high on either cheek. Then the aloe plumes plucked at her thoughts, and the haze closed about her again, leaving her blind in a deep and aimless preoccupation in which her thoughts were no more than a pulse, repeating itself to no end. Ford's declaration and his manner of making it; the Punchinello countenance of the trooper, bestially insinuating; Mrs. Jakes eating soup at Mr. Samson;—these came and went in the dreadful arena of her mind and made a changing spectacle that baffled the march of the clock-hands.She did not know how long she had been sitting when a rattle at the window surprised her into looking up. She stared absently at the blind till it came again. It had the sound of some one throwing earth from below. She rose and went across and looked out.It had not touched her nerves at all; it was not the kind of thing which could frighten her. The window was raised at the bottom and she kneeled on the floor and put her head, cloudily haloed with her loose hair, out to the star-tempered dark.A whisper from below, where the whisperer stood invisible in the shadow at the foot of the wall, hailed her at once."Miss Harding," it said. "Miss Harding. I 'm here, directly below you."She could see nothing."Who is it?" she asked."Hush." She had spoken in her ordinary tones. "Not so loud. It 's dangerous.""Who is it?" she asked again, subduing her voice."Why—Kamis, of course." The answer came in a tone of surprise. "You expected me, did n't you? Your light was burning.""Expected you? No," said Margaret "I didn't expect you; you ought n't to have come.""But—" the voice was protesting; "my message. It was on the paper around the aloe plumes. I particularly told the fat Kafir woman to give you that, and she promised. If your light was burning, I 'd throw something up at your window, and if not, I 'd go away. That was it."The night breeze came in at the tail of his words with a dry rustling of the dead vines."There was no paper," said Margaret.The Kafir below uttered an angry exclamation which she did not catch."If only you don't mind," he said, then. "I got Paul's message from you and I had to try and see you.""Yes," said Margaret. She could not see him at all; under the lee of the house the night was black, though at a hundred paces off she could make out the lie of the ground in the starlight. His whispering voice was akin to the night."Then you don't mind?" he urged."I don't mind, of course," said Margaret. "But it 's too risky."Further along the stoep there was a dim warmish glow through the red curtains of the study and a leak of faint light under the closed front door. The house was loopholed for unfriendly eyes and ears. There was no security under that masked battery for their privacy. At any moment Mrs. Jakes might prick up her ears and stand intent and triumphant to hear their strained whispers in cautious interchange. Margaret shrank from the thought of it."I only want a word," answered Kamis from the darkness. "I may not see you again. You won't let me drop without a word—after everything?"Margaret hesitated. "Some one may pick up that paper and read your message and watch to see what happens. I couldn't bear any more trouble about it."There was a pause."No," agreed Kamis, then. "No—of course. I didn't think of that. I 'll say good-by now, then."Margaret strained to see him, but the night hid him securely."Wait!" she called carefully. "I don't want you to go away like that; it 's simply that this is too risky." She paused. "I 'd better come down to you," she said.She could not tell what he answered, whether joy or demurral, for she drew her head in at once, and then opened the door and went out to the corridor.It was good to be doing something, and to have to do with one whose sympathies were not strained. She went lightly and noiselessly down the wide stairs, and recognized again, with a smile, the secret aspect of the hall in the dark hours. There was a thread of light under the door of Dr. Jakes' study, and within that locked room the dutiful small clock was still ticking off the moments as stolidly as though all moments were of the same value. The outer door was closed with a mighty lock and a great iron key, and opened with a clang that should have brought Dr. Jakes forth to inquire. But he did not come, and she went unopposed out to the stoep under the metallic rustle of its dead vines.She was going swiftly, with her velvet-shod feet, to that distant part of it which was under the broad light of her window, when the Kafir appeared before her so suddenly that she almost ran into him."Oh." She uttered a little cry. "You startled me.""I 'm sorry," he answered."You ought n't to be here," Margaret said, "because it 's dangerous. But I am glad to see you.""That 's good of you," he said. "I got Paul's message. I had to come. I had to see you once more, and besides, he said you were—in trouble. About me?""Oh, yes," said Margaret. "No end of trouble, all about you. An anonymous letter, notice to quit, pity and smiles, two suitors, one with intentions which were strictly dishonorable, and so on. And the simple truth is, I don't care a bit.""Oh, Lord!" said the Kafir.They were standing close to the wall, immersed in its shadow and sheltered from the wind that sighed above them and beside them and made the vines vocal. Neither could see the other save as a shadowy presence."I don't care," said Margaret, "and I refuse to bother about it. I 've got to go, of course, and I don't like the feeling of being kicked out. That rankles a little bit, when I relax the strain of being superior and amused at their littleness. But as for the rest, I don't care.""It's my fault," said the Kafir quietly. "It's all my fault. I knew all the time what the end of it would be; and I let it come. There 's something mean in a nigger, Miss Harding. I knew it was there well enough, and now it shows.""Don't," said Margaret.There fell a pause between them, and she could hear his breathing. She remembered the expression on Ford's face when he had questioned her as to whether she did not experience a repulsion at a Kafir's proximity to her, and tried now to find any such aversion in herself. They stood in an intimate nearness, so that she could not have moved from her place without touching him; but there was none. Whoever had it for a pedestal of well and truly laid local virtues, she had it not."This is good-by, of course," said the Kafir, in his pleasant low tones. "I 'll never see you again, but I 'll never forget how good and beautiful you were to me. I must n't keep you out here, or there are a hundred things I want to say to you; but that 's the chief thing. I 'll never forgive myself for what has happened, but I 'll never forget.""There 's nothing you need blame yourself for," said Margaret eagerly. "It 's been worth while. It has, really. You 're somebody and you 're doing something great and real, while the people in here are just shams, like me. Oh," she cried softly; "if only there was something for me todo."
"He 's a nigger—yes," she said; "black as your hat, and all that. But there 's a difference. This—nigger—I hate that word—was taken away when he was six years old and brought up in England. He was properly educated and he 's a doctor, a real doctor with diplomas and degrees, and he 's come out here to try and help his own people. As yet, he can't even speak Kafir, and he 's had a fearful time ever since he landed. Talking to him is just like talking to any one else. He 's read books and knows a bit about art, and all that; and he 's ever so humble and grateful for just a few words of talk. He 's out there in the veld, all day and all night, lonely and hunted. Of course I spoke to him and was as friendly as I could be. Don't you see, Mr. Ford? Don't you see?"
He nodded impartially.
"Yes, I see," he answered. "Well?"
"Well, that's all," said Margaret. "Oh, yes—you mean the—the kiss? That was absolutely nothing. I used to make him talk and he 'd been telling me about how hard it was to make a start with his work, and how grateful he was to me for listening to him, and I said there was no need to be so grateful, and that it was a noble thing he had undertaken and that—yes—that I 'd always be proud I 'd been a friend of his. I held out my hand as I was saying this, and instead of shaking it, he kissed it."
"That was what the blackmailer saw, was it?" asked Ford. Margaret nodded. "By the way, who paid him?"
"Hedid," Margaret answered. "I wouldn't have paid a penny. He insisted on paying."
She was watching him anxiously. He was frowning in deep thought. She felt her heart beat more rapidly as he remained for a time without answering.
"It was worth paying for, if the fellow had kept faith," he said at last. "The whole thing 's in that—you don't know what such a secret is worth. It 's the one thing that binds people together out here, Dutch and English, colonials and Transvaalers and all the rest—the color line. But you didn't know."
"Oh, yes," Margaret made haste to correct him. "I did know. But I didn't care and I don't care now. I 'm not going to take that kind of thing into account at all. I won't be bullied by any amount of prejudices."
"It isn't prejudice," said Ford wearily. "Still—we can't go into all that. I 'm glad you explained to me, though."
"You 're wondering still about something," Margaret said. She could read the doubt and hesitation that he strove to hide from her. "Do let 's have the whole thing out. What is it?"
He had half-closed his eyes but now he opened them and surveyed her keenly.
"You 've told me how reasonable the whole thing was," he said, in deliberate tones. "It was reasonable. That part of it 's as right as it can be. I understand the picturesqueness of it all and the sadness; it is a sad business. I could understand your connection with it, too, in spite of the man's hiding from the police, if only he wasn't a nigger. Beg pardon—a negro."
Margaret was following his words intently.
"What has that got to do with it?" she asked.
"You don't see it?" inquired Ford. "Didn't you find it rather awful, being alone with him? Didn't it make you creepy when he touched your hand?"
He was curious about it, apart from her share in the matter. He was interested in the impersonal aspect of the question as well.
"I didn't like his face, at first," admitted Margaret.
"And afterwards?"
"Afterwards I didn't mind it," she replied. "I 'd got used to it, you see."
He nodded. Upon her answer he had dropped his eyes and was no longer looking at her.
"Well, that 's all," he said. "Don't trouble about it any more. You 've explained and—if you care to know—I 'm quite satisfied."
Margaret sat slowly upright.
"No, you 're not," she answered. "That isn't true; you 're not satisfied. You 're disappointed that I did n't shrink from him and feel nervous of him. You are—you are! I 'm not as good as you thought I was, and you're disappointed. Why don't you say so? What's the use of pretending like this?"
Ford wriggled between the sheets irritably.
"You 're making a row," he said. "They 'll hear you downstairs."
Margaret had risen and was standing by her chair.
"I don't care," she said, lowering her voice at the same time. "But why are n't you honest with me? You say you 're satisfied and all the time you 're thinking: 'A nigger is as good as a white man to her.'"
"I 'm not," protested Ford vigorously.
"Idid n'tshrink," said Margaret. "My flesh didn't crawl once. When I shake his hand, it feels just the same as yours. That disgusts you—I know. There 's something wanting in me that you thought was there. Mrs. Jakes has got it; her flesh can crawl like a caterpillar; but I have n't. You did n't know that when you asked me not to go away, did you?"
"Sit down," begged Ford. "Sit down and let me ask you again."
"No," said Margaret. "You shan't overlook things like that. I 'm going—going away from here as soon as I can. I 'm not ashamed and I won't be indulged."
She walked towards the door. There was a need to get away before the tears that made her eyes smart should overflow and expose themselves.
"Come back," cried Ford. "I say—give a fellow a chance. Come back. I want to say something."
She would not answer him without facing him, even though it revealed the tears.
"I 'm not coming," she replied, and went out.
She had fulfilled her purpose; they had all had their cut at her, save Dr. Jakes, who would not take his turn, and Mrs. Jakes, to whom that privilege was not due. Only one of them had swung the whip effectually and left a wheal whose smart endured.
Mrs. Jakes did not count on being left out of the festival. Her rod was in pickle. She was on hand when the girl came out of her room, serene again and ready to meet any number of Mrs. Jakeses.
"Oh, Miss Harding."
Mrs. Jakes arrested her, glancing about to see that the corridor was empty.
"The doctor wishes me to tell you," said Mrs. Jakes, aiming her words at the girl's high tranquillity, "that he considers you had better make arrangements to remove to some other establishment. You understand, of course?"
"Of course," agreed Margaret.
"A month's notice, then," said Mrs. Jakes smoothly. "That is usual. But if it should be convenient for you to go before, the doctor will be happy to meet you."
"Very good of the doctor," smiled Margaret, and walked on, her skirts rustling.
CHAPTER XVI
Voices below the window of her room that alternated briskly and yet guardedly, drew Margaret to look out. On the stoep beneath her, Fat Mary was exchanging badinage of the most elementary character with a dusty trooper of the Mounted Police, who stood on the ground under the railing with his bridle looped over his arm and his horse awaiting his pleasure at his elbow. Seen from above, the main feature of Fat Mary was her red-and-yellow headkerchief tied tightly over her large and globular skull, presenting the appearance of a strikingly-colored bubble at the summit of her person.
"You savvy tickle?" the trooper was saying. "By'-mby I come up there and tickle you. You like that plenty."
Fat Mary giggled richly. "You lie," she returned, with immense enjoyment.
"Tickle do you good," rejoined the trooper.
He was a tall lathy man, with the face of a tired Punchinello, all nose and chin with a thin fastidious mouth hidden between. His eyes wandered restlessly while he talked as though in search of better matter for his interest; and he chaffed the stout Kafir woman with a mechanical ease suggesting that this was a trick he had practised till it performed itself. The tight-fitting blue uniform, in spite of the dust that was thick upon it, and all his accoutrement of a horseman, lent a dandified touch to his negligent attitude; and he looked like—what he probably was—one of those gentlemen of sporting proclivities in whom the process of decay is arrested by the preservative discipline and toil of service in a Colonial force.
Margaret, examining him unseen from above, with hatpins in her hands, found his miserable and well-bred face at once repellent and distantly terrible; he seemed to typify so completely what she had learned to fear in the police, a humanity at once weak and implacable. His spurs, his revolver, his authority were means of inflicting pain given into feeble hands to supply the place of power. Within a few days she had come to know the dread which the street-hawker in the gutter feels for the policeman on the pavement who can destroy him when he chooses. It did not call for much imagination to see how dreadful the bored perfunctory man below might become when once he had fastened on his quarry and had it to himself to exercise upon it the arts of which the revolver and the rest were the appliances.
His presence under her window was a sign that the search for Kamis' hiding-place was still going forward. At any hour of the day now the inmates of the Sanatorium might lift up their eyes to see the unusual phenomenon of a human being sharing with them the solitude and the silence. Van Zyl had high hopes of laying his hands on the mysterious Kafir who had committed the crime of being incomprehensible to nervous kraals, whose occupants had a way of shaking off wonder and alarm by taking exercise with their weapons among the cattle of their neighbors. The Sanatorium, under his orders, was being watched for any indications of messages passing between Margaret and the Kafir, and the dusty, armed men came and went continually, a succession of drilled shoulders, tanned, unconcerned faces, and expressionless eyes puckered against the sun's stare.
Their chief effect was to keep Margaret in a state of anxious fear lest their search should be successful, and she should be a witness of their return, riding past at the walk with a handcuffed figure trudging helplessly before them. She saw in painful dreams the dust that rose about them cloudily and the prisoner's bowed back as he labored to maintain the pace. The worst of the dreams followed their progress to a moment when the man on foot flagged, or perhaps fell, and one of the riders pressed forward with a foot disengaged from its stirrup and the spur lifted to rowel him to livelier efforts. Such was the fruit of Van Zyl's pregnant word when he spoke of prisoners who had had "the kick taken out of them."
She had had no opportunity of seeing Paul, to send through him a warning message to Kamis, since her interview with Van Zyl; but on this day she had glimpsed him from the stoep, as he moved about among the farm buildings, and she lost no time in preparing to go to him. She was putting on her hat as she watched the trooper and Fat Mary.
The couple of them were still at work upon their flirtation when she came out of the Sanatorium and descended the steps. The man's wandering eyes settled on her at once with grateful interest, and followed her as she went across to the path at a pace suited to the ardor of the sun. His Punchinello features brightened almost hopefully.
Fat Mary, observing the direction of his gaze, giggled afresh and gave information in a whisper.
"What—her? That lady there?"
Fat Mary nodded corroboratively. The trooper swore softly in mere amazement.
"You're sure that's her?" he demanded. "Well, I 'm—"
He stared at Margaret's receding back with a frown of perplexity, then drew the reins over his horse's head and prepared to mount.
"You go now?" asked Fat Mary, disappointed at the effect of her news.
"You bet," was the answer, as he swung up into the saddle and moved his horse on.
Margaret turned as the sound of hoofs padding on the dust approached from behind and was met by a salute and bold avaricious eyes above the drooping beak. He reined up beside her, looking down from the height of his saddle at her.
"Miss Harding, isn't it?" he said. "May I ask where you 're goin'?"
There was jocular invitation in his manner of saying it, the gallantry of a man who despises women.
"I 'm going to the farm, there," Margaret answered. The unexpected encounter had made her nervous, and she found herself ill at ease under his regard. "Why?"
"Because I 'll ask you for the pleasure of accompanyin' you so far, if you don't mind," he returned. "I want a look at the happy man you 're goin' to see. Hope you don't object?"
"I can't stop you," replied Margaret. "You will do as you please, of course."
She turned and walked on, careful not to hurry her steps. The trooper rode at her side, and though she did not look up, she felt his eyes resting on her profile as they went.
"Bit slow, livin' out here, Miss Harding," he remarked, after they had gone for a minute or so in silence. "Not what you 've been use to, I imagine. Found yourself rather short of men, didn't you?"
"No," replied Margaret thoughtfully; "no."
"Oh, come now." The mounted man laughed thinly, failing utterly to get his tolerant and good-natured effect. "If you 'd had a supply of decent chaps to do the right thing by a girl as pretty as you—admire you, an' flirt, and all that, I mean—you wouldn't have fallen back on this nigger we 're lookin' for, would you, now?"
This was what it meant, then, to have one's name linked with that of a Kafir. She was anybody's game; not the lowest need look upon her as inaccessible. She had to put a restraint upon herself to keep from quickening her pace, from breaking into a run and fleeing desperately from the man whose gaze never left her. Its persistence, though she was aware of it without seeing it, was an oppression; she imagined she could detect the taint of his breath blowing hot upon her as she walked.
He saw the flush that rose in her cheek, and laughed again.
"You needn't answer," he said. "I can see for myself I 'm right. Lord, whenever was I wrong when it came to spottin' a girl's feelings? Say, Miss Harding—did n't I hit it first shot? Of course I did. Of course I did," he repeated two or three times, congratulating himself. "Trust me.
"I say," he began again presently. "This little meetin'—I hope it 's not goin' to be the last. I expect you 've learnt by now that niggers have their drawbacks, and it is n't a safe game for you to play. People simply won't stand it, you know. Now, what you want is a friend who 'll stand by you and show you how to make the row blow over. With savvy and a touch of tact, it can be done. Now, Miss Harding—I don't know your Christian name, but I fancy we could understand each other if you 'd only look up and smile."
The farm was not far now. Paul had seen them coming and was standing at gaze to watch them approach, with that appearance of absorbed interest which almost anything could bring out. Soon he must see, he could not fail to see, that she was in distress and needing aid, and then he would come forward to meet them.
"No?" the trooper inquired, cajolingly. "Come now—one smile. No? No?"
He waited for an answer.
"I wouldn't try the haughty style," he said then. "Lord, no. You wouldn't find it pay. After the nigger business, haughtiness is off. What I 'm offering you is more than most chaps would offer; it isn't everybody 'll put on a nigger's boots, not by a long sight. Now, we don't want to be nasty about it, do we? One smile, or just a word to say we understand each other, and it 'll be all right."
It was insupportable, but now Paul was coming towards them, shyly and not very fast.
"Who 's this kid?" demanded the trooper. "Quick, now, before he 's here. Look up, or he 'll smell a rat."
Margaret raised her eyes to his slowly, cold fear and disgust mingling in her mind. He met her with a smile in which relief was the salient character.
"When Mr. Van Zyl hears how you have insulted me," she began trembling.
"Eh?" He stared at her suspiciously. "Van Zyl?" He seemed suddenly enlightened. "I say, I could n't tell you 'd—you 'd made your arrangements. Could I, now? I would n't have dreamed—look here, Miss Harding; I 'm awfully sorry. Couldn't we agree to forget all this? You can't blame a chap for trying his luck."
She did not entirely understand; she merely knew that what he said must be monstrous. No clean thing could issue from that hungry, fastidious mouth. She walked on, leaving him halted and staring after her, perturbed and apprehensive. His patient horse stood motionless with stretched neck; he sat in the saddle erect as to the body, with the easy secure seat which drill had made natural to him, but with the Punchinello face drooped forward, watching her as she went. He saw her meet Paul, saw the pair of them glance towards him and then turn their backs and walk down to the farm together. Pain, defeat and patience expressed themselves in his countenance, as in that of an ignoble Prometheus. Presently he pulled up the docile horse's head with a jerk of the bridoon.
"My luck," he said aloud, and swung his horse about.
Paul had not time to question Margaret as to her trouble, for she spoke before he could frame his slow words.
"Paul," she cried, "I want to speak to you. But—oh, can I sit down somewhere? I feel—I feel—I must sit down."
She looked over her shoulder nervously, and Paul's glance followed.
"Is it him?" he inquired. "Sit here. I 'll go to him."
"No," she said vehemently. "Don't. You mustn't. Let 's go to your house. I want to sit down indoors."
Her senses were jangled; she felt a need of relief from the empty immensity of sun and earth that surrounded her.
"Come on," said Paul. "We 'll go in."
He did not offer her his arm; it was a trick he had yet to learn. He walked at her side between the kraals, and brought her to the little parlor which housed and was glorified by Mrs. du Preez's six rosewood chairs, upholstered in velvet, sofa to match, rosewood center-table and the other furniture of the shrine. He looked at her helplessly as she sank to a seat on the "sofa to match."
"You want some water," he said, with an inspiration, and vanished.
Margaret had time somewhat to recover herself before he returned with his mother and the water.
Mrs. du Preez needed no explanations.
"Now you 'll have a bit of respect for our sun, Miss Harding," she said, after a single, narrow-eyed look at the girl. "Hand that water here, Paul; you didn't bring it for show, did you? Well, then. And just you let me take off this hat, Miss Harding. Bond Street, I 'll bet a pound. They don't build for this sun in Bond Street. Now jus' let me wet this handkerchief and lay it on your forehead. Now, ain't that better?"
She turned her head to drive a fierce whisper at Paul.
"Get out o' this. Come in by an' by."
"Thanks awfully." Margaret shivered as the dripping handkerchief pressed upon her brow let loose drops that gravitated to her neck and zigzagged under the collar of her blouse. "I 'm feeling much better now. I 'd rather sit up, really."
"So long as you haven't got that tight feeling," conceded Mrs. du Preez.
She stood off, watching the girl in a manner that expressed something striving within her mind.
"All right now?" she asked, when Margaret had got rid of the wet handkerchief.
"Quite," Margaret assured her. "Thanks ever so much."
Mrs. du Preez arranged the glass and jug neatly upon the iron tray on which they had made their appearance.
"Miss Harding," she said suddenly. "I know."
"Oh? What do you know?" inquired Margaret.
Mrs. du Preez glanced round to see that Paul had obeyed her.
"I know all about it," she answered, with reassuring frowns and nods. "Your Fat Mary told my Christian Kafir and she told me. About—about Kamis;youknow."
"I see."
The story had the spreading quality of the plague; it was an infection that tainted every ear, it seemed.
"You mean—you 'd like me to go?" suggested Margaret.
"No!No! NO!"
Mrs. du Preez brought both hands into play to aid her face in making the negatives emphatic. "Go? Why, if it was n't for the mercy of God I 'd be in the same box myself. I would—Me! I 've got nothing to come the heavy about, even if I was the sort that would do it. So now you know."
"I don't understand," said Margaret. "Do you mean that you—?"
"I mean," interrupted Mrs. du Preez, "that if it wasn't for that Kafir I 'd ha' been hopping in hell before now; and if people only knew it—gosh! I 'd have to hide. I wanted to tell you so 's you should know there was some one that could n't throw any stones at you. You 're beginnin' to find things rather warm up there, aren't you?"
Margaret smiled. The true kindness of Mrs. du Preez's intention moved her; charity in this quarter was the last thing she had expected to find.
"A little warm," she agreed. "Everybody 's rather shocked just now, and Mrs. Jakes has given me notice to leave."
"Hasshe?" demanded Mrs. du Preez. "Well, I suppose it was to be expected. I 've known that woman now for more years than I could count on my fingers, and I 've always had my doubts of her. She 's no more got the spirit of a real lady than a cow has. That 's where it is, Miss Harding. She can't understand that a lady 's got to be trusted. For two pins I 'd tell her so, the old cross-eyedskellpot. So you 're going? Well, you won't be sorry."
"But—how did you come across Kamis?" asked Margaret.
"Oh, it 's a long story. I was clearin' out of here—doing a bolt, you know, an' I got into trouble with a feller that was with me. It was a feller named Bailey that was stoppin' here," explained Mrs. du Preez, who had not heard the whole history of Margaret's exposure. "He was after a bit of money I 'd got with me, and he was startin' in to kick me when up jumps that nigger and down goes Bailey. See?"
Margaret saw only vaguely, but she nodded.
"That 's Bailey," said Mrs. du Preez, drawing her attention to the Boy's photograph. "Christian warned me against smashing it when I wanted to. He 's got notions, Christian has. 'Leave it alone,' he says; 'we 're not afraid of it.' So of course I had to; but I 'd be more 'n a bit thankful if it was gone. I can't take any pleasure in the room with it there."
"I could help you in that, perhaps," suggested Margaret. "You 've helped me. It was sweet of you to tell me what you did, the friendliest thing I ever knew."
"I 'd rather you did n't speak about it to Christian," objected Mrs. du Preez.
"I did n't mean to," Margaret assured her, rising.
She crossed to the narrow mantel as though to look more particularly at Boy Bailey's features. She lifted the plush frame from its place.
"There are people who would call this face handsome," she remarked.
"Heaps," agreed Mrs. du Preez. "In his best days, he 'd got a style—Lord! Miss Harding."
Margaret had let the photograph fall face-downwards on the edge of the fender and the crash of its glass cut Mrs. du Preez short. She stared at Margaret in astonishment as the girl put a foot on the picture and broke it.
"Wasn't that clumsy of me?" she asked, smiling.
"Well, of all the cheek," declared Mrs. du Preez, slowly. "I never guessed what you were after. But I don't know what Christian will say."
"He can't mend it, anyhow," replied Margaret. "You did want it gone, did n't you?"
"You bet," said Mrs. du Preez. "But—but that was a dodge. Here, let's make sure of it while we 're at it; those two pieces could be easily stuck together. I 'll stamp some of that smashed glass into it. Still—I should think, after this, you 'd be able to hold your own with Mrs. Jakes."
She kicked the pieces of the now unrepairable photograph into a little heap.
"I 'll leave it like that for Christian to see," she said. "But, look here. Didn't you want to speak to Paul? You 'll be wondering when I 'm goin' to give you a chance. I 'll just tap the drum for him."
Paul's whistle from behind the house answered the first strokes and Mrs. du Preez, with an unusual delicacy, did not return to the parlor with him.
"You 're all right now?" he asked, as he entered.
"Oh, yes. That was nothing," said Margaret.
Paul took his stand by the window, leaning with a shoulder against it, looking abstractedly at her face, and waiting to hear her speak.
"Paul," asked Margaret, "do you know where Kamis is now?"
"Yes," he said.
"Do you see him? Can you speak to him for me?"
"I don't see him much now," answered Paul. "That is because the policemen are riding about looking for him. But I can speak to him to-night."
"He must take care not to be caught," said Margaret. "They 're very anxious to find him just now. You 've heard, Paul, that they 've found out about me and him?"
"Ye-es," answered Paul. "I heard something."
"It's true," said Margaret. "So I 've got to go away from here. They won't have me at the Sanatorium any longer and the police are watching to see if Kamis comes anywhere near me and to catch him if he does. You must warn him to keep right away, Paul. He mustn't send any messages, even."
"I will tell him," said Paul. "But—you are going away? To England?"
"Perhaps," replied Margaret. "I expect I shall have to now. They tell me that people won't let me live in South Africa any more. I 'm a sort of leper, and I must keep my distance from healthy people. So we shan't see each other again after a few more days. Are you sorry, Paul?"
He reddened boyishly and fidgeted.
"Oh, it is best for you to go," he answered, uncomfortably.
"Paul! But why?"
"It 's—it 's not your place," he said, facing the difficulty of putting an elusive thought into words. "This country—people don't know what 's good and what 's bad—and there isn't enough people. Not like London. You should go to London again. Kamis was telling me—theaters and streets and pictures to see, and people everywhere. He says one end of London is just like you and the other end is like that Bailey. That is where you should go—London, not here. I will go to London soon, too."
"I see," said Margaret. "I was afraid at first that you were sick of me too, Paul. I needn't have been afraid of that, need I? Wouldn't it be fine if we could meet in London?"
"We can," said Paul seriously. "I have got a hundred and three pounds, and I will go."
"That's a good deal," said Margaret.
"It's a lot," he agreed. "My father gave it to me the other day, all tied up tight in a little dirty bundle, and there was my mother's marriage lines in it too. He said he didn't mean me to have those but the money was for me. It was on the table in the morning and he rolled it over to me and said: 'Here, Paul. Take this and don't bring any more of your tramps in the house.' That was because I brought that Bailey here, you know. So now—soon—I will go to London and Paris and make models there. Kamis says—"
"What?" asked Margaret.
"He says I will think my eyes have gone mad at first when I see London. He says that coming to Waterloo Station will be like dying and waking in another world. But he says too—blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God even in Waterloo Station."
"He ought to go back himself," said Margaret, with conviction. "He 's wasted here."
"Will you see him before you go?" asked Paul.
"No," said Margaret. "No; I daren't. Tell him, Paul, please, that I 'd like to see him ever so much, but that it 's too dangerous. Say I wish him well with all my heart, and that I hope most earnestly that he won't let himself be caught."
"He won't," said Paul, with confidence. "But I 'll tell him."
"And say," continued Margaret—"say he 's not to feel sorry about what has happened to me. Tell him I 'm still proud that I was his friend, and that all this row is worth it. Can you remember all that?"
Paul nodded. "I can remember," he assured her. "It is—it is so fine to hear, for me, too. I won't forget anything."
"Please don't, if you can help it. I want him to have that message," said Margaret. "And now, Paul, I 'll have to say good-by to you, because I shan't come here again."
Paul stood upright as she rose. His slow smile was very friendly.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "You are going to London, and soon I shall see you there."
"I wonder," she said, giving him her hand. "I 'll write you my address and send it you before I leave, Paul."
"I should find you anyhow," he assured her confidently.
Mrs. du Preez, also, had to be taken leave of, and shed a tear or so at the last. In her, a strong emotion found a safety valve in ferocity.
"As for that Jakes woman," she said, in conclusion, "you tell her from me, Miss Harding—fromme, mind,—that it wouldn't cost me any pain to hand her a slap acrost the mug."
Margaret went homeward through the late light dreamily. Far away, blurred by the sun's horizontal rays, the figure of the trooper occupied the empty distance, no larger than an ant against the flushed sky. Peace and melancholy were in the mood of the hour, a cue to lead her thoughts towards sadness. It caused her to realize that she would not leave it all without a sense of loss. She would miss its immensity, its effect of setting one at large on an earth without trimmings under a heaven without clouds, to make the most of one's own humanity. It would be a thing she had known in part, but which henceforth she would never know even as she herself was known. She could never now find the word that expressed its wonder and its appeal.
Mr. Samson was on the stoep as she went up the steps to enter the Sanatorium. He put down his paper and toddled forward to open the door for her, anxiously punctilious.
"Ford was down for tea," he said. "Askin' for you, he was."
"Oh, was he?" replied Margaret inanely, and went in.
At supper that evening in the farmhouse kitchen, Christian du Preez, glancing up from the food which occupied him, observed by a certain frowning deliberation on Paul's face, that his son was about to deliver himself in speech.
"Well, what is it, Paul?" he inquired encouragingly.
Paul looked up with a faint surprise at having his purpose thus forecasted.
"That money," he said doubtfully.
"Oh." The Boer glanced uneasily at his wife, who laid down her knife and fork and began to listen with startled interest.
"That 's all right," said Christian. "Do what you like with it. Go to the dorp and spend it; it 's yours. Now eat your supper."
"I am going to London," said Paul then, seriously, and having got it off his mind, said, heard and done with, he resumed his meal with an appetite.
"London," echoed the Boer. "London?" exclaimed Mrs. du Preez.
"Yes," said Paul. "To make models. Here there is nobody to see them."
"He is gone mad," said the Boer with conviction. "He has been queer for a long time and now he is mad. Paul, you are mad."
"Am I?" asked Paul respectfully, and continued to eat.
His father and mother had much to say, agitatedly, angrily, persuasively, but people were always saying things to him that had no real meaning. It was ridiculous, for instance, that the Boer should call him a dumb fool because at the close of a lecture he should ask for more coffee. He wasn't dumb and didn't believe he was a fool. People were n't fools because they went to London; on the contrary, they had to be rather clever and enterprising to get there at all. And at the back of his mind dwelt the thing he could not hope to convey and did not attempt to—a sense he had, which warmed and uplifted him, of nearing a goal after doubt and difficulty, the Pisgah exaltation and tenderness, the confidence that to him and to the work which his hands should perform, Canaan was reserved, virgin and welcoming. It was a strength he had in secret, and the Boer knew himself baffled when after an hour of exhortation to be sane and explanatory and obedient and comprehensible, he looked up and said, very thoughtfully:
"In London, people pay a shilling to look at clays, father."
CHAPTER XVII
Ford's return to normal existence coincided with the arrival of mail-morning, when the breakfast menu was varied by home letters heaped upon the plates. Mrs. Jakes had one of her own this morning and was very conscious of it, affecting to find her correspondent's caligraphy hard to read. Old Mr. Samson had his usual pile and greeted him from behind a litter of torn wrappers and envelopes.
"Hullo, Ford," he cried, "up on your pins, again? Feelin' pretty bobbish—what?"
"Nice way you 've got of putting it," replied Ford, taking his seat before the three letters on his plate. "I 'm all right, though. You seem fairly well supplied with reading-matter this morning."
"The usual, the usual," said Mr. Samson airily. "People gone to the country; got time to write, don't you know. Here 's a feller tells me that the foxes down his way are simply rotten with mange."
"Awful," said Ford, glancing at the first of his own letters. "And here 's a feller tellsmethat he 's sent in the enclosed account nine times and must press for a cheque without delay. What 's the country coming to? Eh?"
"You be blowed," retorted Mr. Samson, and fell again to his reading.
From behind the urn Mrs. Jakes made noises indicative of lady-like exasperation.
"The way some people write, you 'd never believe they 'd been educated and finished regardless of expense," she declared. "There 's a word here—she 's telling me about a lady I used to know in Town—and whether she suffers from her children (though I never knew she was married) or from a chaplain, I can't make out. Can you see what it is, Mr. Ford? There, where I 'm pointing?"
"Oh, yes," said Ford. "It 's worse than you think, Mrs. Jakes. It 's chilblains."
"O-oh." Mrs. Jakes was enlightened. "Why, of course. I remember now. Even when she was a girl at school, she used to suffer dreadfully from them. I thought she couldn't have been married, with such feet. But is n't it a dreadful way to write?"
She would have indulged them with further information regarding the lady who suffered, but Margaret's entrance drove her back behind the breastwork of the urn. She distrusted her own correctness when the girl's eyes were on her, and her sure belief that Margaret had revealed herself as anything but correct by every standard which Mrs. Jakes could apply, failed to reassure her.
"Good morning, Miss Harding," she said frostily. "You will take coffee?"
"Good morning," replied Margaret, passing to her place at the table. "Yes, it is lovely."
"Er—the coffee?" asked Mrs. Jakes, suspicious and uncomprehending.
"Oh, coffee. Yes, please," said Margaret. "I thought you said something about the weather."
Ford grinned at the letter he was reading and greeted her quietly.
"Glad you 're better," she replied, not returning his smile, and turned at once to the letters which awaited her.
He was watching her while she sorted them, examining first the envelopes for indications of what they held. One seemed to puzzle her, and she took it up to decipher the postmark. Then she set it down and opened the fattest of all, a worthy, linen-enveloped affair, containing a couple of typewritten sheets as well as a short letter. She read it perfunctorily and looked through the business-like typescripts impatiently, folded them all up again and tucked them back into the linen envelope. Then followed the others, and the one with the smudged postmark last of all. She scrutinized the outside of this again before she opened it; it was not an English letter, but one from some unidentifiable postal district in South Africa. At last she opened it, and drew out the dashing black scrawl which it harbored. A glance at the end of the letter seemed to leave her in the dark, and Ford saw her delicate brows knit as she began to read.
He found himself becoming absorbed in the mere contemplation of her. He was aware of a character in her presence at once familiar to him by long study and intangible; it had the quality of bloom, that a touch destroys. She had hair that coiled upon her head and left its shape discernible, and beneath it a certain breadth and frankness of brow upon which the eyebrows were etched marvelously. She was like a lantern which softens and tempers the impetuous flame within it, and turns its ardor into radiance. The Kafir and the shame and the imprudence of that affair did not suffice to darken that light; at the most, they could but cause it to waver and make strange shadows for a moment, like the candle one carries, behind a guarding hand, through a windy corridor. It did not cool the strong flame that was the heart of the combination.
Suddenly Margaret laid the letter down. She put it back on her plate with an abrupt gesture and he noted that she had gone pale, and that her mouth was wry as though with a bitter taste. She even withdrew her fingers from the sheet with exactly the movement of one who has by accident set his hand on some unexpected piece of foulness.
She went on with her breakfast quietly enough, but she did not look at her letters again. They were perhaps the first letters in years to come to the Sanatorium and be dismissed with a single perusal.
"Fog in London," said Mr. Samson, suddenly. "Feller writes as though it was the plague.Hedoes n't know what it is to have too much bally sun."
The glare that shone through the window returned his glance unwinking.
"Fog?" responded Mrs. Jakes, alertly. "That is bad. Such dreadful things happen in fogs. I remember a lady at Home, who was divorced afterwards, who lost her way in a fog and didn't get home for two days, and even then she had somebody else's umbrella and could no more remember where she 'd got it than fly. And she was so confused and upset that all she could say to her husband was: 'Ed,'—his name was Edwin—'Ed, did you remember to have your hair cut?'"
"Had he remembered?" demanded Mr. Samson.
"I think not," replied Mrs. Jakes. "What with the worry, and the things the servant said, I don't believe he 'd thought of it. He always did wear it rather long."
"Think of that," said Mr. Samson, with solemn surprise.
Margaret finished her breakfast in silence and then gathered up her letters. Ford thought that as she picked up the sheet which had distressed her, she glanced involuntarily at him. But the look conveyed nothing and she departed in silence. He was careful not to follow her too soon.
It was not difficult to find her. For some two hours after breakfast was over, the only part of the Sanatorium which it was possible to inhabit with comfort was the stoep. The other rooms were given over to Fat Mary and her colleagues for the daily ceremony known as "doing the rooms," a festival involving excursions and alarms, skylarking, breakages and fights. To seek seclusion in the drawing-room, for example, was to be subjected to a cinematograph impression of surprised and shocked black faces peering round the door and vanishing, to scuffling noises on the mat and finally to hints from Mrs. Jakes herself: "Wouldyou mind the girls just sweeping round your feet? They 're rather behindhand this morning."
Margaret had betaken herself and her chair to the extreme end of the stoep, beyond the radius of Ford's art and Mr. Samson's meditations. Her letters were in her lap, but she was not looking at them. She was gazing straight before her at the emptiness which stretched out endlessly, affording no perch for the eye to rest on, an everlasting enigma to baffle sore minds.
Ford was innocent of stratagem in his manner of approach.
"I say," he said, and she looked up listlessly. "I say—I 'm sorry. Can't we make it up?"
"All right," she answered.
He looked at her closely.
"But is it all right?" he persisted. "You 're hurt about something; I can see you are; so it 's not all right yet. Look here, Miss Harding: you were wrong about what I was thinking."
"Oh no." Margaret shifted in her chair with a tired impatience. "I wasn't wrong," she answered. "I could see; and I think you should n't go back on it now. The least you can do is stand by your beliefs. You won't find yourself alone. I had a letter from some one this morning who would back you up to the last drop of his blood, I 'm sure."
"Who 's that?"
"I don't know," she answered. "It 's my first anonymous letter. Somebody has heard about me and therefore writes. He thinks just as you do. Would you like to see it?"
She handed him the bold, crowded scrawl and sat back while he leaned on the rail to read it.
At the second sentence in the letter he looked up sharply and restrained an ejaculation. She was not looking at him, but a tinge of pink had risen in her quiet face.
It was an anonymous letter of the most villainous kind. Something like horror possessed him as he realized that her grave eyes had perused its gleeful and elaborate offense. The abominable thing was a vileness fished from the pit of a serious and blackguard mind. It had the baseness of ordure, and a sort of frivolity that transcended commonplace evil.
"I say," he cried, before the end of the ingenious thing was reached. "You have n't read this through?"
"Not quite," she answered.
"I—I should think not."
With quick nervous jerks of his fingers which betrayed the hot anger he felt, he tore the letter into strips and the strips again into smaller fragments, and strewed them forth upon the stiff dead shrubs below.
"It's getting about, you see," said Margaret, with a sigh. "I suppose, before I manage to get away, I shall be accustomed to things of that kind."
"But this is awful," cried Ford. "I can't bear this. You, of all people, to have to go through all that this means and threatens—it 's awful. Miss Harding, let me apologize, let me grovel, let me do anything that 'll give you the feeling that I 'm with you in this. You can't face it alone—you simply can't. I'm sorry enough to—to kick myself. Can't you let me stand in with you?"
He stopped helplessly before Margaret's languid calm. She was not in the least stirred by his appeal. She lay back in her chair listlessly, and only withdrew her eyes from the veld to look at him as he ceased to speak.
"Oh, it doesn't matter," she said indifferently. "It's a silly business. Don't worry about it, please."
"But—" began Ford, and stopped. "You mean—you won't have me with you, anyhow?" he asked. "What you thought I thought, upstairs—you can't forget that? Is that it?"
She smiled slowly, and he stared at her in dismay. Nothing could have expressed so clearly as that faint smile her immunity from the passion that stirred in him.
"Perhaps it 's that," she answered, always in the same indifferent, low voice. "I 'm not thinking more about it than I can help."
"I didn't think any harm of you," Ford protested earnestly, leaning forward from his perch on the rail and striving to compel her to look at him. "We 've been good friends, and you might have trusted me not to think evil of you. I simply didn't understand—nothing else. You can't seriously be offended because you imagined that I was thinking certain thoughts. It isn't fair."
"I 'm not offended," she answered.
"Hurt, then," he substituted. "Anything you please."
He stepped down from his seat and walked a few paces away, with his hands deeply sunk in his pockets, and then walked back again.
"I say," he said abruptly; "it 's a question of what I think of you, it seems. Let me tell you what I do think."
Margaret turned her face towards him. He was frowning heavily, with an appearance of injury and annoyance. He spoke in curt jets.
"It 's only since I 've known you that I 've really worried over being a lunger," he said. "The Army—I could stand that. But seeing you and talking to you, and knowing I 'd no right to say a word—no right to try and lead things that way, even, for your sake as much as mine—it 's been hard. Because—this is what I do think—it 's seemed to me that you were worth more than everything else. I 'd have given the world to tell you so, and ask you—well, you know what I mean."
Margaret was not so steeped in sorrows but she could mark this evasion of a plain statement with amusement.
Ford, staring at her intently, clicked with impatience.
"Well, then," he said in the tone of one who is goaded to extreme lengths; "well then, Miss—er—Margaret—" he paused, seemingly struck by a pleasant flavor in the name as he spoke it—"Margaret," he repeated, less urgently; "I 'm hanged if I know how to say it, but—I love you."
There was an appreciable interval while they remained gazing at each other, he breathless and discomposed, she grave and unresponding.
"Do you?" she said at last. "But—"
"I do," he urged. "On my soul, I do. Margaret, it 's true. I 've been—loving—you for a long time. I thought perhaps you might care a little, too, sometimes, and I 'd have told you if it was n't for this chest of mine. That 's what I meant when you said you were going away and I asked you to stay. I thought you understood then."
"I did understand," she replied, and sat thoughtful.
She wondered vaguely at the apathy that mastered her and would not suffer her to feel even a thrill. Some virtue had departed out of her and drawn with it the whole liveliness of her mind and spirit, so that what remained was mere deadness. She knew, in some subconscious and uninspiring manner, that Ford was what he had always been, with passion added to him; he was waiting in a tension of suspense for her to answer, with his thin face eager and glowing. It should have moved her with compassion and liking for the stubborn, faithful, upright soul she knew him to be. But the letter, the confident approaches of the Punchinello policeman, and even Mrs. Jakes' ill-restrained joy in bidding her leave the place, had been so many blows upon her function of susceptibility. The accumulation of them had a little stunned her, and she was not yet restored.
Ford saw her lips hesitate before she spoke, and his heart beat more quickly.
She looked up at him uncertainly and made a movement with her shoulders like a shrug.
"Oh, I can't," she said suddenly. "No, I can't. It 's no use; you must leave me alone, please."
His look of sheer amazement, of pain and bewilderment, returned to her later. It was as though he had been struck in the face by some one he counted on as a friend. He stood for an instant rooted.
"Sorry," he said, then. "I might have seen I was worrying you. Sorry."
His retreating feet sounded softly on the flags of the stoep, and she sank back in her chair, wondering wearily at the event and its inconsequent conclusion, with her eyes resting on the wide invitation of the veld.
"Am I going to be ill?" was the thought that came to her relief. "Am I going to be ill? I 'm not really like this."
The ordeal of lunch had to be faced; she could not eat, but still less could she face the prospect of Mrs. Jakes with a tray. Afterwards, there was the dreary labor of writing letters to go before her to England and make ready the way for her return. There would have to be explanations of some kind, and it was a sure thing that her explanations would fail to satisfy a number of people who would consider themselves entitled to comment on her movements. There would have to be some mystery about it, at the best. For the present, she could not screw herself up to the task of composing euphemisms. "Expect me home by the boat after next. I will tell you why when I see you"; that had to suffice for the legal uncle, his lawful wife, the philosophic aunt and all the rest.
Then came tea and afterwards dinner; the day dragged like a sick snake. Dr. Jakes made mournful eyes at her and talked feverishly to cover his nervousness and compunction, and now and again he looked down the table at his wife and Mr. Samson with furtive malevolence. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, Mrs. Jakes, having made an inspection of the doctor, played the intermezzo from "Cavalleria Rusticana" five times, and Ford and Samson spent the evening over a chessboard. Margaret, on the couch, found herself coming to the surface of the present again and again from depths of heavy and turgid thought, to find the intermezzo still limping along and Mr. Samson still apostrophizing his men in an undertone ("Take his bally bishop, old girl; help yourself. No, come back—he 'll have you with that knight"). It was interminable, a pocket eternity.
Then the view of the stairs sloping up to the dimness above and the cool air of the hall upon her neck and face, and the sourness of Mrs. Jakes trying to give her "good night" the intonation of an insult—these intruded abruptly upon her straying faculties, and she came a little dazed into the light of the candles in her own room, where her eyes fell first on the breadth of Fat Mary's back, as that handmaid stood at the window with the blind in her hand and peered forth into the dark. As she turned, Margaret gained an impression that the stout woman's interest in something below was interrupted by her entrance.
Fat Mary had been another of Margaret's disappointments since the exposure. The Kafir woman's manner to her had undergone a notable change. There was no longer the touch of reverence and gentleness with which she had tended Margaret at first, which had made endearing all her huge incompetence and playfulness. There had succeeded to it a manner of familiarity which manifested itself chiefly in the roughness of her handling. Margaret was being called upon to pay the penalty which the African native exacts from the European who encroaches upon the aloofness of the colored peoples.
Fat Mary grinned as Margaret came through the door.
"Mo' stink," she observed, cheerfully, and pointed to the dressing-table.
Margaret's eyes followed the big black finger to where a bunch of aloe plumes lay between the candles on the white cloth, brilliantly red. The sight of them startled the girl sharply. She went across and raised them.
"Where did they come from?" she asked quickly.
"That Kafir," grinned Fat Mary. "Missis's Kafir, he bring 'im."
"What did he say? Did he give any message?"
"No," replied Fat Mary. "Jus' stink-flowers, an' give me Scotchman."
"Scotchman" is Kafir slang for a florin; it has for an origin a myth reflecting on the probity of a great race. But Margaret did not inquire; she was pondering a possible significance in this gift of bitter blooms.
Fat Mary eyed her acutely while she stood in thought.
"He say don't tell nobody," she remarked casually. "I say no fear—me! I don't tell. Missis like that Kafir plenty?"
"Mary," said Margaret. "You can go now. I shan't want you."
"All a-right," replied Fat Mary willingly, and took herself off forthwith. She had her own uses for a present of spare time at this season.
Margaret put the red flowers down as the door closed behind Fat Mary, and set herself before the mirror. There was still that haze between her thoughts and the realities about her, a drifting cloudiness that sometimes obscured them all together, and sometimes broke and let matters appear.
She noted in the mirror the strange, familiar specter of her own face, and saw that the hectic was strong and high on either cheek. Then the aloe plumes plucked at her thoughts, and the haze closed about her again, leaving her blind in a deep and aimless preoccupation in which her thoughts were no more than a pulse, repeating itself to no end. Ford's declaration and his manner of making it; the Punchinello countenance of the trooper, bestially insinuating; Mrs. Jakes eating soup at Mr. Samson;—these came and went in the dreadful arena of her mind and made a changing spectacle that baffled the march of the clock-hands.
She did not know how long she had been sitting when a rattle at the window surprised her into looking up. She stared absently at the blind till it came again. It had the sound of some one throwing earth from below. She rose and went across and looked out.
It had not touched her nerves at all; it was not the kind of thing which could frighten her. The window was raised at the bottom and she kneeled on the floor and put her head, cloudily haloed with her loose hair, out to the star-tempered dark.
A whisper from below, where the whisperer stood invisible in the shadow at the foot of the wall, hailed her at once.
"Miss Harding," it said. "Miss Harding. I 'm here, directly below you."
She could see nothing.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"Hush." She had spoken in her ordinary tones. "Not so loud. It 's dangerous."
"Who is it?" she asked again, subduing her voice.
"Why—Kamis, of course." The answer came in a tone of surprise. "You expected me, did n't you? Your light was burning."
"Expected you? No," said Margaret "I didn't expect you; you ought n't to have come."
"But—" the voice was protesting; "my message. It was on the paper around the aloe plumes. I particularly told the fat Kafir woman to give you that, and she promised. If your light was burning, I 'd throw something up at your window, and if not, I 'd go away. That was it."
The night breeze came in at the tail of his words with a dry rustling of the dead vines.
"There was no paper," said Margaret.
The Kafir below uttered an angry exclamation which she did not catch.
"If only you don't mind," he said, then. "I got Paul's message from you and I had to try and see you."
"Yes," said Margaret. She could not see him at all; under the lee of the house the night was black, though at a hundred paces off she could make out the lie of the ground in the starlight. His whispering voice was akin to the night.
"Then you don't mind?" he urged.
"I don't mind, of course," said Margaret. "But it 's too risky."
Further along the stoep there was a dim warmish glow through the red curtains of the study and a leak of faint light under the closed front door. The house was loopholed for unfriendly eyes and ears. There was no security under that masked battery for their privacy. At any moment Mrs. Jakes might prick up her ears and stand intent and triumphant to hear their strained whispers in cautious interchange. Margaret shrank from the thought of it.
"I only want a word," answered Kamis from the darkness. "I may not see you again. You won't let me drop without a word—after everything?"
Margaret hesitated. "Some one may pick up that paper and read your message and watch to see what happens. I couldn't bear any more trouble about it."
There was a pause.
"No," agreed Kamis, then. "No—of course. I didn't think of that. I 'll say good-by now, then."
Margaret strained to see him, but the night hid him securely.
"Wait!" she called carefully. "I don't want you to go away like that; it 's simply that this is too risky." She paused. "I 'd better come down to you," she said.
She could not tell what he answered, whether joy or demurral, for she drew her head in at once, and then opened the door and went out to the corridor.
It was good to be doing something, and to have to do with one whose sympathies were not strained. She went lightly and noiselessly down the wide stairs, and recognized again, with a smile, the secret aspect of the hall in the dark hours. There was a thread of light under the door of Dr. Jakes' study, and within that locked room the dutiful small clock was still ticking off the moments as stolidly as though all moments were of the same value. The outer door was closed with a mighty lock and a great iron key, and opened with a clang that should have brought Dr. Jakes forth to inquire. But he did not come, and she went unopposed out to the stoep under the metallic rustle of its dead vines.
She was going swiftly, with her velvet-shod feet, to that distant part of it which was under the broad light of her window, when the Kafir appeared before her so suddenly that she almost ran into him.
"Oh." She uttered a little cry. "You startled me."
"I 'm sorry," he answered.
"You ought n't to be here," Margaret said, "because it 's dangerous. But I am glad to see you."
"That 's good of you," he said. "I got Paul's message. I had to come. I had to see you once more, and besides, he said you were—in trouble. About me?"
"Oh, yes," said Margaret. "No end of trouble, all about you. An anonymous letter, notice to quit, pity and smiles, two suitors, one with intentions which were strictly dishonorable, and so on. And the simple truth is, I don't care a bit."
"Oh, Lord!" said the Kafir.
They were standing close to the wall, immersed in its shadow and sheltered from the wind that sighed above them and beside them and made the vines vocal. Neither could see the other save as a shadowy presence.
"I don't care," said Margaret, "and I refuse to bother about it. I 've got to go, of course, and I don't like the feeling of being kicked out. That rankles a little bit, when I relax the strain of being superior and amused at their littleness. But as for the rest, I don't care."
"It's my fault," said the Kafir quietly. "It's all my fault. I knew all the time what the end of it would be; and I let it come. There 's something mean in a nigger, Miss Harding. I knew it was there well enough, and now it shows."
"Don't," said Margaret.
There fell a pause between them, and she could hear his breathing. She remembered the expression on Ford's face when he had questioned her as to whether she did not experience a repulsion at a Kafir's proximity to her, and tried now to find any such aversion in herself. They stood in an intimate nearness, so that she could not have moved from her place without touching him; but there was none. Whoever had it for a pedestal of well and truly laid local virtues, she had it not.
"This is good-by, of course," said the Kafir, in his pleasant low tones. "I 'll never see you again, but I 'll never forget how good and beautiful you were to me. I must n't keep you out here, or there are a hundred things I want to say to you; but that 's the chief thing. I 'll never forgive myself for what has happened, but I 'll never forget."
"There 's nothing you need blame yourself for," said Margaret eagerly. "It 's been worth while. It has, really. You 're somebody and you 're doing something great and real, while the people in here are just shams, like me. Oh," she cried softly; "if only there was something for me todo."