I am better than I was when I came out, but not better than I was a month ago, and I don't think I am improving as rapidly as Dr. David hoped. It may be that I am a little too far to the East of the Karoo. Was it you or somebody else who advised me to keep to the West?"That 'll help to fetch him," murmured Margaret, as she wrote the last words.Perhaps, later on, if Dr. Jakes thinks well of it, I might move to a place I hear of over in the West. I 'm letting you know now in plenty of time; but I don't want you to think there is anything seriously wrong. Please don't be at all anxious."Now something fluffy," pondered Margaret. "If I get it right, he 'll order me to go."What makes me hesitate, she wrote, is the trouble it will cost me to move from here. Would you please show this letter to Dr. David and ask his opinion?"That 'll do the trick," she decided unscrupulously. "Dr. David will see there 's something in it and he 'll back me up. And then, when the row comes, they shall each have a cut at me,—Mrs. Jakes and Fat Mary and all—they shall each have their chance to draw blood, and then I 'll go."While she wrote, there had been the sound of footsteps on the stone floor of the hall outside the room, but she had been too busy to note them. Otherwise, she would quickly have marked an unfamiliar foot among them. They were reduced to that at the Sanatorium; they knew every foot that sounded on its floors and a strange one fetched them running to look from doors. But Margaret's occupation had robbed her of that mild exhilaration, and she looked up all unsuspiciously as Mrs. Jakes pushed open the door of the drawing-room, entered and closed it carefully behind her.She came a couple of paces into the room and halted, looking at the girl in a manner that recalled to Margaret that fantastic night when she had come with a candle to seek aid for Dr. Jakes. Though she had not now her little worried smile, she wore the same bewildered and embarrassed aspect, as of a purpose crossed and complicated by considerations and doubts."Are you looking for me, Mrs. Jakes?" asked Margaret, when she had waited in vain for her to speak."Yes," replied Mrs. Jakes, in a hushed voice, and remained where she stood.Again Margaret waited in vain for her to speak."I 'm rather busy just now," she said. "What is it you want with me, please?"Mrs. Jakes looked to see that the door was closed before she answered."It isn't me," she said then. "We—we don't get on very well, Miss Harding; but this isn't my doing. I 've never whispered a word to a soul. I haven't, indeed, if I never speak another word."Margaret stared at her, perceiving suddenly that the small bleak woman was all a-thrill with some nervous tension. Her own nerves quivered in response to it."What is it?" she demanded. "What has happened?""It 's the police," breathed Mrs. Jakes. She gave the word the accent in which she felt it. "The police," she said, with a stricken sense of all that police stand for, of which unbearable and public shame is chief. She was trembling, and her small hands, with their rough red knuckles like raw scars upon them, were picking feverishly at her loose black skirt.Margaret's heart beat the more quickly at the mere tone of her whisper, fraught with dim fears; but the words conveyed nothing to her. If anything, they relieved her. In the hinterland of her consciousness the forward-cast shadow of that impending hour was perpetually dark; but the police could have no concern in that."Oh, do please talk plainly," she said irritably. "What exactly do you want to tell me? And what have I got to do with the police?"The stimulus of her impatient tones was what was needed to restore Mrs. Jakes to coherence. She stared at the girl with a sort of stupefaction."What have you got to do with it," she repeated. "Why—it 's all about you. Somebody 's told about you and that Kafir—about you knowing him and all about him, and now Mr. Van Zyl is in the doctor's study. He 's come to inquire about it.""Oh," said Margaret slowly.It had struck then, the bitter hour of revelation; it had crept upon her out of an ambush of circumstance when she least expected it, and the reckoning was due. There was to be no time allowed her in which to build up her courage; even her retreat must be over strange roads. Before the gong went to gather the occupants of the house for tea, the stroke would have fallen, and her place in the minds of her fellows would be with Dr. Jakes on the hearth-rug, an outcast from their circle. Unless, indeed, Dr. Jakes should also decline her company, as seemed likely.It was the image in her mind of a scornful and superior Jakes that excited the smile with which she looked up at Jakes' frightened wife."So long as he does n't bother me, he can inquire as much as he likes," she said.Mrs. Jakes did not understand. "It 's you he 's going to inquire of," she said. "I suppose, of course—I suppose you 'll tell him about—about that night?""I shan't tell him anything," replied Margaret. "Oh, you needn't be afraid, Mrs. Jakes. I 'm not going to take this opportunity of punishing you for all your unpleasantness. I shall simply refuse to answer any questions at all.""You can't do that." Mrs. Jakes showed her relief plainly in her face and in the relaxation of her attitude. She had forgotten one of the first rules of her manner of warfare, which is to doubt the enemy's word. But in spite of a reluctant gratitude for the contemptuous mercy accorded to her, she felt dully resentful at this high attitude of Margaret's towards the terrors of the police."You can't do that," she said. "He 's got a right to know—and he 's a sub-inspector. He 'll insist—he 'll make you tell—""I think not," said Margaret quietly."But he 's—"Mrs. Jakes broke off sharply as a hand without turned the handle of the door and pushed it open. Ford appeared, and paused at the sight of them in conversation."Hallo," he said. "Am I interrupting?"Mrs. Jakes hesitated, but Margaret answered with decision."Not at all," she said. "Come in, please."It occurred to her that the blow would be swifter if Ford himself were present when it fell and there were no muddle of explanations to drag it out.Ford entered reluctantly, scenting a quarrel between the two and suspicious of Margaret's intentions in desiring his presence."There 's a horse and orderly by the steps," he said. "Is Van Zyl somewhere about? That's why I came in, to see if he was here.""He—he is in the study," answered Mrs. Jakes, in extreme discomfort. She turned to Margaret. "If you will come now, I will take you to him."Ford turned, surprised."What for?" asked Margaret."He—sent for you." Mrs. Jakes did not understand the question; she only perceived dimly that some quality in the situation was changed and that she no longer counted in it."But what the dickens did he do that for?" asked Ford."We 'll see," said Margaret, forestalling Mrs. Jakes' bewildered reply. "Please tell him, Mrs. Jakes, that I am here and can spare him a few minutes at once.""Yes," acquiesced Mrs. Jakes, helplessly, and departed.Ford came lounging across the room to Margaret."What's up?" he inquired. "You haven't been murdering somebody and not letting me help?"Margaret shook her head. She was standing guard over her composure and could not afford to jest."Sit down over there," she bade him, motioning him towards the couch at the other side of the wide room. "And don't go away, even if he asks you to. Then you 'll hear all about it."He wondered but obeyed slowly, leaning back against the end of the couch with one long leg lying up on the cushions."If he talks in the tone of his message to you," he said meditatively, "I shall be for punching his head."Sub-Inspector Van Zyl had had the use of a clothes-brush before expressing his desire to see Margaret; it was a tribute he paid to his high official mission. He had cleared himself and his accoutrement of dust and the stain of his journey; and it was with the enhanced impressiveness of spick-and-span cleanliness that he presented himself in the drawing-room, pausing in the doorway with his spurred heels together to lift his hand in a precise and machine-like salute. At his back, Mrs. Jakes' unpretentious black made a relief for his rigid correctitude of attire and pose, and the pallid agitation of her countenance, peering in fearful curiosity to one side of him, heightened his military stolidity. His stone-blue eyes rested on Ford's recumbence with a shadow of surprise."Afternoon, Ford," he said curtly. "You 'll excuse me, but I 've a word or two to say to Miss Harding.""Afternoon, Van Zyl," replied Ford, not moving. "Miss Harding asked me to stay, so don't mind me."Van Zyl looked at him inexpressively. "I 'm on duty," he said. "Sorry, but I wish you 'd go. My business is with Miss Harding.""Fire away," replied Ford. "I shan't say a word unless Miss Harding wishes it."Margaret moved in her chair."You will say what you please," she said. "Don't regard me at all, Mr. Ford. Now—what can I do for you, Mr. Van Zyl?"Van Zyl finished his scrutiny of Ford and turned to her."I sent to ask you to see me in the other room, Miss Harding, because I thought you would prefer me to speak to you in private," he said, with his wooden preciseness of manner. "That was why. Sorry if it offended you. However—"He stood aside and held the door while Mrs. Jakes entered, and closed it behind her. Stalking imperturbably, he placed a chair for her and drew one out for himself, depositing his badged "smasher" hat on the ground beside it. Seated, he drew from his smoothly immaculate tunic a large note-book and snapped its elastic band open and laid it on his knee. Ford, from his place on the couch, watched these preparations with gentle interest.Van Zyl looked up at Margaret with a pencil in his fingers. His pale, uncommunicative eyes fastened on her with an unemotional assurance in their gaze."First," he said; "where were you, Miss Harding, on the afternoon of the —th?"He mentioned a date to which Margaret's mind ran back nimbly. It was the day on which Boy Bailey had made terms from the top of the dam wall, the day on which the Kafir had kissed her hand, nearly two weeks before.She had herself sufficiently in hand, and returned his gaze with a faint smiling tranquillity that told him nothing."I have no information to give you, Mr. Van Zyl," she replied evenly. "It is quite useless to ask me any questions; I shan't answer them."He was not disturbed. "Sorry," he said, "but I 'm afraid you must. I hope you 'll remember that I have my duty to do, Miss Harding.""Must, eh?"That was Ford, thoughtfully, from the couch. Van Zyl looked in his direction sharply with a brief frown, but let it pass."It's no use, Mr. Van Zyl," said Margaret. "I simply am not going to answer any questions, and your duty has nothing to do with me. So if there is nothing else that you wish to say to me, your business is finished.""No," he said; "it isn't finished yet, Miss Harding. You refuse to say where you were on that afternoon?"Margaret smiled slowly and he made a quick note in his book."I ought to say, perhaps," he went on, looking up when he had finished writing, "that the information I am asking for relates to a—a person, who is wanted by the police on a charge of sedition and incitement to commit a breach of the peace. You were seen on the afternoon in question in the company of that—person, Miss Harding; and I believe—Ibelieveyou can help us to lay hands on him.""Is it Samson?" inquired Ford, raising his head. "I 've always had my suspicions of Samson.""Oh, Mr. Ford," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, pained."It 's not Mr. Samson," said the sub-inspector calmly; "and it is not any business of yours, Ford.""Oh, yes; it is," answered Ford. "Because if it isn't Samson it must be me—unless it 's Jakes. You seem to think we see a good deal of company here, Van Zyl.""I don't think anything at all," retorted the sub-inspector stiffly; "and I 've nothing to say to you. My business is with Miss Harding, and you won't help her by making a nuisance of yourself.""Eh?" Ford sat up suddenly. "What's that—won't help her? Are you trying to frighten Miss Harding by suggesting that you can use any sort of compulsion to her? Because, if that 's your idea, you 'd better look out what you 're doing.""I 'm not responsible to you, Ford," replied Van Zyl shortly. "You can hold your tongue now. Miss Harding understands well enough what I mean.""Oh, yes," said Margaret, as Ford looked towards her. "I understand, but I don't care."It was taking its own strange course, but she was not concerned to deflect it or make it run more directly. She conserved her powers for the moment when the thing would be told, and Ford's indignant championship arrested brusquely by the mere name of her offense. Presently Van Zyl would cease to speak of "a person" and come out with the plain word, "Kafir." How he had gained his information she did not attempt to guess; but that he had the means to break her there was no doubting. She would answer no questions; she was determined upon that; but now that the hour of revelation was come, she would do nothing to fog it. It should pass and be done with and leave her with its consequences clear to weigh and abide.She made a motion of the hand that hung over the back of her chair to Ford, as though she would hush him. He was puzzled and looked it, but subsided provisionally against the end of the couch again.Van Zyl eased his shoulders in their bondage of slings and straps with a practised shrug, crossed one booted leg over the other and faced her afresh."Now, Miss Harding, you see that I am not speaking by guess; and it 's for you to say whether you will have the rest of this here or in private. I 'm anxious to give you every possible consideration.""I shan't answer any questions," said Margaret, "and I decline any privacy, Mr. Van Zyl.""No? Very well. I must do my duty as best I can," replied the sub-inspector, with official resignation. He referred to a back page of his note-book perfunctorily."On the —th of this month, man discovered weeping and disorderly on the platform at Zeekoe Siding, stated to Corporal Simms that he had been robbed of five hundred pounds by confidence trick on down train. Under examination, varied the sum, and finally adhered to figure of forty-three pounds odd, which he alleged was part of fifty pounds he had received from the—person in whose company he had seen you.""Ah!" Margaret found herself smiling absently at the memory of Boy Bailey making his bargain on the top of the dam wall, with his bare unbeautiful feet fidgeting in the grass.Sub-inspector Van Zyl surveyed her with his impersonal stare and continued:"He gave the name of Claude Richmond, but was afterwards identified as one Noah Bailey, alias Boy Bailey, alias Spotted Dog, etc., wanted by the police in connection with—a certain affair. On being charged, feigned to fall in a fit but came to under treatment, and made a certain communication, which was transmitted to me as bearing upon my search for this—person. The communication was detailed, Miss Harding, and he stood to it under a searching examination, and satisfied us that we were getting the truth out of him. Acting upon the information thus received, I next called upon you."He looked up. "You see what I have to go upon?" he said. "Since you know yourself what took place on the afternoon about which I asked you, you can understand that the police require your assistance. Do you still refuse to answer me, Miss Harding?""Of course," replied Margaret.Now it would come, she thought. Van Zyl would spare her no longer. She watched his smooth, tanned face with nervous trepidation.He frowned slightly at her answer, and leaned forward with the note-book in his hand, his forefinger between the pages to keep the place."You do?" he demanded, his voice rising to a sharp note. Ford sat up again, watchful and angry. "You refuse, do you? Now, look here, Miss Harding, we 'll have to make an end of this."Ford struck in crisply. "Good idea," he said. "I suggest Miss Harding might quit the room for that purpose, and leave you to explain to me what the devil you mean by this."Van Zyl turned on him quickly. "You look out," he said. "If I 've got to arrest you to shut your mouth, I 'll do it—and quick too.""Why not?" demanded Ford. "That 'll be as good a way for you to get the lesson you need as any other.""You'llget a lesson," began Van Zyl, making as though to rise and put his threat into action."Oh, please," cried Margaret; "none of this is necessary. Sit down, Mr. Ford; please sit down and listen. Mr. Van Zyl, you have only to speak out and you will be free from further trouble, I 'm sure.""I 've taken too much trouble as it is," retorted the sub-inspector. "I 'll have no more of it."He glared with purpose at Ford. Though he had not at any moment doffed his formality of demeanor, the small scene had lit a spark in him and he was newly formidable and forceful. Ford met his look with the narrow smile with which a man of his type masks a rising temper, but so far yielded to Margaret's urgency as to lean back upon one elbow."You 'll be sorry for all this presently," Margaret said to him warningly."Very soon, in fact," added the sub-inspector, "if he repeats the offense."He settled himself again on his chair, confronting Margaret."Now, Miss Harding," lie resumed briskly. "Out with it? You admit you were there, eh?""Oh, no," said Margaret. "You 're asking questions again, Mr. Van Zyl.""And I 'm going to have an answer, too," he replied zestfully. "You 've got a wrong idea entirely of what 's before you. You can still have this in private, if you like; but here or elsewhere, you 'll speak or out comes the whole thing. Now, which is it going to be—sharp?""I 've nothing to tell you," she maintained.His blond, neat face hardened."Haven't you, though. We'll see? You know a Kafir calling himself—" he made a lightning reference to his book—"calling himself Kamis?"She made no answer."You know the man, eh? It was with him you spent the afternoon of the —th, was n't it? Under the wall of the dam down yonder—yes? You 've met him more than once, and always alone?"She kept a constraint on herself to preserve her faintly-smiling indifference of countenance, but her face felt stiff and cold, and her smile as though it sagged to a blatant grin. She did not glance across to see how Ford had received the news; that had suddenly become impossible."You see?" There was a restrained triumph in Van Zyl's voice. "We know more than you think, young lady—and more still. You won't answer questions, won't you? You let a Kafir kiss you under a wall, and then put up this kind of bluff."There was an explosion from Ford as he leaped to his feet, with the hectic brilliant on each cheek."You liar," he cried. "You filthy Dutch liar."Van Zyl did not even turn his head. A hard smile parted his squarely-cut lips as he watched Margaret. At his word, she had made a small involuntary movement as though to put a hand on her bosom, but had let it fall again."You may decide to answer that, perhaps," suggested the sub-inspector. "Do you deny that he kissed you?"There was a pause, while Ford stood waiting and the sound of his breathing filled the interval. The fingers of Margaret's left hand bent and unbent the flap of the envelope destined for the legal uncle, but her mind was far from it and its contents. "You liar," Ford had cried, and it had had a fine sound; even now she had but to rise as though insulted and walk from the room, and his loyalty would endure, unspotted, unquestioning, touchy and quick. She might have done well to choose the line that would have made that loyalty valid, and she felt herself full of regrets, of pain and loss, that it must find itself betrayed. The vehemence of the cry was testimony to the faith that gave it utterance.And then, for the first time in the interview, she dwelt upon the figure that stood at the back of all this disordered trouble—that of Kamis, remote from their agitated circle, companioning in his solitude with griefs of his own. He came into her mind by way of comparison with the directness and vivid anger of Ford, standing tense and agonized for her reply, with all his honest soul in his thin dark face. His flimsy silk clothes made apparent the lean youth of his body. The other went to and fro in the night and the silence in shabby tweeds, and his face denied an index to the strong spirit that drove him. He suffered behind blubber lips and a comical nose; he was humble and grateful. The two had nothing in common if it were not that faith in her, to which she must now do the peculiar justice that the situation required."Let 's have it," urged the sub-inspector. "He kissed you, this nigger did, and you let him? Speak up."Boy Bailey had said, imaginatively: "She held out both her arms to him—wide; and he took hold of her an' hugged her, kissin' her till I couldn't stand the sight any longer. 'You shameless woman!' I shouted"—at that point he had been kicked by a scandalized corporal, and had screamed. "I wish I may die if he did n't kiss her," was the form that kicking finally reduced it to, but they could not kick that out of him. He stood for one kiss while bruises multiplied upon him."Well, did he kiss you or didn't he?"Margaret sighed. "I will tell you that," she said wearily. "Yes, he did—he kissed my hand."Sub-inspector Van Zyl sat up briskly. "I thought we 'd get something before we were done," he said, and smiled with a kind of malice at Ford. "You 'd like to apologize, I expect?"Ford did not answer him; he was staring in mere amazement at Margaret's immovable profile."Is that true?" he demanded.Margaret forced herself to look round and meet the wonder of his face."Oh, quite," she answered. "Quite true."His eyes wavered before hers as though he were ashamed and abashed. He put an uncertain hand to his lips."I see," he said, very thoughtfully, and sat again upon the couch."Well, after that, what 's the sense of keeping anything back?" Van Zyl went on confidently. "You see what comes of standing out against the police? Now, what are your arrangements for meeting this Kafir? Where do you send to let him know he 's to come and see you?""No," said Margaret. "It 's no use; I won't tell you any more.""Oh, yes, you will." Van Zyl felt quite sure of it. He eyed her acutely and decided to venture a shot in the dark. "You 'll tell me all I ask,—d'you hear? I have n't done with you yet. You 've seen him at night, too, when you were supposed to be in bed. You can't deceive me. I 've seen your kind before, plenty of them, and I know the way to deal with them."His shot in the dark found its mark. So he knew of that night when Dr. Jakes had fallen in the road. Mrs. Jakes must have told him, and her protests had been uneasy lies. Margaret carefully avoided looking at her; in this hour, all were to receive mercy save herself.Van Zyl went on, rasping at her in tones quite unlike the thickish staccato voice which he kept for his unofficial moments. That voice she would never hear again; impossible for her ever to regain the status of a person in whom the police have no concern."You 'll save yourself trouble by speaking up and wasting no time about it," he urged, with the kind of harsh good nature a policeman may use to the offender who provides him with employment. "You 've got to do it, you know. How do you get hold of your nigger-friend when you want him?"She shook her head without speaking."Answer!" he roared suddenly, so that she started in her chair. "What 's the arrangement you 've got with him? None of your airs with me, my girl. Out with it, now—what 's the trick?"She looked at him affrightedly; he seemed about to spring upon her from his chair and dash at her to wring an answer out of her by force. But from the sofa, where Ford sat, with his head in his hands, came no sign. Only Mrs. Jakes, frozen where she sat, uttered a vague moan."Wha—what 's this?"The door opened noiselessly and Dr. Jakes showed his face of a fallen cherub in the opening, with sleepy eyes mildly questioning. Margaret saw him with quick relief; the intolerable situation must change in some manner by his arrival."I heard—I heard—was ityoushouting, Van Zyl?" he inquired, stammeringly, as he came in."Yes," replied the sub-inspector, shortly."Oh!" Jakes felt uncertainly for his straggling mustache. "Whom were you shouting at?" he inquired, after a moment of hesitation."I was speaking to her," replied the other impatiently.The doctor followed the movement of his hand and the light of his spectacles focused on Margaret stupidly."Well." He seemed baffled. "Miss Harding, you mean, eh?"The sub-inspector nodded. "You 're interrupting an inquiry, Dr. Jakes.""Oh." Again the doctor seemed to wrestle with thoughts. "Am I?""Yes. You 'll excuse us, but—""No," said Jakes, with an appearance of grave thought. "No; certainly not. You—you mustn't shout here.""Look here," began Van Zyl.The doctor turned his back on him and came over to Margaret, treading lumberingly across the worn carpet."Can't allow shouting," he said. "It means—temperature. I—I think you 'd better—yes, you 'd better go and lie down for a while, Miss Harding."He was as vague as a cloud, a mere mist of benevolence.As unexpectedly and almost as startlingly as Van Zyl's sudden loudness, Mrs. Jakes spoke from her chair."You must take the doctor's advice, Miss Harding," she said.Margaret rose, obediently, her letters in her hand. Van Zyl rose too."Once and for all," he said loudly, "I won't allow any—""I 'll report you, Van Zyl," said the little doctor, huskily. "You 're—you 're endangering life—way you 're behaving. Go with Mrs. Jakes, Miss Harding.""You 'llreport me," exclaimed Van Zyl."Ye-es," said Jakes, foggily. "I—I call Mr. Ford to witness—"He turned quaveringly towards the couch and stopped abruptly."What 's this?" he cried, in stronger tones, and walked quickly toward the bent figure of the young man. "Van Zyl I—I hold you responsible. You 've done this—with your shouting."Margaret was in the door; she turned to see the doctor raise Ford's head and lift it back against the cushions. Van Zyl went striding towards them and aided to place him on his back on the couch. As the doctor stood up and stepped back, she saw the thin face with the high spot of red on each cheek and the blood that ran down the chin from the wry and painful mouth."Hester," Dr. Jakes spoke briskly. "The ergotin—and the things. In the study; you know.""I know." And Mrs. Jakes—so her name was Hester—ran pattering off.They shut Margaret out of the room, and she sat on the bottom step of the stairs, waiting for the news Mrs. Jakes had promised, between breaths, to bring out to her. Van Zyl, ordered out unceremoniously—the doctor had had a fine peremptory moment—and allowing a certain perturbation to be visible on the regulated equanimity of his features, stood in the hall and gave her side glances that betrayed a disturbed mind."Miss Harding," he said presently, after long thought; "I hope you don't think it 's any pleasure to me to do all this?"Margaret shook her head. "You can do what you like," she said. "I shan't complain.""It is n't that," he answered irritably, but she interrupted him."I don't care what it is," she said. "I don't care; I don't care about anything. Stand there, if you like, or come and sit here; but don't talk any more till we know what 's happened in there."Sub-inspector Van Zyl coughed, but after certain hesitation, he made up his mind. When Mrs. Jakes came forth, tiptoe and pale but whisperingly exultant, she found them sitting side by side on the stairs in the attitude of amity, listening in strained silence for sounds that filtered through the door of the room. She was pressed and eager, with no faculty to spare for surprise."Splendid," she whispered. "Everything 's all right—thank God. But if it hadn't been for the doctor, well! I'm going to fetch the boys with the stretcher to carry him up to his room.""I 'm awfully glad," said Van Zyl as she hurried away."So am I," said Margaret. "But I ought to have seen before the doctor did. I ought to have known—and I did know, really—that he would have taken you by the throat before then, if something hadn't happened to him."She had risen, to go up the stairs to her room and now stood above him, looking down serenely upon him."Me by the throat," exclaimed Van Zyl, slightly shocked.Margaret nodded."As Kamis would," she said slowly. "And choke you, and choke you, and choke you."She went up then without looking back, leaving him standing in the hall, baffled and outraged.CHAPTER XVNot the stubbornness of a race too prone to enthusiasms, any more than increasing years and thememento moriin his chest, could withhold Mr. Samson from the zest with which he initiated each new day. Bathed, razored and tailored, he came out to the stoep for his early constitutional, his hands joined behind his back, his soft hat cocked a little forward on his head, and tasted the air with puffs and snorts of appetite, walking to and fro with a eupeptic briskness in which only the closest observer might have detected a delicate care not to over do it. Nothing troubled him at this hour of the morning; it belonged to a duty which engrossed it to the exclusion of all else, and not till it was done was Mr. Samson accessible to the claims of time and place.He looked straight before him as he strode; his manner of walking did not allow him to bestow a glance upon the Karoo as he went. Head well up, chest open—what there was of it—and neck swelling over the purity of his collar: that was Mr. Samson. It was only when Mrs. Jakes came to the breakfast-room door and set the gong booming melodiously, that he relaxed and came back to a mild interest in the immediate earth, as though the gong were a permission to stand at ease and dismiss. He halted by the steps to wipe his monocle in his white abundant handkerchief, and surveyed, perfunctorily at first and then with a narrowing interest, the great extent of brown and gray-green that stretched away from the foot of the steps to a silvery and indeterminate distance.A single figure was visible upon it, silhouetted strongly against the low sky, and Mr. Samson worked his monocle into his eye and grasped it with a pliant eyebrow to see the clearer. It was a man on a horse, moving at a walk, minutely clear in that crystal air in spite of the distance. The rider was far from the road, apparently aimless and at large upon the veld; but there was something in his attitude as he rode that held Mr. Samson gazing, a certain erectness and ease, something conventional, the name of which dodged evasively at the tip of his tongue. He knew somebody who sat on a horse exactly like that; dash it, who was it, now? It wasn't that Dutchman, Du Preez, nor his long-legged youngster; they rode like Dutchmen. This man was more like—more like—ah! Mr. Samson had got it. The only folk who had that look in the saddle were troopers; this must be a man of the Mounted Police.A tinge of annoyance colored his thoughts, for the far view of the trooper, slowly quartering the land, brought back to his mind a matter of which it had been purged by the ritual morning march along the stoep, and he found it returning again as distasteful as ever. He had been made a party to its details by Mrs. Jakes, when he inquired regarding Ford's breakdown. The communication had taken place at the foot of the stairs, when he was preparing to ascend to bed, on the evening of Van Zyl's visit. At dinner he had noted no more than that Ford was absent and that Margaret was uneasy; he kept his question till her skirt vanished at the bend of the stairs."I say; what 's up?" he asked then.Mrs. Jakes, standing by to give good night, as her wont was, fluttered. She gave a little start that shook her clothes exactly like the movement of an agitated bird in a cage, and stared up at him, rather breathlessly, while he leaned against the balustrade and awaited her answer."I don't know what you mean." It was a formula that always gave her time to collect her thoughts."Oh, yes, you do," insisted Mr. Samson, with severe geniality. "Ford laid up and Miss Harding making bread pills, and all that. What 's the row?"Mrs. Jakes regarded him with an eye as hard and as wary as a fowl's, and then looked round to see that the study door was securely shut."I 'm afraid, Mr. Samson," she said, in the low tones of confidential intercourse—"I 'm afraid we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding.""Eh? What 's that?"Old Mr. Samsonwouldspeak as though he were addressing a numerous company, and Mrs. Jakes' nervousness returned at his loud exclamation. She made hushing noises."Yes, but what's all this nonsense?" demanded Mr. Samson. "Somebody 's been pullin' your leg, Mrs. Jakes.""No, indeed, Mr. Samson," Mrs. Jakes assured him hastily, as though urgent to clear herself of an imputation. "There is n't any doubt about it,—I 'm sorry to gay. You see, Mr. Van Zyl came here this afternoon and wanted to see Miss Harding in the study. Well, she would n't go to him.""Why the deuce should she?" inquired Mr. Samson warmly. "Who 's Van Zyl to send for people like this?""It was about a Kafir," said Mrs. Jakes. "The police are looking for the Kafir and Miss Harding refused to help them. So—"Mr. Samson's lips moved soundlessly, and he changed his position with a movement of lively impatience."Let 's have it from the beginning, please, Mrs. Jakes," he said, with restraint. "Can't make head or tail of it—way you 're telling it. Now, why did this ass Van Zyl come here?"It was the right way to get the tale told forthright. His indignation and his scorn fanned the spark of spite in the core of Mrs. Jakes, who perceived in Mr. Samson another victim to Margaret's duplicity. She was galled by the constant supply of champions of the girl's cause who had to be laid low one after the other. She addressed herself to the incredulity and anger in the sharp old face before her, and spoke volubly and low, telling the whole thing as she knew it and perhaps a little more than the whole. As she went on, she became consumed with eagerness to convince Mr. Samson. Her small disfigured hands moved jerkily in incomplete gestures, and she rose on tiptoe as though to approach nearer to the seat of his intelligence. He did not again interrupt her, but listened with intentness, watching her as the swift words tumbled on one another's heels from her trembling lips. His immobility and silence were agonizing to her."So that's why I say that we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding," she concluded at last. "You wouldn't have thought it of her, would you, Mr. Samson? And it is a shocking thing to come across here, in the house, isn't it?"Mr. Samson withdrew a hand from his pocket, looked thoughtfully at three coins in the palm of it, and returned them to the pocket again."You 're quite certain," he asked, "that she admitted the kissin'? There 's no doubt about that?""If I never speak another word," declared Mrs. Jakes, with fervor. "If I die here where I stand. If I never move from this spot—those were her exact words. It was then that poor Mr. Ford had his attack—he was so horrified.""Well," said Mr. Samson, with a sigh, after another inspection of his funds, "so that 's the trouble, is it?""The doctor and I are much disturbed," continued Mrs. Jakes. "Naturally disturbed. Such a thing has never happened here before."Mr. Samson heaved himself upright and put one foot on the bottom stair."It's only ignorance, of course," he said. "The poor little devil don't know what she 's letting herself in for. If she 'd only taken a bad turn after a month or so and—and gone out, Mrs. Jakes, we 'd have remembered her pleasantly enough then. Now, of course, she 'll have this story to live with. Van Zyl 'll put it about; trust him. Poor little bally fool.""I 'm sorry for her, too, of course," replied Mrs. Jakes, putting out her hand to shake his. "Only of course I 'm—I 'm disgusted as well. Any woman would be.""Yes," said Mr. Samson thoughtfully, commencing the ascent; "yes, she 'll be sure to get lots of that, now."It was a vexation that abode with him that night and through the next day; it kept him from the sincere repose which is the right of straightforward and uncompromising minds, whose cleanly-finished effects have no loose ends of afterthought dangling from them to goad a man into revising his conclusions. Lying in the dark, wide awake and regretful, he had a vision of her in her room, welcoming its solitude and its freedom from reproachful eyes, glad now not of fellows and their companionship but of this refuge. It gave him vague pain. He experienced a sense of resentment against the arrangement and complexity of affairs that had laid open this gulf at Margaret's feet, and made its edges slippery to trap her. A touch of a more personal anger entered his thoughts as he dwelt on the figure of the girl, the fine, dexterous, civilized creature that she had been. She had known how to hold him with a pleasant humor, a light and stimulating irreverence, and to soften it to the point at which she bade him close his eyes and kissed him. But—and Mr. Samson flushed to the heat at which men swear—the Kafir, the roaming criminal nigger, had had that much out of her. Mrs. Jakes had not been faithful to detail on that head. "Kiss," she had said, not "kissed her hand." Mr. Samson might have seen a difference where Van Zyl, lacking his pretty discrimination of degrees in the administration and reception of kisses, had seen none.The morning had brought no counsel; the day had delivered itself of nothing that enlightened or consoled him. Margaret had managed somehow, after a manner of her own, to withdraw herself from his immediate outlook, and there were neither collisions nor explanations. It was not so much that she preserved a distance as avoided contact, so that meals and meetings in the drawing-room or about the house suffered from no evidences of a change in their regard for each other. The adroitness with which it was contrived moved him to new regrets; she might, he thought, have done so well for herself, whereas now she was wasted.This was the second morning since he had invaded Mrs. Jakes' confidences at the foot of the stairs and extracted her story from her. The gong at the breakfast-room door made soft blurred music at his back while he stood watching the remote figure of the trooper, sliding slowly across the skyline. It finished with a last note of added emphasis, a frank whack at the middle of the instrument, and he turned deliberately from his staring to obey it.Mrs. Jakes, engine-driving the urn, was alone in the room when he entered, and gave him good morning with the smile which she had not varied for years."A beautiful day, is n't it?" she said."Oh, perfect," agreed Mr. Samson, receiving a cup of coffee from her. "I say. You haven't seen any signs of Van Zyl to-day, have you?""To-day? No," replied Mrs. Jakes, surprised. "Were you expecting—did he say—?"Mr. Samson shook his head. "No; I don't know anything about him," he told her. "It 's just that matter of Miss Harding, you know. From the stoep, just now, I was watching a mounted man riding slowly about on the veld, and it looks as if they were arranging a search. Eh?""Oh, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, "I do hope they won't come here again. I 've never had any trouble with the police before. And Mr. Van Zyl, generally so gentlemanly—when I saw how he treated Miss Harding, I was really sorry for her."Mr. Samson sniffed. "Man must be a cad," he said. "Anyhow, I don't see what right he 's got to put his foot inside these doors. It was simply a bluff, I fancy. Next time he comes, I hope you 'll let me know, Mrs. Jakes. Can't have him treatin' that poor little fool like that, don't y' know.""But they 've got arightto search, surely?" protested Mrs. Jakes. "And it never does to have the police against you, Mr. Samson. I had a cousin once—at least, he wasn't exactly a cousin—but he took a policeman's number for refusing to arrest a man who had been rude to him, and the policeman at once took him in custody and swore the most dreadful oaths before the magistrate that he was drunk and disorderly. And my cousin—I always used to call him a cousin—was next door to a teetotaller.""Perhaps the teetotaller bribed the policeman," suggested Mr. Samson, seriously. "Still—what about Miss Harding? She has n't said anything to you about goin' back home, has she?""No," said Mrs. Jakes. She let the teetotaller pass for the time being as the new topic opened before her. "But I wanted to speak to you about that, Mr. Samson.""Best thing she can do," he said positively. "There 's a lot of people at Home who don't mind niggers a bit. Probably would n't hurt her for a month and her doctors can spot some other continent for her to do a cure in.""Now I 'm very glad to hear you say so, Mr. Samson," declared Mrs. Jakes. "You see, what to do with her is a good deal on our minds—the doctor's and mine. My view is—she ought to go before the story gets about.""Quite right," agreed Mr. Samson."But Eustace—he 's so considerate, you know. He thinks of her feelings. He 's dreadfully afraid that she 'll fancy we 're turning her out and be hurt. He really doesn't quite see the real state of affairs; he has an idea it 'll all blow over and be forgotten."Mr. Samson shook his head. "Not out here," he said. "That sort of story don't die; it lives and grows. Might get into the papers, even.""Well, now," Mrs. Jakes' voice was soft and persuasive; "do you mind my telling the doctor how you look at it? He doesn't pay any attention to what I say, but coming from you, it 's bound to strike him. It would be better than you talking to him about it, because he would n't care to discuss one of his patients with another; but if I were just to mention, as an argument, you know—""Oh, certainly," acquiesced Mr. Samson, "certainly. Those are my views; anybody can know 'em. Tell Jakes by all means.""Thank you," said Mrs. Jakes, with feeling. "It does relieve me to know that you agree with me. And it is such a responsibility."Margaret's entrance shortly afterwards brought their conference to a close, and Mr. Samson was able to return to his food with undivided attention.Margaret's demeanor since the exposure was a phenomenon Mrs. Jakes did not profess to understand. The tall girl came into the room with a high serenity that stultified in advance the wan little woman's efforts to meet her with a remote dignity; it suggested that Mrs. Jakes and her opinions were things already so remote from her interest that they could not recede further without becoming invisible. What she lacked, in Mrs. Jakes' view, was visible scars, tokens of punishment and suffering; she could conceive no other attitude in a person who stood so much in need of the mercy of her fellows. To a humility commensurate with her disapproval, she would have offered a forbearance barbed with condescension, peppered balm of her own brand, the distillation of her narrow and purposeful soul. As it was, she not only resented the girl's manner—she cowered."Good morning," said Margaret, smiling with intention."Good morning, Miss—ah—Miss Harding," was the best Mrs. Jakes could do."Morning," responded Mr. Samson, lifting his white head jerkily, hoping to convey preoccupation and casual absence of mind. "Morning, Miss Harding. Jolly day, what?""Oh, no end jolly," agreed Margaret, dropping into her place. "Yes, coffee, please, Mrs. Jakes.""Certainly, Miss Harding," replied Mrs. Jakes, who had made offer of none, and fumbled inexpertly with the ingenious urn whose chauffeur and minister she was."How is Mr. Ford?" inquired Margaret next."Oh, yes," chimed in Mr. Samson, anxious to prevent too short a reply; "how 's he this morning, Mrs. Jakes. Nicely, thank you, and all that—eh?"Mrs. Jakes was swift to seize the opportunity to reply in Mr. Samson's direction exclusively."He 's not to get up to-day," she explained. "But he 's doing very well, thank you. When I asked him what he 'd like for breakfast, he said: 'Oh, everything there is, please.' But, of course, he 's had a shock.""Er—yes," said Mr. Samson hurriedly. "I 'll look him up before lunch, if I may.""Certainly," said Mrs. Jakes graciously."Good idea," said Margaret. "So will I."Mrs. Jakes shot a pale and desperate glance at her and then looked for support to Mr. Samson. But that leaning tower of strength was eating devotedly and would not meet her eye.She envisaged with inward consternation a future punctuated by such meals, with every meal partaking of the nature of a hostile encounter and every encounter closing with a defeat. Her respectability, her sad virtue, her record clean of stain, did not command heavy enough metal to breach the gleaming panoply of assurance with which Margaret opposed all her attacks, and she felt the grievance common to those who are ineffectually in the right. The one bright spot in the affair was the possibility that she might now bend Jakes to her purpose, and be deputed to give the girl notice that she must leave the Sanatorium. She felt she could quote Mr. Samson with great effect to the doctor."Mr. Samson feels strongly that she should leave at once. He said so in the plainest words," she would report, and Jakes would be obliged to take account of it. Hitherto, her hints, her suggestions and even her supplications, had failed to move him. He had a way, at times, of producing from his humble and misty mildness a formidable obstinacy which brooked no opposition. With bent head, he would look up at her out of the corners of his eyes, while she added plausibility to volubility, unmoving and immovable. When she had done, for he always heard her ominously to an end, he would shake his head slightly and emit a negative. It was rather impressive; there was so little show of force about it; but Mrs. Jakes had long known that it betokened a barrier of refusal that it was useless to hope to surmount. If he were pressed further, he would rouse a little and amplify his meaning with phrases of a deplorable vulgarity and force. In his medical student days, the doctor had been counted a capable hand at the ruder kinds of out-patient work.The last time she had pressed him to decree Margaret's departure was in the study, where he sat with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves turned up, as though he contemplated an evening of strenuousness; the bottles and glasses were grouped on the desk at his elbow. Mrs. Jakes had represented vivaciously her sufferings in having to meet Miss Harding and contain the emotions that effervesced in her bosom. She sat in the patient's chair, and carefully guided her eyes away from the drinking apparatus. The doctor had uttered his "No" as usual, and she tried, against her better sense, to reason with him."There 's me to think of, too," she urged anxiously. "The way she walks past me, Eustace, you 'd think I 'd never had a silk lining in my life.""No," said the doctor again, with a little genteel cough behind three fingers. "No, we can't. 'T would n't do, Hester. Bringing her out o' bed in her night-gown that night—it was doing her dirt. Yes, I know all about the nigger, and dam lucky it was for me she 'd got him handy. I might have been there yet for all you did. And as for silk linings, don't you get your shirt out, Hester. She 's all right."He put out a hand to the whisky bottle, looking at her impatiently with red-rimmed eyes, and she had risen with a sigh, knowing it was time for her to go. She fired one parting shot of sincere feeling."Well, I suppose I 've got to suffer in silence, if you say so, Eustace," she observed resignedly. "But it 's as bad as if we kept a shop."But as the mouthpiece of Mr. Samson, she would be better equipped. It could be made to appear to Jakes that remonstrances were in the air and that there was a danger of losing Samson and Ford, and he would have to give ground. Mrs. Jakes thought well of the prospects of her enterprise now. She would have been alarmed and astonished if any responsible person had called her spiteful and unscrupulous, for she knew she was neither of these things. She was merely creeping under obstacles that she could not climb over, going to work with such means as came to her hand to secure an entirely worthy end. She knew her own mind, in short, and if it had wavered in its purpose, she would have known it no longer.Margaret, all unconscious of the ingenuity that spent itself upon her, ate a leisurely breakfast, giving Mr. Samson ample time to escape to the stoep alone and establish himself there. She didn't at all mind being left alone with Mrs. Jakes. That lady's stiffness and the facial expressions which she tried on, one after the other, in an endeavor to make her countenance match her mind, could be made ineffective by the simple process of ignoring them and her together. By dint of preserving a seeming of contented tranquillity and speaking not one word, it was possible to abash poor Mrs. Jakes utterly and leave her writhing in impotence behind her full-bodied urn. This was the method that commended itself to Margaret and which she employed successfully. Everybody should have a cut at her, she had decided; she would not baulk one of them of the privilege; but Mrs. Jakes had had her turn, and could not be permitted to cut and come again.There were several remarks that Mrs. Jakes might have made with effect, but none of them occurred to her till Margaret had left the room, departing with an infuriating rustle of silk linings. Mrs. Jakes moved in her chair to see her cross the hall and go out. A look of calculation overspread her sour little face."I didn't notice the silk inthatone," she murmured thoughtfully.Mr. Samson, with a comparatively recent weekly edition of theCape Timesto occupy him did not notice her rubber-soled approach till her shadow fell on the page he was reading. He looked up sharply."Ah, Miss Harding," he said weakly.She leaned with her back against the rail, looking down at him in his basket chair, half-smiling."You want to speak to me, don't you?" she asked.Mr. Samson did not understand. "Do I?" he said. "Did I say so? I wonder what it was.""You didn't say so," Margaret answered, "But I know you do. You wouldn't send me finally to Coventry without saying anything at all, would you?""Ah!" He made a weary gesture with one hand, as though he would put the subject from him. "But—but I 'm not sending you to Coventry, my—Miss Harding, I mean. Don't think it, for a moment."He shook his white head with a touch of sadness, looking up at her slender, civilized figure as she stood before him with a gaze that granted in advance every claim she could make on his consideration and forbearance."You know what I mean," said Margaret steadily."Do I though? Well, yes, I suppose I do," he said. "No use fumbling with it, is there? And you're not the fumbling kind. Each of us knows what the other means all right, so what's the use of talking about it?"Margaret would not let him off; she did not desire that he should spare her and could see no reason for sparing him."I want to talk about it, this once," she answered. "You won't have many more chances to tell me what you think of me. I know, of course; but I was n't going to shirk it. I 've disappointed you, have n't I?""I don't say so," he replied, with careful gentleness. "I don't say anything of the kind, Miss Harding. You took your own line as you 'd every right to do. If I had—sort of—imagined you were different, you 're not to blame for my mistake. God knows I don't set up for an example to young ladies. Not my line at all, that sort of thing.""Nothing to say, then?" queried Margaret. He shook his head again. "You know," she added, "I 'm not a bit ashamed—not of anything.""Of course you 're not," he agreed readily. "You did what you thought was right.""But you don't think so?" she persisted."Miss Harding," replied Mr. Samson; "so far as I can manage it, I don't think about the matter at all."Margaret had a queer impulse to reply to this by bursting into tears or laughter, whichever should offer itself, but at that moment Mrs. Jakes came out, and restrained a too obvious surprise at the sight of the pair of them in conversation. Circumstances were forever lying in ambush against Mrs. Jakes and deepening the mystery of life by their unexpected poppings up.She addressed Mr. Samson and pointedly ignored Margaret."Mr. Ford could see you now, if you cared to go up," she announced."Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Samson, with alacrity.Margaret spoke, smiling openly at Mrs. Jakes' irreconcilable side-face."Oh, would you mind if I went first?" she asked. "I rather want to see him.""By all means," agreed Mr. Samson, with the same alacrity. "I 'm not perishin' to inspect him, you know. Tell him I 'll look him up afterwards."Mrs. Jakes turned a fine bright red, and swallowed two or three times. She had matured a plan for declaring that Ford must not be disturbed again after Mr. Samson's visit, and she was fairly sure that Margaret had suspected it. She watched the girl's departure with angry and baffled eyes."She 's doing it on purpose," was her thought. "She swings them like that so as to make me hear the frow-frow."Ford was propped against pillows in his bed, with most of the books in the house piled alongside of him on chairs and a bedside table. He was expecting Mr. Samson and sang out a hearty, "Come in; don't stand drumming there," at Margaret's rap on the door."It's me," announced Margaret, pushing it open; "not Mr. Samson. He 'll look you up afterwards. Do you mind?"He flushed warmly, staring at her unexpected appearance."Of course I don't mind," he said. "It 's awfully good of you. If you 'd shove these books off on the floor, I could offer you a chair."Margaret did as he suggested, but rose again at once and set the door wide open."The proprieties," she remarked, as she returned to her seat. "Also Mrs. Jakes. That keyhole might tempt her beyond her strength."The room was a large one, with a window to the south full of sunshine and commanding nothing but the eternal unchanging levels of the Karoo and the hard sky rising from its edge. Its walls were rainbow-hued with unframed canvasses clustering upon them, exemplifying Ford's art and challenging the view through the window. She liked vaguely the spareness of the chamber's equipment and its suggestions of uncompromising masculinity. The row of boots and shoes, with trees distributed among the chief of them, the leather trunks against the wall, the photographs about the dressing table, and the iron bath propped on end under the window,—these trifles seemed all to corroborate the impression she had of their owner. They were so consistent with the Ford she knew, units in the sum of him."Well," she said, looking at him frankly; "are we going to talk or just exchange civilities?""We won't do that," he answered, meeting her look. "Civilities be blowed, anyhow.""But I 'd like to ask you how you feel, first of all," said Margaret."Oh, first-rate. I 'd get up if it wasn't for Jakes," he assured her eagerly. "And I say," he added, with a quick touch of awkwardness, "I hope, really, you haven't been bothering about me, and thinking it was that affair in the drawing-room that made the trouble. Because it wasn't, you know. I 'd felt something of the kind coming on before lunch. Jakes says that running up stairs may have done it—thing I 'm always forgetting I mustn't do. A chap can't always be thinking of his in'ards, can he?""No," agreed Margaret.She recognized a certain tone of politeness, of civil constraint, in his manner of speaking. He was doing his best to be trivial and ordinary, but she could not be deceived."It was rotten, though," he went on quickly. "That brute Van Zyl—look here! I 'm most fearfully sorry I wasn't able to put a stop to his talk, Miss Harding. It makes me sick to think of you being badgered by that fellow.""It didn't hurt me," said Margaret thoughtfully. "All that is nothing. But are n't we being rather civil, after all?"He made a slight grimace. He looked very frail against the pillows, with his nervous, sun-tanned hands fidgeting on the coverlet. One button of his pyjamas was loose at the throat, and let his lean neck be seen, with the tan stopping short where the collar came and giving place to white skin below."Oh, well," he said, in feeble protest. "Why bother?""I thought you 'd want to," replied Margaret. "I don't expect you to—to approve, but I did rely on your bothering about it all a little. But if you 'd rather not, that ends the matter.""I didn't mean it like that," he said."Tell me," demanded Margaret; "don't you think I owe you an explanation?"He considered her gravely for some seconds."Yes," he answered finally. "I think you ought to tell me about it.""I 'm willing to," she said earnestly. "Oh, I wanted to often and often before. But I had to be careful. This Kafir is in danger of arrest by Mr. Van Zyl, and though he could easily clear himself before a court, you know what it means for a native to be arrested by him. He 'takes the kick out of them.' So I was n't really free to speak.""Perhaps you weren't," granted Ford. "But you were free to keep away from him, and from niggers in general—were n't you?""Quite," agreed Margaret. "It is n't niggers in general, though—it 's just this one."She leaned forward, with both elbows on the edge of the bed and her fingers intertwined. She felt that the color had mounted in her face, but she was sedulous to keep her eyes on his.
I am better than I was when I came out, but not better than I was a month ago, and I don't think I am improving as rapidly as Dr. David hoped. It may be that I am a little too far to the East of the Karoo. Was it you or somebody else who advised me to keep to the West?
"That 'll help to fetch him," murmured Margaret, as she wrote the last words.
Perhaps, later on, if Dr. Jakes thinks well of it, I might move to a place I hear of over in the West. I 'm letting you know now in plenty of time; but I don't want you to think there is anything seriously wrong. Please don't be at all anxious.
"Now something fluffy," pondered Margaret. "If I get it right, he 'll order me to go."
What makes me hesitate, she wrote, is the trouble it will cost me to move from here. Would you please show this letter to Dr. David and ask his opinion?
"That 'll do the trick," she decided unscrupulously. "Dr. David will see there 's something in it and he 'll back me up. And then, when the row comes, they shall each have a cut at me,—Mrs. Jakes and Fat Mary and all—they shall each have their chance to draw blood, and then I 'll go."
While she wrote, there had been the sound of footsteps on the stone floor of the hall outside the room, but she had been too busy to note them. Otherwise, she would quickly have marked an unfamiliar foot among them. They were reduced to that at the Sanatorium; they knew every foot that sounded on its floors and a strange one fetched them running to look from doors. But Margaret's occupation had robbed her of that mild exhilaration, and she looked up all unsuspiciously as Mrs. Jakes pushed open the door of the drawing-room, entered and closed it carefully behind her.
She came a couple of paces into the room and halted, looking at the girl in a manner that recalled to Margaret that fantastic night when she had come with a candle to seek aid for Dr. Jakes. Though she had not now her little worried smile, she wore the same bewildered and embarrassed aspect, as of a purpose crossed and complicated by considerations and doubts.
"Are you looking for me, Mrs. Jakes?" asked Margaret, when she had waited in vain for her to speak.
"Yes," replied Mrs. Jakes, in a hushed voice, and remained where she stood.
Again Margaret waited in vain for her to speak.
"I 'm rather busy just now," she said. "What is it you want with me, please?"
Mrs. Jakes looked to see that the door was closed before she answered.
"It isn't me," she said then. "We—we don't get on very well, Miss Harding; but this isn't my doing. I 've never whispered a word to a soul. I haven't, indeed, if I never speak another word."
Margaret stared at her, perceiving suddenly that the small bleak woman was all a-thrill with some nervous tension. Her own nerves quivered in response to it.
"What is it?" she demanded. "What has happened?"
"It 's the police," breathed Mrs. Jakes. She gave the word the accent in which she felt it. "The police," she said, with a stricken sense of all that police stand for, of which unbearable and public shame is chief. She was trembling, and her small hands, with their rough red knuckles like raw scars upon them, were picking feverishly at her loose black skirt.
Margaret's heart beat the more quickly at the mere tone of her whisper, fraught with dim fears; but the words conveyed nothing to her. If anything, they relieved her. In the hinterland of her consciousness the forward-cast shadow of that impending hour was perpetually dark; but the police could have no concern in that.
"Oh, do please talk plainly," she said irritably. "What exactly do you want to tell me? And what have I got to do with the police?"
The stimulus of her impatient tones was what was needed to restore Mrs. Jakes to coherence. She stared at the girl with a sort of stupefaction.
"What have you got to do with it," she repeated. "Why—it 's all about you. Somebody 's told about you and that Kafir—about you knowing him and all about him, and now Mr. Van Zyl is in the doctor's study. He 's come to inquire about it."
"Oh," said Margaret slowly.
It had struck then, the bitter hour of revelation; it had crept upon her out of an ambush of circumstance when she least expected it, and the reckoning was due. There was to be no time allowed her in which to build up her courage; even her retreat must be over strange roads. Before the gong went to gather the occupants of the house for tea, the stroke would have fallen, and her place in the minds of her fellows would be with Dr. Jakes on the hearth-rug, an outcast from their circle. Unless, indeed, Dr. Jakes should also decline her company, as seemed likely.
It was the image in her mind of a scornful and superior Jakes that excited the smile with which she looked up at Jakes' frightened wife.
"So long as he does n't bother me, he can inquire as much as he likes," she said.
Mrs. Jakes did not understand. "It 's you he 's going to inquire of," she said. "I suppose, of course—I suppose you 'll tell him about—about that night?"
"I shan't tell him anything," replied Margaret. "Oh, you needn't be afraid, Mrs. Jakes. I 'm not going to take this opportunity of punishing you for all your unpleasantness. I shall simply refuse to answer any questions at all."
"You can't do that." Mrs. Jakes showed her relief plainly in her face and in the relaxation of her attitude. She had forgotten one of the first rules of her manner of warfare, which is to doubt the enemy's word. But in spite of a reluctant gratitude for the contemptuous mercy accorded to her, she felt dully resentful at this high attitude of Margaret's towards the terrors of the police.
"You can't do that," she said. "He 's got a right to know—and he 's a sub-inspector. He 'll insist—he 'll make you tell—"
"I think not," said Margaret quietly.
"But he 's—"
Mrs. Jakes broke off sharply as a hand without turned the handle of the door and pushed it open. Ford appeared, and paused at the sight of them in conversation.
"Hallo," he said. "Am I interrupting?"
Mrs. Jakes hesitated, but Margaret answered with decision.
"Not at all," she said. "Come in, please."
It occurred to her that the blow would be swifter if Ford himself were present when it fell and there were no muddle of explanations to drag it out.
Ford entered reluctantly, scenting a quarrel between the two and suspicious of Margaret's intentions in desiring his presence.
"There 's a horse and orderly by the steps," he said. "Is Van Zyl somewhere about? That's why I came in, to see if he was here."
"He—he is in the study," answered Mrs. Jakes, in extreme discomfort. She turned to Margaret. "If you will come now, I will take you to him."
Ford turned, surprised.
"What for?" asked Margaret.
"He—sent for you." Mrs. Jakes did not understand the question; she only perceived dimly that some quality in the situation was changed and that she no longer counted in it.
"But what the dickens did he do that for?" asked Ford.
"We 'll see," said Margaret, forestalling Mrs. Jakes' bewildered reply. "Please tell him, Mrs. Jakes, that I am here and can spare him a few minutes at once."
"Yes," acquiesced Mrs. Jakes, helplessly, and departed.
Ford came lounging across the room to Margaret.
"What's up?" he inquired. "You haven't been murdering somebody and not letting me help?"
Margaret shook her head. She was standing guard over her composure and could not afford to jest.
"Sit down over there," she bade him, motioning him towards the couch at the other side of the wide room. "And don't go away, even if he asks you to. Then you 'll hear all about it."
He wondered but obeyed slowly, leaning back against the end of the couch with one long leg lying up on the cushions.
"If he talks in the tone of his message to you," he said meditatively, "I shall be for punching his head."
Sub-Inspector Van Zyl had had the use of a clothes-brush before expressing his desire to see Margaret; it was a tribute he paid to his high official mission. He had cleared himself and his accoutrement of dust and the stain of his journey; and it was with the enhanced impressiveness of spick-and-span cleanliness that he presented himself in the drawing-room, pausing in the doorway with his spurred heels together to lift his hand in a precise and machine-like salute. At his back, Mrs. Jakes' unpretentious black made a relief for his rigid correctitude of attire and pose, and the pallid agitation of her countenance, peering in fearful curiosity to one side of him, heightened his military stolidity. His stone-blue eyes rested on Ford's recumbence with a shadow of surprise.
"Afternoon, Ford," he said curtly. "You 'll excuse me, but I 've a word or two to say to Miss Harding."
"Afternoon, Van Zyl," replied Ford, not moving. "Miss Harding asked me to stay, so don't mind me."
Van Zyl looked at him inexpressively. "I 'm on duty," he said. "Sorry, but I wish you 'd go. My business is with Miss Harding."
"Fire away," replied Ford. "I shan't say a word unless Miss Harding wishes it."
Margaret moved in her chair.
"You will say what you please," she said. "Don't regard me at all, Mr. Ford. Now—what can I do for you, Mr. Van Zyl?"
Van Zyl finished his scrutiny of Ford and turned to her.
"I sent to ask you to see me in the other room, Miss Harding, because I thought you would prefer me to speak to you in private," he said, with his wooden preciseness of manner. "That was why. Sorry if it offended you. However—"
He stood aside and held the door while Mrs. Jakes entered, and closed it behind her. Stalking imperturbably, he placed a chair for her and drew one out for himself, depositing his badged "smasher" hat on the ground beside it. Seated, he drew from his smoothly immaculate tunic a large note-book and snapped its elastic band open and laid it on his knee. Ford, from his place on the couch, watched these preparations with gentle interest.
Van Zyl looked up at Margaret with a pencil in his fingers. His pale, uncommunicative eyes fastened on her with an unemotional assurance in their gaze.
"First," he said; "where were you, Miss Harding, on the afternoon of the —th?"
He mentioned a date to which Margaret's mind ran back nimbly. It was the day on which Boy Bailey had made terms from the top of the dam wall, the day on which the Kafir had kissed her hand, nearly two weeks before.
She had herself sufficiently in hand, and returned his gaze with a faint smiling tranquillity that told him nothing.
"I have no information to give you, Mr. Van Zyl," she replied evenly. "It is quite useless to ask me any questions; I shan't answer them."
He was not disturbed. "Sorry," he said, "but I 'm afraid you must. I hope you 'll remember that I have my duty to do, Miss Harding."
"Must, eh?"
That was Ford, thoughtfully, from the couch. Van Zyl looked in his direction sharply with a brief frown, but let it pass.
"It's no use, Mr. Van Zyl," said Margaret. "I simply am not going to answer any questions, and your duty has nothing to do with me. So if there is nothing else that you wish to say to me, your business is finished."
"No," he said; "it isn't finished yet, Miss Harding. You refuse to say where you were on that afternoon?"
Margaret smiled slowly and he made a quick note in his book.
"I ought to say, perhaps," he went on, looking up when he had finished writing, "that the information I am asking for relates to a—a person, who is wanted by the police on a charge of sedition and incitement to commit a breach of the peace. You were seen on the afternoon in question in the company of that—person, Miss Harding; and I believe—Ibelieveyou can help us to lay hands on him."
"Is it Samson?" inquired Ford, raising his head. "I 've always had my suspicions of Samson."
"Oh, Mr. Ford," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, pained.
"It 's not Mr. Samson," said the sub-inspector calmly; "and it is not any business of yours, Ford."
"Oh, yes; it is," answered Ford. "Because if it isn't Samson it must be me—unless it 's Jakes. You seem to think we see a good deal of company here, Van Zyl."
"I don't think anything at all," retorted the sub-inspector stiffly; "and I 've nothing to say to you. My business is with Miss Harding, and you won't help her by making a nuisance of yourself."
"Eh?" Ford sat up suddenly. "What's that—won't help her? Are you trying to frighten Miss Harding by suggesting that you can use any sort of compulsion to her? Because, if that 's your idea, you 'd better look out what you 're doing."
"I 'm not responsible to you, Ford," replied Van Zyl shortly. "You can hold your tongue now. Miss Harding understands well enough what I mean."
"Oh, yes," said Margaret, as Ford looked towards her. "I understand, but I don't care."
It was taking its own strange course, but she was not concerned to deflect it or make it run more directly. She conserved her powers for the moment when the thing would be told, and Ford's indignant championship arrested brusquely by the mere name of her offense. Presently Van Zyl would cease to speak of "a person" and come out with the plain word, "Kafir." How he had gained his information she did not attempt to guess; but that he had the means to break her there was no doubting. She would answer no questions; she was determined upon that; but now that the hour of revelation was come, she would do nothing to fog it. It should pass and be done with and leave her with its consequences clear to weigh and abide.
She made a motion of the hand that hung over the back of her chair to Ford, as though she would hush him. He was puzzled and looked it, but subsided provisionally against the end of the couch again.
Van Zyl eased his shoulders in their bondage of slings and straps with a practised shrug, crossed one booted leg over the other and faced her afresh.
"Now, Miss Harding, you see that I am not speaking by guess; and it 's for you to say whether you will have the rest of this here or in private. I 'm anxious to give you every possible consideration."
"I shan't answer any questions," said Margaret, "and I decline any privacy, Mr. Van Zyl."
"No? Very well. I must do my duty as best I can," replied the sub-inspector, with official resignation. He referred to a back page of his note-book perfunctorily.
"On the —th of this month, man discovered weeping and disorderly on the platform at Zeekoe Siding, stated to Corporal Simms that he had been robbed of five hundred pounds by confidence trick on down train. Under examination, varied the sum, and finally adhered to figure of forty-three pounds odd, which he alleged was part of fifty pounds he had received from the—person in whose company he had seen you."
"Ah!" Margaret found herself smiling absently at the memory of Boy Bailey making his bargain on the top of the dam wall, with his bare unbeautiful feet fidgeting in the grass.
Sub-inspector Van Zyl surveyed her with his impersonal stare and continued:
"He gave the name of Claude Richmond, but was afterwards identified as one Noah Bailey, alias Boy Bailey, alias Spotted Dog, etc., wanted by the police in connection with—a certain affair. On being charged, feigned to fall in a fit but came to under treatment, and made a certain communication, which was transmitted to me as bearing upon my search for this—person. The communication was detailed, Miss Harding, and he stood to it under a searching examination, and satisfied us that we were getting the truth out of him. Acting upon the information thus received, I next called upon you."
He looked up. "You see what I have to go upon?" he said. "Since you know yourself what took place on the afternoon about which I asked you, you can understand that the police require your assistance. Do you still refuse to answer me, Miss Harding?"
"Of course," replied Margaret.
Now it would come, she thought. Van Zyl would spare her no longer. She watched his smooth, tanned face with nervous trepidation.
He frowned slightly at her answer, and leaned forward with the note-book in his hand, his forefinger between the pages to keep the place.
"You do?" he demanded, his voice rising to a sharp note. Ford sat up again, watchful and angry. "You refuse, do you? Now, look here, Miss Harding, we 'll have to make an end of this."
Ford struck in crisply. "Good idea," he said. "I suggest Miss Harding might quit the room for that purpose, and leave you to explain to me what the devil you mean by this."
Van Zyl turned on him quickly. "You look out," he said. "If I 've got to arrest you to shut your mouth, I 'll do it—and quick too."
"Why not?" demanded Ford. "That 'll be as good a way for you to get the lesson you need as any other."
"You'llget a lesson," began Van Zyl, making as though to rise and put his threat into action.
"Oh, please," cried Margaret; "none of this is necessary. Sit down, Mr. Ford; please sit down and listen. Mr. Van Zyl, you have only to speak out and you will be free from further trouble, I 'm sure."
"I 've taken too much trouble as it is," retorted the sub-inspector. "I 'll have no more of it."
He glared with purpose at Ford. Though he had not at any moment doffed his formality of demeanor, the small scene had lit a spark in him and he was newly formidable and forceful. Ford met his look with the narrow smile with which a man of his type masks a rising temper, but so far yielded to Margaret's urgency as to lean back upon one elbow.
"You 'll be sorry for all this presently," Margaret said to him warningly.
"Very soon, in fact," added the sub-inspector, "if he repeats the offense."
He settled himself again on his chair, confronting Margaret.
"Now, Miss Harding," lie resumed briskly. "Out with it? You admit you were there, eh?"
"Oh, no," said Margaret. "You 're asking questions again, Mr. Van Zyl."
"And I 'm going to have an answer, too," he replied zestfully. "You 've got a wrong idea entirely of what 's before you. You can still have this in private, if you like; but here or elsewhere, you 'll speak or out comes the whole thing. Now, which is it going to be—sharp?"
"I 've nothing to tell you," she maintained.
His blond, neat face hardened.
"Haven't you, though. We'll see? You know a Kafir calling himself—" he made a lightning reference to his book—"calling himself Kamis?"
She made no answer.
"You know the man, eh? It was with him you spent the afternoon of the —th, was n't it? Under the wall of the dam down yonder—yes? You 've met him more than once, and always alone?"
She kept a constraint on herself to preserve her faintly-smiling indifference of countenance, but her face felt stiff and cold, and her smile as though it sagged to a blatant grin. She did not glance across to see how Ford had received the news; that had suddenly become impossible.
"You see?" There was a restrained triumph in Van Zyl's voice. "We know more than you think, young lady—and more still. You won't answer questions, won't you? You let a Kafir kiss you under a wall, and then put up this kind of bluff."
There was an explosion from Ford as he leaped to his feet, with the hectic brilliant on each cheek.
"You liar," he cried. "You filthy Dutch liar."
Van Zyl did not even turn his head. A hard smile parted his squarely-cut lips as he watched Margaret. At his word, she had made a small involuntary movement as though to put a hand on her bosom, but had let it fall again.
"You may decide to answer that, perhaps," suggested the sub-inspector. "Do you deny that he kissed you?"
There was a pause, while Ford stood waiting and the sound of his breathing filled the interval. The fingers of Margaret's left hand bent and unbent the flap of the envelope destined for the legal uncle, but her mind was far from it and its contents. "You liar," Ford had cried, and it had had a fine sound; even now she had but to rise as though insulted and walk from the room, and his loyalty would endure, unspotted, unquestioning, touchy and quick. She might have done well to choose the line that would have made that loyalty valid, and she felt herself full of regrets, of pain and loss, that it must find itself betrayed. The vehemence of the cry was testimony to the faith that gave it utterance.
And then, for the first time in the interview, she dwelt upon the figure that stood at the back of all this disordered trouble—that of Kamis, remote from their agitated circle, companioning in his solitude with griefs of his own. He came into her mind by way of comparison with the directness and vivid anger of Ford, standing tense and agonized for her reply, with all his honest soul in his thin dark face. His flimsy silk clothes made apparent the lean youth of his body. The other went to and fro in the night and the silence in shabby tweeds, and his face denied an index to the strong spirit that drove him. He suffered behind blubber lips and a comical nose; he was humble and grateful. The two had nothing in common if it were not that faith in her, to which she must now do the peculiar justice that the situation required.
"Let 's have it," urged the sub-inspector. "He kissed you, this nigger did, and you let him? Speak up."
Boy Bailey had said, imaginatively: "She held out both her arms to him—wide; and he took hold of her an' hugged her, kissin' her till I couldn't stand the sight any longer. 'You shameless woman!' I shouted"—at that point he had been kicked by a scandalized corporal, and had screamed. "I wish I may die if he did n't kiss her," was the form that kicking finally reduced it to, but they could not kick that out of him. He stood for one kiss while bruises multiplied upon him.
"Well, did he kiss you or didn't he?"
Margaret sighed. "I will tell you that," she said wearily. "Yes, he did—he kissed my hand."
Sub-inspector Van Zyl sat up briskly. "I thought we 'd get something before we were done," he said, and smiled with a kind of malice at Ford. "You 'd like to apologize, I expect?"
Ford did not answer him; he was staring in mere amazement at Margaret's immovable profile.
"Is that true?" he demanded.
Margaret forced herself to look round and meet the wonder of his face.
"Oh, quite," she answered. "Quite true."
His eyes wavered before hers as though he were ashamed and abashed. He put an uncertain hand to his lips.
"I see," he said, very thoughtfully, and sat again upon the couch.
"Well, after that, what 's the sense of keeping anything back?" Van Zyl went on confidently. "You see what comes of standing out against the police? Now, what are your arrangements for meeting this Kafir? Where do you send to let him know he 's to come and see you?"
"No," said Margaret. "It 's no use; I won't tell you any more."
"Oh, yes, you will." Van Zyl felt quite sure of it. He eyed her acutely and decided to venture a shot in the dark. "You 'll tell me all I ask,—d'you hear? I have n't done with you yet. You 've seen him at night, too, when you were supposed to be in bed. You can't deceive me. I 've seen your kind before, plenty of them, and I know the way to deal with them."
His shot in the dark found its mark. So he knew of that night when Dr. Jakes had fallen in the road. Mrs. Jakes must have told him, and her protests had been uneasy lies. Margaret carefully avoided looking at her; in this hour, all were to receive mercy save herself.
Van Zyl went on, rasping at her in tones quite unlike the thickish staccato voice which he kept for his unofficial moments. That voice she would never hear again; impossible for her ever to regain the status of a person in whom the police have no concern.
"You 'll save yourself trouble by speaking up and wasting no time about it," he urged, with the kind of harsh good nature a policeman may use to the offender who provides him with employment. "You 've got to do it, you know. How do you get hold of your nigger-friend when you want him?"
She shook her head without speaking.
"Answer!" he roared suddenly, so that she started in her chair. "What 's the arrangement you 've got with him? None of your airs with me, my girl. Out with it, now—what 's the trick?"
She looked at him affrightedly; he seemed about to spring upon her from his chair and dash at her to wring an answer out of her by force. But from the sofa, where Ford sat, with his head in his hands, came no sign. Only Mrs. Jakes, frozen where she sat, uttered a vague moan.
"Wha—what 's this?"
The door opened noiselessly and Dr. Jakes showed his face of a fallen cherub in the opening, with sleepy eyes mildly questioning. Margaret saw him with quick relief; the intolerable situation must change in some manner by his arrival.
"I heard—I heard—was ityoushouting, Van Zyl?" he inquired, stammeringly, as he came in.
"Yes," replied the sub-inspector, shortly.
"Oh!" Jakes felt uncertainly for his straggling mustache. "Whom were you shouting at?" he inquired, after a moment of hesitation.
"I was speaking to her," replied the other impatiently.
The doctor followed the movement of his hand and the light of his spectacles focused on Margaret stupidly.
"Well." He seemed baffled. "Miss Harding, you mean, eh?"
The sub-inspector nodded. "You 're interrupting an inquiry, Dr. Jakes."
"Oh." Again the doctor seemed to wrestle with thoughts. "Am I?"
"Yes. You 'll excuse us, but—"
"No," said Jakes, with an appearance of grave thought. "No; certainly not. You—you mustn't shout here."
"Look here," began Van Zyl.
The doctor turned his back on him and came over to Margaret, treading lumberingly across the worn carpet.
"Can't allow shouting," he said. "It means—temperature. I—I think you 'd better—yes, you 'd better go and lie down for a while, Miss Harding."
He was as vague as a cloud, a mere mist of benevolence.
As unexpectedly and almost as startlingly as Van Zyl's sudden loudness, Mrs. Jakes spoke from her chair.
"You must take the doctor's advice, Miss Harding," she said.
Margaret rose, obediently, her letters in her hand. Van Zyl rose too.
"Once and for all," he said loudly, "I won't allow any—"
"I 'll report you, Van Zyl," said the little doctor, huskily. "You 're—you 're endangering life—way you 're behaving. Go with Mrs. Jakes, Miss Harding."
"You 'llreport me," exclaimed Van Zyl.
"Ye-es," said Jakes, foggily. "I—I call Mr. Ford to witness—"
He turned quaveringly towards the couch and stopped abruptly.
"What 's this?" he cried, in stronger tones, and walked quickly toward the bent figure of the young man. "Van Zyl I—I hold you responsible. You 've done this—with your shouting."
Margaret was in the door; she turned to see the doctor raise Ford's head and lift it back against the cushions. Van Zyl went striding towards them and aided to place him on his back on the couch. As the doctor stood up and stepped back, she saw the thin face with the high spot of red on each cheek and the blood that ran down the chin from the wry and painful mouth.
"Hester," Dr. Jakes spoke briskly. "The ergotin—and the things. In the study; you know."
"I know." And Mrs. Jakes—so her name was Hester—ran pattering off.
They shut Margaret out of the room, and she sat on the bottom step of the stairs, waiting for the news Mrs. Jakes had promised, between breaths, to bring out to her. Van Zyl, ordered out unceremoniously—the doctor had had a fine peremptory moment—and allowing a certain perturbation to be visible on the regulated equanimity of his features, stood in the hall and gave her side glances that betrayed a disturbed mind.
"Miss Harding," he said presently, after long thought; "I hope you don't think it 's any pleasure to me to do all this?"
Margaret shook her head. "You can do what you like," she said. "I shan't complain."
"It is n't that," he answered irritably, but she interrupted him.
"I don't care what it is," she said. "I don't care; I don't care about anything. Stand there, if you like, or come and sit here; but don't talk any more till we know what 's happened in there."
Sub-inspector Van Zyl coughed, but after certain hesitation, he made up his mind. When Mrs. Jakes came forth, tiptoe and pale but whisperingly exultant, she found them sitting side by side on the stairs in the attitude of amity, listening in strained silence for sounds that filtered through the door of the room. She was pressed and eager, with no faculty to spare for surprise.
"Splendid," she whispered. "Everything 's all right—thank God. But if it hadn't been for the doctor, well! I'm going to fetch the boys with the stretcher to carry him up to his room."
"I 'm awfully glad," said Van Zyl as she hurried away.
"So am I," said Margaret. "But I ought to have seen before the doctor did. I ought to have known—and I did know, really—that he would have taken you by the throat before then, if something hadn't happened to him."
She had risen, to go up the stairs to her room and now stood above him, looking down serenely upon him.
"Me by the throat," exclaimed Van Zyl, slightly shocked.
Margaret nodded.
"As Kamis would," she said slowly. "And choke you, and choke you, and choke you."
She went up then without looking back, leaving him standing in the hall, baffled and outraged.
CHAPTER XV
Not the stubbornness of a race too prone to enthusiasms, any more than increasing years and thememento moriin his chest, could withhold Mr. Samson from the zest with which he initiated each new day. Bathed, razored and tailored, he came out to the stoep for his early constitutional, his hands joined behind his back, his soft hat cocked a little forward on his head, and tasted the air with puffs and snorts of appetite, walking to and fro with a eupeptic briskness in which only the closest observer might have detected a delicate care not to over do it. Nothing troubled him at this hour of the morning; it belonged to a duty which engrossed it to the exclusion of all else, and not till it was done was Mr. Samson accessible to the claims of time and place.
He looked straight before him as he strode; his manner of walking did not allow him to bestow a glance upon the Karoo as he went. Head well up, chest open—what there was of it—and neck swelling over the purity of his collar: that was Mr. Samson. It was only when Mrs. Jakes came to the breakfast-room door and set the gong booming melodiously, that he relaxed and came back to a mild interest in the immediate earth, as though the gong were a permission to stand at ease and dismiss. He halted by the steps to wipe his monocle in his white abundant handkerchief, and surveyed, perfunctorily at first and then with a narrowing interest, the great extent of brown and gray-green that stretched away from the foot of the steps to a silvery and indeterminate distance.
A single figure was visible upon it, silhouetted strongly against the low sky, and Mr. Samson worked his monocle into his eye and grasped it with a pliant eyebrow to see the clearer. It was a man on a horse, moving at a walk, minutely clear in that crystal air in spite of the distance. The rider was far from the road, apparently aimless and at large upon the veld; but there was something in his attitude as he rode that held Mr. Samson gazing, a certain erectness and ease, something conventional, the name of which dodged evasively at the tip of his tongue. He knew somebody who sat on a horse exactly like that; dash it, who was it, now? It wasn't that Dutchman, Du Preez, nor his long-legged youngster; they rode like Dutchmen. This man was more like—more like—ah! Mr. Samson had got it. The only folk who had that look in the saddle were troopers; this must be a man of the Mounted Police.
A tinge of annoyance colored his thoughts, for the far view of the trooper, slowly quartering the land, brought back to his mind a matter of which it had been purged by the ritual morning march along the stoep, and he found it returning again as distasteful as ever. He had been made a party to its details by Mrs. Jakes, when he inquired regarding Ford's breakdown. The communication had taken place at the foot of the stairs, when he was preparing to ascend to bed, on the evening of Van Zyl's visit. At dinner he had noted no more than that Ford was absent and that Margaret was uneasy; he kept his question till her skirt vanished at the bend of the stairs.
"I say; what 's up?" he asked then.
Mrs. Jakes, standing by to give good night, as her wont was, fluttered. She gave a little start that shook her clothes exactly like the movement of an agitated bird in a cage, and stared up at him, rather breathlessly, while he leaned against the balustrade and awaited her answer.
"I don't know what you mean." It was a formula that always gave her time to collect her thoughts.
"Oh, yes, you do," insisted Mr. Samson, with severe geniality. "Ford laid up and Miss Harding making bread pills, and all that. What 's the row?"
Mrs. Jakes regarded him with an eye as hard and as wary as a fowl's, and then looked round to see that the study door was securely shut.
"I 'm afraid, Mr. Samson," she said, in the low tones of confidential intercourse—"I 'm afraid we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding."
"Eh? What 's that?"
Old Mr. Samsonwouldspeak as though he were addressing a numerous company, and Mrs. Jakes' nervousness returned at his loud exclamation. She made hushing noises.
"Yes, but what's all this nonsense?" demanded Mr. Samson. "Somebody 's been pullin' your leg, Mrs. Jakes."
"No, indeed, Mr. Samson," Mrs. Jakes assured him hastily, as though urgent to clear herself of an imputation. "There is n't any doubt about it,—I 'm sorry to gay. You see, Mr. Van Zyl came here this afternoon and wanted to see Miss Harding in the study. Well, she would n't go to him."
"Why the deuce should she?" inquired Mr. Samson warmly. "Who 's Van Zyl to send for people like this?"
"It was about a Kafir," said Mrs. Jakes. "The police are looking for the Kafir and Miss Harding refused to help them. So—"
Mr. Samson's lips moved soundlessly, and he changed his position with a movement of lively impatience.
"Let 's have it from the beginning, please, Mrs. Jakes," he said, with restraint. "Can't make head or tail of it—way you 're telling it. Now, why did this ass Van Zyl come here?"
It was the right way to get the tale told forthright. His indignation and his scorn fanned the spark of spite in the core of Mrs. Jakes, who perceived in Mr. Samson another victim to Margaret's duplicity. She was galled by the constant supply of champions of the girl's cause who had to be laid low one after the other. She addressed herself to the incredulity and anger in the sharp old face before her, and spoke volubly and low, telling the whole thing as she knew it and perhaps a little more than the whole. As she went on, she became consumed with eagerness to convince Mr. Samson. Her small disfigured hands moved jerkily in incomplete gestures, and she rose on tiptoe as though to approach nearer to the seat of his intelligence. He did not again interrupt her, but listened with intentness, watching her as the swift words tumbled on one another's heels from her trembling lips. His immobility and silence were agonizing to her.
"So that's why I say that we 've been mistaken in Miss Harding," she concluded at last. "You wouldn't have thought it of her, would you, Mr. Samson? And it is a shocking thing to come across here, in the house, isn't it?"
Mr. Samson withdrew a hand from his pocket, looked thoughtfully at three coins in the palm of it, and returned them to the pocket again.
"You 're quite certain," he asked, "that she admitted the kissin'? There 's no doubt about that?"
"If I never speak another word," declared Mrs. Jakes, with fervor. "If I die here where I stand. If I never move from this spot—those were her exact words. It was then that poor Mr. Ford had his attack—he was so horrified."
"Well," said Mr. Samson, with a sigh, after another inspection of his funds, "so that 's the trouble, is it?"
"The doctor and I are much disturbed," continued Mrs. Jakes. "Naturally disturbed. Such a thing has never happened here before."
Mr. Samson heaved himself upright and put one foot on the bottom stair.
"It's only ignorance, of course," he said. "The poor little devil don't know what she 's letting herself in for. If she 'd only taken a bad turn after a month or so and—and gone out, Mrs. Jakes, we 'd have remembered her pleasantly enough then. Now, of course, she 'll have this story to live with. Van Zyl 'll put it about; trust him. Poor little bally fool."
"I 'm sorry for her, too, of course," replied Mrs. Jakes, putting out her hand to shake his. "Only of course I 'm—I 'm disgusted as well. Any woman would be."
"Yes," said Mr. Samson thoughtfully, commencing the ascent; "yes, she 'll be sure to get lots of that, now."
It was a vexation that abode with him that night and through the next day; it kept him from the sincere repose which is the right of straightforward and uncompromising minds, whose cleanly-finished effects have no loose ends of afterthought dangling from them to goad a man into revising his conclusions. Lying in the dark, wide awake and regretful, he had a vision of her in her room, welcoming its solitude and its freedom from reproachful eyes, glad now not of fellows and their companionship but of this refuge. It gave him vague pain. He experienced a sense of resentment against the arrangement and complexity of affairs that had laid open this gulf at Margaret's feet, and made its edges slippery to trap her. A touch of a more personal anger entered his thoughts as he dwelt on the figure of the girl, the fine, dexterous, civilized creature that she had been. She had known how to hold him with a pleasant humor, a light and stimulating irreverence, and to soften it to the point at which she bade him close his eyes and kissed him. But—and Mr. Samson flushed to the heat at which men swear—the Kafir, the roaming criminal nigger, had had that much out of her. Mrs. Jakes had not been faithful to detail on that head. "Kiss," she had said, not "kissed her hand." Mr. Samson might have seen a difference where Van Zyl, lacking his pretty discrimination of degrees in the administration and reception of kisses, had seen none.
The morning had brought no counsel; the day had delivered itself of nothing that enlightened or consoled him. Margaret had managed somehow, after a manner of her own, to withdraw herself from his immediate outlook, and there were neither collisions nor explanations. It was not so much that she preserved a distance as avoided contact, so that meals and meetings in the drawing-room or about the house suffered from no evidences of a change in their regard for each other. The adroitness with which it was contrived moved him to new regrets; she might, he thought, have done so well for herself, whereas now she was wasted.
This was the second morning since he had invaded Mrs. Jakes' confidences at the foot of the stairs and extracted her story from her. The gong at the breakfast-room door made soft blurred music at his back while he stood watching the remote figure of the trooper, sliding slowly across the skyline. It finished with a last note of added emphasis, a frank whack at the middle of the instrument, and he turned deliberately from his staring to obey it.
Mrs. Jakes, engine-driving the urn, was alone in the room when he entered, and gave him good morning with the smile which she had not varied for years.
"A beautiful day, is n't it?" she said.
"Oh, perfect," agreed Mr. Samson, receiving a cup of coffee from her. "I say. You haven't seen any signs of Van Zyl to-day, have you?"
"To-day? No," replied Mrs. Jakes, surprised. "Were you expecting—did he say—?"
Mr. Samson shook his head. "No; I don't know anything about him," he told her. "It 's just that matter of Miss Harding, you know. From the stoep, just now, I was watching a mounted man riding slowly about on the veld, and it looks as if they were arranging a search. Eh?"
"Oh, dear," exclaimed Mrs. Jakes, "I do hope they won't come here again. I 've never had any trouble with the police before. And Mr. Van Zyl, generally so gentlemanly—when I saw how he treated Miss Harding, I was really sorry for her."
Mr. Samson sniffed. "Man must be a cad," he said. "Anyhow, I don't see what right he 's got to put his foot inside these doors. It was simply a bluff, I fancy. Next time he comes, I hope you 'll let me know, Mrs. Jakes. Can't have him treatin' that poor little fool like that, don't y' know."
"But they 've got arightto search, surely?" protested Mrs. Jakes. "And it never does to have the police against you, Mr. Samson. I had a cousin once—at least, he wasn't exactly a cousin—but he took a policeman's number for refusing to arrest a man who had been rude to him, and the policeman at once took him in custody and swore the most dreadful oaths before the magistrate that he was drunk and disorderly. And my cousin—I always used to call him a cousin—was next door to a teetotaller."
"Perhaps the teetotaller bribed the policeman," suggested Mr. Samson, seriously. "Still—what about Miss Harding? She has n't said anything to you about goin' back home, has she?"
"No," said Mrs. Jakes. She let the teetotaller pass for the time being as the new topic opened before her. "But I wanted to speak to you about that, Mr. Samson."
"Best thing she can do," he said positively. "There 's a lot of people at Home who don't mind niggers a bit. Probably would n't hurt her for a month and her doctors can spot some other continent for her to do a cure in."
"Now I 'm very glad to hear you say so, Mr. Samson," declared Mrs. Jakes. "You see, what to do with her is a good deal on our minds—the doctor's and mine. My view is—she ought to go before the story gets about."
"Quite right," agreed Mr. Samson.
"But Eustace—he 's so considerate, you know. He thinks of her feelings. He 's dreadfully afraid that she 'll fancy we 're turning her out and be hurt. He really doesn't quite see the real state of affairs; he has an idea it 'll all blow over and be forgotten."
Mr. Samson shook his head. "Not out here," he said. "That sort of story don't die; it lives and grows. Might get into the papers, even."
"Well, now," Mrs. Jakes' voice was soft and persuasive; "do you mind my telling the doctor how you look at it? He doesn't pay any attention to what I say, but coming from you, it 's bound to strike him. It would be better than you talking to him about it, because he would n't care to discuss one of his patients with another; but if I were just to mention, as an argument, you know—"
"Oh, certainly," acquiesced Mr. Samson, "certainly. Those are my views; anybody can know 'em. Tell Jakes by all means."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Jakes, with feeling. "It does relieve me to know that you agree with me. And it is such a responsibility."
Margaret's entrance shortly afterwards brought their conference to a close, and Mr. Samson was able to return to his food with undivided attention.
Margaret's demeanor since the exposure was a phenomenon Mrs. Jakes did not profess to understand. The tall girl came into the room with a high serenity that stultified in advance the wan little woman's efforts to meet her with a remote dignity; it suggested that Mrs. Jakes and her opinions were things already so remote from her interest that they could not recede further without becoming invisible. What she lacked, in Mrs. Jakes' view, was visible scars, tokens of punishment and suffering; she could conceive no other attitude in a person who stood so much in need of the mercy of her fellows. To a humility commensurate with her disapproval, she would have offered a forbearance barbed with condescension, peppered balm of her own brand, the distillation of her narrow and purposeful soul. As it was, she not only resented the girl's manner—she cowered.
"Good morning," said Margaret, smiling with intention.
"Good morning, Miss—ah—Miss Harding," was the best Mrs. Jakes could do.
"Morning," responded Mr. Samson, lifting his white head jerkily, hoping to convey preoccupation and casual absence of mind. "Morning, Miss Harding. Jolly day, what?"
"Oh, no end jolly," agreed Margaret, dropping into her place. "Yes, coffee, please, Mrs. Jakes."
"Certainly, Miss Harding," replied Mrs. Jakes, who had made offer of none, and fumbled inexpertly with the ingenious urn whose chauffeur and minister she was.
"How is Mr. Ford?" inquired Margaret next.
"Oh, yes," chimed in Mr. Samson, anxious to prevent too short a reply; "how 's he this morning, Mrs. Jakes. Nicely, thank you, and all that—eh?"
Mrs. Jakes was swift to seize the opportunity to reply in Mr. Samson's direction exclusively.
"He 's not to get up to-day," she explained. "But he 's doing very well, thank you. When I asked him what he 'd like for breakfast, he said: 'Oh, everything there is, please.' But, of course, he 's had a shock."
"Er—yes," said Mr. Samson hurriedly. "I 'll look him up before lunch, if I may."
"Certainly," said Mrs. Jakes graciously.
"Good idea," said Margaret. "So will I."
Mrs. Jakes shot a pale and desperate glance at her and then looked for support to Mr. Samson. But that leaning tower of strength was eating devotedly and would not meet her eye.
She envisaged with inward consternation a future punctuated by such meals, with every meal partaking of the nature of a hostile encounter and every encounter closing with a defeat. Her respectability, her sad virtue, her record clean of stain, did not command heavy enough metal to breach the gleaming panoply of assurance with which Margaret opposed all her attacks, and she felt the grievance common to those who are ineffectually in the right. The one bright spot in the affair was the possibility that she might now bend Jakes to her purpose, and be deputed to give the girl notice that she must leave the Sanatorium. She felt she could quote Mr. Samson with great effect to the doctor.
"Mr. Samson feels strongly that she should leave at once. He said so in the plainest words," she would report, and Jakes would be obliged to take account of it. Hitherto, her hints, her suggestions and even her supplications, had failed to move him. He had a way, at times, of producing from his humble and misty mildness a formidable obstinacy which brooked no opposition. With bent head, he would look up at her out of the corners of his eyes, while she added plausibility to volubility, unmoving and immovable. When she had done, for he always heard her ominously to an end, he would shake his head slightly and emit a negative. It was rather impressive; there was so little show of force about it; but Mrs. Jakes had long known that it betokened a barrier of refusal that it was useless to hope to surmount. If he were pressed further, he would rouse a little and amplify his meaning with phrases of a deplorable vulgarity and force. In his medical student days, the doctor had been counted a capable hand at the ruder kinds of out-patient work.
The last time she had pressed him to decree Margaret's departure was in the study, where he sat with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves turned up, as though he contemplated an evening of strenuousness; the bottles and glasses were grouped on the desk at his elbow. Mrs. Jakes had represented vivaciously her sufferings in having to meet Miss Harding and contain the emotions that effervesced in her bosom. She sat in the patient's chair, and carefully guided her eyes away from the drinking apparatus. The doctor had uttered his "No" as usual, and she tried, against her better sense, to reason with him.
"There 's me to think of, too," she urged anxiously. "The way she walks past me, Eustace, you 'd think I 'd never had a silk lining in my life."
"No," said the doctor again, with a little genteel cough behind three fingers. "No, we can't. 'T would n't do, Hester. Bringing her out o' bed in her night-gown that night—it was doing her dirt. Yes, I know all about the nigger, and dam lucky it was for me she 'd got him handy. I might have been there yet for all you did. And as for silk linings, don't you get your shirt out, Hester. She 's all right."
He put out a hand to the whisky bottle, looking at her impatiently with red-rimmed eyes, and she had risen with a sigh, knowing it was time for her to go. She fired one parting shot of sincere feeling.
"Well, I suppose I 've got to suffer in silence, if you say so, Eustace," she observed resignedly. "But it 's as bad as if we kept a shop."
But as the mouthpiece of Mr. Samson, she would be better equipped. It could be made to appear to Jakes that remonstrances were in the air and that there was a danger of losing Samson and Ford, and he would have to give ground. Mrs. Jakes thought well of the prospects of her enterprise now. She would have been alarmed and astonished if any responsible person had called her spiteful and unscrupulous, for she knew she was neither of these things. She was merely creeping under obstacles that she could not climb over, going to work with such means as came to her hand to secure an entirely worthy end. She knew her own mind, in short, and if it had wavered in its purpose, she would have known it no longer.
Margaret, all unconscious of the ingenuity that spent itself upon her, ate a leisurely breakfast, giving Mr. Samson ample time to escape to the stoep alone and establish himself there. She didn't at all mind being left alone with Mrs. Jakes. That lady's stiffness and the facial expressions which she tried on, one after the other, in an endeavor to make her countenance match her mind, could be made ineffective by the simple process of ignoring them and her together. By dint of preserving a seeming of contented tranquillity and speaking not one word, it was possible to abash poor Mrs. Jakes utterly and leave her writhing in impotence behind her full-bodied urn. This was the method that commended itself to Margaret and which she employed successfully. Everybody should have a cut at her, she had decided; she would not baulk one of them of the privilege; but Mrs. Jakes had had her turn, and could not be permitted to cut and come again.
There were several remarks that Mrs. Jakes might have made with effect, but none of them occurred to her till Margaret had left the room, departing with an infuriating rustle of silk linings. Mrs. Jakes moved in her chair to see her cross the hall and go out. A look of calculation overspread her sour little face.
"I didn't notice the silk inthatone," she murmured thoughtfully.
Mr. Samson, with a comparatively recent weekly edition of theCape Timesto occupy him did not notice her rubber-soled approach till her shadow fell on the page he was reading. He looked up sharply.
"Ah, Miss Harding," he said weakly.
She leaned with her back against the rail, looking down at him in his basket chair, half-smiling.
"You want to speak to me, don't you?" she asked.
Mr. Samson did not understand. "Do I?" he said. "Did I say so? I wonder what it was."
"You didn't say so," Margaret answered, "But I know you do. You wouldn't send me finally to Coventry without saying anything at all, would you?"
"Ah!" He made a weary gesture with one hand, as though he would put the subject from him. "But—but I 'm not sending you to Coventry, my—Miss Harding, I mean. Don't think it, for a moment."
He shook his white head with a touch of sadness, looking up at her slender, civilized figure as she stood before him with a gaze that granted in advance every claim she could make on his consideration and forbearance.
"You know what I mean," said Margaret steadily.
"Do I though? Well, yes, I suppose I do," he said. "No use fumbling with it, is there? And you're not the fumbling kind. Each of us knows what the other means all right, so what's the use of talking about it?"
Margaret would not let him off; she did not desire that he should spare her and could see no reason for sparing him.
"I want to talk about it, this once," she answered. "You won't have many more chances to tell me what you think of me. I know, of course; but I was n't going to shirk it. I 've disappointed you, have n't I?"
"I don't say so," he replied, with careful gentleness. "I don't say anything of the kind, Miss Harding. You took your own line as you 'd every right to do. If I had—sort of—imagined you were different, you 're not to blame for my mistake. God knows I don't set up for an example to young ladies. Not my line at all, that sort of thing."
"Nothing to say, then?" queried Margaret. He shook his head again. "You know," she added, "I 'm not a bit ashamed—not of anything."
"Of course you 're not," he agreed readily. "You did what you thought was right."
"But you don't think so?" she persisted.
"Miss Harding," replied Mr. Samson; "so far as I can manage it, I don't think about the matter at all."
Margaret had a queer impulse to reply to this by bursting into tears or laughter, whichever should offer itself, but at that moment Mrs. Jakes came out, and restrained a too obvious surprise at the sight of the pair of them in conversation. Circumstances were forever lying in ambush against Mrs. Jakes and deepening the mystery of life by their unexpected poppings up.
She addressed Mr. Samson and pointedly ignored Margaret.
"Mr. Ford could see you now, if you cared to go up," she announced.
"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Samson, with alacrity.
Margaret spoke, smiling openly at Mrs. Jakes' irreconcilable side-face.
"Oh, would you mind if I went first?" she asked. "I rather want to see him."
"By all means," agreed Mr. Samson, with the same alacrity. "I 'm not perishin' to inspect him, you know. Tell him I 'll look him up afterwards."
Mrs. Jakes turned a fine bright red, and swallowed two or three times. She had matured a plan for declaring that Ford must not be disturbed again after Mr. Samson's visit, and she was fairly sure that Margaret had suspected it. She watched the girl's departure with angry and baffled eyes.
"She 's doing it on purpose," was her thought. "She swings them like that so as to make me hear the frow-frow."
Ford was propped against pillows in his bed, with most of the books in the house piled alongside of him on chairs and a bedside table. He was expecting Mr. Samson and sang out a hearty, "Come in; don't stand drumming there," at Margaret's rap on the door.
"It's me," announced Margaret, pushing it open; "not Mr. Samson. He 'll look you up afterwards. Do you mind?"
He flushed warmly, staring at her unexpected appearance.
"Of course I don't mind," he said. "It 's awfully good of you. If you 'd shove these books off on the floor, I could offer you a chair."
Margaret did as he suggested, but rose again at once and set the door wide open.
"The proprieties," she remarked, as she returned to her seat. "Also Mrs. Jakes. That keyhole might tempt her beyond her strength."
The room was a large one, with a window to the south full of sunshine and commanding nothing but the eternal unchanging levels of the Karoo and the hard sky rising from its edge. Its walls were rainbow-hued with unframed canvasses clustering upon them, exemplifying Ford's art and challenging the view through the window. She liked vaguely the spareness of the chamber's equipment and its suggestions of uncompromising masculinity. The row of boots and shoes, with trees distributed among the chief of them, the leather trunks against the wall, the photographs about the dressing table, and the iron bath propped on end under the window,—these trifles seemed all to corroborate the impression she had of their owner. They were so consistent with the Ford she knew, units in the sum of him.
"Well," she said, looking at him frankly; "are we going to talk or just exchange civilities?"
"We won't do that," he answered, meeting her look. "Civilities be blowed, anyhow."
"But I 'd like to ask you how you feel, first of all," said Margaret.
"Oh, first-rate. I 'd get up if it wasn't for Jakes," he assured her eagerly. "And I say," he added, with a quick touch of awkwardness, "I hope, really, you haven't been bothering about me, and thinking it was that affair in the drawing-room that made the trouble. Because it wasn't, you know. I 'd felt something of the kind coming on before lunch. Jakes says that running up stairs may have done it—thing I 'm always forgetting I mustn't do. A chap can't always be thinking of his in'ards, can he?"
"No," agreed Margaret.
She recognized a certain tone of politeness, of civil constraint, in his manner of speaking. He was doing his best to be trivial and ordinary, but she could not be deceived.
"It was rotten, though," he went on quickly. "That brute Van Zyl—look here! I 'm most fearfully sorry I wasn't able to put a stop to his talk, Miss Harding. It makes me sick to think of you being badgered by that fellow."
"It didn't hurt me," said Margaret thoughtfully. "All that is nothing. But are n't we being rather civil, after all?"
He made a slight grimace. He looked very frail against the pillows, with his nervous, sun-tanned hands fidgeting on the coverlet. One button of his pyjamas was loose at the throat, and let his lean neck be seen, with the tan stopping short where the collar came and giving place to white skin below.
"Oh, well," he said, in feeble protest. "Why bother?"
"I thought you 'd want to," replied Margaret. "I don't expect you to—to approve, but I did rely on your bothering about it all a little. But if you 'd rather not, that ends the matter."
"I didn't mean it like that," he said.
"Tell me," demanded Margaret; "don't you think I owe you an explanation?"
He considered her gravely for some seconds.
"Yes," he answered finally. "I think you ought to tell me about it."
"I 'm willing to," she said earnestly. "Oh, I wanted to often and often before. But I had to be careful. This Kafir is in danger of arrest by Mr. Van Zyl, and though he could easily clear himself before a court, you know what it means for a native to be arrested by him. He 'takes the kick out of them.' So I was n't really free to speak."
"Perhaps you weren't," granted Ford. "But you were free to keep away from him, and from niggers in general—were n't you?"
"Quite," agreed Margaret. "It is n't niggers in general, though—it 's just this one."
She leaned forward, with both elbows on the edge of the bed and her fingers intertwined. She felt that the color had mounted in her face, but she was sedulous to keep her eyes on his.