Upon one side, at least, the meeting between the two cousins on the previous night had been wholly unexpected.
Late that afternoon, an ambulance train had come in, loaded with men from the over-crowded field hospital at Krugersdorp, and for hours Alice had been in ceaseless attendance upon the surgeon in charge. Little by little, the girl had found her nerves steadying down to the task in hand; nevertheless, the past ten weeks, in return for the increase of her poise, had taken something from her vitality. Quickness of eye, firmness of hand, evenness of temper: all these may be gifts of the gods. Their use is a purely human function, and proportionately exhausting. The girl's one salvation lay in the fact that her quick sympathy with her patients was for the most part impersonal. Up to this time, Weldon had been her only patient whom she had known outside the routine duties of her hospital life. In a sense, it had been a relief to meet some one whom she knew to be of her own world; in a sense, the case had worn upon her acutely. She could watch with a greater degree of stolidity the sufferings of other men.
Among her new charges, that day, only one had made any distinct impression upon her overworked brain. That was a jovial young fellow, handsome as Phoebus Apollo, in spite of a slashing scar across one cheek. He had answered to her questions regarding his wounded foot with an accent so like that of Weldon that involuntarily she lingered beside him to add a word of cheery consolation. His was her final case, that night. As she wearily turned towards her own room, she made no effort to analyze her exhaustion.
She found Ethel, still in her hat and jacket, sitting on the edge of her own narrow cot.
"Cooee Dent!"
"Yes, dear." The girl's tone was nonchalant, even while the telltale color came into her cheeks.
"What are you doing here?"
"Visiting you, of course."
"Visiting me! But, Cooee, I really don't know where I can put you."
With perfect composure, Ethel passed her hand over the surface of the cot.
"Oh, I think this nutmeg-grater will carry two. Still, Alice, I must say that your hospitality isn't exactly exuberant."
Alice dropped into a chair and wearily pushed her hair still farther back from her forehead.
"But, Cooee—"
"Aren't you glad to see me?" Ethel demanded.
"Certainly. You are always a dear; but—I wish I had known you were coming."
Ethel raised her brows, and a slight edge came into her voice.
"If you don't want me, Alice, I can go home in the morning."
Dimly aware that her cousin was fencing with an invisible adversary, nevertheless Alice Mellen was too tired, that night, to range herself upon the side of that adversary. As far as she was concerned, Ethel had dropped upon her like a bolt from the blue. She was too busy, too absorbed in her patients to give more than a passing thought to even her most intimate cousin. And besides, Weldon—She pulled herself together sharply.
"Of course I want you, Cooee dear. It is only a bit sudden, and I am trying to think what to do with you."
Now and then Ethel turned wayward. This was one of the times.
"If you didn't know what to do with me, Alice, then why did you ask me to come?"
"But I didn't," Alice responded, too astonished to modify her denial into a polite form of fibbing.
Ethers tone was gently superior.
"Oh, yes; you did."
"When?"
"When you were leaving home. You said then that I must be sure to come up to spend a week with you, early in the winter." Then her accent changed. "You poor tired child!" she said, as she rose and crossed to her cousin's side. "This work is too hard for you; you look as if you had been fighting the Boers themselves, instead of merely enteric and bullet holes. I think it is just as well that I am here to look out for you, for a few days."
Alice lifted her hand to the hand that lay against her cheek.
"I am glad to see you, Cooee dear. I am only so surprised that it makes me slow to tell you so. If you can sleep here, to-night, I can find a better place for you in the morning."
"This will do," Ethel answered, while she slowly drew the pins from her hat. "It is neat, even if it isn't spacious. Really, Alice, I should have let you know; but it was only just as I was starting that I found I could come at all. Father is at home, and mother is unusually well, and I thought I would best make the most of the opportunity."
Crossing the room to the table, she stood with her back to her cousin, while she smoothed the feathers in her hat. Then, without turning, she asked abruptly,—
"How is Mr. Weldon?"
"Better."
"Out of all danger?"
"Yes. Not that he has been in much danger, anyway."
"Oh, I thought—"
Then silence fell.
Alice, meanwhile, was busy with a swift calculation. Five days, in these troubled times, for a letter to go from Johannesburg to Cape Town; five days since Ethel could have left Cape Town. And her one letter to Ethel since Weldon's arrival had been posted just three days before.
"How did you know Mr. Weldon was here?" she asked sharply.
Ethel's back was still turned towards her. Nevertheless, she could see the scarlet tide mounting to the ears and to the roots of the vivid gold hair.
"Why, your letter, Alice," Ethel answered composedly.
Alice's laugh was sharp and edged with malice.
"Yes, dear. My letter, telling you of his being here, will be delivered at your house to-morrow morning."
"Oh, then I must have mixed things up," Ethel replied, as she turned to face her cousin. "Probably Captain Frazer told me."
"Captain Frazer?"
"Yes, he came down to Cape Town, just before I left there. I remember now, he was the one who told me. He was near Mr. Weldon at Vlaakfontein; he knew all about his awful ride into Krugersdorp, and I believe he did say he was to be brought here."
For a moment more, the two pairs of eyes, the blue and the black, met in steady warfare, neither one yielding in the least, neither one quite aware how much she was betraying to the other.
"Well, what of it?" Ethel demanded tempestuously then.
"Nothing, only—are you sure you were wise to come?"
The blue eyes blazed.
"And what do you mean by that, Alice? You asked me to visit you here, to see your work among your patients. I have come. If I came at all, it had to be now. I can't always leave home for a week at a time. And I can't help it, can I, if Mr. Weldon happens to be one of your patients?"
"No; you can't," Alice admitted slowly. "It only remains to be seen whether you would care to help it, if you could."
Again Ethel crossed the room. This time, she dropped down at her cousin's side.
"Don't let us argue about it and get cross at each other, dear. If I have made a mistake in coming now, I am sorry. But I am here. Let me stay a few days; I may be able to help you a little. Anyway, I promise not to be a trouble to you. It is so long since I have seen you, Alice. And—" Again the silence dropped.
Alice roused herself from the reverie which was creeping over her. She was glad to see Ethel, unfeignedly glad. The bright, animated presence of her cousin, during the next few days, could not fail to be a tonic. And, as Ethel had said, she herself had been the one to suggest the first idea of the winter visit. Chance and Captain Frazer had decreed that it should take place now, when Alice's hands were immoderately full of work. But then, so much the better. Ethel could make herself invaluable among the convalescents. She herself had not put on her Red-Cross badge for the sake of taking her rest hour at the bedside of Trooper Harvard Weldon.
Half undressed, Ethel paused, hair brush in hand. "You can't imagine how tired I am, Alice. It is a terrible journey up here nowadays. I was in terror of a train-wreck at any moment," she said drowsily. "Don't let me sleep too long in the morning, because," she pulled open her eyes long enough to dart a mocking glance over her shoulder at her cousin; "because you know, right after breakfast, you are going to let me begin to help you take care of some of your people."
From behind her own sheltering veil of ink-black hair, Alice laughed.
"Cooee, you are a dear; but you're rather a trial," she said slowly. "However, now that you are here, I think I shall ask the P. M. O. to set you to work to watch over the needs of Mr. Weldon. He won't be here much longer; but, while he stays, I shall consider him your patient." Then, brushing aside the veil, she bent forward and touched her lips to her cousin's cheek.
"Might I ask what brought you up here, Miss Dent?" Weldon asked, the next day.
Beside him sat Ethel, her hands demurely clasped in the lap of her broad white apron.
"My cousin's invitation," she replied.
"Then Miss Mellen knew you were coming?"
"Yes. She asked me to come, early in the winter."
"Strange she said nothing about it! We were talking about you, only yesterday."
"She didn't know, even then, that I was so imminent," Ethel answered. "I took her quite by surprise, at the last."
"A surprise all around, then," he said, with a boyish laugh. "I was astonished to find Miss Mellen here, and you must have been equally astonished to find me. If only Captain Frazer would appear, our old quartette would be complete."
"I am afraid we must get on without him," she said lightly.
"Unfortunately, yes. I wonder where he is."
"In Cape Town," she replied unexpectedly.
"Really? What is he doing there?"
"Don't expect me to tell. It has something to do with a staff; but whether he carries it, or becudgels recruits with it, I have no idea at all."
"He hasn't left the Scottish Horse?"
"In fact; but not in name. Your regiment is still in the Transvaal; but he keeps a sort of vicarious connection with it. Please don't expect me to grasp military details, Mr. Weldon. I merely repeat the facts, parrot fashion; you must interpret them to suit yourself."
He laughed again. Already, in that one morning, he appeared to have taken a long stride towards the regaining of his old self.
"You are a perfect gazette, Miss Dent, the first bit of news that has crept inside this place. Where did you get all your information?"
"From Captain Frazer." Her rising color belied her unconcerned tone.
"You have seen him, then?"
"Yes. He is usually very good about calling, whenever he comes to Cape Town."
"And is he well?"
"Absolutely. Also quite enthusiastic over his troopers and the work they did at Vlaakfontein."
"Were—many—"
She understood.
"Not very many; but several were wounded. Worst of all, one or two of the wounded ones were shot by the Boers. Mr. Carew told me that he left a dozen of your men in the hospital at Krugersdorp."
"Carew? Have you seen him, too, Miss Dent?"
"Didn't you know he was here?"
He stared at her in blank amazement.
"Here in Johannesburg?"
"Here in this hospital."
"In what shape?"
"Hilarious in his mind, and with a foot that is coming out right in course of time. Didn't Alice tell you?"
"No."
"Strange. She took me to see him, this morning, on my way here, because he was such a promising patient. She was quite surprised to find we were old acquaintances."
"Oh," Weldon said slowly. "I begin to see. Miss Mellen had never met Carew, so she had no idea we were friends. What a curious snarl it all is!"
"The hand of Fate is in it," Ethel assented idly.
"Do you believe in Fate, too?"
"Surely. Why not?"
"Nothing, only your cousin said you didn't."
The girl frowned.
"Alice doesn't know all my mental processes," she said a little severely.
"She didn't pretend to. We were speaking of Fate, yesterday, of the way certain events in one's life seem absolutely inevitable; at least, I was. Then the conversation worked around to you, and Miss Mellen suggested that you usually rose superior to Fate," Weldon explained at some length.
Once again, Ethel felt the note of finality in his tone. For an instant, she shut her lips. Then she reverted to the main question.
"How do you mean inevitable?"
"As if you chose your path, and then found that, for always, it had been the only thing for you to do. That's not so clear, I know; but I can't put it much better."
"For instance?"
"For instance, my coming out here when I did. I was interested in the war; but there was no real question of my coming, until the month I sailed. Then, all of a sudden, I seemed to know why it was that I had spent my life on horseback. They told me in England that the real war was over. When I landed at Cape Town, I found out that the one thing needed was a man who could ride, and shoot straight. From the day I sailed from home, until now, I have been like an actor walking through a part that some one else has written for him. I have chosen nothing; it all has been inevitable."
She rose to her feet, and stood leaning on the back of her chair.
"In that case, Mr. Weldon, you must include our meeting in your scheme of things," she said, with a smile.
His answering smile met her smile with perfect frankness.
"I sometimes wonder if that wasn't the most inevitable part of it all."
The red-brown veldt stretched away to the sky-line, sixty miles distant. Level as it looked, it was nevertheless a succession of softly rolling ridges dotted with clumps of dried sagebrush and spotted here and there with heaps of black volcanic rocks. Far to the northward, a thin line of poplars and willows marked the bed of a river. Beyond that, again, the air was thick with smoke from acres of burning veldt. The days were full of dust, and the nights were full of frost; it was the month of June, and winter was upon the land.
The camp was taking a well-earned rest. For days, the men had swept over the veldt, following hard on the trail of a Boer general who only made himself visible now and then by a spatter of bullets, when his convoy train was delayed at a difficult ford. It had been a week of playing pussin-the-corner over a charred and dusty land, where the only roads were trails trodden out to powder by the hoofs of those that had gone before. Both men and mounts were wellnigh exhausted, and the officers had decreed a halt.
The strain had been intense. Now, with the relaxing of it, its memory vanished, and the halt swiftly took upon itself the appearance of a school holiday. Laughing and chaffing each other, groups of men loitered here and lounged there, smoking, writing letters, and taking stout, unlovely stitches in their time-worn khaki clothing. At one side of the camp was the tent of the mess sergeant, equipped like a portable species of corner grocery. Near by, Paddy apparently was in his element, presiding over his camp-kitchen, a vast bonfire encircled with a dozen iron pots. At the farther edge of the camp Weldon was umpiring a game of football between his own squadron and a company of the Derbys. Owing to the athletic zeal of the hour, it was big-side, and Weldon was too busy in keeping his eye upon so many players to pay much attention to his own loneliness.
In all truth, however, he was lonely. The week since he had rejoined his squadron had dragged perceptibly. Captain Frazer was in Cape Town; Carew was still in hospital at Johannesburg where, under the eyes of Alice Mellen and her cousin, he was fast resuming his old finical habits. Dingy and veldt-stained though he might be, Carew at heart would always remain the exquisite. However, exquisite that he was bound to be, he was even more the soldier, and his gay eyes had clouded, as he had wrung Weldon's hand in parting.
"Lucky dog!" he said enviously. "I am off duty for two weeks more, and you are going back to the thick of things. One must take it as it comes; but I say, old man, don't forget me when the bullets begin to pelt at you again."
And Weldon had been better than his promise. He had thought of Carew, day and night, for the entire week, thought of him and missed him acutely. Carew was an ideal comrade in that he never, under any circumstances, took himself in earnest.
A leg which will carry a man on horseback is by no means fit for football. Weldon, finished player that he was, found it tame work to umpire a team whose sole idea of tactics was to get there in any way that offered itself. Half an hour sufficed; then, appointing an understudy, he walked away in search of Paddy. From the midst of a torrent of instructions to his quartette of black subordinates, Paddy's voice sang out a cheery greeting.
"Come along, little feller! Come and get something to eat. It's hungry you ought to be, the day, after the way you've been walking all over the country on horseback and an empty stomach. Try this, as a sample of your dinner, and sit down by the edge of the fire, whilst, and tell me how it tastes."
The iron spoon scraped lustily over the iron dixey. Then Weldon returned them both with a low bow.
"Like yourself, Paddy, short and sweet."
Paddy brandished the spoon, weapon-wise.
"Short is it, you little Canuck! So is a pepperpot short; but it holds a hell of a flavor. Leave Paddy a gun in his hand, and his short legs will keep up with your long ones, when it's the firing line that's before him."
"The old sing-song, Paddy. Give us something new."
"So will I, when I get my wishing. Till then, you'll hear it over and over again. A man of my temper, little one, will never rest content at a firing line that's all surrounded about with ten-quart pots of boiling beef."
"Why don't you resign, then?"
"Resigned! How can I be resigned? I'm a chunk of dynamite in a suet-pot, hard to manage and ready to go off at any time that something strikes me. Meantime, I am like what they say is dirt: matter out of place."
"Then why don't you get out?" Weldon queried.
"I am out of place now, I'm telling you," Paddy returned, as he pensively rested his cheek upon the bowl of the spoon in his hand.
"Yes; but why not refuse to stay here as cook?"
Sorrowfully Paddy shook his head, spoon and all.
"That's what I did do, little one."
"And what happened?"
"This." The spoon came into evidence once more. "They blarneyed me up and they blarneyed me down, and they said nobody could cook like Paddy. Anybody could shoot a baker's dozen of Boers; but only one man in the camp could fill up the boys to give them a fit and level stomach for the battle. And here I am, and here I'm like to be, till the new moon in the heavens turns to a curly strip of bully beef. If I'd known the Captain was about to escape to Cape Town, it's Paddy that would have escaped with him, hanging on to the tail of his coat. Saint Patrick's vipers! What's that?"
A hum, a spat, and a little spurt of red dust rolled lazily upward. Then another hum followed. There was a scurry of men, a squeak of leather, the light clashing of rifles snatched from the stack; and the troops were off.
Beside them, the nearer hills rose in brick-red patches against the sky. Farther away, the brick color changed to gray and, still beyond, to misty purple. Before them rolled the open, khaki-colored veldt dotted in one direction by a ragged spot of black that flowed over the crest of each ridge and vanished from sight for a moment before rising from the hollow to flow over the crest of the ridge beyond. And towards the ragged spot of black there rushed onward, at an ever-lessening distance, the khaki-colored streak of the foremost rank of C Squadron, led for the moment by a little gray broncho whose hoofs touched the ground only to spurn it backwards.
The chase was long and hot; but the end was in sight. Directly across the path of the quarry stretched a low line of willows showing the course of the stream beneath, and, a few hundred feet this side of the willows, scattered clumps of green marked as many scattered dwellings. By the largest clump, the quarry halted and turned to bay, and the pursuers, unable to check their speed, rode down upon it and crashed through its ranks, regardless of the pitiless fire, then, sweeping around on the arc of a mammoth circle, took up their position in the shelter of a walled kraal, only a few hundred yards away. Then for a moment they halted, face to face and in absolute silence.
Even after her mad race, the little gray broncho was breathing deeply and easily; but Weldon could feel his own breath come short. Banged in open order before him were a full half-hundred of the enemy, bearded, black-coated, bandoliered, grim and stolid and ripe of years. Beside him were the new captain of the troop and seven men. They were and alert; but there were only nine of them in all. And the rest of the troop, it seemed to him, were half the veldt-length away. Vaguely he wondered whether their distant khaki coats would look as purple as did the distant khaki-colored hills. Then, quite inconsequently, as he raised his rifle, he noticed that one of the Boers had a button hanging loosely on its threads from the front of his coat. He was rather surprised, the next instant, to see the Boer pitch forward headlong in the dust. It was some time afterward that he thought to connect the falling with the crack of his own rifle.
Piggie bounded sidewise, as the mount of the trooper next Weldon dropped and lay whimpering like a hurt child. Then she steadied to the touch of Weldon's hand upon her neck. It was not the first time he had guided her, unscathed, through a leaden shower. She would trust him yet once again. As he raised his rifle, her wiry legs were as steady as four iron rods. He saw another Boer fall and yet another and a third; but one khaki-colored figure lay stiffly beside him, and another was dragging itself away to a corner of the kraal, to give greater space to its unwounded comrades. And still the bullets whizzed about them, thick and ever thicker.
Piggie shied again. This time a bullet had grazed her neck, and the sight of the narrow sear filled Weldon's mind with a dull, unreasoning rage. Brutal to aim at the plucky mounts who bore their riders so gallantly into the flight where all defensive power was denied themselves! He paused long enough to pat the firm gray neck, to feel the answering pressure against his hand. Then he raised his rifle again and took careful aim, as he breathed a wordless prayer that chance might guide his bullet into the man who had scarred his faithful friend. Another Boer dropped; Weldon hoped it was by his own bullet. Then both he and the gray broncho pricked up their ears as, close on their flank, they heard the beating of galloping hoofs.
In the shock of the scrimmage that followed, there was scant time to take thought of friend or of foe. On the heels of his new captain as, of old, he had been on the heels of Captain Frazer, Weldon and the gray broncho were in the thick of the fight. Then, as the Boers sullenly fell backwards, Weldon became aware of a familiar voice in his ears.
"Whisht, little feller! It's Paddy," the voice said in a spooky undertone, as its owner ranged up alongside the gray broncho.
"Paddy!" Weldon stared at him in unfeigned astonishment. "What in the name of heaven are you doing here, man?"
With perfect composure Paddy squared himself in the saddle.
"Little Canuck dear, as I told you before, heaven is a state of eternal peace, and therefore an undesirable abode in these hot times. I prefer a whiff of brimstone, myself; and, by the powers, I've been getting, it." As he spoke, he took off his hat and showed a neat trio of holes in the left brim.
"But how did you come here, Paddy?" Weldon asked again.
"Took your advice to heart, my jewel, kicked over my pan of fat and jumped into the fire. Which, being put into straight English, I swiped a horse and rode off with the rest of the boys on the tail of the serpent." Weldon gasped, as he realized the enormity of the crime. Then he laughed. In his haste to gain possession of a mount, Paddy had taken no thought for his armament. His sole weapon was the huge iron spoon, still grasped in his left hand.
"Whose horse did you take, Paddy?"
"I d'know. I never looked to see. I popped my toe into the stirrup and came away, hot-foot; but," Paddy paused for a deliberate wink; "as I was leaving camp, I thought I heard the voice of that pigeon-toed little cockney Parrott, him that used to stub his toes on the wall at Piquetberg Road, acalling out that some one had mislaid his horse and he couldn't find it. I was sorry; but I was in a divil of a haste and couldn't stop to condole with him then."
"But, Paddy, they'll run you out of camp for this," Weldon remonstrated dutifully.
Paddy's shoulder mounted towards his left ear. "I'm thinking I have run myself out, and that's just what I was meaning to do. I've been a captain with four lieutenants under me. Any one of them can sling the pepper and the salt, and they're welcome; but not one has the fighting blood in his veins as I have. Let them mind their kettles and leave me to mind the enemy."
"And if they won't let you go back?"
"Then I'll ship myself straight down to Cape Town, and take service with Captain Frazer. He can fight with the best of them, and he knows I'm a man. It's riding at his heels I'll be, henceforth and forevermore."
Turning, Weldon looked long into the jovial Irish face, and at the hunchy figure that joggled to and fro in the saddle, with no heed to the rhythm of his horse's pace.
"Who taught you to ride, Paddy?" he asked at length.
For an instant, a lump in Paddy's left cheek betrayed the whereabouts of his tongue. Then quietly he made answer, "Sure, little feller, it must have been the grace of Saint Patrick. Nobody else has ever took a hand in the training of me. But I'll back him against all the riding masters in London and Aldershot."
And the result showed that Paddy's confidence was not misplaced.
By midwinter, the war had become a series of guerrilla raids, of sweeping drives and of occasional skirmishes. The epoch of the infantry had passed, and it was the day of the mounted man. The home-going of the great Field Marshal, six months before, had been followed by the return to England of transports loaded with foot soldiers. The hour, the country and the enemy all demanded the man on the horse. With Lord Kitchener in the field and the colonies aiding the mother country, the outcome was only a matter of time; but few could as yet say when the fulness of that time should be at hand.
"But it leaves me a good deal puzzled in my mind," Weldon said thoughtfully.
"How do you mean?" Ethel Dent threw the question at him a little defiantly.
"About going home."
"Surely, you aren't going now?"
He winced at the accent.
"I am not sure. I volunteered for six months. My time is up; I paid my official visit to the Citadel yesterday."
"Are you needed at home?"
"No. At least, not in any real sense."
"But you are needed here."
"There are enough without me, and the need will not last long."
"Don't be too sure. On the Dunottar Castle, there were plenty of people who laughed at you men for coming out to volunteer, after the war was over. You have proved that they laughed at nothing. Prove it again."
Rising, he walked the length of the room and stood looking out from the long front window. The bamboo screens and the willow chairs were gone from their veranda corner; the flower-boxes were empty now, and Table Bay gleamed coldly back at him in the late afternoon sun of midwinter. Then he turned around to face the girl, seated where her golden hair seemed to him to catch and hold all the light centering about the gay little tea-table.
"Don't," he said with some impatience. "Your arguments all echo my own wish. I am pulled in two ways at once. At home, the mother is growing restless. Since Vlaakfontein, she has lost her nerve, and her heart is set on my meeting her in London in October."
Deliberately Ethel made a neat triangle out of three unused spoons.
"Well?" she said, without looking up.
"Piggie and I have had a smell of powder," he answered briefly. "We want more."
"Well?" she said again.
"The question is, are we likely to get it."
"Not in England; not even in Cape Town," she answered, smiling at the spoons before her.
"Then where?"
"Wherever the Boers are thickest."
"Yes; but, after all, you are talking platitudes, Miss Dent," he said, with recurring impatience.
This time, she lifted her dark blue eyes to his face and allowed them to rest there for a full minute.
"But you forbade me to argue," she said demurely.
He dropped down into a chair and faced her resolutely.
"Now look here, Miss Dent, I can't talk shop in tea-table English. In fact, shop has no place at a tea-table, anyway. Still, you were the one to start it. Let's have it out. I don't want to funk, at this late day. If there is any fighting to be done, I want a hand in it. I went into a game of a certain length; I hope I played up, and stuck to the professional rules. That game is played out. I am not Trooper Weldon of the Scottish Horse. I am plain Harvard Weldon again and, to be quite frank, I don't like the change from khaki to tweed. But about going in for another game: it all depends on what the game will be. If it plays itself out, well and good; if it just dribbles on and on, without accomplishing anything, even an end, then I can see no use in going in for it. Fighting is one thing; having a picnic all over the face of South Africa is quite another matter. And, for the life of me, I can't see which is bound to come."
There was a minor cadence to the final phrase. Then he fell silent, and sat staring at the rug, while Ethel, leaning back in her chair, studied him at her ease. All in all, she was pleased with the result of her study. Always frank and likable, Weldon had developed wonderfully during those past months of hard work and slender comfort. Underneath his sunburn, his face had taken on new lines of resolution. His eyes were as clear as ever; but their boyishness was all in the past. It was a man who had come striding into the room, that afternoon, and paused beside her tea-table. And Ethel, looking up, had greeted him as she might have greeted Baden-Powell in his place.
To a great extent, Cape Town was resuming at least a semblance of its oldtime social life. Heroes were more plentiful than is altogether normal, however, and there was a dust-colored tint to most assemblages. During the past months, the Dents' house had come to be one of the focal points of society, and there were few men of note who had failed to mount the wide white steps and pass between the flanking pillars at the top, on their way to the drawing-room beyond. Once there, they usually came again, immediately, if they lingered in Cape Town; on their way back from the front, if no quicker opportunity offered itself. Many a bullet-interrupted conversation was resumed there; many a boy, just out from home, confided his mingled homesickness and aspirations to dainty, white-haired Mrs. Dent in her easy-chair; many a seasoned officer forgot his ambitions and his disappointments and even his still sensitive wounds in the gay talk of the golden-haired girl by the tray. As a rule, Ethel talked shop with no man. She merely looked sympathetic, and left him to do the talking, which he did unhesitatingly and without reservation. From the first hour of their meeting, Weldon had been the one exception. Even in the hospital at Johannesburg, she had gone over with him in detail his experiences in camp and field, and it had been Weldon by no means who had done all the talking.
To-day, as she had welcomed the tall Canadian in his irreproachable frock-coat, she had known a sudden pang of regret. Undeniably, his tailor was an artist. Nevertheless, she liked him better as she had seen him last, in his stained khaki and his well-worn shoes, bending over her hand in farewell, then taking The Nig's bridle from the waiting Kruger Bobs, to leap into the tarnished saddle, lift his hat and ride away out of sight. No one but Ethel herself had known that it was not distance alone which had rendered him invisible to her. And the next week in the hospital had dragged perceptibly. At the end of that time, she had been quite ready to say good by to Johannesburg and all that it contained. But, meanwhile, her smile gave no clue to her memories, as she offered her hand to Weldon.
"I knew you were here," she said cordially; "and I have any number of things to talk over with you. There is no talking for me now, though, with all these people on my hands. Can't you stay on and dine with us? That will give us an hour to gossip comfortably, and Captain Frazer is to be the only other guest. I asked him, on the chance of your appearing. Oh, good afternoon, Colonel Douglas!"
And Weldon found himself swept on out of her radius.
He took refuge beside Mrs. Dent and, from that safe slack-water, he made a thorough survey of the room. It was the first time he had been present at one of the Dents' reception days, and he acknowledged himself surprised at what he saw. Here and there an acquaintance nodded to him; but, for the most part, he was a stranger to the guests, save for the dozen whom he knew well by sight and better still by reputation. Moreover, while he watched her, he began to wonder whether he were not something of a stranger to Ethel herself. This stately girl was not the comrade with whom he had tramped the deck of the Dunottar Castle, nor yet the friend of his early days in Cape Town, nor yet again the blithe companion of his last tedious hours of convalescence. This girl was altogether admirable; but a bit awe-inspiring withal. He watched the nonchalant ease with which she provided a white-haired veteran of many wars and many orders with a cup of steaming tea, and then sat and chatted with him while he drank it. He felt himself a bashful boy, as he watched her, and, like any other bashful boy, he fell to talking to Mrs. Dent about his mother.
Then the last visitor made a reluctant exit, and Ethel crossed the room to his side. With the passing of the little throng of guests her assured manners had passed, and she met him with the same informal manner which had marked those last days at Johannesburg.
"Now," she said, as she dropped down beside her mother's chair; "you must tell me all about everything, Mr. Weldon. And, first of all, are you quite strong again?"
Question had followed question, eager, girlish and sincere, until Weldon's answers had covered all the interval since they last had met. At length, the delicate little mother had gone away to rest before time for dinner. Weldon's strong arm had half-supported, half-carried her up the staircase. Then, returning to the drawing-room, he had joined Ethel beside the deserted tea-table.
"After six months of the billy and the fryingpan, it is wonderfully good to handle china again," he said, as he halted on the hearth rug and stood smiling down at her.
She smiled back at him in full approval. Weldon looked very much the lord of creation, as he stood there with his back to the fire and one elbow resting on the mantel beside him. The position suited him, and, speaking in quite another sense, it suited her also.
"Then a taste of civilization is pleasant now and then, even to a grizzled warrior like yourself?" she questioned lightly.
"Yes, for the time being. One never knows, though, how long that time being will last."
"What shall you do, when the war ends?"
"Go home, take up a share in the pater's business, and grow stout and lazy," he answered her unsmilingly.
"An alluring prospect."
"Yes; but there will be other things: an occasional dinner, and even a tea now and then."
Leaning back in her chair, she looked up at him through her long yellow lashes.
"And shall you never remember to miss Africa?" she asked indolently.
His eyes rested upon her gravely.
"Yes, often. Moreover forgive my bluntness, but it is one of the privileges of a soldier—moreover, Miss Dent, I shall miss you."
Her color came; but she made no effort to ignore his words.
"Thank you," she said, with equal gravity. "I am glad to have you say so. But I hope it may be long before that day comes." "I can't tell. I had expected to sail for home, in a week or two. Now I am not so sure."
"Whether you wish to?"
"Whether I ought. When I left the Transvaal, the work seemed nearly done. Down here, the stories are less promising." He paused; then he added thoughtfully, "But it leaves me a good deal puzzled in my mind."
Coffee was served in the drawing-room, that night. Ethel roused herself from a reverie as Weldon and Captain Frazer joined her. To their half-mocking questions, she admitted the fact of her thoughtfulness. To neither one did she see fit to acknowledge its cause. The mood passed swiftly, however, and it left her more brilliantly gay than either man had ever seen her until then. Each frankly confessed himself dazzled; each one of them, more grave by nature than she often showed herself, was secretly uneasy lest her sudden overflow of spirits was in some fashion directed towards his companion; yet so skilfully did she lead the conversation that, at the evening's end, neither Weldon nor the Captain could produce any valid claim to being considered the favored guest.
"It has been good to have you here," she said gayly, as she gave them each a hand at parting. "Even if I was not present at your meeting, I have always felt that I had a finger-tip, at least, in your friendship." Then, as she dropped their hands, she faced the Captain with sudden seriousness. "Captain Frazer," she said slowly; "Mr. Weldon's time is over, and he has left the service. He thinks the fighting is all done. I am only a woman; I can't explain things very clearly, and so," she hesitated a little; "and so I think I shall leave his soul in your hands. There are plenty of people still in South Africa; there are never too many men." And, with a grave little nod, half intent, half girlish, she turned away from the door, leaving the heavy drapery to sway to and fro behind her.
Three days later, Weldon ran lightly up the stone steps and rang at the Dents' door.
"Is Miss Dent in?" he asked the maid. "I know it isn't her day; but tell her I am leaving town almost immediately, and I wish to say good by."
Notwithstanding his message, Ethel was long about appearing, and her face and manner, when she halted on the threshold, were a bit unapproachable. Then, as her eyes lighted on the brown uniform and the wide slouch hat, her whole expression changed, and she came forward with an eagerness which she was at no pains to conceal.
"Mr. Weldon."
He bowed in mock humility.
"Trooper Weldon, if you please."
"I am delighted. Is it your old troop?"
He shook his head.
"No. I know the Transvaal and all its resources by heart. I have chosen the Orange Free State. It is a new country; and, besides, all the best of the fighting is going to be there, on the heels of De Wet."
"Are you a prophet?" she asked, while she dropped into a chair and motioned to him to be seated.
"No; but I suspect that Captain Frazer is," he answered, as he obeyed her.
She raised her brows questioningly.
"Does he go, too?"
"Not now. His staff work holds him here among the fleshpots," he replied. "Later, he may be able to come up to us."
"Us?"
"The South African Light Horse."
"Why did you choose them?"
"Because they are to operate in the Orange River country, and because they would have me."
"Is that a matter to consider?"
Weldon laughed while, placing his hat on the floor, he settled himself more comfortably in his chair. His face was unusually animated, that day, and his trim new uniform and his carefully-wound putties added inches to his height and showed his lithe, lean figure at its very best.
"I considered it," he answered then. "It is a trick of mine, as soon as I decide I want a thing, to be in living terror of losing it. However, the ordeal was short and not too severe. Captain Frazer introduced me to a little lieutenant who looked me over, asked me if I could ride, if I could shoot a rifle and if I had had any experience. I fancy the matter was settled beforehand. Then I went out and treated The Nig and Piggie to some new shoes, and myself to a new uniform, and the deed was done."
"Are you glad, or sorry?" she asked slowly.
"That there was no more red tape?"
"That you decided as you did?"
He stared at her thoughtfully for a minute. Then he answered,—
"But I imagine it rather decided itself. I spoke of it to you once before, I remember, when we were up in hospital, how there never seemed to be much choice open to me. I fancy I am deciding things; I mull over them till I am disgusted with the whole matter. Then, after I have made up my mind what I am going to do, I suddenly realize that there was never any question about it from the start. I have simply said 'yes' to an irresistible force."
"Perhaps," she assented slowly. "I am not so sure." Then she turned to the tangible fact. "But when do you go?"
"To-morrow morning."
"I am sorry it must be so soon," she said quietly. "Still, I am glad you are going. You never would have been satisfied to sail for home now."
"No," he answered. "I should not."
Then the talk halted again.
"Where is Mr. Carew?" she asked abruptly at length, less from interest in Carew than from a desire to escape so insistent a pause.
"At the Mount Nelson." "Here in Cape Town?"
"Yes. He came down with me. We volunteered together, you know, and his time was ended, too."
"Does he go home?"
"No; not Harry Carew. We had decided to keep together in our plans; in fact, it was one of the conditions of our coming out. But, from the start, he has hated the idea of going back home as long as there was an armed Boer left in the field."
"And he goes with you?"
"Yes, to Springfontein. We have our headquarters there for the present. For Carew's sake, I hope it will be more riding and scouting than actual fighting. The man is made of some material that draws all the bullets in sight."
Ethel smiled.
"Don't let him stop near you, then," she advised.
"Why not? He is as good as a shield. It is hard on him, though. He was hit four or five times before Vlaakfontein, and has had one scratch since."
"What is the trouble? Is he foolhardy?"
"Foolhardy in war, Miss Dent?"
"Yes, just that. There is no sense in taking needless risks."
"But it is mighty hard to draw the line between avoiding needless risks and funking necessary ones," he answered. "But Carew isn't reckless. He is plucky, but very level-headed, and he means to take care of himself, when he can. One can't always, you know. And then he is wonderfully unlucky."
"You believe in luck, then?"
"Yes, or Fate. What else makes a man move out of the way, just in time for the bullet to graze his cheek? He doesn't see the bullet coming; neither does the man who stops it. Both of them are busy about something else. For the man who escapes it, it is Providence; for the man who gets killed, it is Fate."
She tried to rouse him from his sudden gravity.
"And for both, it is mere chance."
"If you call it that. Miss Dent—" He hesitated.
"Yes," she assented gravely.
"It was only a chance, but a strange one," he went on, with his eyes fixed on the topmost ridge of his brown puttie. "We were climbing the face of a kopje, one day. It was very steep, and we crawled up a narrow trail in single file. Two days before, our guns had been shelling the whole kopje, and they must have cracked it up badly. All at once, the man above me loosened a great lump of rock. I was exactly underneath it. It gave a little bound outward, went completely over me and struck full on the head of the next man in line."
The girl sat, bending forward in her chair, her strong, quiet hands clasped loosely in her lap.
"And he?" she asked quite low.
"He dropped to the foot of the kopje, dead. In his fall, he dragged down the next man after him, and his leg was crushed."
"And you were saved!" she said a bit breathlessly.
"Doesn't it make you feel a vague responsibility, as if you must live up to something that you couldn't quite understand?"
Without looking up, he bowed in assent.
"Yes," he said then. "Don't think me foolishly superstitious, Miss Dent, or too egotistic. I try not to pay much attention to it. Once in a while, though, not too often, it all comes back over me, and I feel then as if my life might have been kept for something that is still ahead of me."
"And doesn't it leave you feeling anxious about making all your decisions?" she asked slowly, as she leaned back again in her chair.
"At first. Then I remember how that, and some other things have been settled for me."
"What then?"
"Then I shut my teeth and face forward. All one can do, is to forget the future and take the present as it comes, making the best of each minute and leaving the hour to look out for itself," he answered simply. "Sometimes one makes better progress by drifting than he does by punting against the current."
She bit her lip.
"Sometimes I think, though—" Suddenly she roused herself and gave a nervous little laugh. "Captain Frazer is coming up the steps," she added.
"You think?" Weldon reminded her, as she rose.
But she shook her head and laughed again, this time more in her natural manner.
"I think that I wish you would bring Mr. Carew to call on me, next time you come," she said evasively.
"Thank you. He will be glad to come. The only question is when the next time will arrive."
"You said Captain Frazer was a prophet," she said, as she moved towards the door. "Ask him."
Tall, alert, eager, the Captain entered the room in time to catch her words.
"A prophet of what and to whom, Miss Dent?" he asked, as he bowed over her outstretched hand.
"To Mr. Weldon, in regard to the future fighting," she answered gayly.
"You here, Weldon?"
"Yes, to say good by."
Captain Frazer nodded.
"I saw Mitchell, this morning. He spoke well of you; of Carew, too, for the matter of that. He told me your troop would be off in the morning, and asked me to diagnose your best points."
"Could you find any?" Weldon asked imperturbably. "A few. I told him you could sit tight and shoot straight," the Captain answered, laughing. Then he added gravely, "And I also told him you could ride the fiend incarnate, and that, as far as I knew, you didn't lose your head when you were under fire."
For the instant, Weldon forgot his hostess, as he looked up to meet the Captain's blue eyes squarely.
"Thank you. But it is more than I deserve."
"Then you must try to live up to it," Ethel advised him languidly. "It merely increases your responsibilities, for now you have two reputations to support, your own for pluck and the Captain's for being a judge of his fellowmen. It is an awful weight that you are carrying on your shoulders, Mr. Weldon."
"If it grows too heavy, I will slide some of it off on your own," he returned, as he picked up his hat and rose to his feet. "Your responsibility is back of mine, Miss Dent. It was you who advised me to stay in South Africa."
"Not at all. I presented the case and kept my advice to myself," she rebelled promptly.
"Certain presentments are stronger than much advising."
"Perhaps. But in the end, you remember, I commended your soul to Captain Frazer's keeping."
He bowed with the odd, old-fashioned deference which it pleased him to assume at times. "Captain Frazer may have saved it; but it may have been you who made it worth his efforts at salvation."
She laughed again. Nevertheless, her eyes showed her pleasure.
"Then we, Captain Frazer and I, must divide the responsibility for your future," she replied. "In any case, may it be all good!"
The drapery fell backward over his departing figure, and, for an instant, Ethel stood staring at the swaying folds. Then, turning, she walked back to the fire.
"All good," she repeated. "I know you echo the wish, Captain Frazer. But—isn't it hard to say good by?"
"In these days most of all," he assented slowly. "And one never can tell when his own turn may come."
"Nor what its end may be," she added. Then impetuously she rose again and moved up and down the room. "Look at that sunshine outside, Captain Frazer," she said restlessly. "It ought to forbid any such gloomy moods. I believe all this war and so many partings are spoiling my nerve. I really feel quite blue, to-day; and Mr. Weldon made it worse."
"By saying good by?"
Glancing up, she was astonished at the wishful, hungry look in the blue eyes before her. "Yes, a little," she said lightly; "for I hate the very word. But, if it must be spoken, it should always be short and staccato. Instead, he sat here, and we talked about Fate and wounds and all sorts of direful things." She shook herself and shivered slightly. Then she sat down in the chair which Weldon had just left vacant. "It is bad manners to have nerves, Captain Frazer. Forgive me first, and then tell me something altogether flippant, to make me forget things."
But her mood had caught the Captain in its grasp.
"Are you sure you want to forget?" he asked her gravely.
"Yes," she made vehement answer. "Always!"
But not even her decided answer brought back the eager light into his dark blue eyes.
Nevertheless, an hour later found him still sitting there. Ethel's depression had vanished, to be followed by a mood of wayward merriment for which the honest, straightforward soldier was totally at a loss to account. Sincere himself, he looked for sincerity in others. If Ethel's gravity had been unfeigned, how could it so soon give place to her present buoyancy? Not the strictest code of hospitality could demand that a hostess should straightway toss aside the thought of the parting guest who had gone away to battle and, perhaps, to sudden death. And, if the girl had been insincere in her parting from Weldon, why should she be sincere in her present absorption in his own interests? And, if her regrets for Weldon were as great as they had seemed to be, then what was the use of his remaining by her side any longer? The horns of the dilemma extended themselves to infinity and branched again and again as they extended. Meanwhile, his eyes were full of trouble, and his answers to her questions were vague and faltering. Until her sudden trip to Johannesburg, Captain Frazer had taken the girl as a matter of course. Since then, he had begun to doubt, and the doubts were thickening.
But, after all, there was no real reason for doubt. During her one short season in London, the Captain had met Ethel constantly, he had been quite obviously the favorite of the old aunt who had presided over the girl's introduction to society, and his later meetings with Ethel at sundry week-end gatherings had convinced him that he had no serious rival. Then had come the war; and Ethel's absence from town had made a farewell impossible. Captain Frazer had sailed away, leaving the past behind him; but the future was still his, to be lost or won, according to the use he made of his manhood's chances.
And then, on the dazzling summer morning which had ushered in the new century, he had caught a glimpse of Ethel riding towards home. Three days later, as he had gone away down the broad white steps, he had felt convinced that the future already lay in his grasp. It had been the selfsame Ethel, unchanged and changeless to his loyal mind, who had met him with smiling, eager cordiality. The year of separation was cast aside; their friendship began again at the precise spot where it had been broken off.
Since then, he had seen her often, occasionally alone, sometimes with her mother, sometimes the central figure of a little crowd who were obviously striving to win her favor. Her father's fortune was in part the cause of this; but the greater, surer cause lay within the girl's own personality. Ethel Dent was no negative character. However, Captain Frazer had never found her too absorbed in her other companions to be able to give him a share of her attention which differed from all other shares that she bestowed, in being a bit more personal in its cordiality. His black-fringed blue eyes were keen and far-sighted. They assured him that, whatever her regard for him, at least it was true that, in all her Cape Town life, there was no man for whom Ethel Dent had a sincerer liking. And then, all at once, a doubt had assailed his mind, and the doubt had centered itself in this long, lean Canadian with the grave, steady face and the boyish manner. Worst of all, the doubt had scarcely arisen before he himself had become aware of his own growing liking for the young Canadian. Captain Leo Frazer was strictly just. He admitted to himself that Weldon was in every way worthy to be chosen by Ethel Dent. However, he was determined as well as just, and he had no mind at all to allow Ethel Dent to choose any man but one, and that one was himself, Leo Frazer.
And now he was sitting moodily by her fireside, listening to her light, easy flow of talk and asking himself certain questions, which he was powerless to answer.
As he rose at last, some sudden impulse made him speak from the very midst of his train of thought.
"Did you know he had refused a commission?" he asked, regardless of antecedents.
She made no pretence of misunderstanding him.
"No. Did he?"
"Yes. Mitchell told me, this morning."
"I wonder why."
"He said he had pledged himself to stay with the rank and file, that it was easier to take orders than to give them."
"Strange!" she said thoughtfully.
"Strange that he should feel so?"
She shook her head.
"No. He told me about that, coming out. I am not surprised. But it is strange that he shouldn't have spoken of the matter now."
"It was like him. He doesn't tell all his best deeds," Captain Frazer said, with direct frankness "Still, I thought it was fairer that you should know."
Her color came, as she met his eyes; but she offered no question in regard to the meaning of his final phrase.