CHAPTER XI

Vile epithets fell again and again from his lips, and under each her face blenched and shrank as though little flickering flames or drops of corrosive acid had touched it; but her eyes were sealed and her lips gave forth no word.At last it ended strangely. Weariness seemed suddenly to overcome Abinger, for his grasp grew loose on the girl's hands, his tense features relaxed, a bluish shade stole over his face.Presently he stumbled to his feet, and, walking unevenly and vaguely, made his way from the room.In a moment Poppy Destin had leapt from the bed to the door and locked it soundlessly.Sophie Cornell was saying good-night to a visitor. "Well," said he. "Tell Miss Chard how sorry I am.As soon as she feels well enough, I shall send up my carriage, and I'd like her to use it and get some fresh air.""Och, what, she won't be well enough for that some time yet," was Miss Cornell's answer. "She is very dickie indeed. I shouldn't be surprised if she croaked."Bramham gave her a searching look."Well, look here; she ought to have a good doctor in. I'll ask Ferrand to call. He's my doctor, and the best I know——""Oh, don't do that?" said Sophie hastily; "we've called a doctor in already, you know.""Who have you got?""I must go—I can hear her calling," said Sophie suddenly. "Good-night."Incontinently she disappeared, the door closed, and Bramham was left to pick his way through the dark garden as best he might.After the sound of his steps had died away a figure stole from among the trees to the verandah, softly opened the front door and walked in upon Miss Cornell, who was in the act of mixing herself a whiskey-and-soda. The drink spilled upon the table and Sophie's mouth fell apart."My God, Rosalind! What ashrik[5]you gave me!Man!What's the matter with you?" At the end of her question her voice fell into a whisper. She stared with genuine horror at the wraith-like face before her: Rosalind Chard, with dilated eyes in an ashen face, drenched hair, a white lace gown wet and torn, hatless and shoeless.[5]Start (fright)."Gott!Rosalind!" repeated the Colonial girl. "Has someone been trying to murder you?""Yes," said the other tonelessly. "And I've come here for safety. Will you take me in, Sophie?""Of course. But who was it? A man, I'll bet—or has your old aunt gone up the tree?""Don't ask me anything, Sophie. I shall go mad if I have to talk. Only, hide me and never let anyone know I'm here, or I shall kill myself." The girl fell exhausted into a chair and Sophie stood staring at her with a long face. It would not suit her book at all, she reflected, if Rosalind Chard wanted to be shut up and never see anyone. However, she saw that this was no time to argue the point, and that her present pressing business was to get the exhausted girl to bed.This she proceeded to do.CHAPTER XITHE person largely instrumental in bringing Poppy back to health and a remote interest in life was Charles Bramham.One day Sophie Cornell met him in West Street and asked him to come and call."I have Rosalind up at last," she told him; "but she looks like a dying duck, and I believe shewilldie if someone doesn't buck her up. It would be arealcharity if you would come and talk to her."Bramham, though an exceedingly busy man, accepted the invitation with vivacity, for he was muchintriguéon the subject of Miss Chard, and, further, he had not forgotten the romantic and piquant sensations she had inspired in him upon the occasion of their one meeting. Now, piquant and romantic sensations are very valuable in South Africa, and should always be followed up in case of life becoming too monotonously saltless and savourless. Bramham swiftly found a spare hour and arrived one afternoon in Sophie's absence.He was utterly taken aback by the change in the girl. He came upon her suddenly, sitting in the verandah with her hands laced round her knees and her eyes staring straight in front of her with a look in them that was not good to see."Why!youought to be away up in the country somewhere, out of this sweltering heat," was his first remark after ordinary conventionalities. She observed him coldlyand assured him that she was perfectly well. Her invitation to come into the verandah and take a chair was polite, but lacking in enthusiasm. But it was hard to daunt Charles Bramham when he was looking for sensations. Besides which, he felt a genuine and chivalrous interest in this desperate-eyed girl."This climate is only meant for flies and Kaffirs," he said pleasantly. "It's quite unfit for white men in summer—to say nothing of a delicate English girl unaccustomed to it."A smile flickered across Poppy's lips at this description of herself, and Bramham, encouraged by his success, went on to tell her about just the ideal spot for her to recover her health."At the Intombi, near Port Shepstone," he said, "you can stand on hills that undulate to the sea five hundred feet below, with the whole veldt between brilliant with flowers."Poppy looked with surprise into the keen, strong face. She believed Bramham must be a lawyer, because he had such a scrutinising, business-like look about him. But to her astonishment he went on to tell her of a valley where arum-lilies grew in such masses that they looked like miles of snowdrifts lying on the grass."All along the south coast," he continued, warming to his subject, "there are thousands of acres covered with flowers—red and variegated and white. I think the white ones are mostly wild narcissi. The smell of the sea wind blowing over them is warranted to cure the sickest body or soul in South Africa. I wish I were there now," he added wistfully, and the pupils of his eyes expanded in an odd way."But you are not sick," said Poppy, smiling less wanly."No, but when all the flowers are in full bloom the quail come down," was the artless rejoinder. "Not thatthatwill be for a long time yet; September is the time. But I like that place."And Poppy liked him. It was really impossible to help it. She remembered now that she had experienced the same pleasure in his frank, kind glances and direct remarks the first time she had met him. Certainly there were dangers about him. Undoubtedly he could be a villain too, if one allowed him to be, she thought; but there is something attractive about a man who can forget he is talking to a woman and remember acres of flowers instead—and get that boyish look into his eyes at the same time! She was not the first woman, however, who had felt the charm of Charles Bramham. When he had finished with Upper Natal, he fell to telling her of a woman, agreatfriend of his, who had once lived in Durban, until the women drove her out saying that she was mad and bad."Certainly her face was all marked up," said Bramham gravely. "She said her temperament did it; buttheysaid it was wickedness. So she went away and wrote a book about them. She let some of them down on a soft cushion, but others she hung up by their heels and they're hanging there yet—food for the aasvogels.""She must be very clever," said Poppy drily."She is. She's abird," said Bramham with enthusiasm. "When her book came out everybody here black-guarded her, and said it showed what an immoral wretch she was to know such things about men and women." He gave Poppy a side-glance to see if he should add something else that was hot on his tongue, but he decided that she was too innocent-eyed."All the same, we all sneaked off to Piet Davis's and looked at the Bibles whilst we shoved bits of paper across the counter: 'Please send me two copies ofDiana Amongst the Wesleyansat once; wrap each in theSunday at Homeand despatch to my office.'"Poppy gave a little ringing laugh and asked eagerly:"Is she here now?""Lord no! I wish she were. She has settled in France, where, she says, they understand temperament better than out here, and I believe it. Last night I went to a dinner-party—a thing I never do, and it served me right—and a woman opposite started tackling me about her; said she had seen Mrs. Haybittel in Paris, and that she was older-looking than ever.""'Yes, so am I,' said I, 'but I am also more in love with her than ever.' At which she giggled, and they all turned up their mirthless eyes at me. That woman is an old enemy of mine, and she always trains her guns on me whenever she can get an audience. She's a Mrs. Gruyère, and if ever you meet her, beware!""'I thought the ideal woman was always young,' she snippered at me."'Not at all,' I said. 'She may be old, but nottooold. She may be ugly, but nottoougly. She may be bad, but nottoobad. It is a pity you didn't find someone to tell you about this before,' I finished. That gave her something to bite on with her celluloid teeth."Bramham amused Poppy in this fashion for something like two hours, and then, having given himself an invitation to call again shortly, he left her with laughter on her lips and the shadows fled from her eyes. She went indoors and, her old trick, looked at herself in a mirror."What is the matter with me," she said wonderingly, "that I can laugh and be gay, when I know that the future is dark with fateful things."Nevertheless, she continued to laugh, and that night, while Sophie was away at the theatre and the house was quiet, she began and finished with the winged pen of inspiration a little merry song that was all sparkling with tears, full of the shadows that lie in dark valleys, but alsofresh with the wind that blows across the hills lifting the shadows. Her personal troubles all forgotten in her work, she went to bed wrapped in the ecstasy of one who has achieved and knows the achievement good. But not to sleep. The lines of her poem twinkled and flashed back and forth through her brain; the metre altered itself to one, oddly, daringly original. Phrases like chords of music thrilled through her and everything she had already written seemed tame and meaningless. Lying there she re-wrote the whole thing in her brain, setting it to a swinging, swaying metre that swayed and swung her tired mind to rest at last. But in the calm light of morning she did not change her poem, for she had the artist's gift of selection and recognised inspiration when she saw it.That day found her descended into the pit of desolation once more, with the "black butterflies" swarming overhead, shutting out the light. What was happening to her was that temperament was claiming her. The poet-artist in her that had struggled so long for the light was being born, with all the attendant pangs and terrors of deliverance, for when the body is sick and the soul torn with suffering is temperament's own time.Intermittently she began to do fine work, but there were always the black hours afterwards when she forgot that she was an artist, and only knew the terror of being a woman. Then she suffered.In the meantime, Sophie had her chained to the typewriter. She had begun to hate the clicking horror, but she felt an obligation to work for Sophie as hard as she was able, to pay for the food she ate and the roof over her head. She never dared to think of Abinger and whether he sought her. The secret exit in the garden wall she had skilfully hidden. Abinger would probably think that she had a double key to the front gate and had escaped that way, or else through theboys'compound. Certainlyhe would never dream of seeking for her in the house of Sophie Cornell. She had rigorously bound the latter to silence as to her presence in the little bungalow, and knowing that for some reason it was exceedingly important to Sophie to have her there, she had no doubt that the Colonial girl would keep her lips sealed. To the many men-friends of the fascinating Miss Cornell, it became known that a companion and assistant mysteriously shared her house, and her work, but the astounding thing was that this mysterious person kept to her own quarters at all times, and did not care for theatres, late suppers at the Royal, or drives to Inanda! It was generally supposed that she was, in the slang of the day, either "moth-eaten," or "cracked."At the earliest opportunity Poppy tied Charles Bramham's tongue also, by telling him frankly that she had an enemy she was afraid of and whom she feared would find her out.Bramham had become a constant visitor whom Poppy always welcomed. His visits meant to her a time of ease from the torment of her own thoughts, a respite from evil dreams. His big, bracing individuality evoked in her a strong liking and comradeship, and she hoped he had the same feeling for her; but she was sometimes afraid of the glances of his grey eyes.She was not long in discovering that though he was essentially a man's man, he had a great fondness for the society of women; that, indeed, he was one of those men who are lost without a woman as the central figure of existence—to work for and wind dreams around. He told her so very often, in words that were meant to be enigmatical and symbolical, no doubt, but which were really as frank and simple as the man's nature."Life out here is saltless and savourless—just one day's march nearervoetsack, unless someone takes an interestin you," was the disconsolate remark he made to her one day, with a look in his eyes that was even more direct than his words."But you must have heaps of people who do that," Poppy answered evenly, "and you strike me essentially as being one of them yourself. I'm sure you must be, or you would not have made a success of your life.""How do you know I'm a success?" somewhat gloomily."Oh, anyone can see that. You have the calm, assured look of a man whose future is secure.""You mean I look smug and self-satisfied!""Nothing of the kind. When a man has any intellect to speak of, money merely expands his interests and makes him ever so much more interesting than before. Do you think Sam Johnson ever got smug-looking? even when he had three hundred a year, which was quite an income those days?""Are you comparing me with Johnson?" asked Bramham, grinning."Oh, you needn't be vain. Africa is swarming with men who are the equals of Johnson in brain, without being hampered by his principles. His endurance and fine courage are another matter entirely. I don't suppose there are many men here who have gone through what he did to reach success.""You're mistaken there," said Bramham. "There are plenty of men out here who have beaten their way through almost insurmountable difficulties, and come out top-dog."Poppy smiled sceptically."Difficulties, yes—but poverty and bitter want?"'Slow rises worth by poverty depressed!'"What do South Africans know of terrible poverty? Their minds are often starved, but never their bodies,and there is always the sunshine, to clothe and warm. Even the little Kaffir children have their stomachs filled with rice or mealie-meal pap and can roll in the sun and be happy. I don't suppose any of the residents of this place know the real meaning of the word poverty—you, for instance?""Oh, I'm not much of an instance," said Bramham carelessly. "I am a Colonial, but, as a matter of fact, I happen to have spent a great part of my youth in London. I had to leave Africa when I was ten and I thought it pretty rough luck. If you cast your eye around, you will notice that Natal seems to have been just made for boys of ten—there's the sea, and the bluff, and the bay, and the Bush. Ah, well! I don't suppose you will understand what it meant to leave all these things and go and settle in a gloomy little side street in Chelsea!"Poppycouldunderstand; but she was so much surprised that she said nothing."My mother was left a widow with two young sons," continued Bramham in a pleasantly narrative tone. "She had no means, but she had the pluck of ten men and a heart for any fate. She used to give music lessons and teach a few youngsters; but there is no income to speak of to be got out of that. We boys had to hustle out and find something to do as soon as we left school, which was pretty early. There was no hope of a profession for either of us; the only thing to do was to grab with teeth and nails whatever offered and make the best of it. I was the eldest and had to get out when I was twelve, and the first place I got was with an undertaker as a sort of boy-of-all-work. Lord! how I hated that business and that man! But I got a sound knowledge of book-keeping there that was invaluable later on. Afterwards I got a billet with a firm of auctioneers, and the experience I gottherehas been mighty useful too. But their placeof business was a long way from Chelsea, and I couldn't afford fares, so I had to get up at three-thirty in the mornings and go off on foot with fourpence in my pocket to feed myself on during the day. There was a place I used to go to for my mid-day meal—a sort of 'Cabmen's Rest,' where I used to get a fine hunk of what is known as 'spotted dog' for twopence-halfpenny; but I couldn't run to that every day in the week, because it didn't leave me enough to live on for the rest of the day. The winter was the worst time. My mother was always up to see me off in the mornings, with a cup of coffee to put heart into me for my long walk—and she would be waiting for me in the evenings with a smile and a hot supper, probably something she had done without for her own dinner. During supper she usually had some astonishing tale to tell us of great men who, having had to struggle with adversity, had won through and come out top. She was a brilliantly-educated woman, and had been a wide reader—I don't think the life ofanyfamous man had escaped her knowledge. It certainly put heart intometo know that finer men than I had gone through the same mill, and I often went to bed in a glow of virtue. But I'm bound to say that the glow had a way of wearing off during the daytime. We had a wealthy cousin who could have helped us a deal if he'd liked, but his help never went any further than writing letters of advice and forwarding parcels of discarded clothing. His frayed collars used to come my way. I think now, looking back, that the worst physical pain I can remember in those London years was the feel of that fellow's collars sawing at my gorge. He is still alive, and I am often obliged to meet him when I am in London, and I can tell you I never let him off those collars. I harp on them until he gets as frayed and sore as my neck used to be."Bramham smiled gaily. Poppy wondered what theworst mental suffering had been, but she had too much respect for suffering to ask.Indirectly, Bramham presently enlightened her."It was pretty bad those days to remember the life we had known out here. My brother, being fairly young, didn't feel it so much. My mother and I had our memories all to ourselves."He made a long pause. Poppy said nothing. She was sitting with her elbows among the papers on the table listening intently."We came out here afterwards, and my brother and I put up a big fight for fortune, and we won out at last; but I don't know that we ever should, if my fine old mother hadn't been at the back of us all the time.""She was a noble woman," said Poppy softly. "How you must have made it up to her afterwards.""She died just when things were beginning to come our way," said Bramham.CHAPTER XIIPOPPY and Bramham were alone together as they had been many times before. The verandah being the coolest place, they were sitting there, on a low basket-lounge affair, in darkness, except for the streaks and squares of light that stretched through the open windows and door of the sitting-room, falling across the verandah and losing themselves in the massed greenery of the garden. The little red glow at the end of Bramham's cigar gave enough light at times for him to observe that upon the face of his companion the strained, tortured look which often haunted it, was getting full play under cover of the dimness. She laughed lightly, however, at his sallies as they talked—the disjointed intermittent conversation of people who are far from the subject under discussion.By reason of the shortness of the lounge they were seated rather close together; so close, that when Bramham's arm, which was lying along the back of the sofa, slipped down, it, as a matter of course, touched her waist. Her face was averted, so that even if it had been light enough he could not see the troubled look that flashed across it. She sat perfectly still, however, and said nothing. Itmightbe an accident—she would wait and see. But presently she felt personality and magnetism in the touch of that firm hand, lightly as it rested on her; and she knew that this was not an accident."Don't do that," she said; her manner was careless,but there was atimbrein her voice that chilled. Bramham instantly removed his hand."Why not?" he asked discontentedly."Because I don't care about it," she said, her tone pleasant and friendly again.Bramham smoked a while. He was not at all offended, but he chose to pretend to be. His experience of women presently prompted him to make a remark which he had discovered they regarded in the nature of a taunt."I'm afraid you are very cold-blooded."Poppy merely laughed. Bramham, piqued that his shot had missed fire, and, having no other ready at the moment, repeated it with as much disagreeableness as he could muster—which was not any very great amount."It must be unpleasant to be so cold.""Oh, not in this climate," said she tranquilly; adding, with a touch of malice: "and there are always plenty of fires where one can warm oneself,quelquefois.""I think that whatyouneed is a bonfire." Bramham was feeling distinctly cross, but Poppy laughed so merrily at thismotthat his good-humour was restored. He began to smoke again, sitting sideways now, because he was able to see her face better, and there appeared to be no object in sitting cheek by jowl. Later, he said:"I don't see why you should despise my nice bright flame."Poppy meditated swiftly. She liked Bramham well, and she desired to keep him friendly; only, there was a thing he had to understand clearly. She was learning to make use of any twist of the tongue in difficult situations, but she knew that she was dealing with man of a good type and it seemed indicated that alittleof the truth would not be out of place at this juncture—a little only! the real, bitter, wonderful truth she would share with no one in the world!"I am far from despising it, Mr. Bramham," she said at last, very gently. "But I happen to want you for a friend, not an enemy."Bramham did not see his way quite clear through this. However, he declared stoutly that he had never been a woman's enemy yet."Then you must often have been your own," she retorted, with a little glint of bitter wisdom. Thereafter, the conversation flagged again. Bramham had missed his cue and his broad shoulders took on a somewhat sullen expression. Poppy had the hopeless feeling that she had lost a lover without finding a friend, and the thought filled her with sadness. Only God and she knew how much she needed a friend; and she was sure she could find no stronger, firmer rock to her back than this big, kind man, if she could only get him away from these shoals of emotion on to the firm ground of friendship.But Bramham was sighing sulkily, and flipping with his forefinger at the end of his cigar, as though he had no further use for it. Obviously, he was thinking of making a chilly departure. Suddenly she put out her hand and touched his, resting on his knee."You are quite right, Iamcold," she said softly; "starving with cold; and you can never know how charming and attractive your fire looks to me, but—after all, the best seat is already taken isn't it?"Bramham stared hard at her, swallowing something. This was the first time his wife had been mentioned between them. She did not falter."Don't you think I am nice enough to have a fireside of my very own?" She spoke with the soft bird note in her throat, and her smile was a wistful thing to see.Bramham's other firm hand came down on hers, and gave it a great grip."By Jove! I do. And I hope you'll get the best going."A wave of grateful warmth rushed over the girl at his words. Her eyes filled with tears."Thank you; thank you!" she cried brokenly; and added, on a swift impulse: "The fire I want seems to me the most wonderful in the world—and if I can't be there, I'll never sit by any other."She did not attempt to stanch her tears, but sat looking at him with a smiling mouth, while the heavy drops fell down her cheeks. Bramham thought that, because of the smile, he had never seen any woman look so tragic in his life."Don't cry; don't cry, dear!" he said distressfully. "I can't bear to see a woman cry. Do you love someone, Rosalind?" he asked, using her name shyly."Yes, Charlie," she said simply; "I do. But there is a knife in my heart." She turned from him now, and looked away, that he might not see the despair and humiliation in her face."I will be your friend, Rosalind. Trust me. I can't understand at all. You are altogether a mystery to me; I can't understand, for one thing, how a girl like you comes to be living with Sophie Cornell——""I came here quite by accident," she interrupted him. "I have always meant to tell you, though I know that for some reason Sophie doesn't want you to know. I walked into the garden one day, and saw Sophie using a typewriter, and I came in and asked her to take me for an assistant.""What! But weren't you a governess to some people in Kimberley, and an old friend of Sophie's in Johannesburg?""No, I've never been a governess, and I never saw Sophie until I walked in here some three months ago. The girl you take me for never came at all, and Sophie was glad to have me take her place, I suppose. But, indeed,it was good of her to take me in, and I am not ungrateful. I will pay her back some day, for she is of the kind money will repay for anything." She added this rather bitterly, for, indeed, Sophie never ceased to make her feel her obligations, in spite of daily slavery on the typewriter."Well, of all the—!" Bramham began. Later, he allowed himself to remark:"She certainly is a bird of Paradise!" and that was his eulogy on Sophie Cornell."But how comes it that a girl like you is—excuse me—kicking about the world, at a loose end?—How can any fellow that has your love let you suffer!—The whole thing is incomprehensible! But whatever you say stands. You needn't say anything at all if you don't want to——""I can't tell you anything," she said brokenly. "If I could tellanyone, it would be you—but I can't. Only—I want a friend, Charlie—I want help.""I'll do anything in the world for you—all you've got to say is 'Knife.'""I want to get away from Africa to England, and I haven't a penny in the world, nor any possessions except the things I am wearing now.""Oh, that's simple!" said Bramham easily. "But have you any friends to go to in England?""I have no friends anywhere—except you."'I have no friend but Resolution... and the briefest end!'"But I don't think my end is yet. I must go away from Africa, when I love it most—asyoudid, Charlie. There are things to do and things to go through, and I must go and suffer in London as you did. But I mean to win through and come back and get my own, like you did, too."She jumped up and stood in the light of the window,and Bramham could see that her eyes were shining and her cheeks flushed. She looked like a beautiful, boastful boy, standing there, flinging out a mocking, derisive hand at Fate."Life has had her way with me too long, Charlie. Ever since I was a child she has done nothing but cheat me and smite me on the mouth, and beat me to the earth.... But I am up again, and I will walk over her yet!... Love has found me, only to mock me and give me false coin and pass me by on the other side; but I will come back and find Love, and it will bemyturn to triumph. Look at me!" she cried, not beseechingly, but gaily, bragfully. "There is no white in my hair, nor any lines on my face, nor scars ... where they can be seen. I have youth, courage, a little beauty, something of wit—and I can write, Charlie. Don't you think that I should be able to wrest something for myself from the claws of that brute Life—a little Fame, a little Love——?""I should just say Ido," said Bramham heartily. "You're true-blue all through, without a streak of yellow in the whole of your composition."PART IIINothing is better I well thinkThan Love: the hidden well waterIs not so delicate to drink.CHAPTER XIIIPOPPY sailed by one of the pleasant small lines that run direct between Natal and England without touching at East London or the Cape."If it will amuse you," said Bramham, "to sit down with diamonds at breakfast, and diamonds-and-rubies-and-emeralds at lunch, and the whole jewel-box for dinner, take the Mail-steamer and go by the Cape. And then, of course, there are the scandals," he added seductively. "Personally I like them; butyoulook to me like a girl who wants rest, and to forget that there is such a place as Africa on the map."Poppy agreed. She had travelled by the Mail-boats before, and thought them excellent places—for anyone who values above all things a little quiet humour. Also, persons returning from Africa with little else than a bitterly acquired philosophy, find satisfaction in putting their only possession upon the sound basis of contempt for riches. For herself, not only was she able to sustain life for three weeks without scandals and the elevating sight of millionaires' wives lifting their skirts at each other and wearing their diamonds at breakfast, but she longed and prayed with all her soul for peace, and solitude, with nothing about her but the blue sea and the horizon.The battle before her needed a plan of campaign, and to prepare that she must have time and rest. First, there must be some bitter days spent in wiping from her mind, and memory, Africa and all that therein was. She realised that if the greater part of her thought and force was afarfrom her, seeking to follow a man who by that time was deep in the heart of Africa, it would be futile to expect anything great of the future. Abinger and his soul-searing words must be forgotten too; and Clem Portal's fascinating friendship, and Charles Bramham's kind grey eyes and generous heart. All these were destroying angels. If she admitted thoughts of them into her life, they would eat her time, and her strength, which must austerely be hoarded for the future.Courage, resolution, silence—those were three good things, Clem Portal said, to be a woman's friends. And those were the things the girl strove to plant firm in her soul as she watched with misty, but not hopeless eyes, the retreating coast of her beloved land.She kept aloof from everyone, spending long, absorbed hours of thought and study in some canvas-shaded corner; or swinging up and down the decks, drinking in the freshness of the wind. Before many days were past, care departed from her, and rose-leaf youth was back to her face. Gladness of life surged in her veins, and the heart Evelyn Carson had waked to life, sang like a violin in her breast. Her feet were on the "Open Road" and she loved it well, and could sing with Lavengro:"Life is sweet, brother ... there is day and night, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath."She had yet to find that the gods love not the sound of women's feet upon the Open Road. Its long, level stretches are easy to the feet of men, but for women it most strangely "winds upwards" all the way, and the going is stony, and many a heavy burden is added to the pack the journey was commenced with. Youth and Love are stout friends with whom to begin the climb, and Poppy knew not that she had a pack at all. Certainly she suspected nothing as yet of the burden which Fate and herown wild passionate nature had laid upon her. So still she went glad-foot. No one who watched her could have believed that she was a girl out in the world alone—a girl breaking away from a past that was a network of sorrows and strange happenings, to face a future that lay hidden and dark.The few quiet passengers on board chanced all to be middle-aged, and not greatly curious about the affairs of other people; but they often pondered idly among themselves upon the identity of the fleet-footed girl with the face like a spring morning; mildly speculating as to what had happened to her chaperon at the last moment; for they thought it would be ridiculous to suppose that she was travelling alone, except by accident.Only one person thought differently—the ship's doctor. He had seen her eyes the day she came on board, and he knew a few things about women's eyes. Indeed, it is certain that if Maurice Newnham had given half as much attention to medical science as he had divided between the engrossing subject of women's eyes, and the poker-table, he would not have been preparing black-draughts for able seamen, and treating passengers formal-de-mer, in return for a passage home. He was a good doctor gone wrong for lack of principles, application, energy, ambition—anything but brains. Ten years of roaming through Africa found him at last kicking its dust from his feet with his achievements and fortune ably represented by a duck's egg, and nothing before him but the prospect, at best, of a post as ship's doctor on one of the big Atlantic liners. He was a square-built man with a clean-shaven face that would soon be fat and loose-jawed. Laziness—physical and mental; intellect gone to rack and ruin; savage boredom with the world in general—these were the things writ large upon him. He detested with all his heart the few worthy passengers; the untemptress-like women,and the men who only went to the smoke-room when it was too hot on deck, or for a quiet game of whist. And always he turned his burnt-out eyes to where Poppy sat dewy in the sunshine or swung down the deck—trying to place her and read her story. He was sure that she had a story. He considered her clothes, and her manners, and her walk, distinguished, and in keeping with the general theory that she was a well-born girl accidentally travelling alone. It was only on the evidence of her eyes, as he had seen them the day she came aboard, that he formed the conclusion she was facing life on her own responsibility. He told himselfthen, that they were the eyes of a girl who had come to a bad bit of the road, and though she had wonderfully changed in a few days, his professional eye, blurred though it was, saw still on her the traces of stress and storm. Now, Maurice Newnham knew all about bad bits of the road. He had stumbled through muddy and broken places himself, and seen others do the same; some dying in the holes they had made, some lying down by the wayside with no heart to start afresh. His keen instinct for a fellow-stumbler was the only instinct he had not deliberately blunted. Therefore he greatly desired to make the acquaintance of "Miss R. Chard," as the passenger-list described her. Moreover, he was attracted by her unusual beauty.However, it was plain to everyone that Miss Chard did not wish to form acquaintances. When the women made pleasant little overtures, she smiled a kind of cold vague smile, and letthatbe her answer. And she simply looked through the men. Dr. Newnham got into her way several times on deck and on the companionway, forcing her to meet his eyes, but she remained composed and indifferent under their bold glance. He had almost despaired of ever gaining his end, when chance, the only friend he could lay claim to, intervened.On a hot day in the tropics the ship'schefhad resort to tinned supplies, and amongst other things sent to the luncheon-table was anentrée, which had the appearance of tongue-in-aspic, charmingly wreathed with lettuce and cress. Most people attracted by the greenery, partook of this dish, and though they immediately discovered themselves to be eating "Sarah Anne Lane," they calmly continued the cannibalistic performance, for "bully beef" is too old and close a friend to be despised by any South African sojourner. However, on this occasion "bully" was an enemy—perhaps the historic Sarah-Anne was really present at last (in portions)—for before night everyone who had partaken of the fascinating bewreathedentréewashors de combatwith a mild attack of something in the nature of ptomaine.Poppy was one of the sufferers, though by no means the worst. She was ill enough to require the services of Dr. Newnham, and to be grateful for them. He was always very grave and curt, never stayed for more than a few moments, or talked of anything but the state of her health. Soon she was up on deck again; but for a few days he continued to professionally superintend her doings. Afterwards he fell naturally into the habit of staying to talk to her. Everyone knows how easily these things are done on board ship. Poppy, after all, was glad to talk to someone. In the few days spent below she had grown weary of herself, and Newnham was an interesting interlude—as interesting as a character on the down-grade always is, if only because of its efforts to hide the wreckage from the eyes of a new acquaintance. But efforts that are not natural cannot be kept up long. The old Adam soon reasserts himself. Poppy began to get prehistoric peeps of the raw savage that Newnham hid under his professional manner and well-made clothes, and they sickened her. She knew too much about whitesavages, and she much preferred the real thing—Zulu or Basuto. However, she forgave him a great deal for the sake of the curious things he knew about people in different parts of Africa. He had been everywhere, from the Karoo to the Kalahari, from Boshof to Blantyre, and from Matjesfontein to the Matoppos.Both in Rhodesia and the Transvaal he had seen history made, and in the telling of these things he possessed that idle eloquence so often found in men of a dissolute type. In Newnham the gift, being grafted upon the trained observation of his student years, was specially striking.At Johannesburg, his last and latest place of residence, he had been in charge of a native Hospital in one of the mine compounds. He said he had cut off enough Kaffirs' legs there to fill a forty-foot shaft."If one of them came to me with a corn, I'd make it into a reason for cutting his leg off," he said malevolently. "I hate the brutes.""I hate brutes too," retorted Poppy, with the curled lip of disgust. "You know very little of natives, if you think they all come underthatheading.""Ah!" said he. "I see you have the tender heart that goes with the tender-foot. If you only knew as much of them as I do——"She probably knew a great deal more, but she left it at that.Her mind had flown away into the dark deeps of Africa, where a man forged ahead over unbroken tracks, through fevered swamps, with no companions but his faithfulboys, upon whose courage and staunch loyalty his life must of necessity often depend—and not depend in vain; for "good men" (the expression has nothing to do with morals) trust theirboys, and are trusted by them to the death.Ah! with an effort she dragged back her thoughts fromacross the sea. That way madness lay! She gave her ears once more to Newnham and the Rand.He spoke of Johannesburg with the mingled hatred and admiration everyone who has ever lived there feels for that evil, fascinating Monte-Carlo of money, and tragedy, and suffering."It is the only place worth living in," he averred; adding: "At least, that is what all the old residents say, and you can understand the emotion with which they say it when you consider that most of them came out as waiters and cook-generals, and blossomed later into millionaire squires and dames of society.""But they all go and live in Park Lane, don't they?" smiled Poppy."Oh! they revisit the scene of their triumphs. It lures them across the sea. A poignant longing comes to them sometimes, even in Park Lane, for the glitter of galvanised-iron and sardine-tins and Nestle's Brand—and the red dust, and the spectral blue gums. But they do precious little for the place that has done so much for them," he sneered. "I should say that with the exception of the Barnato ward, and an open space for games, not a millionaire of the lot has done anything to beautify or benefit Johannesburg. 'Make your pile and scoot' has always been the watchword. But I suppose it isn't in human nature for a debtor to love his creditor!"Newnham and Poppy spent many days in talk of Africa. The evenings, which were all blue and gold—sea and sky alike thickly sown with stars—she loved to dream away alone in some shadowy corner, or leaning over the taffrails with the gleam of the phosphorescent waves reflected on her face. But when Newnham sought her out she would either walk, or have her chair put where a big electric-light blazed on the face of her companion."Never sign a paper, or drink water in the dark," wasa Spanish proverb well known to her, and she had another of her own:"Never rest where you cannot see the eyes of a man you distrust."She was frankly interested in what Newnham had to say, but she distrusted him. Nevertheless, she went ashore with him at Teneriffe and they wandered about the narrow débris-strewn streets, and were stared at by the women who wear such liberal coats of powder and rouge upon their handsome olive skins and grow stout so early in life.Poppy had a fancy to climb the zig-zag road to Laguna, but Newnham looked lugubrious at the idea—probably his muscles had long been out of gear for climbing or any other physical activity—and hastily suggested that the boat would not be making a very long stay. So they roamed about the lower slopes of the hills instead, watched the barefooted women in the washing pools, and did some shopping. Poppy, accustomed in her travels to have Abinger behind her paying for everything she bought, quite forgot that all she owned in the world was forty-five pounds, the remainder of seventy pounds she had allowed Bramham to lend her (she had been obliged to expend twenty-five pounds upon a wardrobe), fell with rapture, upon a lovely piece of Spanish lace, and handed out five pounds without the turn of an eyelash. It was only afterwards that she realised her foolish extravagance. As they were returning to the ship followed by two men carrying baskets of fruit and flowers bought by Newnham, he suddenly observed that her face had become dolorous."What's wrong?" he asked in his casual but not offensive manner."Oh, nothing!" Then she stood still, seized by a sudden thought. "Do you think the woman would take that lace back again?""That five pounds' worth? No—not for a minute. I saw the gleam in her eye when she stowed away your fiver. But why—don't you like it?""Oh, yes. I love lace. But I have just remembered that I can't afford it.""Well, I don't think it's the slightest use going back. ButI'llbuy it, if you like?""You? What for? What would you do with it?""Give it to you, of course," he said pleasantly, but she flushed and her manner instantly became cold."I do not wish you to buy it," she said shortly. "I like it and will keep it myself.""I wonder how many times to the minute a woman changes her mind!" he jested, but he was secretly much amazed."She's hard up!" was his thought. That side of the picture had not presented itself to his mind before, and it "gave him to think." He later resolved that he would offer to buy the lace from her to give to his sister—and then get her to take it back under the name of a "keepsake" when they reached England."I bet that'll suit her book," he cynically thought.But Poppy did not come on deck after dinner, and the next day she let Newnham see very plainly that she was offended. For two more days she kept the atmosphere about her so frigid that he did not dare venture into it. He found the time singularly blank. There was nothing to do but sit in the smoke-room and curse the day that he was born, between drinks. On the third evening she relented and allowed him to approach her under the blaze of electric-light."Why have you been so cruel to me?" he demanded almost violently. "What have I done to make you angry?"He half expected that she would—as girls generally do—first feign ignorance of his meaning, and, later, allow herself to be persuaded that she had never been angry at all. But she was not of the same kidney as the girls Maurice Newnham had been meeting for the last ten years. She spoke at once, and to the point."I thought it extremely insolent of you to offer to give me five pounds," she said, and Newnham, being much taken aback, could only find tongue to utter:"I swear I didn't mean to be insolent.""Oh, yes, you did. I hated the way you spoke; and when I remember the way you looked, I wonder that I allow myself to speak to you again.""I'm awfully sorry," he stammered. "I'd no idea you would take it in such a way. It was an ordinary thing to do, I thought. Most women or girls in Africa would think nothing of taking a little bit of lace.""I am not at all like most women and girls in Africa," was the cool response. "However, I will say nothing further about it, Dr. Newnham. Only please, if you care to talk to me, behave yourself—and don't ever mentionlaceagain."Newnham had never been spoken to in this fashion by a woman since he came to Africa, and he did not take to it at all. But he was afraid to show his resentment for fear she would carry out her threat and never speak to him again. And if she turned her back on him now, he believed he should go mad. It had come tothatwith him. He was half-crazed with passion for this girl who could look at him so composedly and speak to him so contemptuously. But together with his passion was bitter rage with himself and with her. He was torn between primitive emotions. At one moment he longed with all the malignity of a mean weak nature to fling coarse words at her that would make her crouch before him; in thenext he longed only to crouch himself, offering his neck, his body, his soul to her feet.While he wrestled with his longings and inclinations, breathing hard at her side, she composedly arose and left him with a cool good-night.He returned to the smoke-room and kept the steward busy for the next two hours; and when at last, by reason of the emphatic dimming of the electric lights, he roused himself to thoughts of bed, he had come to a conclusion and a resolution. Quite an epoch for him!All the next day he haunted Poppy strangely. He was never far from her, and the look in his eyes stirred her to discomfort and foreboding, although it was not comprehensible to her. Something in his eyes she understood only too well—she began to expectthatin men's eyes now! But what did that half-pitying, half-scornful expression mean? She resented it extremely; but her curiosity was aroused. In the evening, therefore, she let him pull his chair next to hers in the usual corner. Only, the electric light was gone; the burner had died out, and someone had forgotten to replace it or thought it not worth while to do so, for this was the last night at sea and the ship was to dock on the morrow. They were creeping near the grey-green English coasts now, and the English weather was sweet and grateful after the heat of the tropics and the dusty land left far behind; but there was a freshness in the late-April air that made Poppy turn up the collar of her coat and take shelter under the lee of her chair cushion.Newnham, restless and miserable, quoted with some trace of emotion:

At last it ended strangely. Weariness seemed suddenly to overcome Abinger, for his grasp grew loose on the girl's hands, his tense features relaxed, a bluish shade stole over his face.

Presently he stumbled to his feet, and, walking unevenly and vaguely, made his way from the room.

In a moment Poppy Destin had leapt from the bed to the door and locked it soundlessly.

Sophie Cornell was saying good-night to a visitor. "Well," said he. "Tell Miss Chard how sorry I am.As soon as she feels well enough, I shall send up my carriage, and I'd like her to use it and get some fresh air."

"Och, what, she won't be well enough for that some time yet," was Miss Cornell's answer. "She is very dickie indeed. I shouldn't be surprised if she croaked."

Bramham gave her a searching look.

"Well, look here; she ought to have a good doctor in. I'll ask Ferrand to call. He's my doctor, and the best I know——"

"Oh, don't do that?" said Sophie hastily; "we've called a doctor in already, you know."

"Who have you got?"

"I must go—I can hear her calling," said Sophie suddenly. "Good-night."

Incontinently she disappeared, the door closed, and Bramham was left to pick his way through the dark garden as best he might.

After the sound of his steps had died away a figure stole from among the trees to the verandah, softly opened the front door and walked in upon Miss Cornell, who was in the act of mixing herself a whiskey-and-soda. The drink spilled upon the table and Sophie's mouth fell apart.

"My God, Rosalind! What ashrik[5]you gave me!Man!What's the matter with you?" At the end of her question her voice fell into a whisper. She stared with genuine horror at the wraith-like face before her: Rosalind Chard, with dilated eyes in an ashen face, drenched hair, a white lace gown wet and torn, hatless and shoeless.

[5]Start (fright).

"Gott!Rosalind!" repeated the Colonial girl. "Has someone been trying to murder you?"

"Yes," said the other tonelessly. "And I've come here for safety. Will you take me in, Sophie?"

"Of course. But who was it? A man, I'll bet—or has your old aunt gone up the tree?"

"Don't ask me anything, Sophie. I shall go mad if I have to talk. Only, hide me and never let anyone know I'm here, or I shall kill myself." The girl fell exhausted into a chair and Sophie stood staring at her with a long face. It would not suit her book at all, she reflected, if Rosalind Chard wanted to be shut up and never see anyone. However, she saw that this was no time to argue the point, and that her present pressing business was to get the exhausted girl to bed.

This she proceeded to do.

THE person largely instrumental in bringing Poppy back to health and a remote interest in life was Charles Bramham.

One day Sophie Cornell met him in West Street and asked him to come and call.

"I have Rosalind up at last," she told him; "but she looks like a dying duck, and I believe shewilldie if someone doesn't buck her up. It would be arealcharity if you would come and talk to her."

Bramham, though an exceedingly busy man, accepted the invitation with vivacity, for he was muchintriguéon the subject of Miss Chard, and, further, he had not forgotten the romantic and piquant sensations she had inspired in him upon the occasion of their one meeting. Now, piquant and romantic sensations are very valuable in South Africa, and should always be followed up in case of life becoming too monotonously saltless and savourless. Bramham swiftly found a spare hour and arrived one afternoon in Sophie's absence.

He was utterly taken aback by the change in the girl. He came upon her suddenly, sitting in the verandah with her hands laced round her knees and her eyes staring straight in front of her with a look in them that was not good to see.

"Why!youought to be away up in the country somewhere, out of this sweltering heat," was his first remark after ordinary conventionalities. She observed him coldlyand assured him that she was perfectly well. Her invitation to come into the verandah and take a chair was polite, but lacking in enthusiasm. But it was hard to daunt Charles Bramham when he was looking for sensations. Besides which, he felt a genuine and chivalrous interest in this desperate-eyed girl.

"This climate is only meant for flies and Kaffirs," he said pleasantly. "It's quite unfit for white men in summer—to say nothing of a delicate English girl unaccustomed to it."

A smile flickered across Poppy's lips at this description of herself, and Bramham, encouraged by his success, went on to tell her about just the ideal spot for her to recover her health.

"At the Intombi, near Port Shepstone," he said, "you can stand on hills that undulate to the sea five hundred feet below, with the whole veldt between brilliant with flowers."

Poppy looked with surprise into the keen, strong face. She believed Bramham must be a lawyer, because he had such a scrutinising, business-like look about him. But to her astonishment he went on to tell her of a valley where arum-lilies grew in such masses that they looked like miles of snowdrifts lying on the grass.

"All along the south coast," he continued, warming to his subject, "there are thousands of acres covered with flowers—red and variegated and white. I think the white ones are mostly wild narcissi. The smell of the sea wind blowing over them is warranted to cure the sickest body or soul in South Africa. I wish I were there now," he added wistfully, and the pupils of his eyes expanded in an odd way.

"But you are not sick," said Poppy, smiling less wanly.

"No, but when all the flowers are in full bloom the quail come down," was the artless rejoinder. "Not thatthatwill be for a long time yet; September is the time. But I like that place."

And Poppy liked him. It was really impossible to help it. She remembered now that she had experienced the same pleasure in his frank, kind glances and direct remarks the first time she had met him. Certainly there were dangers about him. Undoubtedly he could be a villain too, if one allowed him to be, she thought; but there is something attractive about a man who can forget he is talking to a woman and remember acres of flowers instead—and get that boyish look into his eyes at the same time! She was not the first woman, however, who had felt the charm of Charles Bramham. When he had finished with Upper Natal, he fell to telling her of a woman, agreatfriend of his, who had once lived in Durban, until the women drove her out saying that she was mad and bad.

"Certainly her face was all marked up," said Bramham gravely. "She said her temperament did it; buttheysaid it was wickedness. So she went away and wrote a book about them. She let some of them down on a soft cushion, but others she hung up by their heels and they're hanging there yet—food for the aasvogels."

"She must be very clever," said Poppy drily.

"She is. She's abird," said Bramham with enthusiasm. "When her book came out everybody here black-guarded her, and said it showed what an immoral wretch she was to know such things about men and women." He gave Poppy a side-glance to see if he should add something else that was hot on his tongue, but he decided that she was too innocent-eyed.

"All the same, we all sneaked off to Piet Davis's and looked at the Bibles whilst we shoved bits of paper across the counter: 'Please send me two copies ofDiana Amongst the Wesleyansat once; wrap each in theSunday at Homeand despatch to my office.'"

Poppy gave a little ringing laugh and asked eagerly:

"Is she here now?"

"Lord no! I wish she were. She has settled in France, where, she says, they understand temperament better than out here, and I believe it. Last night I went to a dinner-party—a thing I never do, and it served me right—and a woman opposite started tackling me about her; said she had seen Mrs. Haybittel in Paris, and that she was older-looking than ever."

"'Yes, so am I,' said I, 'but I am also more in love with her than ever.' At which she giggled, and they all turned up their mirthless eyes at me. That woman is an old enemy of mine, and she always trains her guns on me whenever she can get an audience. She's a Mrs. Gruyère, and if ever you meet her, beware!"

"'I thought the ideal woman was always young,' she snippered at me.

"'Not at all,' I said. 'She may be old, but nottooold. She may be ugly, but nottoougly. She may be bad, but nottoobad. It is a pity you didn't find someone to tell you about this before,' I finished. That gave her something to bite on with her celluloid teeth."

Bramham amused Poppy in this fashion for something like two hours, and then, having given himself an invitation to call again shortly, he left her with laughter on her lips and the shadows fled from her eyes. She went indoors and, her old trick, looked at herself in a mirror.

"What is the matter with me," she said wonderingly, "that I can laugh and be gay, when I know that the future is dark with fateful things."

Nevertheless, she continued to laugh, and that night, while Sophie was away at the theatre and the house was quiet, she began and finished with the winged pen of inspiration a little merry song that was all sparkling with tears, full of the shadows that lie in dark valleys, but alsofresh with the wind that blows across the hills lifting the shadows. Her personal troubles all forgotten in her work, she went to bed wrapped in the ecstasy of one who has achieved and knows the achievement good. But not to sleep. The lines of her poem twinkled and flashed back and forth through her brain; the metre altered itself to one, oddly, daringly original. Phrases like chords of music thrilled through her and everything she had already written seemed tame and meaningless. Lying there she re-wrote the whole thing in her brain, setting it to a swinging, swaying metre that swayed and swung her tired mind to rest at last. But in the calm light of morning she did not change her poem, for she had the artist's gift of selection and recognised inspiration when she saw it.

That day found her descended into the pit of desolation once more, with the "black butterflies" swarming overhead, shutting out the light. What was happening to her was that temperament was claiming her. The poet-artist in her that had struggled so long for the light was being born, with all the attendant pangs and terrors of deliverance, for when the body is sick and the soul torn with suffering is temperament's own time.

Intermittently she began to do fine work, but there were always the black hours afterwards when she forgot that she was an artist, and only knew the terror of being a woman. Then she suffered.

In the meantime, Sophie had her chained to the typewriter. She had begun to hate the clicking horror, but she felt an obligation to work for Sophie as hard as she was able, to pay for the food she ate and the roof over her head. She never dared to think of Abinger and whether he sought her. The secret exit in the garden wall she had skilfully hidden. Abinger would probably think that she had a double key to the front gate and had escaped that way, or else through theboys'compound. Certainlyhe would never dream of seeking for her in the house of Sophie Cornell. She had rigorously bound the latter to silence as to her presence in the little bungalow, and knowing that for some reason it was exceedingly important to Sophie to have her there, she had no doubt that the Colonial girl would keep her lips sealed. To the many men-friends of the fascinating Miss Cornell, it became known that a companion and assistant mysteriously shared her house, and her work, but the astounding thing was that this mysterious person kept to her own quarters at all times, and did not care for theatres, late suppers at the Royal, or drives to Inanda! It was generally supposed that she was, in the slang of the day, either "moth-eaten," or "cracked."

At the earliest opportunity Poppy tied Charles Bramham's tongue also, by telling him frankly that she had an enemy she was afraid of and whom she feared would find her out.

Bramham had become a constant visitor whom Poppy always welcomed. His visits meant to her a time of ease from the torment of her own thoughts, a respite from evil dreams. His big, bracing individuality evoked in her a strong liking and comradeship, and she hoped he had the same feeling for her; but she was sometimes afraid of the glances of his grey eyes.

She was not long in discovering that though he was essentially a man's man, he had a great fondness for the society of women; that, indeed, he was one of those men who are lost without a woman as the central figure of existence—to work for and wind dreams around. He told her so very often, in words that were meant to be enigmatical and symbolical, no doubt, but which were really as frank and simple as the man's nature.

"Life out here is saltless and savourless—just one day's march nearervoetsack, unless someone takes an interestin you," was the disconsolate remark he made to her one day, with a look in his eyes that was even more direct than his words.

"But you must have heaps of people who do that," Poppy answered evenly, "and you strike me essentially as being one of them yourself. I'm sure you must be, or you would not have made a success of your life."

"How do you know I'm a success?" somewhat gloomily.

"Oh, anyone can see that. You have the calm, assured look of a man whose future is secure."

"You mean I look smug and self-satisfied!"

"Nothing of the kind. When a man has any intellect to speak of, money merely expands his interests and makes him ever so much more interesting than before. Do you think Sam Johnson ever got smug-looking? even when he had three hundred a year, which was quite an income those days?"

"Are you comparing me with Johnson?" asked Bramham, grinning.

"Oh, you needn't be vain. Africa is swarming with men who are the equals of Johnson in brain, without being hampered by his principles. His endurance and fine courage are another matter entirely. I don't suppose there are many men here who have gone through what he did to reach success."

"You're mistaken there," said Bramham. "There are plenty of men out here who have beaten their way through almost insurmountable difficulties, and come out top-dog."

Poppy smiled sceptically.

"Difficulties, yes—but poverty and bitter want?

"'Slow rises worth by poverty depressed!'

"What do South Africans know of terrible poverty? Their minds are often starved, but never their bodies,and there is always the sunshine, to clothe and warm. Even the little Kaffir children have their stomachs filled with rice or mealie-meal pap and can roll in the sun and be happy. I don't suppose any of the residents of this place know the real meaning of the word poverty—you, for instance?"

"Oh, I'm not much of an instance," said Bramham carelessly. "I am a Colonial, but, as a matter of fact, I happen to have spent a great part of my youth in London. I had to leave Africa when I was ten and I thought it pretty rough luck. If you cast your eye around, you will notice that Natal seems to have been just made for boys of ten—there's the sea, and the bluff, and the bay, and the Bush. Ah, well! I don't suppose you will understand what it meant to leave all these things and go and settle in a gloomy little side street in Chelsea!"

Poppycouldunderstand; but she was so much surprised that she said nothing.

"My mother was left a widow with two young sons," continued Bramham in a pleasantly narrative tone. "She had no means, but she had the pluck of ten men and a heart for any fate. She used to give music lessons and teach a few youngsters; but there is no income to speak of to be got out of that. We boys had to hustle out and find something to do as soon as we left school, which was pretty early. There was no hope of a profession for either of us; the only thing to do was to grab with teeth and nails whatever offered and make the best of it. I was the eldest and had to get out when I was twelve, and the first place I got was with an undertaker as a sort of boy-of-all-work. Lord! how I hated that business and that man! But I got a sound knowledge of book-keeping there that was invaluable later on. Afterwards I got a billet with a firm of auctioneers, and the experience I gottherehas been mighty useful too. But their placeof business was a long way from Chelsea, and I couldn't afford fares, so I had to get up at three-thirty in the mornings and go off on foot with fourpence in my pocket to feed myself on during the day. There was a place I used to go to for my mid-day meal—a sort of 'Cabmen's Rest,' where I used to get a fine hunk of what is known as 'spotted dog' for twopence-halfpenny; but I couldn't run to that every day in the week, because it didn't leave me enough to live on for the rest of the day. The winter was the worst time. My mother was always up to see me off in the mornings, with a cup of coffee to put heart into me for my long walk—and she would be waiting for me in the evenings with a smile and a hot supper, probably something she had done without for her own dinner. During supper she usually had some astonishing tale to tell us of great men who, having had to struggle with adversity, had won through and come out top. She was a brilliantly-educated woman, and had been a wide reader—I don't think the life ofanyfamous man had escaped her knowledge. It certainly put heart intometo know that finer men than I had gone through the same mill, and I often went to bed in a glow of virtue. But I'm bound to say that the glow had a way of wearing off during the daytime. We had a wealthy cousin who could have helped us a deal if he'd liked, but his help never went any further than writing letters of advice and forwarding parcels of discarded clothing. His frayed collars used to come my way. I think now, looking back, that the worst physical pain I can remember in those London years was the feel of that fellow's collars sawing at my gorge. He is still alive, and I am often obliged to meet him when I am in London, and I can tell you I never let him off those collars. I harp on them until he gets as frayed and sore as my neck used to be."

Bramham smiled gaily. Poppy wondered what theworst mental suffering had been, but she had too much respect for suffering to ask.

Indirectly, Bramham presently enlightened her.

"It was pretty bad those days to remember the life we had known out here. My brother, being fairly young, didn't feel it so much. My mother and I had our memories all to ourselves."

He made a long pause. Poppy said nothing. She was sitting with her elbows among the papers on the table listening intently.

"We came out here afterwards, and my brother and I put up a big fight for fortune, and we won out at last; but I don't know that we ever should, if my fine old mother hadn't been at the back of us all the time."

"She was a noble woman," said Poppy softly. "How you must have made it up to her afterwards."

"She died just when things were beginning to come our way," said Bramham.

POPPY and Bramham were alone together as they had been many times before. The verandah being the coolest place, they were sitting there, on a low basket-lounge affair, in darkness, except for the streaks and squares of light that stretched through the open windows and door of the sitting-room, falling across the verandah and losing themselves in the massed greenery of the garden. The little red glow at the end of Bramham's cigar gave enough light at times for him to observe that upon the face of his companion the strained, tortured look which often haunted it, was getting full play under cover of the dimness. She laughed lightly, however, at his sallies as they talked—the disjointed intermittent conversation of people who are far from the subject under discussion.

By reason of the shortness of the lounge they were seated rather close together; so close, that when Bramham's arm, which was lying along the back of the sofa, slipped down, it, as a matter of course, touched her waist. Her face was averted, so that even if it had been light enough he could not see the troubled look that flashed across it. She sat perfectly still, however, and said nothing. Itmightbe an accident—she would wait and see. But presently she felt personality and magnetism in the touch of that firm hand, lightly as it rested on her; and she knew that this was not an accident.

"Don't do that," she said; her manner was careless,but there was atimbrein her voice that chilled. Bramham instantly removed his hand.

"Why not?" he asked discontentedly.

"Because I don't care about it," she said, her tone pleasant and friendly again.

Bramham smoked a while. He was not at all offended, but he chose to pretend to be. His experience of women presently prompted him to make a remark which he had discovered they regarded in the nature of a taunt.

"I'm afraid you are very cold-blooded."

Poppy merely laughed. Bramham, piqued that his shot had missed fire, and, having no other ready at the moment, repeated it with as much disagreeableness as he could muster—which was not any very great amount.

"It must be unpleasant to be so cold."

"Oh, not in this climate," said she tranquilly; adding, with a touch of malice: "and there are always plenty of fires where one can warm oneself,quelquefois."

"I think that whatyouneed is a bonfire." Bramham was feeling distinctly cross, but Poppy laughed so merrily at thismotthat his good-humour was restored. He began to smoke again, sitting sideways now, because he was able to see her face better, and there appeared to be no object in sitting cheek by jowl. Later, he said:

"I don't see why you should despise my nice bright flame."

Poppy meditated swiftly. She liked Bramham well, and she desired to keep him friendly; only, there was a thing he had to understand clearly. She was learning to make use of any twist of the tongue in difficult situations, but she knew that she was dealing with man of a good type and it seemed indicated that alittleof the truth would not be out of place at this juncture—a little only! the real, bitter, wonderful truth she would share with no one in the world!

"I am far from despising it, Mr. Bramham," she said at last, very gently. "But I happen to want you for a friend, not an enemy."

Bramham did not see his way quite clear through this. However, he declared stoutly that he had never been a woman's enemy yet.

"Then you must often have been your own," she retorted, with a little glint of bitter wisdom. Thereafter, the conversation flagged again. Bramham had missed his cue and his broad shoulders took on a somewhat sullen expression. Poppy had the hopeless feeling that she had lost a lover without finding a friend, and the thought filled her with sadness. Only God and she knew how much she needed a friend; and she was sure she could find no stronger, firmer rock to her back than this big, kind man, if she could only get him away from these shoals of emotion on to the firm ground of friendship.

But Bramham was sighing sulkily, and flipping with his forefinger at the end of his cigar, as though he had no further use for it. Obviously, he was thinking of making a chilly departure. Suddenly she put out her hand and touched his, resting on his knee.

"You are quite right, Iamcold," she said softly; "starving with cold; and you can never know how charming and attractive your fire looks to me, but—after all, the best seat is already taken isn't it?"

Bramham stared hard at her, swallowing something. This was the first time his wife had been mentioned between them. She did not falter.

"Don't you think I am nice enough to have a fireside of my very own?" She spoke with the soft bird note in her throat, and her smile was a wistful thing to see.

Bramham's other firm hand came down on hers, and gave it a great grip.

"By Jove! I do. And I hope you'll get the best going."

A wave of grateful warmth rushed over the girl at his words. Her eyes filled with tears.

"Thank you; thank you!" she cried brokenly; and added, on a swift impulse: "The fire I want seems to me the most wonderful in the world—and if I can't be there, I'll never sit by any other."

She did not attempt to stanch her tears, but sat looking at him with a smiling mouth, while the heavy drops fell down her cheeks. Bramham thought that, because of the smile, he had never seen any woman look so tragic in his life.

"Don't cry; don't cry, dear!" he said distressfully. "I can't bear to see a woman cry. Do you love someone, Rosalind?" he asked, using her name shyly.

"Yes, Charlie," she said simply; "I do. But there is a knife in my heart." She turned from him now, and looked away, that he might not see the despair and humiliation in her face.

"I will be your friend, Rosalind. Trust me. I can't understand at all. You are altogether a mystery to me; I can't understand, for one thing, how a girl like you comes to be living with Sophie Cornell——"

"I came here quite by accident," she interrupted him. "I have always meant to tell you, though I know that for some reason Sophie doesn't want you to know. I walked into the garden one day, and saw Sophie using a typewriter, and I came in and asked her to take me for an assistant."

"What! But weren't you a governess to some people in Kimberley, and an old friend of Sophie's in Johannesburg?"

"No, I've never been a governess, and I never saw Sophie until I walked in here some three months ago. The girl you take me for never came at all, and Sophie was glad to have me take her place, I suppose. But, indeed,it was good of her to take me in, and I am not ungrateful. I will pay her back some day, for she is of the kind money will repay for anything." She added this rather bitterly, for, indeed, Sophie never ceased to make her feel her obligations, in spite of daily slavery on the typewriter.

"Well, of all the—!" Bramham began. Later, he allowed himself to remark:

"She certainly is a bird of Paradise!" and that was his eulogy on Sophie Cornell.

"But how comes it that a girl like you is—excuse me—kicking about the world, at a loose end?—How can any fellow that has your love let you suffer!—The whole thing is incomprehensible! But whatever you say stands. You needn't say anything at all if you don't want to——"

"I can't tell you anything," she said brokenly. "If I could tellanyone, it would be you—but I can't. Only—I want a friend, Charlie—I want help."

"I'll do anything in the world for you—all you've got to say is 'Knife.'"

"I want to get away from Africa to England, and I haven't a penny in the world, nor any possessions except the things I am wearing now."

"Oh, that's simple!" said Bramham easily. "But have you any friends to go to in England?"

"I have no friends anywhere—except you.

"'I have no friend but Resolution... and the briefest end!'

"But I don't think my end is yet. I must go away from Africa, when I love it most—asyoudid, Charlie. There are things to do and things to go through, and I must go and suffer in London as you did. But I mean to win through and come back and get my own, like you did, too."

She jumped up and stood in the light of the window,and Bramham could see that her eyes were shining and her cheeks flushed. She looked like a beautiful, boastful boy, standing there, flinging out a mocking, derisive hand at Fate.

"Life has had her way with me too long, Charlie. Ever since I was a child she has done nothing but cheat me and smite me on the mouth, and beat me to the earth.... But I am up again, and I will walk over her yet!... Love has found me, only to mock me and give me false coin and pass me by on the other side; but I will come back and find Love, and it will bemyturn to triumph. Look at me!" she cried, not beseechingly, but gaily, bragfully. "There is no white in my hair, nor any lines on my face, nor scars ... where they can be seen. I have youth, courage, a little beauty, something of wit—and I can write, Charlie. Don't you think that I should be able to wrest something for myself from the claws of that brute Life—a little Fame, a little Love——?"

"I should just say Ido," said Bramham heartily. "You're true-blue all through, without a streak of yellow in the whole of your composition."

PART III

Nothing is better I well thinkThan Love: the hidden well waterIs not so delicate to drink.

POPPY sailed by one of the pleasant small lines that run direct between Natal and England without touching at East London or the Cape.

"If it will amuse you," said Bramham, "to sit down with diamonds at breakfast, and diamonds-and-rubies-and-emeralds at lunch, and the whole jewel-box for dinner, take the Mail-steamer and go by the Cape. And then, of course, there are the scandals," he added seductively. "Personally I like them; butyoulook to me like a girl who wants rest, and to forget that there is such a place as Africa on the map."

Poppy agreed. She had travelled by the Mail-boats before, and thought them excellent places—for anyone who values above all things a little quiet humour. Also, persons returning from Africa with little else than a bitterly acquired philosophy, find satisfaction in putting their only possession upon the sound basis of contempt for riches. For herself, not only was she able to sustain life for three weeks without scandals and the elevating sight of millionaires' wives lifting their skirts at each other and wearing their diamonds at breakfast, but she longed and prayed with all her soul for peace, and solitude, with nothing about her but the blue sea and the horizon.

The battle before her needed a plan of campaign, and to prepare that she must have time and rest. First, there must be some bitter days spent in wiping from her mind, and memory, Africa and all that therein was. She realised that if the greater part of her thought and force was afarfrom her, seeking to follow a man who by that time was deep in the heart of Africa, it would be futile to expect anything great of the future. Abinger and his soul-searing words must be forgotten too; and Clem Portal's fascinating friendship, and Charles Bramham's kind grey eyes and generous heart. All these were destroying angels. If she admitted thoughts of them into her life, they would eat her time, and her strength, which must austerely be hoarded for the future.

Courage, resolution, silence—those were three good things, Clem Portal said, to be a woman's friends. And those were the things the girl strove to plant firm in her soul as she watched with misty, but not hopeless eyes, the retreating coast of her beloved land.

She kept aloof from everyone, spending long, absorbed hours of thought and study in some canvas-shaded corner; or swinging up and down the decks, drinking in the freshness of the wind. Before many days were past, care departed from her, and rose-leaf youth was back to her face. Gladness of life surged in her veins, and the heart Evelyn Carson had waked to life, sang like a violin in her breast. Her feet were on the "Open Road" and she loved it well, and could sing with Lavengro:

"Life is sweet, brother ... there is day and night, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath."

She had yet to find that the gods love not the sound of women's feet upon the Open Road. Its long, level stretches are easy to the feet of men, but for women it most strangely "winds upwards" all the way, and the going is stony, and many a heavy burden is added to the pack the journey was commenced with. Youth and Love are stout friends with whom to begin the climb, and Poppy knew not that she had a pack at all. Certainly she suspected nothing as yet of the burden which Fate and herown wild passionate nature had laid upon her. So still she went glad-foot. No one who watched her could have believed that she was a girl out in the world alone—a girl breaking away from a past that was a network of sorrows and strange happenings, to face a future that lay hidden and dark.

The few quiet passengers on board chanced all to be middle-aged, and not greatly curious about the affairs of other people; but they often pondered idly among themselves upon the identity of the fleet-footed girl with the face like a spring morning; mildly speculating as to what had happened to her chaperon at the last moment; for they thought it would be ridiculous to suppose that she was travelling alone, except by accident.

Only one person thought differently—the ship's doctor. He had seen her eyes the day she came on board, and he knew a few things about women's eyes. Indeed, it is certain that if Maurice Newnham had given half as much attention to medical science as he had divided between the engrossing subject of women's eyes, and the poker-table, he would not have been preparing black-draughts for able seamen, and treating passengers formal-de-mer, in return for a passage home. He was a good doctor gone wrong for lack of principles, application, energy, ambition—anything but brains. Ten years of roaming through Africa found him at last kicking its dust from his feet with his achievements and fortune ably represented by a duck's egg, and nothing before him but the prospect, at best, of a post as ship's doctor on one of the big Atlantic liners. He was a square-built man with a clean-shaven face that would soon be fat and loose-jawed. Laziness—physical and mental; intellect gone to rack and ruin; savage boredom with the world in general—these were the things writ large upon him. He detested with all his heart the few worthy passengers; the untemptress-like women,and the men who only went to the smoke-room when it was too hot on deck, or for a quiet game of whist. And always he turned his burnt-out eyes to where Poppy sat dewy in the sunshine or swung down the deck—trying to place her and read her story. He was sure that she had a story. He considered her clothes, and her manners, and her walk, distinguished, and in keeping with the general theory that she was a well-born girl accidentally travelling alone. It was only on the evidence of her eyes, as he had seen them the day she came aboard, that he formed the conclusion she was facing life on her own responsibility. He told himselfthen, that they were the eyes of a girl who had come to a bad bit of the road, and though she had wonderfully changed in a few days, his professional eye, blurred though it was, saw still on her the traces of stress and storm. Now, Maurice Newnham knew all about bad bits of the road. He had stumbled through muddy and broken places himself, and seen others do the same; some dying in the holes they had made, some lying down by the wayside with no heart to start afresh. His keen instinct for a fellow-stumbler was the only instinct he had not deliberately blunted. Therefore he greatly desired to make the acquaintance of "Miss R. Chard," as the passenger-list described her. Moreover, he was attracted by her unusual beauty.

However, it was plain to everyone that Miss Chard did not wish to form acquaintances. When the women made pleasant little overtures, she smiled a kind of cold vague smile, and letthatbe her answer. And she simply looked through the men. Dr. Newnham got into her way several times on deck and on the companionway, forcing her to meet his eyes, but she remained composed and indifferent under their bold glance. He had almost despaired of ever gaining his end, when chance, the only friend he could lay claim to, intervened.

On a hot day in the tropics the ship'schefhad resort to tinned supplies, and amongst other things sent to the luncheon-table was anentrée, which had the appearance of tongue-in-aspic, charmingly wreathed with lettuce and cress. Most people attracted by the greenery, partook of this dish, and though they immediately discovered themselves to be eating "Sarah Anne Lane," they calmly continued the cannibalistic performance, for "bully beef" is too old and close a friend to be despised by any South African sojourner. However, on this occasion "bully" was an enemy—perhaps the historic Sarah-Anne was really present at last (in portions)—for before night everyone who had partaken of the fascinating bewreathedentréewashors de combatwith a mild attack of something in the nature of ptomaine.

Poppy was one of the sufferers, though by no means the worst. She was ill enough to require the services of Dr. Newnham, and to be grateful for them. He was always very grave and curt, never stayed for more than a few moments, or talked of anything but the state of her health. Soon she was up on deck again; but for a few days he continued to professionally superintend her doings. Afterwards he fell naturally into the habit of staying to talk to her. Everyone knows how easily these things are done on board ship. Poppy, after all, was glad to talk to someone. In the few days spent below she had grown weary of herself, and Newnham was an interesting interlude—as interesting as a character on the down-grade always is, if only because of its efforts to hide the wreckage from the eyes of a new acquaintance. But efforts that are not natural cannot be kept up long. The old Adam soon reasserts himself. Poppy began to get prehistoric peeps of the raw savage that Newnham hid under his professional manner and well-made clothes, and they sickened her. She knew too much about whitesavages, and she much preferred the real thing—Zulu or Basuto. However, she forgave him a great deal for the sake of the curious things he knew about people in different parts of Africa. He had been everywhere, from the Karoo to the Kalahari, from Boshof to Blantyre, and from Matjesfontein to the Matoppos.

Both in Rhodesia and the Transvaal he had seen history made, and in the telling of these things he possessed that idle eloquence so often found in men of a dissolute type. In Newnham the gift, being grafted upon the trained observation of his student years, was specially striking.

At Johannesburg, his last and latest place of residence, he had been in charge of a native Hospital in one of the mine compounds. He said he had cut off enough Kaffirs' legs there to fill a forty-foot shaft.

"If one of them came to me with a corn, I'd make it into a reason for cutting his leg off," he said malevolently. "I hate the brutes."

"I hate brutes too," retorted Poppy, with the curled lip of disgust. "You know very little of natives, if you think they all come underthatheading."

"Ah!" said he. "I see you have the tender heart that goes with the tender-foot. If you only knew as much of them as I do——"

She probably knew a great deal more, but she left it at that.

Her mind had flown away into the dark deeps of Africa, where a man forged ahead over unbroken tracks, through fevered swamps, with no companions but his faithfulboys, upon whose courage and staunch loyalty his life must of necessity often depend—and not depend in vain; for "good men" (the expression has nothing to do with morals) trust theirboys, and are trusted by them to the death.

Ah! with an effort she dragged back her thoughts fromacross the sea. That way madness lay! She gave her ears once more to Newnham and the Rand.

He spoke of Johannesburg with the mingled hatred and admiration everyone who has ever lived there feels for that evil, fascinating Monte-Carlo of money, and tragedy, and suffering.

"It is the only place worth living in," he averred; adding: "At least, that is what all the old residents say, and you can understand the emotion with which they say it when you consider that most of them came out as waiters and cook-generals, and blossomed later into millionaire squires and dames of society."

"But they all go and live in Park Lane, don't they?" smiled Poppy.

"Oh! they revisit the scene of their triumphs. It lures them across the sea. A poignant longing comes to them sometimes, even in Park Lane, for the glitter of galvanised-iron and sardine-tins and Nestle's Brand—and the red dust, and the spectral blue gums. But they do precious little for the place that has done so much for them," he sneered. "I should say that with the exception of the Barnato ward, and an open space for games, not a millionaire of the lot has done anything to beautify or benefit Johannesburg. 'Make your pile and scoot' has always been the watchword. But I suppose it isn't in human nature for a debtor to love his creditor!"

Newnham and Poppy spent many days in talk of Africa. The evenings, which were all blue and gold—sea and sky alike thickly sown with stars—she loved to dream away alone in some shadowy corner, or leaning over the taffrails with the gleam of the phosphorescent waves reflected on her face. But when Newnham sought her out she would either walk, or have her chair put where a big electric-light blazed on the face of her companion.

"Never sign a paper, or drink water in the dark," wasa Spanish proverb well known to her, and she had another of her own:

"Never rest where you cannot see the eyes of a man you distrust."

She was frankly interested in what Newnham had to say, but she distrusted him. Nevertheless, she went ashore with him at Teneriffe and they wandered about the narrow débris-strewn streets, and were stared at by the women who wear such liberal coats of powder and rouge upon their handsome olive skins and grow stout so early in life.

Poppy had a fancy to climb the zig-zag road to Laguna, but Newnham looked lugubrious at the idea—probably his muscles had long been out of gear for climbing or any other physical activity—and hastily suggested that the boat would not be making a very long stay. So they roamed about the lower slopes of the hills instead, watched the barefooted women in the washing pools, and did some shopping. Poppy, accustomed in her travels to have Abinger behind her paying for everything she bought, quite forgot that all she owned in the world was forty-five pounds, the remainder of seventy pounds she had allowed Bramham to lend her (she had been obliged to expend twenty-five pounds upon a wardrobe), fell with rapture, upon a lovely piece of Spanish lace, and handed out five pounds without the turn of an eyelash. It was only afterwards that she realised her foolish extravagance. As they were returning to the ship followed by two men carrying baskets of fruit and flowers bought by Newnham, he suddenly observed that her face had become dolorous.

"What's wrong?" he asked in his casual but not offensive manner.

"Oh, nothing!" Then she stood still, seized by a sudden thought. "Do you think the woman would take that lace back again?"

"That five pounds' worth? No—not for a minute. I saw the gleam in her eye when she stowed away your fiver. But why—don't you like it?"

"Oh, yes. I love lace. But I have just remembered that I can't afford it."

"Well, I don't think it's the slightest use going back. ButI'llbuy it, if you like?"

"You? What for? What would you do with it?"

"Give it to you, of course," he said pleasantly, but she flushed and her manner instantly became cold.

"I do not wish you to buy it," she said shortly. "I like it and will keep it myself."

"I wonder how many times to the minute a woman changes her mind!" he jested, but he was secretly much amazed.

"She's hard up!" was his thought. That side of the picture had not presented itself to his mind before, and it "gave him to think." He later resolved that he would offer to buy the lace from her to give to his sister—and then get her to take it back under the name of a "keepsake" when they reached England.

"I bet that'll suit her book," he cynically thought.

But Poppy did not come on deck after dinner, and the next day she let Newnham see very plainly that she was offended. For two more days she kept the atmosphere about her so frigid that he did not dare venture into it. He found the time singularly blank. There was nothing to do but sit in the smoke-room and curse the day that he was born, between drinks. On the third evening she relented and allowed him to approach her under the blaze of electric-light.

"Why have you been so cruel to me?" he demanded almost violently. "What have I done to make you angry?"

He half expected that she would—as girls generally do—first feign ignorance of his meaning, and, later, allow herself to be persuaded that she had never been angry at all. But she was not of the same kidney as the girls Maurice Newnham had been meeting for the last ten years. She spoke at once, and to the point.

"I thought it extremely insolent of you to offer to give me five pounds," she said, and Newnham, being much taken aback, could only find tongue to utter:

"I swear I didn't mean to be insolent."

"Oh, yes, you did. I hated the way you spoke; and when I remember the way you looked, I wonder that I allow myself to speak to you again."

"I'm awfully sorry," he stammered. "I'd no idea you would take it in such a way. It was an ordinary thing to do, I thought. Most women or girls in Africa would think nothing of taking a little bit of lace."

"I am not at all like most women and girls in Africa," was the cool response. "However, I will say nothing further about it, Dr. Newnham. Only please, if you care to talk to me, behave yourself—and don't ever mentionlaceagain."

Newnham had never been spoken to in this fashion by a woman since he came to Africa, and he did not take to it at all. But he was afraid to show his resentment for fear she would carry out her threat and never speak to him again. And if she turned her back on him now, he believed he should go mad. It had come tothatwith him. He was half-crazed with passion for this girl who could look at him so composedly and speak to him so contemptuously. But together with his passion was bitter rage with himself and with her. He was torn between primitive emotions. At one moment he longed with all the malignity of a mean weak nature to fling coarse words at her that would make her crouch before him; in thenext he longed only to crouch himself, offering his neck, his body, his soul to her feet.

While he wrestled with his longings and inclinations, breathing hard at her side, she composedly arose and left him with a cool good-night.

He returned to the smoke-room and kept the steward busy for the next two hours; and when at last, by reason of the emphatic dimming of the electric lights, he roused himself to thoughts of bed, he had come to a conclusion and a resolution. Quite an epoch for him!

All the next day he haunted Poppy strangely. He was never far from her, and the look in his eyes stirred her to discomfort and foreboding, although it was not comprehensible to her. Something in his eyes she understood only too well—she began to expectthatin men's eyes now! But what did that half-pitying, half-scornful expression mean? She resented it extremely; but her curiosity was aroused. In the evening, therefore, she let him pull his chair next to hers in the usual corner. Only, the electric light was gone; the burner had died out, and someone had forgotten to replace it or thought it not worth while to do so, for this was the last night at sea and the ship was to dock on the morrow. They were creeping near the grey-green English coasts now, and the English weather was sweet and grateful after the heat of the tropics and the dusty land left far behind; but there was a freshness in the late-April air that made Poppy turn up the collar of her coat and take shelter under the lee of her chair cushion.

Newnham, restless and miserable, quoted with some trace of emotion:

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