"He bought this farm and came to live here because it has always been my home—​and I like to watch the road."

He did not ask her why. The boys by the fire got up and shuffled away to their blankets. The old woman was long since gone. These two were left alone in the silence and the moonlight.

"Did you think that someone for you would come along the road some day?" he asked at last, coming very near her and looking at her mouth. After a moment she answered with a little sobbing sigh in her throat:

"But I must always remember the promise I made to my mother."

He came close to her and gripped her hands; his eyes full of hunger, and longing, and caresses searched hers; his lips were almost on her lips.

"What was the promise?"

A wave of colour passed over her face and her eyes darkened with tears.

"I think you know," she cried miserably.

"You must break it," he said firmly. "You are mine—​you must come with me."

"No," she said crying, "I cannot."

Her face bright and pale in the white light was like the face of a brave boy looking on death. The heat and madness went out of Carden. He took her hand very gently and kissed it, then he walked away into the night.

But out on the hot scented veld he thought of the gifts in her eyes and madness came upon him again. A promise! Can the dead bind the living with promises? Can a sinner make a saint out of her child by laying an injunction on her young soul! He laughed loud and bitterly in the night, and the birds stirred in the trees at so strange a sound. A "bush baby" curled in some distant clump of mimosa began to wail, and the dog that had followed his master from the farm whined uneasily. He had walked far and long. The swift rush of the river was close at hand, and the whereabouts of the farm could only be guessed by one little faint yellow light that streaked across the distance. Someone was keeping vigil.

Somewhere near this spot Kavanagh had met the end so fitting to his wild adventurous life. Who lives by the sword shall die by the sword! The lawless had fallen victim to the lawless! But he had found his own before the end came, was Carden’s thought.

What did Death matter when one had drunk to the dregs the cup Life holds to the lips of lovers? A good enough way to die too, by God! A short sharp struggle with the odds against him—​then, very swiftly, the end!

Married to a Boer! Those dewy dreaming eyes that were of his land-- that black hair that winged above her forehead like the wings of a raven—​that ardent spirit that had leaped from her eyes to his—​married to a Boer! And he, Wilberforce Carden, who had always taken what he wanted from life, wrenched it from men’s hands and women’s lips, he must be denied and go empty away!

He forgot now that when he thought her free he had successfully resisted the idea of marrying her as a solution to the problem, and forgot too that her accent jarred on him. Remembered only the gifts her eyes had for him—​and thought that with her, out under the stars he could forget the world into which she would not fit. And it was no good. She was married to a Boer!

Raging he bit on the empty pipe in his mouth, and blood came into his eyes so that he could no longer see clearly, but went stumbling on his way, raging, cursing. He would have liked to have that Boer who was "not unkind" to her under his hands out there in the veld. He flung himself like a boy face down on the earth. After a little while, lying there, a quietness fell upon him. The cool brain that had out-finessed many another cool brain woke up and began to consider the situation from the point of view of the man who does not mean to lose, whatever the game may be. He lay so still that his dog who sat uneasily by him thought he must be asleep and from time to time gently licked his ear. But Dark Carden was not asleep. He was fighting a battle with his better self; with such rags and remnants of a conscience as survived in him; with a last unbroken moral code. At last he got up and retraced his steps quietly and firmly like a man with a purpose. His eyes had grown a little harder. The battle was lost.

Dawn was not more than an hour or two off when he returned to the farm. The stars were darkening, and the indescribable freshness of morning could be felt in the air. Shadows under tree and bush were stirring as if for flight. A wedge-shaped flock of wild duck passed, honking mournfully, towards the east.

The light in the farmhouse had gone out; but as he came quietly to the stoep he heard from a window that stood ajar a sound as of a woman softly and brokenly weeping. A little while he stood there, listening, then gently he pushed the window further open and stepped into the room. The soft and broken weeping ceased.

They stayed three days and nights at Grey-Kopje farm. Talfourd and Carden went out shooting daily, returning at meal times, laden with small game to restock the larder. Always after dinner the three sat on the stoep as on the first night, and Talfourd sang while the other two listened. Swartz had brought back fresh horses on the evening of the first day, but Carden found fault with them and made him return for others. On the second day, a native carrier sent out with instructions to search the road for Carden brought a letter from the men waiting in Tuli who wanted to know what delayed him and why he did not materialise? Talfourd wanted to know too, but knew better than to ask. Carden was a man who took badly to any kind of ill-timed inquiry.

On the fourth morning, Swartz had not returned, but Talfourd with the clear eye of a man who has accomplished nine hours of sound sleep with nothing on his conscience, glanced out of the window and noted Carden picking out of the cart things he would not be likely to need before reaching Tuli. "Hurray! we’re going to make a move at last!" he said to himself, and made haste to perform his toilette.

At the breakfast table, it struck him that Carden looked older than a man of thirty-four ought to look, however swift has been the pace. However, he kept his observations to himself. It transpired that Carden’s plan was that he and Talfourd should start for Webb’s immediately after breakfast, leaving the cart to be brought on later by Swartz when he turned up with horses.

"If we don’t meet him we can send on someone else for it."

"How are we going to get there?" said Talfourd looking up in surprise.

"I suppose we can foot thirty miles without endangering our lives?" answered Carden with something so very like a sneer and so very unlike his usual impassive serenity that Talfourd was even more surprised.