Vivien Warren, as already mentioned, was, as the curtain goes up, seated at her bureau, reading a letter.  The letter was headed “Camp Hospital, Colesberg, Cape Colony, May 2, 1900”; and ran thus:—­

     Dearest Vivie,—­

Here I am still, but my leg is mending fast.  The enteric was the worse trouble.  That is over and done with, though I am the colour of a pig-skin saddle.  My leg won’t let me frisk just yet, but otherwise I feel as strong as a horse.

When I was bowled over three months ago and the enteric got hold of me, on top of the bullet through my thigh, I lost my self-control and asked the people here to cable to you to come and nurse me.  It was silly perhaps—­the nursing here is quite efficient—­and if any one was to have come out on my account it ought to have been the poor old mater, who wanted to very much.  But somehow I could only think of you.  I wanted you more than I’d ever done before.  I hoped somehow your heart might be touched and you might come out and nurse me, and then out of pity marry me.  Won’t you do so?  Owing to my stiff leg I dare say I shall be invalided out of the Army and get a small wound pension.  And I’ve a project which will make lots of money—­up in Rhodesia—­a tip I’ve had from a man in the know.  I’m going to take up some land near Salisbury.  Ripping country and climate and all that.  It would suit you down to the ground.  You could put all that Warren business behind you, forget it all, drop the name, start a new career as Mrs. Frank Gardner, and find an eternally devoted husband in the man that signs this letter.

I’ve been out here long enough to be up to all the ropes, and I’d already made a bit of money in Rhodesia before the war broke out and I got a commission.  At any rate I’ve enough to start on as a married man, enough to give you a decent outfit and your passage out here and have a honeymoon before we start work on our future home.  Darling Vivie!  Do think about it.  You’d never regret it.  I’m a very different Frank to the silly ass you knew in the old Haslemere days.  Now here’s a five pound note to cover the cost of a full cable to say “yes,” and when you’ll be ready to start.  When I get your answer—­somehow I feel it’ll be “yes”—­I’ll send you a draft on a London bank to pay for a suitable trousseau and your passage from London to Cape Town, and of course I’ll come and meet you there, where we can be married.  I shan’t sleep properly till I get your “yes.”

Your ever loving and always faithful
frank.

P.S.  There’s a poor fellow here in the same ward dying—­I should say—­of necrosis of the jaw—­Vavasour Williams is his name or a part of his name.  His father was at Cambridge with my old man, and—­isn’t it rum?—­he was a pupil of Praddy’s!!  He mucked his school and ’varsity career, thought next he’d like to be an architect or a scene