By and by, looking back, he saw a lot of rough fellows swaggering along behind him.  Then he was alarmed, terribly alarmed, for his diamond; he tore a strip of his handkerchief, and tied the stone cunningly under his armpit as he hobbled on.

The men came up with him.

“Hallo, mate!  Come from the diggings?”

“Yes.”

“What luck?”

“Very good.”

“Haw! haw!  What! found a fifty-carat?  Show it us.”

“We found five big stones, my mate and me.  He is gone to Cape Town to sell them.  I had no luck when he had left me, so I have cut it; going to turn farmer.  Can you tell me how far it is to Dale’s Kloof?”

No, they could not tell him that.  They swung on; and, to Staines, their backs were a cordial, as we say in Scotland.

However, his travels were near an end.  Next morning he saw Dale’s Kloof in the distance; and as soon as the heat moderated, he pushed on, with one shoe and tattered trousers; and half an hour before sunset he hobbled up to the place.

It was all bustle.  Travellers at the door; their wagons and carts under a long shed.

Ucatella was the first to see him coming, and came and fawned on him with delight.  Her eyes glistened, her teeth gleamed.  She patted both his cheeks, and then his shoulders, and even his knees, and then flew in-doors crying, “My doctor child is come home!” This amused three travellers, and brought out Dick, with a hearty welcome.

“But Lordsake, sir, why have you come afoot; and a rough road too?  Look at your shoes.  Hallo!  What is come of the horse?”

“I exchanged him for a diamond.”

“The deuce you did!  And the rifle?”

“Exchanged that for the same diamond.”

“It ought to be a big ’un.”

“It is.”

Dick made a wry face.  “Well, sir, you know best.  You are welcome, on horse or afoot.  You are just in time; Phoebe and me are just sitting down to dinner.”

He took him into a little room they had built for their own privacy, for they liked to be quiet now and then, being country bred; and Phoebe was putting their dinner on the table, when Staines limped in.

She gave a joyful cry, and turned red all over.  “Oh, doctor!” Then his travel-torn appearance struck her.  “But, dear heart! what a figure!  Where’s Reginald?  Oh, he’s not far off, I know.”

And she flung open the window, and almost flew through it in a moment, to look for her husband.

“Reginald?” said Staines.  Then turning to Dick Dale, “Why, he is here—­isn’t he?”

“No, sir:  not without he is just come with you.”

“With me?—­no.  You know we parted at the diggings.  Come, Mr. Dale, he may not be here now; but he has been here.  He must have been here.”

Phoebe, who had not lost a word, turned round, with all her high color gone, and her cheeks getting paler and paler.  “Oh, Dick! what is this?”