“A chip off his wrist like, but he wasn’t thinkin’ of that when he got back.  He was thinkin’ of the grey mare; and she was hit in three places, but not to mention.  One bullet cut through her ear and through Colonel Byng’s hat as he stooped over her neck; but the luck was with them.  They was born to do a longer trek together.  A little bit of the same thing in both of ’em, so to speak.  The grey mare has a temper like a hunderd wildcats, and Colonel Byng can let himself go too, as you perhaps know, ma’am.  We’ve seen him let loose sometimes when there was shirkers about, but he’s all right inside his vest.  And he’s a good feeder.  His men get their tucker all right.  He knows when to shut his eyes.  He’s got a way to make his bunch—­and they’re the hardest-bit bunch in the army—­do anything he wants ’em to.  He’s as hard himself as ever is, but he’s all right underneath the epidermotis.”

All at once there flashed before Jasmine’s eyes the picture of Rudyard driving Krool out of the house in Park Lane with a sjambok.  She heard again the thud of the rhinoceros-whip on the cringing back of the Boer; she heard the moan of the victim as he stumbled across the threshold into the street; and again she felt that sense of suffocation, that excitement which the child feels on the brink of a wonderful romance, the once-upon-a-time moment.

They were nearing the hospital.  The driver silently pointed to it.  He saw that he had made an impression, and he was content with it.  He smiled to himself.

“Is Colonel Byng in the camp?” she asked.

“He’s over—­’way over, miles and miles, on the left wing with Kearey’s brigade now.  But old Gunter’s here, and you’re sure to see Colonel Byng soon—­well, I should think.”

She had no wish to see Colonel Byng soon.  Three days would suffice to do what she wished here, and then she would return to Durban to her work there—­to Alice Tynemouth, whose friendship and wonderful tactfulness had helped her in indefinable ways, as a more obvious sympathy never could have done.  She would have resented one word which would have suggested that a tragedy was slowly crushing out her life.

Never a woman in the world was more alone.  She worked and smiled with eyes growing sadder, yet with a force hardening in her which gave her face a character it never had before.  Work had come at the right moment to save her from the wild consequences of a nature maddened by a series of misfortunes and penalties, for which there had been no warning and no preparation.

She was not ready for a renewal of the past.  Only a few minutes before she had been brought face to face with Ian Stafford, had seen him look at her out of the shadow there at the station, as though she was an infinite distance away from him; and she had realized with overwhelming force how changed her world was.  Ian Stafford, who but a few short months ago had held her in his arms and whispered unforgettable things, now looked at her as one looks at the image of a forgotten thing.  She recalled his last words to her that awful day when Rudyard had read the fatal letter, and the world had fallen: