“Ruddy!  Poor Ruddy!” she said, and she did not remember that those were the pitying, fateful words she used on the day when Ian Stafford dined with her alone after Rudyard made his bitter protest against the life they lived.  “We have everything—­everything,” he had said, “and yet—­”

Now, however, there was an anguished sob in her voice.  With the thought of seeing him, her fingers tremblingly sought the fine-spun strands of hair which ever lay a little loose from the wonder of its great coiled abundance, and then felt her throat, as though to adjust the simple linen collar she wore, making exquisite contrast to the soft simplicity of her dark-blue gown.

She found the attendant who had given her the letter, and asked if the messenger was waiting, and was only then informed that he had been gone three hours or more.

Three hours or more!  It might be that Rudyard was gone forever without hearing what she had to say, or knowing whether she desired reconciliation and peace.

She at once gave orders for a cape-cart to take her over to Brinkwort’s Farm.  The attendant respectfully said that he must have orders.  She hastened to the officer in charge of the hospital, and explained.  His sympathy translated itself into instant action.  Fortunately there was a cart at the door.  In a moment she was ready, and the cart sped away into the night across the veld.

She had noticed nothing as she mounted the cart—­neither the driver nor the horses; but, as they hurried on, she was roused by a familiar voice saying, “’E done it all right at Hetmeyer’s Kopje—­done it brown.  First Wortmann’s Drift, and then Hetmeyer’s Kopje, and he’ll be over the hills and through the Boers and into Lordkop with the rest of the hold-me-backs.”

She recognized him—­the first person who had spoken to her of her husband on her arrival, the cheerful Corporal Shorter, who had told her of Wortmann’s Drift and the saving of “Old Gunter.”

She touched his arm gently.  “I am glad it is you,” she said in a low tone.

“Not so glad as I am,” he answered.  “It’s a purple shame that you should ha’ been took sick when he was mowed down, and that some one else should be healin’ ‘is gapin’ wounds besides ’is lawful wife, and ’er a rifle-shot away!  It’s a fair shame, that’s wot it is.  But all’s well as ends well, and you’re together at the finish.”

She shrank from his last words.  Her heart seemed to contract; it hurt her as though it was being crushed in a vise.  She was used to that pain now.  She had felt it—­ah, how many times since the night she found Adrian Fellowes’ white rose on her pillow, laid there by the man she had sworn at the altar to love, honor, and obey!  Her head drooped.  “At the finish”—­how strange and new and terrible it was!  The world stood still for her.

“You’ll go together to Lordkop, I expeck,” she heard her companion’s voice say, and at first she did not realize its meaning; then slowly it came to her.  “At the finish” in his words meant the raising of the siege of Lordkop, it meant rescue, victory, restoration.  He had not said that Rudyard was dead, that the Book of Rudyard and Jasmine was closed forever.  Her mind was in chaos, her senses in confusion.  She seemed like one in a vague shifting, agonizing dream.