Now they were silent, because they had tossed into the abyss of Time the cup of trembling, and had drunk of the chalice of peace.  Over the grave into which, this day, they had thrown the rock-roses and sprigs of the karoo bush, they had, in silence, made pledges to each other, that life’s disguises should be no more for them; that the door should be wide open between the chambers where their souls dwelt, each in its own pension of being, with its own individual sense, but with the same light, warmth, and nutriment, and with the free confidence which exempts life from its confessions.  There should be no hidden things any more.

There was a smile on the man’s face as he looked out over the valley.  With this day had come triumph for the flag he loved, for the land where he was born, and also the beginning of peace for the land where he had worked, where he had won his great fortune.  He had helped to make this land what it was, and in battle he had helped to save it from disaster.

But there had come another victory—­the victory of Home.  The coincidence of all the vital values had come in one day, almost in one hour.

Smiling, he laid his hand upon the delicate fingers of the woman beside him, as they rested on her knee.  She turned and looked at him with an understanding which is the beginning of all happiness; and a colour came to her cheeks such as he had not seen there for more days than he could count.  Her smile answered his own, but her eyes had a sadness which would never wholly leave them.  When he had first seen those eyes he had thought them the most honest he had ever known.  Looking at them now, with confidence restored, he thought again as he did that night at the opera the year of the Raid.

“It’s all before us still, Jasmine,” he said with a ring of purpose and a great gentleness in his tone.

Her hand trembled, the shadows deepened in her eyes, but determination gathered at her lips.

Some deep-cherished, deferred resolve reasserted itself.

“But I cannot—­I cannot go on until you know all, Rudyard, and then you may not wish to go on,” she said.  Her voice shook, and the colour went from her lips.  “I must be honest now—­at last, about everything.  I want to tell you—­”

He got to his feet.  Stooping, he raised her, and looked her squarely in the eyes.

“Tell me nothing, Jasmine,” he said.  Then he added in a voice of finality, “There is nothing to tell.”  Holding both her hands tight in one of his own, he put his fingers on her lips.

“A fresh start for a long race—­the road is clear,” he said firmly.

Looking into his eyes, she knew that he read her life and soul, that in his deep primitive way he understood her as she had been and as she was, and yet was content to go on.  Her head drooped upon his breast.

A trumpet-call rang out piercingly sweet across the valley.  It echoed and echoed away among the hills.