I bought a pony at Salisbury—­a pretty little seasoned sorrel mare—­ and set out to find Hilda.  My way lay over a brand-new road, or what passes for a road in South Africa—­very soft and lumpy, like an English cart-track.  I am a fair cross-country rider in our own Midlands, but I never rode a more tedious journey than that one.  I had crawled several miles under a blazing sun along the shadeless new track, on my African pony, when, to my surprise I saw, of all sights in the world, a bicycle coming towards me.

I could hardly believe my eyes.  Civilisation indeed!  A bicycle in these remotest wilds of Africa!

I had been picking my way for some hours through a desolate plateau—­the high veldt—­about five thousand feet above the sea level, and entirely treeless.  In places, to be sure, a few low bushes of prickly aspect rose in tangled clumps; but for the most part the arid table-land was covered by a thick growth of short brown grass, about nine inches high, burnt up in the sun, and most wearisome to look at.  The distressing nakedness of a new country confronted me.  Here and there a bald farm or two had been literally pegged out—­the pegs were almost all one saw of them as yet; the fields were in the future.  Here and there, again, a scattered range of low granite hills, known locally as kopjes—­red, rocky prominences, flaunting in the sunshine—­diversified the distance.  But the road itself, such as it was, lay all on the high plain, looking down now and again into gorges or kloofs, wooded on their slopes with scrubby trees, and comparatively well-watered.  In the midst of all this crude, unfinished land, the mere sight of a bicycle, bumping over the rubbly road, was a sufficient surprise; but my astonishment reached a climax when I saw, as it drew near, that it was ridden by a woman!

One moment later I had burst into a wild cry, and rode forward to her hurriedly.  “Hilda!” I shouted aloud, in my excitement:  “Hilda!”

She stepped lightly from her pedals, as if it had been in the park:  head erect and proud; eyes liquid, lustrous.  I dismounted, trembling, and stood beside her.  In the wild joy of the moment, for the first time in my life, I kissed her fervently.  Hilda took the kiss, unreproving.  She did not attempt to refuse me.

“So you have come at last!” she murmured, with a glow on her face, half nestling towards me, half withdrawing, as if two wills tore her in different directions.  “I have been expecting you for some days; and, somehow, to-day, I was almost certain you were coming!”

“Then you are not angry with me?” I cried.  “You remember, you forbade me!”

“Angry with you?  Dear Hubert, could I ever be angry with you, especially for thus showing me your devotion and your trust?  I am never angry with you.  When one knows, one understands.  I have thought of you so often; sometimes, alone here in this raw new land, I have longed for you to come.  It is inconsistent of me, of course; but I am so solitary, so lonely!”