“And yet you begged me not to follow you!”

She looked up at me shyly—­I was not accustomed to see Hilda shy.  Her eyes gazed deep into mine beneath the long, soft lashes.  “I begged you not to follow me,” she repeated, a strange gladness in her tone.  “Yes, dear Hubert, I begged you—­and I meant it.  Cannot you understand that sometimes one hopes a thing may never happen—­ and is supremely happy because it happens, in spite of one?  I have a purpose in life for which I live:  I live for it still.  For its sake I told you you must not come to me.  Yet you have come, against my orders; and—­” she paused, and drew a deep sigh—­“oh, Hubert, I thank you for daring to disobey me!”

I clasped her to my bosom.  She allowed me, half resisting.  “I am too weak,” she murmured.  “Only this morning, I made up my mind that when I saw you I would implore you to return at once.  And now that you are here—­” she laid her little hand confidingly in mine—­ “see how foolish I am!—­I cannot dismiss you.”

“Which means to say, Hilda, that, after all, you are still a woman!”

“A woman; oh, yes; very much a woman!  Hubert, I love you; I half wish I did not.”

“Why, darling?” I drew her to me.

“Because—­if I did not, I could send you away—­so easily!  As it is—­I cannot let you stop—­and . . .  I cannot dismiss you.”

“Then divide it,” I cried gaily; “do neither; come away with me!”

“No, no; nor that, either.  I will not stultify my whole past life.  I will not dishonour my dear father’s memory.”

I looked around for something to which to tether my horse.  A bridle is in one’s way—­when one has to discuss important business.  There was really nothing about that seemed fit for the purpose.  Hilda saw what I sought, and pointed mutely to a stunted bush beside a big granite boulder which rose abruptly from the dead level of the grass, affording a little shade from that sweltering sunlight.  I tied my mare to the gnarled root—­it was the only part big enough—­and sat down by Hilda’s side, under the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.  I realised at that moment the force and appropriateness of the Psalmist’s simile.  The sun beat fiercely on the seeding grasses.  Away on the southern horizon we could faintly perceive the floating yellow haze of the prairie fires lit by the Mashonas.

“Then you knew I would come?” I began, as she seated herself on the burnt-up herbage, while my hand stole into hers, to nestle there naturally.

She pressed it in return.  “Oh, yes; I knew you would come,” she answered, with that strange ring of confidence in her voice.  “Of course you got my letter at Cape Town?”

“I did, Hilda—­and I wondered at you more than ever as I read it.  But if you knew I would come, why write to prevent me?”

Her eyes had their mysterious far-away air.  She looked out upon infinity.  “Well, I wanted to do my best to turn you aside,” she said, slowly.  “One must always do one’s best, even when one feels and believes it is useless.  That surely is the first clause in a doctor’s or a nurse’s rubric.”