"Mrs. Bathurst" takes place in Glengariff, South Africa, in the years following the Boer War (1899- 1902). The main story is told through a conversation between three men and the narrator; the four men discuss the tragic tale of Mrs. Bathurst, a hotel owner in New Zealand, and her lover, Mr. Vickery (also known as "Click"). The preface to the story is an excerpt from a mock-Jacobean tragedy written by Kipling entitled Lyden's "Irenius" that narrates a dialogue between a prince and one of his subjects. The themes of the epigraph—disinterested fate and accidental providence—carry over into the story.

,p>The story begins with the narrator running into his friend Mr. Hooper, who is an inspector for the Cape Government Railways. The two men hitch a ride down the tracks on a chalk-car that is being repaired. Mr. Hooper starts to take something out of...