For upwards of an hour Mona sat there watching him, but he never stirred. At last she rose, and gazing intently for a few moments upon the sleeping face, she bent down and imprinted a long kiss upon the unconscious forehead.
“Darling love—my love! I have won you from Death, and I claim you,” she murmured passionately. “You shall be mine. You are mine.”
And still turning to look at him as though she could not tear herself away, she moved to the door, and was gone—gliding forth as softly and silently as she had come.
Chapter Eleven.
“I Hold You!”
On the morning following his misadventure Roden Musgrave was far too bruised and feverish to undertake the journey back, and accordingly a note was sent in to his official superior asking for a day’s leave, which missive Suffield undertook to deliver in person, and supplement with his own explanations; and not only was the application readily granted, but Mr Van Stolz, full of concern, must needs ride out with Suffield in the afternoon to see his damaged subordinate, and to impress upon the latter that he was not to think of returning until he felt thoroughly able to do so.
“Don’t you break your neck about anything, Musgrave, old boy,” he said, on taking his leave. “We shall manage to get along all right for a day or two. I can put Somers on to copy the letters, and even to write some of them. When a fellow is bruised and shaken about, he wants to lie quiet a little. I wouldn’t mind swapping places with you, to have Miss Ridsdale as a nurse,” he added waggishly, as Mona appeared on the scene. “Take care of him, Miss Ridsdale; good men are scarce, at any rate in Doppersdorp. Well, good-bye, everybody; good-bye, Mrs Suffield. Suffield, old chap, give us a fill out of your pouch to start on; mine has hardly enough in it, I find, to carry me home.”
And amid a chorus of hearty farewells, the genial R.M. flung himself into his saddle and cantered off townwards.