Two Verdicts and some Rancour.
“Hallo, Colvin!” cried Frank, going out on the stoep. “Why, man, we had begun to think you were dead.”
“So?” said Colvin Kershaw, who was busy loosening the girths preparatory to off-saddling. “Whose cart is that, Frank? Looks like Stephanus’.”
“It is.”
“Is he here then?”
“No; only the girls.”
“Which of them?”
“All three.”
“Oh—. No, don’t have him put in the camp,” as a Hottentot came up to take the horse. “Just knee-halter him, and let him run. He can pick up enough round the house.”
As he entered, and greeted the girls, a subtle instinct told him that two of them were watching each other and him. May’s reception of him was somewhat brusque and rather too studiously off-handed. He read her face like the page of a book. She, keenly observant, noticed that he greeted the other three with the easy friendliness of people who know each other well, but without the faintest difference of tone or inflection in talking to each and all of them.