“Who got together these men the moment he knew we were in danger? Who, forgetting his own fatigue, started at a moment’s notice, and, inspiring the others with the same energy and bravery, rescued us from a ghastly death? Who was it?”
“It was only what any man would have done. Oh, Clare, you can never realise what that moment meant to me when I heard that that blighting idiot Fullerton had started this morning—literally to hurl you on to the assegais of these devils. You!”
In his vehemence he hardly noticed that he had used her Christian name. She did, however, and smiled, and the smile was very soft and sweet.
“Me!” she echoed. “Didn’t you think of poor Lucy too? Why only me?”
“Because I love you.”
It was out now. His secret had been surprised from him. What would she say? They stood facing each other, in that rough room with its cheap oleographs of the Queen, the Kaiser, and Cecil Rhodes staring down upon them from the walls in the dingy light of an unfragrant oil-lamp, any moment liable to interruption. The smile upon her face became a shade sweeter.
“Say that again,” she said.
“I love you.”
She was now in his embrace, but she sought not to release herself from it. Bending down his head she put her lips to his ear and whispered, “Consider the compliment returned.”
They said more than that, these two, who had thus so unpremeditatedly come together, but we do not feel under the necessity of divulging what they said. Perchance also they—did.