"Well, father, I can't help thinking it was Van Zwieten. Lady Jenny thinks so too."
"You don't say so? But the revolver--it was Harold's."
"Harold left them--that is, he left a case of two revolvers behind him, and both were in the library--in Mr. Malet's library on that night. Van Zwieten came to see him, and took one of them with him--at least, that is what Lady Jenny thinks."
"Brenda, that sounds improbable. Why should he kill Malet? He hardly knew him, child."
"Indeed, you are wrong there, father," she said, "he knew him only too well. Listen!" and she related the story the widow had told her concerning her husband's treachery toward his own country. Mr. Scarse was deeply indignant and indulged in language unusually strong for him. Little Englander though he was, and misguided on many points though he might be, he was an honest and an honorable man; and he could not understand how a man in Mr. Malet's position could have so deliberately played the part of traitor. When he was in possession of all the facts, he quite agreed with Brenda that Van Zwieten was the culprit.
"Then we'll bring him to book," he said angrily. "I will force him to confess."
"That will do no good, father. The truth cannot come to light without the story of Mr. Malet's treachery being known; and Lady Jenny is more than anxious to avoid that. No, Van Zwieten must be left to the punishment of his own conscience."
"I don't think that will trouble him much," Mr. Scarse said grimly. "How I have been deceived in that man! I am sure, when I tell Kruger his true character, he will have nothing to do with him."
Brenda did not contradict this statement, although she felt pretty certain that the foxy old President was very little better himself. How her father could reconcile the opinion he held that Kruger was an honest, harmless old man with the fact that he had forced this terrible war upon England was more than she could understand. She wondered if, when her father got to Pretoria, his discovery of the true aims of the Transvaal Government would be at all modified. But of this she had her doubts. He was the most obstinate of men, and an angel from heaven could not have altered his opinion once it had been formed. Knowing this, she never argued with him. It was absolutely futile, and only caused trouble.
At the Cape the vessel stopped for a time. Brenda did not go ashore. She felt too sad and heavy at heart to take any interest in the sight of new scenes and new people. She sat on the deck and looked at the smiling land, at the glitter of the water as it danced in the hot tropical sun. The azure of sky and sea, the transports, merchant ships, and men-of-war, the whiteness of the city set in groves of green, the whole lying under the shadow of Table Mountain, all went to form a picture unsurpassable in its peculiar beauty. It was her first sight of Africa. But it might be Harold's grave, and she hated it for its very beauty. She would have had all Nature mourn for her dear one.