'Goodbye, Mr. Markham,' said the colonel. 'By the way, we dine early I should have told you—half past six.'
Markham watched them ride along the avenue and reappear in the moonlight space beyond. Then he dropped the bridle on his horse's neck and listlessly let the animal nibble at the leaves on the side of the road for a long time. At last he seemed to start into consciousness of everything. He gathered up the bridle and brought the horse back to the avenue.
'It is Fate or Providence or God this time,' he muttered as if for his own satisfaction. 'I have had no part in the matter; I have not so much as raised my hand for this, and yet it has come.'
He walked his horse back to Cape Town in the moonlight.
'I don't think you mentioned this Mr. Markham's name to me, Dolly,' said Colonel Gerald as they returned to Mowbray.
'I don't think I did, papa; but you see he had gone ashore when I came on deck to you this morning, and I did not suppose we should ever meet again.'
'I hope you do not object to my asking him to dinner, dear?'
'I object, papa? Oh, no, no; I never felt so glad at anything. He does not talk affectedly like Mr. Glaston, nor cleverly like Mr. Harwood, so I prefer him to either of them. And then, think of his being for a week tossing about the Atlantic upon that wreck.'
'All very good reasons for asking him to dine to-morrow,' said her father. 'Now suppose we try a trot.'
'I would rather walk if it is the same to you, papa,' she said. 'I don't feel equal to another trot now.'