“Dear, good Mrs. Crawford, why will you walk so terribly fast? It quite took away the breath of poor little me to follow you,” came the voice of Lottie Vincent Mrs. Crawford turned, and as she was with a friend, she could not avoid allowing her stout hand to be touched by one of Lottie's ten-buttoned gloves. “Ah, you are surprised to see me,” continued the young lady. “I am surprised myself to find myself here, but papa would not hear of my remaining at Natal when he went on to the frontier with the regiment, so I am staying with a friend in Cape Town. Algernon is here, but the dear boy is distressed by the number of people. Poor Algy is so sensitive.”
“Poor who?” cried Mrs. Crawford.
“Oh, good gracious, what have I said?” exclaimed the artless little thing, blushing very prettily, and appearing as tremulous as a fluttered dove. “Ah, my dear Mrs. Crawford, I never thought of concealing it from you for a moment. I meant to tell you the first of any one in the world—I did indeed.”
“To tell me what?” asked the major's wife sternly.
“Surely you know that the dear good bishop has given his consent to—to—do help me out of my difficulty of explaining, Mrs. Crawford.”
“To your becoming the wife of his son?”
“I knew you would not ask me to say it all so terribly plainly,” said Lottie. “Ah yes, dear Algy was too importunate for poor little me to resist; I pitied him and promised to become his for ever. We are devoted to each other, for there is no bond so fast as that of artistic sympathy, Mrs. Crawford. I meant to write and thank you for your dear good-natured influence, which, I know, brought about his proposal. It was all due, I frankly acknowledge, to your kindness in bringing us together upon the day of that delightful lunch we had at the grove of silver leaves. How can I ever thank you? But there is darling Algy looking quite bored. I must rush to him,” she continued, as she saw Mrs. Crawford about to speak. Lottie did not think it prudent to run the risk of hearing Mrs. Crawford refer to certain little Indian affairs connected with Lottie's residence at that agreeable station on the Himalayas; so she kissed the tips of her gloves, and tripped away to where Mr. Algernon Glaston was sitting on one of the garden seats.
“She is a wicked girl,” said Mrs. Crawford to her companion. “She has at last succeeded in finding some one foolish enough to be entrapped by her. Never mind, she has conquered—I admit that. Oh, this world, this world!”
And there can hardly be a doubt that Miss Lottie Vincent, all things considered, might be said to have conquered. She was engaged to marry Algernon Glaston, the son of the Bishop of the Calapash Islands and Metropolitan of the Salamander Group, and this to Lottie meant conquest.
Of Oswin Markham only a few words need be spoken to close this story, such as it is. Oswin Markham was once more seen by Harwood. Two months after the outbreak of the war the special correspondent, in the exercise of his duty, was one night riding by the Tugela, where a fierce engagement had taken place between the Zulus and the British troops. The dead, black and white, were lying together—assagai and rifle intermixed. Harwood looked at the white upturned faces of the dead men that the moonlight made more ghastly, and amongst those faces he saw the stern clear-cut features of Oswin Markham. He was in the uniform of a Natal volunteer. Harwood gave a start, but only one; he stood above the dead man for a long time, lost in his own thoughts. Then the pioneers, who were burying the dead, came up.