I clasped her to my bosom. She allowed me, half resisting. “I am too weak,” she murmured. “Only this morning, I made up my mind that when I saw you I would implore you to return at once. And now that you are here—” she laid her little hand confidingly in mine—“see how foolish I am!—I cannot dismiss you.”
“Which means to say, Hilda, that, after all, you are still a woman!”
“A woman; oh, yes; very much a woman! Hubert, I love you; I half wish I did not.”
“Why, darling?” I drew her to me.
“Because—if I did not, I could send you away—so easily! As it is—I cannot let you stop—and... I cannot dismiss you.”
“Then divide it,” I cried gaily; “do neither; come away with me!”
“No, no; nor that, either. I will not stultify my whole past life. I will not dishonour my dear father's memory.”
I looked around for something to which to tether my horse. A bridle is in one's way—when one has to discuss important business. There was really nothing about that seemed fit for the purpose. Hilda saw what I sought, and pointed mutely to a stunted bush beside a big granite boulder which rose abruptly from the dead level of the grass, affording a little shade from that sweltering sunlight. I tied my mare to the gnarled root—it was the only part big enough—and sat down by Hilda's side, under the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. I realised at that moment the force and appropriateness of the Psalmist's simile. The sun beat fiercely on the seeding grasses. Away on the southern horizon we could faintly perceive the floating yellow haze of the prairie fires lit by the Mashonas.
“Then you knew I would come?” I began, as she seated herself on the burnt-up herbage, while my hand stole into hers, to nestle there naturally.
She pressed it in return. “Oh, yes; I knew you would come,” she answered, with that strange ring of confidence in her voice. “Of course you got my letter at Cape Town?”