The authorities must have been "struck blind," she had said, for though they had overhauled the place and had taken away with them every suspicious-looking document, they had passed and repassed the papers on her table without a word and with nothing more than a superficial glance.
This information had alarmed Mrs. Cloete so much that she had immediately packed every incriminating letter and all her White Envelopes into a tin, which she secretly buried, with the help of her German nurse, under one of the trees at Alphen.
And there they, or what is left of them after ten years, still lie, for the spot has never again been found, although every effort was made to do so.
CHAPTER XXXI[ToC]
"TEA FOR TWO"
It was at the time when the northern territories were being swept by the enemy for the first time that Mrs. van Warmelo heard that a relative of hers had been put over the border, and was staying with her husband at the Grand Hotel in Pretoria.
She therefore asked Hansie to call at the hotel to inquire whether she could be of any assistance to them in their trouble, and Hansie donned her prettiest frock that very afternoon on her "calling" expedition, Carlo walking with unusual sedateness by her side.