After six or seven days in Pretoria the Boer leaders left for their commandos, to deliberate, with what result Hansie did not know until nearly two months later in mid-ocean, where at a distant isle the news of the declaration of peace was made known to her.
The three women at Harmony now turned their thoughts into another channel.
The mother being far from well herself, arrangements had to be made to leave her in the companionship of some suitable and congenial woman, until her "boys" came home—one from the front, if he were still alive, the other from captivity. A girl friend offered to take Hansie's place at Harmony and promised not to leave Mrs. van Warmelo until the country was in a settled state again.
This was Hansie's only crumb of consolation during those last days at home.
Many difficulties were made about her permits when she applied for leave to go to Holland, and many were the questions asked, her interview with General Maxwell being the least unsatisfactory when she told him of her approaching marriage.
"You may go with pleasure," he had said; but a few days afterwards Hansie received a letter from the Provost-Marshal, saying that "the present regulations do not allow burghers or their families to leave South Africa."
Hansie wrote to Lord Kitchener, but received no reply, and it was nearly the middle of May, after some weeks of uncertainty, harder far to bear than trouble of a more decided character, when she and Mrs. Cloete left the capital for Cape Colony.
Hansie's last words in her diary are:
"There is quite a history connected with the procuring of my permits, which I shall relate another time. I am too tired now."
Words significant of what the girl had endured in parting from her mother and leaving her beloved country at a time so critical!