“Don’t worry about that; you have now more than enough of this world’s goods to take care of yourself and your little wife as long as you live,” said Dainty, as she laughingly rubbed her cheek on his arm with an action suggestive of a purring kitten. Without looking up, she continued:
“Why don’t you take me to England?”
He shut his eyes, and bit his lips, but oblivious to his emotion she went on.
“You have so often promised, and I so want a change. I long to visit the land you have told me of.”
“Some day, my dear, you will see that great country of mine, but not just now,” rejoined Donald, gently.
“Ah, Donald, why do you always feed my curiosity with the shadow of promises?”
Donald watched her with an idolatrous look until she passed from the room, and then with a groan sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. For a moment he sat in silence, then re-opened the letter. It was dated “London” and the passage in it that he had read and re-read, was this:
“The person you inquire about is in the city, and has learned—I know not how—that you are in South Africa, and is determined to hunt you down.”
Striking a match, he set fire to the letter, and watched it slowly burn, and crisply curl in his fingers. He then threw it on the floor, and crushed it with his foot, with the unspoken wish that this act could blot out its menace from his memory.