Trembling with excitement she followed the Bushman, and got into the cart. As they drove away, she gave one backward glance at the home where she had lived so peacefully with Donald. Nerving herself, she bade Bela hasten. When they had reached the edge of the town, she seized the reins, and with a strength born of excitement, urged the horses on with a frenzy that caused Bela to give his mistress a look of wonder.
Her thoughts had been too long busy with her work to think of anything further, until now, with the motion of the revolving wheels, and the speeding horses, a sense of liberty took possession of her.
She was free! Away over the veldt she flew, the horses seeming to become imbued with the spirit of their mistress, which gave impulse to their fast-flying feet. This sense of freedom was a reaction from the sense of captivity, of late so strongly upon her.
Two hours or more flew by, before she gave a thought to the scenes through which she was passing. A weary waste of sandy, desert road; a treeless veldt covered sparsely with a coarse grass; a dreary farmhouse in the distance surrounded by a few trees, was a joyless picture to look upon.
Bela sat silent, watching the horses and the flying cart, but immovable as a statue. When the native becomes attached to his mistress, he accepts everything from the “Inkosa” whom he regards as a queen. Dainty’s strength was ebbing fast, but with superhuman effort she rallied all her energies, and, when she saw a horseman in the distance, called to her aid her most languorous and indifferent manner, reined in her rapid steeds and handed the reins to Bela. As the man drew near, to her dismay she recognised Dr Fox, who was returning from his patient. As he rode up to the cart, an expression of amazement spread over his face. When he stopped his horse to speak to her, she ordered Bela to stop, also.
“Good afternoon, Mrs Laure. You have greatly improved since I saw you this morning. I scarcely thought you well enough to venture so long a drive. Is it health or pleasure you seek?”
Dainty was as white as the dead are. She trembled before this man’s honest way of asking questions. Her strength, until now fed by excitement, left her, and her tongue refused to move, though her lips parted in the effort.
The agony that convulsed her frame was depicted on her face, and she shook like one with ague. What should she say? The doctor perceived that here was some awful crisis. He rose to the occasion.
“Do not speak. Try to calm yourself,” said he. Dismounting, he took Bela’s place in the cart, and putting his horse in the Bushman’s keeping, told him to follow them to town. He then gathered up the reins and wheeled the horses homeward. They were no sooner turned, than Dainty, unable to support herself, dropped her head on the doctor’s shoulder.
“Mrs Laure, I see that you are in distress. I ask you nothing, every woman in trouble is my sister. That’s right, let those wells in your eyes run dry. It would have done you good if they had run over many days earlier.” To himself the doctor continued: