"I am," burst in Bert at once, before Mayne could speak. "Fifty pounds down and a demi-john of the best whisky in Slabbert's Poort, and I'll make her my wife to-morrow."
"Millie!" screamed the virago to the girl, who had reached the ladder leading to her little room above. "Here's a husband for you, my girl! Get your bundle and pack! Off with you! Out of my house! We're all respectable here! Take your English lady-wife, Mr. Bert Mestaer."
Mr. Mayne stepped forwards.
"Perhaps you would be so kind as to listen to me for a moment, Mrs. Lutwyche," he said distinctly. "Your late husband made a will, and left it in my hands. In it I am appointed his daughter's sole guardian, until she reaches the age of twenty-one. The arrangements for her future rest with me, and have nothing whatever to do with you. If she remains with you for a week or two, until her affairs are settled, you will be paid a fixed sum daily, out of Mr. Lutwyche's small estate, as long as you keep her. But you have absolutely no control whatever over her marriage."
Vrouw Lutwyche gave a positive howl of fury. Her face grew purple—almost black; her eyes protruded, her rage was hideous and ungovernable. For so long had she waited for this moment—this coming time when she should have Millie helpless at her mercy—she simply could not realise that all was taken out of her hands.
Millie's tears had ceased. In surprise at what Mr. Mayne was saying, she had halted on her way up the ladder, the drops wet on her cheeks. Now she slowly came back to the ground, and stood with a set smile, showing her row of short, pearl-white teeth, as she gloated over the spectacle of the Boer woman's degradation. He had been weak, that father who had left her; he had disappointed her over and over again; but after all, there had been something in him which Vrouw Lutwyche could not reach. In death he had outwitted her.
Mayne's very soul sickened. He had seen much that revolted him in this wild land of beginnings—of that measure of civilisation which sometimes seems so strongly to plead the fact that utter savagery would be better. But he thought he had never seen anything more awful than the enmity of this girl's face—the hatred, the callous contempt, which showed how often the young eyes had looked upon like scenes.
"If she is left here, she will go mad," he thought; and again he earnestly wished that poor Lutwyche could have held on just another fortnight, until the arrival of certain letters from England. He was at his wits' end. There was not a house anywhere near to which he dare take Millie. He was in sole charge of the Mission, and in that evil place, to take her there, would be to blast her character. He thought of a good-natured old Boer widow woman who lived about a mile away, and stepping up to Millie, he suggested in an undertone, that she should go there.
"You cannot remain here," he urged.
Her refusal was prompt and resolute.