"Oh, I shall do very well," said Margaret, striving to be impervious to the influence of those serious eyes. "You have my address, have n't you? You must write me how you get on."
"If you like," he agreed.
"You must," she said. "I shall be keen to hear. I believed in you when nobody else did, except Paul."
A frightful cough from above did not silence her. She answered it with a shrug. She meant to say all she had to say, though the ground were covered with eaves-droppers.
"I shan't forget our talks," she went on; "under the dam, with Paul's models. You 'll get on now; you 'll do all you wanted to do; but I was in at the beginning, wasn't I?"
"You were, indeed," he answered; "at the darkest part of it, the best thing that ever happened to me. And now you 've got to go. I 'm keeping you too long."
Mr. Samson coughed again as they shook hands and came down the steps to assist Margaret into the cart.
"Remember," said the girl; "you must write. And I shall always be glad and proud I knew you. Good-by and good luck."
"Good-by," said the Kafir. "I 'll write. The best of luck."
Paul put his rug over her knees and reached for his whip. The tall horses leaned and started, and the stoep and its occupants, and the Kafir and Mr. Samson, slid back. A thin chorus of "good-bys" rose, and Margaret leaned out to wave her hand. A watery sun shone on them feebly between clouds and they looked like the culminating scene in some lugubrious drama.