He bowed assent, biting the short hairs of his moustache in vexation and embarrassment.
"Hardly an hotel—a wretched shanty of the usual corrugated-iron and mud-wall type, in the cattle-grazing country between Driepoort and Kroonfontein. And—it seems my fate to be continually bringing our conversation back to a—most unhappy and painful theme."
"I acquit you of the intention to pain or wound. When I have finished what I have to say, we will revert to the subject no more. It will be buried between us for ever, though the memory of the Dead live in our pardoning and loving thoughts, and in our prayers."
The vivid colour that had flamed in her cheeks had sunk and left them marble. The humid mist of tears that veiled her eyes gave them a wonderful beauty.
He answered her:
"Your thoughts could not be otherwise than noble and generous. Prayers as pure as yours could not be unheard."
"No prayers are unheard, though all are not granted."
She made the slight gesture with her large, beautiful hand that put unnecessary speech from her, and let the hand drop again by her side. Her bosom rose and fell quietly with her even speaking. None could have guessed the tumult within, and the doubts and convictions and apprehensions that battled together, and the religious fears and scruples that rent and tore her suffering soul. But for the sake of Richard's daughter she rallied her grand forces, and nerved herself to carry out her hated task.
"I will tell you how I came to be interested in the young lady who is now my adopted daughter, and whom you know as Lynette Mildare. At the end of the winter of 18— the Reverend Mother of our Convent died, and I was sent up from the Mother-House at Natal, by order of the Bishop, to take her place as Superior. Two Sisters came with me. It was the usual slow journey of many weeks. The wet season had begun. Perhaps that was why we did not encounter many other waggons on the way. But one party of emigrants of the labouring class—we never really learned where bound—trekked on before us, and generally outspanned within sight. There were three rough Englishmen—two middle-aged and one quite old—a couple of tawdry women, and a young girl. They used to ill-treat the girl. We heard her crying often, and one of the Kaffir voor-loopers of their two waggons told a Cape boy who was in our service that the old Baas would kill the little white thing one of these days. She was used as a drudge by them all—a servant, unpaid, ill-fed, worse-clothed than the Kaffirs—but the old man, according to our informant, bore her a special grudge, and lost no opportunity of wreaking his malice on her."
"I understand," he said. She went on: