"I said he was there when I left. The young woman he talked of was brought up at his place in Orange Free State, a nice respectable boarding-house and hotel for travelling families on the veld between Driepoort and Kroonfontein. Bough was good to the girl, and so was his wife, that's dead since. Uncommon! Not that they had much of the dibs to spend in those days. But, being an honest Christian man, Bough treated the girl like his own. And right down bad she served him."
He licked his thick lips again, and the flattish, light-hued adder-eyes glittered.
"There was a bloke that used to hang around the place—kind of coloured loafer, with Dutch blood, overgiven to Squareface and whisky. He got going gay with the girl——"
She stood like a statue of ebony and ivory. Only by the deep breaths that heaved her broad bosom could you tell she lived—by that, and by the unswerving watchfulness of those burning eyes.
"And Bough, when he caught them together, got mad, being a respectable man, and let her taste the sjambok. Then she ran away."
He coughed, and shifted again from one foot to the other. He would have preferred a woman who had loaded him with invectives, and told him that he lied like hell.
"The man that had left her to Bough's guardianship was a sort of broken-down English officer by the name of Mildare——"
Her bosom heaved more stormily, but her intense and scorching regard of him never wavered.
"—Mildare. He left a hundred pounds with Bough, to be kept for her till she was twenty. There was a waggon and team Bough was to have had to sell, and use the money for the girl's keep, but a thief of a Dutch driver waltzed with them—took 'em up Johannesburg way, and melted 'em into dollars. Bough got nothing for all his kindness—not a tikkie. But he's ready to hand over the hundred, her being so nigh come to age. There's a locket with a picture in it, and brilliants round, that may be worth seventy pounds more. All Bough wants is to do the square thing. This is the message he sends her now. The money and the jewels will be handed over, as in duty bound; and, since she's turned respectable and got education, I was to say there's an honest man—widower now, and well off—that's ready to hang up his hat for her, and wipe all old scores off the slate in the regular proper way...."
She said in tones that were of ice: