Part 26

"I won't forget anything," said Margaret, with eyes that were bright and tender. "Good-by. When your card comes in, I shall be ever so glad. Good-by."

There was a fidgety interval before the big cart drove up to the house, its wheels rending through the gritty mud and its horses steaming as though they had been boiled. Mr. Samson employed each interlude in the talk to glare at Ford in lofty offense; he seemed only to be waiting till this dull business of departure was concluded to call him to account. Mrs. du Preez, who had come across in the cart to bid Margaret farewell, was welcome as a diversion.

"Well, where 's the lucky one?" she cried. "Ah, Miss Harding, can't you smell London from here? If you could bottle that smell, with a drop o' fog, a drop o' dried fish and a drop o' Underground Railway to bring out the flavor, you 'd make a fortune, sellin' it to us poor Afrikanders. But you 'll be sniffin' it from the cask in three weeks from now. Lord, I wish it was me."

"You ought to make a trip," suggested Margaret.

"Christian don't think so," declared Mrs. du Preez, with her shrill laugh. "He knows I 'd stick where I touched like a fly in a jam-pot, and he 'd have to come and pull me out of it himself."

She took an occasion to drop a private whisper into Margaret's ear.

"Kamis is outside, waitin' to see you go. He 's talkin' to Paul."

The farewells accomplished themselves. That of Mrs. Jakes would have been particularly effective but for the destructive intrusion of Mrs. du Preez.

"Er--a pleasant voyage, Miss Harding," she said, in a thin voice. "I may be in London soon myself--at Putney. But I suppose we 're hardly likely to meet before you go abroad again."

"I wonder," said Margaret peaceably.

It was then that Mrs. du Preez struck in.

"Putney," she said, in a loud and callous voice, in itself sufficient to scrape Mrs. Jakes raw. "South the water, eh? But you can easy run up to London from there if Miss Harding sends for you, can't you?"

Kamis came eagerly to the foot of the steps as Margaret came down, and Mr. Samson, with a loud cough, posted himself at the head of them to superintend.

"I am glad you came," said Margaret. "I didn't want to go away without seeing you."

He glanced up at Mr. Samson and the others, a conscientious audience ranged above him, deputies of the Colonial Mrs. Grundy, and smiled comprehendingly.

"Oh, I had to come," he said. "I had to bid you good-by."

There was no change in his appearance since she had seen him last. His tweed clothes were worn and shabby as ever, and still strange in connection with his negro face.

"And I wanted to thank you for what you did for me that night," said Margaret earnestly. "It was a horrible thing, wasn't it? But I hear--I have heard that it has come all right."

Mr. Samson coughed again. Mrs. Jakes, with an elbow in each hand, coughed also.

"All right for me, certainly," the Kafir answered. "They have given me something to do. There 's an epidemic of smallpox among the natives in the Transkei, and I 'm to go there at once. It couldn't be better for me. But you. How about you?"

The Kafir boys who were carrying out the trunks and stacking them under Paul's directions in the cart were eyeing them curiously, and the audience above never wavered in its solemn watch. It was ridiculous and exasperating.

"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.

When next she looked back, she saw the house against the gray sky, solitary and little, with all the Karoo for its background. It looked unsubstantial and vague, as though a mirage were left over from the months of sun, to be the abode of troubles and perplexities that would soon be dim and remote also. Paul pulled his horses to a standstill that she might see better; but even at that moment fresh rain drummed on the hood of the cart and came threshing about them, blotting the house from view.

"That 's the last of it, Paul," said Margaret. "No more looking back now."

Paul smiled slowly and presently found words.

"When we come to the station," he said, "I will find a Kafir to hold the horses and I will take you to the train. But I will not say much good-by."

"Why not?" inquired Margaret.

"Because soon I am coming to London too," he answered happily, "and I will see you there."

Mr. Samson and Ford were the last to reenter the house. The Kafir had gone off unnoticed, saying nothing; and Mrs. Jakes could not escape the conversational attentions of Mrs. du Preez and was suffering in the drawing-room. The two men stayed to watch the cart till the rain swept in and hid it. Then Mr. Samson resumed his threatful glare at Ford.

"Look here," he said formidably. "What d'you mean by your dashed cheek? Eh?"

"Sorry," said Ford calmly.

Mr. Samson snorted. "_Are_ you?" he said. "Well--all right!"

THE END