ad the effect of leading the conversation away from a very
delicate subject. May, the while, had been out of the room to see about
getting tea ready, and now returned in time to hear the following:--

"Why don't you bring your gun over, Frank?" Jan was saying. "Man,
there is a fine lot of guinea-fowl down along the river--if Colvin has
left any, that is. _Maagtig_, but he is fond of shooting birds. One
_klompje_ down on the _draai_ by the white rock had nearly sixty birds
in it, and now there are nine. Colvin has shot all the rest.
Guinea-fowl are not easy to get at, you know. There are other
_klompjes_, but he will do the same with them, so you had better be
quick or there will be none left."

"He must have been shooting a lot at your place, Jan."

"He has. Rather. He comes over nearly every other day to have a shoot.
Why, we shall soon have hardly anything left if he goes on at that
rate. But the season will soon be over now. Not that we care much
about season or no season if we want a buck to eat."

"Tut-tut, Jan! What's that you're saying? And your father
Field-cornet, too!" struck in Mrs Wenlock.

May, who was presiding at the tea-tray, hearing this apparently harmless
dialogue, felt it to be just about all she could do to restrain the ugly
frown which threatened to cloud her face. "He comes over nearly every
other day," Jan had said, yet he had not been near them for about three
weeks, or close upon it--not, indeed, since that evening he and Frank
had returned from Schalkburg together. He had never been away from them
so long as that since he had been settled on his own farm, nor anything
like it. What _did_ it mean? What was the attraction? The sport?
Well, the sport wasn't bad at Spring Holt. No--a darker thought gripped
her mind and heart, making her miserable. The time corresponded, within
a day or two, to that of Aletta's return. Well, what then? Surely she
was tormenting herself unnecessarily. Surely she could hold her own
against a Dutch girl--an ugly Dutch girl--she added spitefully to
herself. But just then, as she was discharging her duties of deputy
hostess mechanically while thus thinking, the voice of the "ugly Dutch
girl" broke in upon her broodings, with a remark addressed to herself.

"You have been in the Transvaal lately, I hear, Miss Wenlock?"

"Not quite lately; not for a year. I have some relations in
Johannesburg, and was stopping with them."

"Ah! I have som