was thrown upon them almost entirely,
she wondered how she could ever have found Mary Dixon other than the
tiresome woman she was--without an idea outside her brood, the four
units composing which were always noisy and quarrelsome, never too
clean, and generally and all-round ill behaved. She had come up to
Johannesburg just before the crisis had reached a climax--and now, there
she was and there she must stay.

Of course there was that beneath her _ennui_ and restlessness which she
did not impart to her relatives. In her hours of solitude--and these
were too many for one of her age and temperament and abundant
attractions--there always arose in her mind a vivid recollection of what
she had felt on hearing of Colvin Kershaw's engagement. It was not so
entirely unexpected, for her jealous misgivings had been gnawing into
and corroding her mind for some time past. Yet, when it came, the shock
had been hardly the less acute. He had treated her shamefully--she
declared to herself--yes, wickedly, cruelly, abominably. Why had he
made her care for him, only to--do as he had done? If only she could
make him suffer for it--but--how could she? Wild, revengeful plans
scorched through her brain--among them that of revealing everything to
Aletta. Then the ugly Dutch girl could have the reversion of his kisses
and soft words. But the only consideration that kept her from this was
a conviction that such a course would not weigh with Aletta, would
defeat its own object, and turn herself into a laughing stock. It
certainly would if Aletta loved him as she herself had done--and how
could Aletta do otherwise? thought poor May to herself with a sob, and a
filling of the eyes like a rain shower breaking upon a stormy sunset.
She hated him now, she told herself again and again. But--did she?
That sob would often repeat itself to give the lie to the illusion.

She had not seen him since hearing the--to her--baleful news; but this,
to do him justice, was not his fault. He had come over to Spring Holt
to bid them good-bye before leaving for the Transvaal, but she had not
appeared--pleading a headache which was not all pretence--the fact being
that she dared not trust herself. But of late an intense longing had
been upon her to behold him once more, and when her glance had lighted
upon him at the railway station among the crowd, she forgot everything
in the joy of the moment. And--it was not he after all.

Even then somehow her