s place, she should have
thought, would be at the front. News kept coming in--together with more
prisoners--news of brilliant engagements, and successful stands made
against the foes of the Republic--yet Adrian, who had always been so
energetic in his advocacy of an appeal to arms, dallied here, instead of
marching with those who were fighting for the patriot cause. To this he
had replied that there was time enough before him. The struggle was
young yet; long before it reached its culminating point, he would be in
the midst of it--yes, and would have made his mark too. Thus he told
her.

The while, however, he was playing his own game, and that necessitated
more than one trip over to Johannesburg, more than one conference with
that other Kershaw. The plot concocted by these worthies was nearly
mature.

The time had now come for playing a new card. When Aletta waxed
eloquent over her absent lover, Adrian, hitherto kindly and
considerately responsive, now preserved silence; indeed he lapsed into
silence with just sufficient markedness as to move her to notice it.
This he did some few times, until one day she asked him the reason,
point-blank.

"Oh, it's nothing, Aletta," he answered. And then he abruptly took his
leave.

But at the very next of his visits she returned to the subject, as he
knew she would, and intended she should.

Why had he become so markedly constrained? she asked, a sudden deadly
fear blanching her face. Had he heard anything--any bad news?

"From the front, you mean? No, no; nothing of that sort," quailing
involuntarily before the set, stony look of anguish, and half wavering
in his plan. Then, recovering himself, "Well then, Aletta, it's of no
use keeping it to oneself any longer; besides, you ought to know. Are
you sure there is anyone at the front in whom you have any interest at
all?"

"Why, of course! Why, what do you mean, Adrian? Is not Colvin at the
front?" she said, bringing out her words with a kind of gasp.

"At the front? Well, I don't think he is, considering I saw him only
this morning at Johannesburg."

"Oh, then, he is on his way back," cried Aletta, her face lighting up
with such a radiancy of joy as confirmed the other more than ever in his
purpose.

"I think not," he said; "for to-day is not the only time I have seen him
there. I saw him the day before yesterday, and one day last week."

"Adrian, think what you are saying. It is impossible." But as sh