y occurred.
This, however, was at last surmounted, but it was towards the close of
the third day that he found himself--riding a very tired horse--entering
the Wildschutsberg range, just beyond which lay his own home, and, yet
nearer, Ratels Hoek.

Straight to the latter he intended to proceed, and now, as he drew so
near, for the hundredth time he was cudgelling his brains over the
mystery of Aletta's strange behaviour, and for the hundredth time was
forced to own himself no nearer finding a clue to it than before--except
that he still connected it in some way with the evil influence or
trickery of Adrian. Well, two or three hours more would clear it up,
for he and Aletta would talk face to face, and in her own home.

Ah, but would they? With a dire chill the thought struck him--what if
she were no longer there? had left home, perhaps, and gone away to Cape
Town, as she had done before? Well, even thither he would follow her,
if necessary, and claim an explanation.

What was this which had come between them? Had their times been too
bright, too unclouded, rendering some such trial needful? They
certainly had been that Day by day, so far from stagnating, from turning
into the easy matter-of-fact groove, their love had grown--had
intensified--right up to the moment of parting, so ardently mutual had
it been. It had seemed that nothing could add to it--that no margin was
left for any further extension of it. Yet as he rode along now,
saddened, heart-desolate, almost bereaved, Colvin thought to himself
that this ordeal had seemed needed to prove that there was.

As he entered the mountains, the roll as of an approaching storm had
boomed sombrely away on his left. Now, in the opposite direction,
beyond the range, came faint and far, other deep thunder voices. This
was not thunder though. It was a sound he had become tolerably familiar
with of late, the distant roll of guns. A battle was in progress in
that direction. Well, it did not concern him. He was nearly at home
again.

He looked up. The shadows of evening were already lowering. In the
dusk something white attracted his glance. A white stone--and then,
with a rush, the familiarity of the surroundings swept in upon his mind.
He had reason to know that white stone, for it was while passing that
very object he had been fired at on the night he had first seen Aletta.
The track he had been following here struck the main road, just where it
forked, in