good for those who stood in the way
of her wishes.

Why had two of the van Cannan sons died sudden deaths? Why was the
lure of a pink palace at the bottom of the dam fostered in the third?
How had the tarantula come into his bed, and why had someone said that
it acted like a thing drugged or intoxicated, and that, when it woke
up, it would have been a bad lookout for Roddy?

"God forgive me!" cried the distracted girl to herself. "Perhaps I am
more wicked than she, to harbour such thoughts!"

Then, as if at a call that her heart heard rather than her ears, she
found herself running out of the barn and across the veld in the hot,
stormy sunshine, in the direction of the Saxbys' bungalow.

She had never been there before, though often, in their walks, she and
the children had passed within a stone's throw of the little
wood-and-iron building. The door was always shut, and the windows
hidden by the heavy creeper that covered in the stoep. She had often
thought what a drab and dreary life it must be for a woman to live
hidden away there, and even the children never passed without a
compassionate allusion to "poor Mrs. Saxby, always shut up there alone."

A dread of seeing the sad, disfigured creature seized her now, as she
reached the darkened stoep, and held her back for a moment. She stood
wondering why she had come and how she could expect to find Roddy there
where the children had never been allowed to penetrate. But, in the
very act of hesitation, she heard the boy's voice ring out.

"No, mamma; _please don't make me do it!_"

In a couple of swift steps she was in the stoep and her hand on the
knob of the door. But the door would not open. There were two narrow
windows that gave onto the stoep, and, without pause, she flew to the
one that she judged to be in the direction of the child's voice and
laid hands upon it. It was closed and curtained with thick blue
muslin, but there were no shutters, and to her forceful push the lower
part jerked up, and the curtains divided. She found herself standing
there, the silent spectator of a scene in which all the actors were
silent, too amazed or paralyzed by her unexpected appearance.

PART III

The room was a common little sitting-room with a table in the centre,
at either end of which sat Mrs. van Cannan and Mr. Saxby. Roddy was
between the table and the wall, and Christine's first glance showed him
white-faced and staring with fascinated, fearful ey