oh, my heart's life, how slowly they will drag! I will go to
the place where I held you up from death, and there--on that, to me the
sweetest, spot on earth--pray, and pray with all my soul that no danger
may come near you."

Were his very senses slipping away from him in that warm embrace? Was
it indeed upon him that this love was outpoured, or upon somebody else?
The thought passed with jarring hammer strokes through his brain. And
like the distant echo of gibing demon-voices, came that old, grim,
cynical refrain, "Nothing lasts! Nothing lasts!"

And as a little later he rode homeward through the stillness of the
night, on the puffs of the fresh night breeze billowing up the grass,
sighing through the coarse bents, still that goading, tormenting refrain
kept shrieking in his ears, "Nothing lasts! Nothing lasts!"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE HOSTILE GROUND.

Doppersdorp was some distance behind the two horsemen by the time the
sun shot up, a wheel of flame, into the cloudless beauty of the blue
vault, flooding the great plains and the iron-crowned mountain heights
with waves of gold; and the air, though warm, was on these high
tablelands marvellously pure and clear. It was the morning for
reflections of a dazzling nature to the man who could enjoy the rare
luxury of such; and to Roden Musgrave seemed a fitting continuation of
the strange, wondrous enchantment of the past night.

He had persisted with a purpose in this expedition, he had told Mona,
because he wanted to be out of reach of her for a brief while, to think.
And now that every hoofstroke was bearing him thus out of reach, the
strange prescription was indeed taking effect. Now he realised to the
full what she was to his life. He had often been for days without
seeing her. But then any day, any hour almost, he might have been at
her side. His retrospect went to the time when he had looked upon her
with something akin to dislike, even dread--dread lest the subtle power
of her influence should steal him from himself, should drown his hard
cold reason--the fruit of hard experience--in the sweet fumes of its
intoxicating spell. But even through all this had run the misgiving
that such dread was not ill-founded; for he knew that she possessed the
power to do this, did she but choose to exercise it--knew it from the
moment he had first looked into her eyes, and had gazed upon her
exquisite grace of form and movement. And she had exercised it, and
h