es were
steadfast; they held no anxiety.

Descending the stairs at length she found Piet waiting below before the
fire. He looked round as she came down, looked up the stairs beyond her,
and gravely rose to give her his chair.

Mona was generally regarded as hostess in her father's house, though she
was not his eldest daughter. She possessed a calmness of demeanour that
was conspicuously lacking in all the rest.

She sat down quietly, her hands folded about her knees. "Have you had
good sport?" she asked, her serene eyes raised to his.

There was a slight frown between Piet's brows. Hitherto he had always
regarded this girl as his friend. To-night, for the first time, she
puzzled him. There was something hostile about her something he felt
rather than saw, yet of which from the very moment of her coming, he was
keenly conscious.

He scarcely answered her query. Already his wits were at work.

Suddenly he asked her a blunt question. "Has Anne come in yet?"

She answered him quite as bluntly, almost as if she had wished for his
curt interrogation. "No."

He raised his brows for an instant, then in part reassured by her
absolute composure, he merely commented: "She is late."

Mona said nothing. She turned her quiet eyes to the blaze before her.
There was not the faintest sign of agitation in her bearing.

"Do you know what she is doing?" He asked the question slowly, half
reluctantly it seemed.

Again she looked at him. Clear and contemptuous, her eyes met his.

"Yes, I know."

The words, the look, stabbed him with a swift suspicion. He bent towards
her, his hand gripped her wrist.

"What do you mean? Where is she?"

She made no movement to avoid him. A faint, grim smile hovered about her
calm mouth.

"I can tell you what I mean," she said quietly. "I cannot tell you where
she is."

"Then tell me what you mean," he said between his teeth.

His face was close to hers, and in that moment it was terrible. But Mona
did not flinch. The small, bitter smile passed, that was all.

"I mean," she said, speaking very steadily and distinctly, "that you
will go back to South Africa without her after all. I mean that by your
hateful and contemptible brutality you have driven her from you for ever.
I mean that you have forced her into taking a step that will compel you
to set her free from your tyranny. I mean that simply and solely to
escape from you she has run away with--another man."

A quiver of pain went o