can't bear to see
you cry."

She looked up as though to remonstrate at his words, then she looked
down again.

"Listen, Bessie," he went on awkwardly enough, "I have something to say
to you. I want to ask you if--if, in short, you will marry me. Wait a
bit, don't say anything yet; you know me pretty well by now. I am no
chicken, dear, and I have knocked about the world a good deal, and had
one or two love affairs like other people. But, Bessie, I never met such
a sweet woman, or, if you will let me say it, such a lovely woman as you
are, and if you will have me, dear, I think that I shall be the luckiest
man in South Africa;" and he stopped, not knowing exactly what else to
say, and feeling that the time had not come for action, if indeed it was
to come at all.

When first she understood the drift of his talk Bessie had flushed up to
the eyes, then the blood sank back to her breast, and left her as pale
as a lily. She loved the man, and they were happy words to her, and she
was satisfied with them, though perhaps some women might have thought
that they left a good deal to be desired. But Bessie was not of an
exacting nature.

At last she spoke.

"Are you sure," she asked, "that you mean all this? You know sometimes
people say things of a sudden, upon an impulse, and afterwards they wish
they never had been said. Then it would be rather awkward supposing I
were to say 'yes,' would it not?"

"Of course I am sure," he said indignantly.

"You see," went on Bessie, poking at the sod wall with the stick
she held in her hand, "perhaps in this place you might be putting an
exaggerated value on me. You think I am pretty because you see nobody
but Kafir and Boer women, and it would be the same with everything. I'm
not fit to marry such a man as you," she went on, with a sudden burst
of distress; "I have never seen anything or anybody. I am nothing but an
ignorant, half-educated farmer girl, with nothing to recommend me, and
no fortune except my looks. You are different to me; you are a man of
the world, and if ever you went back to England I should be a drag on
you, and you would be ashamed of me and my colonial ways. If it had been
Jess now, it would have been different, for she has more brains in her
little finger than I have in my whole body."

Somehow this mention of Jess jarred upon John's nerves, and chilled him
like a breath of cold wind on a hot day. He wanted to put Jess out of
his mind just now.

"My dear B