d sleep or die as the case
might be. Then it was that he remembered the little cave near the top
of the Kloof, the same from which Jess had watched the thunder-storm. He
had visited it once with Bessie after their engagement, and she had told
him that it was one of her sister's favourite haunts.

If he could but reach the cave at any rate he would find shelter and a
dry place to lie in. It could not be more than three hundred yards away.
So he struggled on bravely through the wet grass and over the scattered
boulders, till at last he came to the base of the huge column that had
been shattered by the lightning before Jess's eyes.

Thirty paces more and John was in the cave.

With a sigh of utter exhaustion he flung himself down upon the rocky
floor, and almost instantly was buried in a profound sleep.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER

When the rain ceased and the moon began to shine, Jess was still fleeing
like a wild thing across the plain on the top of the mountain. She felt
no sense of exhaustion now or even of weariness; her only idea was to
get away, right away somewhere, where she could lose herself and nobody
would ever see her again. Presently she reached to top of Leeuwen Kloof,
and recognising the spot in a bewildered way she began to descend it.
Here was a place where she might lie till she died, for no one ever came
there, except now and again some wandering Kafir herd. On she sprang,
from rock to rock, a wild and eerie figure, well in keeping with the
solemn and titanic sadness of the place.

Twice she fell, once right into the stream, but she took no heed,
she did not even seem to feel it. At last she was at the bottom, now
creeping like a black dot across the wide spaces of moonlight, and now
swallowed up in the shadow. There before her gaped the mouth of the
little cave; her strength was leaving her at last, and she was fain to
crawl into it, broken-hearted, crazed, and--_dying_.

"Oh, God forgive me! God forgive me!" she moaned as she sank upon the
rocky floor. "Bessie, I sinned against you, but I have washed away my
sin. I did it for you, Bessie love, not for myself. I had rather have
died than kill him for myself. You will marry John now, and you will
never, never know what I did for you. I am going to die. I know that.
I am dying. Oh, if only I could see his face once more before I
die--before I die!"

Slowly the westering moonlight crept down the blackness of the rock. Now
a