elf,
Harvard Weldon. But he loved her. He had loved her for thirteen
months and twenty-one days. Carefully he reckoned up the time; then,
to make sure, he counted it off upon his fingers. Yes, he had loved
her ever since that first lunch on the steamer, when she had snubbed
him so roundly. He did not know it then. Looking backward, he knew
it now. And there had been Cape Town, and Johannesburg, and Cape
Town again. He stumbled into the open mouth of an ant-bear's hole
and came down with a crash, full upon his wounded shoulder. Strange
that his step should be so uncertain! Strange that he should feel so
little inclination to swear! As he picked himself up, he wondered
vaguely whether his pipe would be refreshing; but his wonder
stopped, impotent to lead his dangling hand in the direction of his
pocket. Then his mind took up its interrupted story, its record of
brief, categorical facts.

He had meant to go home, that winter. Instead, Ethel had fanned the
flame of his desire to go back to the front. He had left her, one
evening, to pass a sleepless night, and, the next morning, to take
himself out to enlist for another six months of service. The six
months were nearly ended. Only three weeks remained. And then?
Nothing.

The second night found him still far from Lindley. He had plodded on
mechanically, stumbling often, but halting never, while his mind
went whirling on and on, over and over the same old questions. His
lips were feverish, and his eyes burned hotly, so it was almost with
a sense of relief that he greeted the swift chill which followed the
dropping of the sun. Over his head, the great arch of the sky shaded
from east to west through every tint of purple and blue and
turquoise and emerald-green, down to the golden band of the
afterglow. Then the stars began to dot the purple, their tiny points
of light serving only to emphasize its darkness, until the full moon
swept up across the heavens, throwing its mystic silver light over
all the land and adding tenfold to the empty loneliness of the
veldt. Sleep was out of the question. He could only snuggle more
closely into his blankets and wait for morning with what grace he
could. The stopping of his physical action only increased the
swiftness of his swirling thoughts which chased each other round and
round in circling eddies about one fixed point. That point was
Ethel.

Across the veldt at his left hand, he had watched the chain of
blockhouses which lay along