g, father would fume a bit and always end by
saying: `I wish to Heaven Glanton was back. It would be all right if
Glanton were here!' mother, too, would say much the same. So you see
you will have very amenable relations-in-law after all."

"Oh, I'm not afraid of that in the least," I answered. "As a matter of
fact, as you know, I don't think your father was at all well advised in
coming out here to set up farming at his age and with his temperament.
But now he is here we must pull him through, and we'll do it all right,
never fear. But Aida, if it was a wrong move on his part think what it
has resulted in for me."

"And for me," she said softly.

I have set out in this narrative deliberately to spare the reader
detailed accounts of love passages between myself and this beautiful and
peerless woman whose love I had so strangely won; for I hold that such
are very far too sacred to be imparted to a third person, or put down in
black and white for the benefit of the world at large. Suffice it that
the most exacting under the circumstances could have had no reason to
complain of any lack of tenderness on her part--ah, no indeed!

This conversation took place during a long walk which we had been
taking. Aida was fond of walking, and, except for long distances,
preferred it to riding; wherein again our tastes coincided. She was
observant too and keenly fond of Nature; plants, insects, birds,
everything interested her; and if she saw anything she wanted to look at
she could do it far better, she said, on foot than on horseback. So we
had taken to walking a good deal. This afternoon we had been to a
certain point on the river which she had wanted to sketch, and now were
returning leisurely through the bush, picking our way along cattle or
game paths. Arlo, for once, was not with us. Falkner had taken him in
the other direction. He wanted to train him as a hunting dog, he said,
and now he had gone after a bush-buck.

The glory of the slanting sun rays swept wide and golden over the broad
river valley as the sinking disc touched the green gold line of the
further ridge, then sank beneath it, leaving the sweep of bush-clad
mound and lower lying level first lividly clear, then indistinct in the
purple afterglow. Birds had ceased to pipe farewell to the last light
of falling day, and here and there along the river bank a jackal was
shrilly baying. But if the light of day had failed, with it another
lamp had been l