The Judgment House

eur vo

is senses. Byng beamed down on her, mystified and eager, yet by no means impatient, since the situation was one wholly agreeable to him, and he had been called robber in his time with greater violence and with a di

ther quickly from the too frank friendliness of his grasp. "You ran off w

word," he rejoined; "

his morning-before breakfast; and I didn't even receive a note of thank

d as for my overcoat, I didn't know it had

asked, with an und

. I was out lookin

?" she urged with

reakfast while

erial tastes, the cloak hid itsel

re sense for details she had had this very chair brought from the library beyond, where her step

y over the back of a Chesterfield whe

ast-room! That's more like

r." He blushed a littl

she owed you a breakfast

d a breakfa

ttle smile of triumph gathered at her pink lips; lips a little like thos

ng me," he gasped, helplessly. "I

eaded with a little wave

ements, and getting round the kopjes, w

ert," she cried in mock dismay. "Isn't that w

he answered, presently, "that's what they will be doing; and if I'm not mistaken they'll catch Jameson ju

ire-making, or losing, affair; but there are other things to be settled first

know it was Al'mah

you really think I should have talked like this, or been so exigent about the cloak, if I hadn't known everything; if I hadn't been to see Al'mah, and spent an ho

ing-not critically," he replied, boldly. "I would only be thinking

ishing humour. "Now you must please remember that I

broke in, gallantly, with a desperate attempt to take advantage

spoiled part of her was suddenly made self-conscious, however agreeably so. Then she said to him: "I won't say you were brave last night-that doesn't touch the situation. It wasn't bravery, of course; it was splendid

or fifteen years where you had to move quick-by instinct, as it were. There's no virtue in it.

an my father o

cond. I'm a coarser kind. I have seen lots of sickening things; and I suppose

"You were completely absorbed, carried away, by Al'mah's singing last

A lion got inside my zareba in Rhodesia. I hadn't my gun within reach, but I'd been playing the cornet, and just as he was crouching I blew a blast from it-one of those jarring discords of Wagner in the "Gotterdammerung"-and he turned tail and got away into the bush with a howl. Hearing gets to be the most acute of all the senses with the pioneer. If you've eve

range that you should be ravished by Al'mah's singing last night was it?" She looked at him keenly. "Is

ways a kind of irresponsibility. The habit of letting themselves go in their art, I suppose, makes them, in real life, throw things down so hard when they don't like them. Living at hi

that when you bre

ing and jesting-and when

kissed you

gin in a very early period of her life, when she had been allowed to read books of verse-Shelley, Byron, Shakespeare, Verlaine, Rossetti, Swinburne, and many others-unchallenged and unguided. The understanding of thing

lf-angry feeling when she heard Rudyard Byng say, so loosely, that Al'Mah had kissed him. Was it possible, then, that a man, that any man, thought she might hear such th

stood, and he handled the situation with a tact which see

a child of five. It meant nothing more to her than kissing Fanato on the stage. It was pure impulse. She forgot it as soon as it was done. It was her way of s

t kissed her when she left, while expressing gratitude, too. There was a difference. She turned the subject, saying: "Of

w that even as I flung the cloak round her, in the excitement of th

his palm when she greeted him on his entrance. "It was like an incense from the cloak, as it blanketed the flames. Strange, wasn't it

"Do you like the perfume? I r

f cloud of ideas floating. I don't know

e Wild Tincture of Time'-frivolously and sillily says that it comes from a bank whereon the 'wild thyme' gro

head was perhaps a little too low, and the hair grew very thick, and would have been a vast mane if it had not been kept fairly close by his valet. This valet was Krool, a half-caste-Hottentot and Boer-whom he had rescued from

ity to do huge things when once roused. He had been roused in his short day. The life into which he had been thrown with men of vaster ambition and much more selfish ends than his own, had stirred him to prodigies of activity in those strenuous, wonderful, electric days when gold and diamonds changed the hard-bitten, wearied prospector, who had doggedly delved till he had forced open the hand of the Spirit of the Earth and caught the treasure that flowed forth, into a millionaire, into a conqueror, with the world at his feet. He had been of those who,

ff, vague idealism, the selfish outlook, and yet great breadth of feeling, with narrowness of individual purpose. The rough life, the sordid struggle

ill of speech like a Damascus blade, with knowledge of a half-dozen languages. Ian had an allusiveness of conversation which made human intercourse a perpetual entertainment, and Jasmine's intercourse wi

nds without missing a good deal and getting a good deal you could do wit

I'll venture there isn't another woma

books of travel and adventure," she replied. "I'd have

t her tiny hand, her slight figure, her delicat

ember when I didn't ride. First a Shetland pony, and

? One would think yo

the chasm-perhaps you know it-not far from Livingstone's tree, between the streams. It was October, and the river was low. She put up her big parasol. A gust of wind suddenly caught it, and instead of letting the thing fly, she hung on, and was nearly swept into the chasm. A man with them pulled her back in time-but she hung on to that red parasol. Only when

the man who pulled

u know she

d place in Stafford's chamber

ling lips; but she only said, "You see he was entitled to it, wasn't he?" To

ard to Rudyard Byng. "If you please, sir, your servant

o, tell him to come here," she said t

ddenly lost to her presence, and with head dropp

e building in Park Lane and a feudal castle in Wales leased for a period of years. There was nothing greatly striking in his carriage; indeed, he did not make enough of his height and bulk; but his eye was strong and clear, his head was powerful, and his quick smile was very winning. Yet-yet, he was not the type of man who, to her mind should have made three millions at thirty-thr

is the man that sits up watching for the windfall while other men are sleeping"-that was the way he had put it. So Rudyard Byng, if lucky, had also been of those who had grown haggard with watching, working and waiting; but not a hair of his head had whitened, and if he looked older than he was, still he was young enough to

dfather had prefigured for her. She had been the apple of that old man's eye, and he had filled her brain-purposely-with ambitious ideas. He had done it when she was very young, because he had not long to stay; and he had overcoloured the pictures in order that the impression should be vivid and indelible when he was gone. He had meant to bless, for, to his mind, to shine, to do big things, to achieve notoriety, to attain power, "to make the band play when you come," was the true philosophy of life. And as this philosophy, successful in his case, was accompanied by habits of life which would bear the closest inspection by the dean and chapter, it was a difficult one to meet by argument or admonition. He had taught his grandch

ve-it used to be more than that. Instinctively I want to blaze. It is the same in everything. I need to be kept d

e the over-coloured thing not more than two times, perhaps one time, out of five. Your orientalism is only undisciplined self-will. A litt

give her greater proportion-and sense of colour. In Byng's palace, with three millions behind her-she herself had only the tenth of

They came from some dark fountain within herself. She really wanted-her idealistic self wanted-to be all that she knew she lo

e. "Cronje!" it said in

sombre of face, small, lean, omi

d Byng, quietly, yet with a

slowly closed the fingers up tight with a gesture s

Byng aske

ve joy. A dark premonition suddenly flashed into her mind that this creature would one day, somehow, do her harm; that he was her foe, her primal foe, without present or past cause f

it-Kruger and Joubert. Englishmen aren't slim enough to be conspirators. Dr. Jim was going it blind, trusting to good luck, gambling with the Almighty.

ing,

more in t

, B

y I want him to bring a stenographer and all the

, Ba

e man's eyes dropped, and a faint flush passed over his face. The look had its revelation which neither ever forgot. A quiver of fear

The Baas speaks her for his vrouw. But the B

he fall of the Rooinek-of Dr. Jim in Oom Paul's clutches. H

y, with that old ironic humour which was always part of hi

n. "They will take Dr. Jim's

t him alone. There's lots o

. It's terrible, ter

k it is. I see it, though; I see it. It's as plain as an open book. Well, there's work to do, and I must

d behind him, his shoulders thrown back, his eyes alight with fire and determination. To herself Jasmine seemed to be moving in the centre of great

to him, a warm light in her liquid blue eyes, her exquisite f

dden unscathed so long. If he had dared he would have taken her in his arms there and then; but he had known her only for a day. He had been always told that a woman must be wooed and won, and to woo took time. It was not a task he understood,

as no one else can," he said almost hoarsel

ove a whisper, and she drew back slightly,

come again

g about South Africa. Won't you c

t six," he answered, ea

generous palm, and lay there for a moment thrilling him.... He turned at the door and

ower," he said, happily, as he

ooked at herself long, laughing feverishly. Then suddenly she turned and th

ing her head at last, "oh

was saying to her father, "You are

Ian Stafford," w

things," came the q

r. "She has got the brains of all the family, the beauty her fa

l, he was not talking to

ear child," was th

lly, I do

good. I'm not of any use to her. She will work o

t! A man can carry i

knew that her inheritance from her gr