And to what end?
Strange to say, it never once occurred to him to try to win her love
now, after all that bad passed. Still less did it occur to him to
doubt the truth of her final words to the Captain. Weldon had missed
the look of appealing anguish in the blue eyes which she had lifted
to his; but he had heard the low, steady voice, had seen the
pressure of the living fingers answer to the slight movement of the
hand already growing cold. He had heard, and seen. It was enough.
Always he had believed implicitly in Ethel's truth. There was no
reason he should distrust her now. It was only that he had been an
egregious ass to think that be could win her love, in the face of a
man like Captain Leo Frazer. With a mighty effort, he straightened
his shoulders, faced the wing where he knew the Captain would now be
lying and reverently removed his hat. Then, for one last time, his
eyes swept over the building and, turning away, he crawled off
towards the railway station.
And, meanwhile, alone in a room behind one of those brightly-lighted
windows, a girl sat huddled together, her crossed arms on her knees
and her face buried in her arms, while she wailed to herself over
and over again,--
"He might have waited! He might have waited! My God in heaven, what
have I done? But at least he might have waited!"
A commissariat train was leaving Johannesburg at two o'clock the
next morning.
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