Carew said little; he watched much, and he meditated more. At first,
he hoped all things from the healthy, outdoor life. He watched
Weldon's muscles harden, saw his appetite return and welcomed with
happy anticipations all the signs of his returning rugged strength.
Then, as the time passed by, his anxiety came back upon him in full
measure. Long days in the saddle were followed by sleepless nights;
the shadow never came out of Weldon's eyes, the alertness never came
back into his step. Lean, gaunt as a greyhound, he went about his
work with a silent, dogged endurance which took no note of the other
life about him. For Trooper Weldon, his profession had dropped to a
dull, plodding routine of danger lapping close upon the heels of
danger. And still he spoke no word of the sorrow which had brought
him to this end.
And Carew, meanwhile, could not fail to note the increasing anxiety
with which Alice Mellen wrote of her cousin. From Alice's letters,
it appeared that Ethel, totally unnerved by the death of Captain
Frazer, had begged so piteously to be released from her hospital
work that she had finally been sent home to Cape Town. She had
seemed to be far from well, when she had left Johannesburg;
nevertheless, she had no sooner reached home than she had plunged
into the midst of the whirlpool of social life where she was said to
be the gayest of the gay.
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