from one man's grave and throw myself into your condescending arms? '
'But, Ruth, I love you.' He tried to stop her outburst, but she
shouted at him.
'Then prove it, damn you. Prove it by being gentle. Prove it by
treating me like a woman and not a chattel, by understanding.
Now his surprise gave way to an anger every bit as intense as hers, and
in his turn he shouted at her.
'You weren't so bloody fussy on the night of the storm, or afterwards!
' As though he had struck her, she stepped back a pace and the
mutilated rosebud dropped from her hand.
'You swine,' she whispered. 'Get out, and don't come back.
'Your servant, ma'am.' He clapped his hat on to his head, swung round
and strode away across the lawn. When he reached the gravel drive his
steps slowed and he stopped and wrestled with his anger and his
pride.
Then slowly he turned. The lawn was an empty sweep of smooth green.
She was gone.
Ruth ran up the wide marble staircase, but by the time she reached her
bedroom window he was half, way down the drive.
From the height of the second floor his figure was foreshortened so
apeared mass've, and his dark suit stood out clearly against the pale
gravel of the drive. He reached the gates and stopped, she leaned
forward eagerly across the sill of the window so he could see her more
easily when he turned to look back. She saw him deliberately light a
long black cheroot, flick away the match, adjust the hat on his head,
square his shoulders, and walk away.
n disbelief she stared at the twin columns of the gate, and the dark
green hawthorn hedge behind which he had disappeared.
Then slowly she left the window and crossed to the bed and sat down.
'Why didn't he understand?' she asked softly.
She knew she would cry later, in the night when the real loneliness
began.
Sean returned to Ladyburg in the middle of a misty Natal winter's day.
As the train huffed over the rim of the escarpment, he stood on the
balcony of his coach and looked out at the vast green stain upon the
hills of Lion Kop. The sight of it moved him, but his elation was
toned with dark colours.
This is the middle of the way. This year I will be forty, one years
old. Out of all that striving and folly something must have emerged.
Let me total my assets.
In cash I have a little over two thousand pounds (compliments Of the
War Claims Adjustment Board). In land I have fifteen thousand acres,
with an option to purchase as many more. I have ten thousand acres of
standing wattle which, in another year, will be ready for cutting. My
loans against this are heavy but not oppressive, so I am a wealthy
man.
In things of the flesh I have a number of grey hairs, a fine collection
of scars and a broken nose. But I can still lift and carry a two,
hundred, pound sack of mealies under each arm, I can eat half a young
