So--do not let
his foot hang down."
They descended the kopje. At the bottom, he whispered:
"Would you not take my arm? the path is very rough."
She rested her fingers lightly on it.
"I may yet change my mind about marrying you before the time comes. It is
very likely. Mark you!" she said, turning round on him; "I remember your
words: You will give everything, and expect nothing. The knowledge that
you are serving me is to be your reward; and you will have that. You will
serve me, and greatly. The reasons I have for marrying you I need not
inform you of now; you will probably discover some of them before long."
"I only want to be of some use to you," he said.
It seemed to Gregory that there were pulses in the soles of his feet, and
the ground shimmered as on a summer's day. They walked round the foot of
the kopje and past the Kaffer huts. An old Kaffer maid knelt at the door
of one grinding mealies. That she should see him walking so made his heart
beat so fast, that the hand on his arm felt its pulsation. It seemed that
she must envy him.
Just then Em looked out again at the back window and saw them coming. She
cried bitterly all the while she sorted the skins.
But that night when Lyndall had blown her candle out, and half turned round
to sleep, the door of Em's bedroom opened.
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