Then he went out to look at the
kraals, and at supper Em gave him hot cakes and coffee. They talked about
the servants, and then ate their meal in quiet. She asked no questions.
When it was ended Gregory went into the front room, and lay in the dark on
the sofa.
"Do you not want a light?" Em asked, venturing to look in.
"No," he answered; then presently called to her, "Come and sit here; I want
to talk to you."
She came and sat on a footstool near him.
"Do you wish to hear anything?" he asked.
She whispered:
"Yes, if it does not hurt you."
"What difference does it make to me?" he said. "If I talk or am silent, is
there any change?"
Yet he lay quiet for a long time. The light through the open door showed
him to her, where he lay, with his arm thrown across his eyes. At last he
spoke. Perhaps it was a relief to him to speak.
To Bloemfontein in the Free State, to which through an agent he had traced
them, Gregory had gone. At the hotel where Lyndall and her stranger had
stayed he put up; he was shown the very room in which they had slept. The
coloured boy who had driven them to the next town told him in which house
they had boarded, and Gregory went on. In that town he found they had left
the cart, and bought a spider and four greys, and Gregory's heart rejoiced.
Now indeed it would be easy to trace their course.
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