“I do indeed,” she said, turning her eyes upon his face. “I do understand.” She put out her hand, and he took it in his own--not fervently, not with the least expression of emotion, his fingers closed over it. A long time passed before she saw his face in front of her own, and felt his eyes looking into her eyes as his words came in a whisper, “Child--child, there is a bond between us--a bond whose token is silence.” She kept her eyes fixed upon his as he spoke, and long after his words had come. She knew he had spoken the truth: there was a bond between them. She understood it. She saw the gaunt face with its large eyes close to her own; her own eyes filled with tears, and then came the first token of their bond--silence. She felt his grasp unloosed, she heard him moving away, and she knew that she was alone in the silence. CHAPTER XVII. Give him heedful note; For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, And after we will both our judgments join. Thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart: but it is no matter. You must needs have heard, how I am punish'd With sore distraction. What I have done I here proclaim was madness.--_Hamlet._ |IT was very generally thought that it was a fortunate circumstance for Mr. Oswin Markham that there chanced to be in the fore-cabin of the steamer an enterprising American speculator who was taking out some hundred dozens of ready-made garments for disposal to the diamond miners--and an equal quantity of less durable clothing, in which he had been induced to invest some money with a view to the ultimate adoption of clothing by the Kafir nation. He explained how he had secured the services of a hard-working missionary whom he had sent as agent in advance to endeavour to convince the natives that if they ever wished to gain a footing among great nations, the auxiliary of clothing towards the effecting of their object was worth taking into consideration. When the market for these garments would thus be created, the speculator hoped to arrive on the scene and make a tolerable sum of money. In rear of his missionary, he had scoured most of the islands of the Pacific with very satisfactory results; and he said he felt that, if he could but prevail upon his missionary in advance to keep steady, a large work of evangelisation could be done in South Africa.