"I think so too, father. Yes, she certainly ought to be told; but I am sure that now she has made up her mind to confess she will not draw back. Still, of course, it would be very painful for her. We need not tell her at present; I will write a long letter to Ronald and tell him all the ins and outs of it, and then we can wait quietly until we hear from him." "You need not have said that you will write a long letter, Mary," Mr. Armstrong said, drily, "considering that each time the mail has gone out I have seen nothing of you for twenty-four hours previously, and that I have reason to believe that an extra mail cart has had each time to be put on to carry the correspondence." "It's all very well to laugh, father," Mary said, a little indignantly, "but you know that he is having fights almost every day with the Kaffirs, and only has our letters to look forward to, telling him how we are getting on and----and----" "And how we love him, Mary, and how we dream of him, etc., etc." Mary laughed. "Never mind what I put in my letters, father, as long as he is satisfied with them." "I don't, my dear. My only fear is that he will come back wearing spectacles, for I should say that it would ruin any human eyes to have to wade through the reams of feminine handwriting you send to him. If he is the sensible fellow I give him credit for, he only reads the first three words, which are, I suppose, 'my darling Ronald' and the last four, which I also suppose are 'your ever loving Mary.'" The colour flooded Mary Armstrong's cheeks. "You have no right even to guess at my letters, father, and I have no doubt that whether they are long or short, he reads them through a dozen times." "Poor fellow, poor fellow!" Mr. Armstrong said, pityingly. "Nevertheless, my dear, important as all these matters are, I do not know why I should be compelled to fast. I came in an hour ago, expecting to find tea ready, and there are no signs of it visible. I shall have to follow the example of the villagers when their wives fail to get their meals ready, and go down to the 'Carne's Arms' for it." "You shall have it in five minutes, father," Mary Armstrong said, running out. "Men are so dreadfully material that whatever happens their appetite must be attended to just as usual." And so three days afterwards a full account of all that Ruth Powlett had said, and of the circumstances of the case, was despatched to "Sergeant Blunt, Cape Mounted Rifles, Kaffirland." CHAPTER XVIII. GEORGE FORESTER'S DEATH.