"When I look back on those days, there floats across my mind not only the names, but also the personality of each of these worthy women, and I remember to the minutest detail their self-sacrifice and the zeal with which they stood by us during our visits to Pretoria, while exposed to the danger of themselves being plunged into the greatest difficulties. But for this they had no thought, no care, as long as the sacred cause could be advanced. I feel, however, that it would be out of place to mention the names of a few where so _many_ risked their all, willingly offering even the sacrifice of their lives, if necessary, to further the interests of our cause." "How fervently I should have wished to see their great work crowned with a well-deserved reward!" "He who rules the destinies of nations decreed it otherwise, however, and we must bow in resignation to His will, but, faithful women and girls of South Africa, rest assured that your noble work and self-sacrifice have not been in vain. For myself I find in that which was performed by you this great abiding comfort, that so long as South Africa possesses women and girls of your stamp, so long can we go forward to meet the future hopefully and cheerfully; so long as the spirit, nourished by you, still lives and thrives in our midst, so long may we pursue our way fearlessly." "The struggle is over, brought to an end more than a year ago, and some of us have already learnt to adapt ourselves to our altered circumstances. We have been taught by those whose position, as leaders of the people, gives them the fullest right thereto, how to conduct ourselves, and we require no further encouragement to follow that advice." "But we feel that we cannot lay sufficient emphasis on the injunction to be true to one another as a nation, to be true to our traditions of the past, true to the lessons we have learnt in the recent conflict." "We have seen to what a pass one can be brought by infidelity." "Let us in future live in such a way that nothing may be lost of the honour which is our inheritance from the battle-fields of South Africa." "Farewell." CHAPTER XL PEACE, PEACE--AND THERE IS NO PEACE! If I may dare to hope that there are, among my readers who have followed me with so much patience through this book, some sufficiently interested in the heroine to desire information on what befell her in her future lot, I should wish to give to them just a glimpse or two into scenes as totally different from the events recorded in this volume as night is from day. And to do this freely, unreservedly, I must endeavour to forget my close connection with the heroine, a connection the thought of which has hampered and restricted me, from first to last, in choosing and rewriting the material from her diary.