While he lay there, staring at the daylight through partially closed lids in a misery so acute that his physical suffering seemed as nothing compared with the anguish of his mind, he became aware that he was not alone. Seated at some distance from the bed, engaged on work the nature of which puzzled him to determine for a time, till he made out that she was busy rolling and stitching bandages, was Mrs Krige, looking very much as he had last seen her, her expression sad but calm in its earnest confidence, and with a new purpose in the patient eyes. Her thoughts, as she rolled the strips of linen to be used for the men who were fighting for their right to recognition as an independent race, were with her dead husband, her dead son, and the son who had gone forth to strike for the old Republics. For the moment she had forgotten the patient she was there to nurse; he had slept so long, had lain since waking so quiet that she fancied him sleeping still. A slight movement on his part caused her to look up, and she surprised his gaze riveted on her and on the work in her hands, and read in the mute inquiry in his eyes the questions he would have asked. Swiftly and noiselessly she laid aside her work, and rose and approached the bed, carrying a cup filled with milk, which she held to his lips. He drank the contents and lay back again on the pillow and regarded her with the hint of a smile in his eyes. "I little thought when last we parted to meet you again like this," he said. "I'm afraid I've been giving trouble. And I'm filled with curiosity. It puzzles me to understand how I came here--in bed. The last thing I recall is walking on the veld." He raised himself slightly on his elbow and surveyed her with an expression of perplexed inquiry. Her presence was another surprise amid the rush of amazing events. To wake and find her seated in the room, as quietly established as if she were in her own home, occasioned him greater wonderment than anything that had befallen. "I wish you'd enlighten me," he said. "I want to know how you came to be here." "Don't you think you had better lie still and just accept things?" she suggested. "I am here to look after you. You will feel better after a good rest." "But I can't rest," he persisted. "I keep wondering about things. I want to know... please." "Butter Tom brought you in," she said. "You dropped from exhaustion. The wound in your shoulder... It bled rather much." "But that doesn't account for your presence," he said. "Butter Tom didn't fetch you to my aid?" "No." She turned aside and busied herself at the table. "I'm staying with Mrs Nel," she added after a moment's pause for reflection. "It wasn't far to come, you see."