He made an effort to shake off the mood that held him, and moving across the littered room surveyed the disordered breakfast-table with disgust. Empty bottles stood upon the table, and lay under it where they had been rolled the night before when they had yielded the last drop of their contents. They had been thirsty souls, these men who had happened out of the darkness and vanished again with the light,--failures, in a certain sense, each one of them,--a queer conglomerate of misdirected energy. Lawless had a feeling that he ought to reduce the muddle to order, but he had only a vague idea how to set about it. He caught up the empty bottles, and going outside with them flung them out upon the veld. "It's no use, Grit, playing Aunt Sally with those bottles. You can't hide your debauch from me." He turned his face with a laugh and a look of quick relief in the direction of the voice, and there stood Tottie in her short tweed skirt, with a golden lock straggling rakishly over one eye, and her lips unusually pallid. "You! Gods! I'm glad," he cried. "Don't stare at me like that," she exclaimed,--"look somewhere else, can't you? I won't have the eye of man upon me until I have attended to my toilet. There wasn't the vestige of a glass in the hut, you lunatic." He followed her into the house. "What an orgy!" she exclaimed, with a swift glance round the untidy room. Her wandering gaze came back to his face and rested upon it curiously. "Reaction!" she murmured. "Eh?" he said. She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him towards the door. "You're looking cheap. Clear out of this. I'll put things right. Come back in half an hour, and you'll find breakfast ready." "I've breakfasted," he answered indifferently. "Have you? Then you can return in half an hour and repeat the performance with me." "I want to ride into town," he said. "Yes, of course. I'll go with you. You might put in your time now grooming the horses. It'll keep you out of mischief, anyhow... It may be the last ride we'll take together for many a day." He looked swiftly at her. She was trying to hide her feelings, but it was evident that the near termination of this life in the wilds which he had been contemplating with satisfaction, affected her differently. She had enjoyed the uneventful weeks with only his society to companion the long days. It had been a fresh experience which a really strong affection for him had made altogether agreeable. She turned her back on him, and putting up a hand jerked back the straying lock of hair impatiently. "Get out, Grit. You're in the way," she said. He faced about, and without a word strode out into the sunshine. It was rather a silent ride they took--that last ride together into Stellenbosch. Lawless was preoccupied, and the woman too appeared busy with her thoughts. She asked him once what he purposed doing if Van Bleit decided not to come up, and he answered shortly: