"After I have seen him once," she said, "it won't be so difficult. I'll be able to release you then from your kind office. You mustn't waste your time any longer on my account." "I don't reckon it time wasted," he returned. "Not wasted,--no. I couldn't have managed without you. But I feel it is very selfish of me to have accepted so much from you. You've set me in the path. I'll be able to walk it now unaided." "We will talk of that," he said easily, "after you have seen him. In the meantime I am not going to let you dwell on the matter. You are going to drive with me this afternoon. It's beautiful country about here, and the roads are excellent. We'll forget the painful purpose of this journey, Pamela, and enjoy ourselves. I claim that as my fee for the services you insist on recognising." "You are so good to me," she said. Her voice was low and tenderly tremulous, and her eyes, lifted to his, shone misty and soft and confiding. Dare gripped the table with both hands, and stared back at her across the flowers which divided them in their slender crystal vase. His face was tense. "It is easy to be that," he answered gruffly, oblivious of the people in the room, oblivious of everything but the sweet, tired beauty of her face, and the trustful affection in the earnest eyes. "I say," he added, recollecting himself, "let's get out of this." She rose; and he followed her from the room, aware of the glances she attracted in passing, and not indifferent to the covert looks directed at himself. He was well known in Pretoria; one or two faces there were not unfamiliar to him. He heard his name pronounced distinctly as he passed through the doors in Pamela's wake. It might be well after all, he decided, to leave her as she suggested on the morrow. It was difficult to have continually in mind the necessity for playing the discreet part of disinterested friend under observant eyes. He had not intended to leave so soon; but in the circumstances it was wiser; and from Johannesburg he would have only a two hours' journey if the necessity for his presence arose. He would extract a promise from her to wire to him if she found herself in any difficulty. He did not unfold his plans to her then. He decided to leave matters as they stood until the morrow. So much depended on the result of the morning's interview. It seemed to him that his own fate, being inseparable from hers, hung in the balance of the next twenty-four hours. He felt almost as nervous as Pamela the following day, when he accompanied her to the Home, and waited in the little room where he had waited before to learn the doctor's verdict.