It was odd, Matheson reflected while gazing steadily into Brenda's quiet eyes, that the encounter with Nel should have brought nothing of the past very vividly back. He wondered whether in returning to the scene of those emotional stresses he would experience anew something of the pain and keen resentment of frustrated desire which had gripped him at the time with what had seemed unforgettable anguish. It struck him, while he pondered these things, as disloyal to Brenda, this contemplated journey to Benfontein; the fact that he kept his destination secret from her was proof in itself of a consciousness of wrong. He was not acting on the square. He was not even sincere with himself. Why should he undertake the punishment of Holman? It was clearly a case for the military authorities, and his duty to furnish the necessary information and leave the matter with them. He recognised that. But the complex motives which drove him to seek out Holman, to confront him with his villainy, and deal personally with this insidious poisoner of innocent minds, were compelling. In striking at Holman he not only struck at a national enemy, he would strike also at the insinuating subtlety which had thrust between himself and Honor; which thrust between Honor and happiness, and trampled ruthlessly over the virgin soil where the tender seed of love lay germinating, and disturbed it and bruised it and left in its stead the unlovely seed of hate, striking its tenacious suckers deep into the ground. There was no punishment to fit this infamy; but at least he could make certain that the lying tongue was silenced and could do no further harm. The urgency of his desire reduced his scruples to a minimum. But he felt shame none the less as his glance rested on the girl beside him, the girl whose entire heart was given into his keeping. It was not much of a return he was making her. Contrasted with the richness of her gift, the poverty of his was painfully apparent. "Come!" he said, grown suddenly restless before the rush of his own thoughts. "We are wasting our afternoon. We've a lot to crowd into the next few hours." She stood up and faced him, laughing. "Man of moods," she said, "I was just wondering how long you would be satisfied to sit here staring at the gum trees... Let us go out into the sunlight and the wind--and just talk..." CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. Sweeping swiftly, as quickly scudding clouds will sweep athwart a wind-swept sky, memories that were not wholly bitter flashed across Matheson's mind with each mile that he covered on his journey to Benfontein. Some odd thought or phrase or emotion leapt out of the past into prominence and held him with all the vital qualities of a thing newly realised. Always in imagination he was speeding towards Benfontein, though Nel's rondavel, and not the farm of Andreas Krige, was his ultimate destination.