From that time onward he had felt his way forward, as an explorer might, curious and heedful, observant of every fresh surprise of the unfamiliar way, inquiring, acquisitive, immensely interested. And now he had received a check, the most serious check he had met with in life. It was not very clear how this would affect him; it was bound to leave a deeper impression on his mind than anything that had gone before. For the present he was conscious only of a feeling of defeat, of exasperated misery, that moved him to the same insensate anger that a man tortured with toothache feels sometimes towards the cause of his discomfort. It was not Honor he was angry with; it was the systematic perversion of ideals, and the hypocrisy which exalted this mischievous doctrine into something fine and ennobling that enraged him. He saw Honor as a bright soul following blindly the path into which others had directed her steps, following it tirelessly, the brightness fading and the beauty of her fading with it as her nature became more warped and embittered with the years. No nature, however fine and sweet, can pursue a policy of revenge without hurt to itself. During the greater part of the long drive from the farm to the hotel at which he had lunched on his arrival, Matheson sat wrapped in his own gloomy meditations, while Mynheer Marais smoked his huge calabash and grunted encouragement to the horses at frequent intervals, occasionally turning to address a remark to his silent companion. It was plain to Matheson that Mynheer Marais did not trust him; he was reserved and guarded in his speech, confining himself to such safe topics as the climate and the uncertain distribution of the rainfall, and the visitations of God in the form of drought and other ills peculiar to the country. "You will go back to England some day, perhaps--eh?" he suggested--"and will talk of these things and be glad you are out of the sun." "I don't think that at all likely," Matheson replied. "It is my intention to colonise." Oom Koos scrutinised him closely and smiled and stroked his horses' flanks gently with the whip. "When you have made much money you will return to England," he said confidently. "That is what all the English do. Ja." Which speech tended only to harden Matheson in his resolve to remain in the country and do his part towards furthering British interests there. Why should a man regard this, or any, country simply as a place in which to accumulate wealth? The ultimate purpose of a man's life rightly planned was to found a home and carry on: the getting of wealth should be concomitant and subordinated to that idea. Herman Nel had placed his hand upon the very heart of truth when he asserted that the secret of conquest lay not in destruction, but in the production and safeguarding of life. To pass on leaving one's life work finished with one's own brief span is to fail in the greatest achievement possible to the individual.