Upon one side, at least, the meeting between the two cousins on the previous night had been wholly unexpected.
Late that afternoon, an ambulance train had come in, loaded with men from the over-crowded field hospital at Krugersdorp, and for hours Alice had been in ceaseless attendance upon the surgeon in charge. Little by little, the girl had found her nerves steadying down to the task in hand; nevertheless, the past ten weeks, in return for the increase of her poise, had taken something from her vitality. Quickness of eye, firmness of hand, evenness of temper: all these may be gifts of the gods. Their use is a purely human function, and proportionately exhausting. The girl's one salvation lay in the fact that her quick sympathy with her patients was for the most part impersonal. Up to this time, Weldon had been her only patient whom she had known outside the routine duties of her hospital life. In a sense, it had been a relief to meet some one whom she knew to be of her own world; in a sense, the case had worn upon her acutely. She could watch with a greater degree of stolidity the sufferings of other men.
Among her new charges, that day, only one had made any distinct impression upon her overworked brain. That was a jovial young fellow, handsome as Phoebus Apollo, in spite of a slashing scar across one cheek. He had answered to her questions regarding his wounded foot with an accent so like that of Weldon that involuntarily she lingered beside him to add a word of cheery consolation. His was her final case, that night. As she wearily turned towards her own room, she made no effort to analyze her exhaustion.
She found Ethel, still in her hat and jacket, sitting on the edge of her own narrow cot.
"Cooee Dent!"
"Yes, dear." The girl's tone was nonchalant, even while the telltale color came into her cheeks.
"What are you doing here?"
"Visiting you, of course."
"Visiting me! But, Cooee, I really don't know where I can put you."
With perfect composure, Ethel passed her hand over the surface of the cot.
"Oh, I think this nutmeg-grater will carry two. Still, Alice, I must say that your hospitality isn't exactly exuberant."
Alice dropped into a chair and wearily pushed her hair still farther back from her forehead.
"But, Cooee—"
"Aren't you glad to see me?" Ethel demanded.
"Certainly. You are always a dear; but—I wish I had known you were coming."
Ethel raised her brows, and a slight edge came into her voice.
"If you don't want me, Alice, I can go home in the morning."
Dimly aware that her cousin was fencing with an invisible adversary, nevertheless Alice Mellen was too tired, that night, to range herself upon the side of that adversary. As far as she was concerned, Ethel had dropped upon her like a bolt from the blue. She was too busy, too absorbed in her patients to give more than a passing thought to even her most intimate cousin. And besides, Weldon—She pulled herself together sharply.
"Of course I want you, Cooee dear. It is only a bit sudden, and I am trying to think what to do with you."
Now and then Ethel turned wayward. This was one of the times.
"If you didn't know what to do with me, Alice, then why did you ask me to come?"
"But I didn't," Alice responded, too astonished to modify her denial into a polite form of fibbing.
Ethers tone was gently superior.
"Oh, yes; you did."
"When?"
"When you were leaving home. You said then that I must be sure to come up to spend a week with you, early in the winter." Then her accent changed. "You poor tired child!" she said, as she rose and crossed to her cousin's side. "This work is too hard for you; you look as if you had been fighting the Boers themselves, instead of merely enteric and bullet holes. I think it is just as well that I am here to look out for you, for a few days."
Alice lifted her hand to the hand that lay against her cheek.
"I am glad to see you, Cooee dear. I am only so surprised that it makes me slow to tell you so. If you can sleep here, to-night, I can find a better place for you in the morning."
"This will do," Ethel answered, while she slowly drew the pins from her hat. "It is neat, even if it isn't spacious. Really, Alice, I should have let you know; but it was only just as I was starting that I found I could come at all. Father is at home, and mother is unusually well, and I thought I would best make the most of the opportunity."
Crossing the room to the table, she stood with her back to her cousin, while she smoothed the feathers in her hat. Then, without turning, she asked abruptly,—
"How is Mr. Weldon?"
"Better."
"Out of all danger?"
"Yes. Not that he has been in much danger, anyway."
"Oh, I thought—"
Then silence fell.
Alice, meanwhile, was busy with a swift calculation. Five days, in these troubled times, for a letter to go from Johannesburg to Cape Town; five days since Ethel could have left Cape Town. And her one letter to Ethel since Weldon's arrival had been posted just three days before.
"How did you know Mr. Weldon was here?" she asked sharply.
Ethel's back was still turned towards her. Nevertheless, she could see the scarlet tide mounting to the ears and to the roots of the vivid gold hair.
"Why, your letter, Alice," Ethel answered composedly.
Alice's laugh was sharp and edged with malice.
"Yes, dear. My letter, telling you of his being here, will be delivered at your house to-morrow morning."
"Oh, then I must have mixed things up," Ethel replied, as she turned to face her cousin. "Probably Captain Frazer told me."
"Captain Frazer?"
"Yes, he came down to Cape Town, just before I left there. I remember now, he was the one who told me. He was near Mr. Weldon at Vlaakfontein; he knew all about his awful ride into Krugersdorp, and I believe he did say he was to be brought here."
For a moment more, the two pairs of eyes, the blue and the black, met in steady warfare, neither one yielding in the least, neither one quite aware how much she was betraying to the other.
"Well, what of it?" Ethel demanded tempestuously then.
"Nothing, only—are you sure you were wise to come?"
The blue eyes blazed.
"And what do you mean by that, Alice? You asked me to visit you here, to see your work among your patients. I have come. If I came at all, it had to be now. I can't always leave home for a week at a time. And I can't help it, can I, if Mr. Weldon happens to be one of your patients?"
"No; you can't," Alice admitted slowly. "It only remains to be seen whether you would care to help it, if you could."
Again Ethel crossed the room. This time, she dropped down at her cousin's side.
"Don't let us argue about it and get cross at each other, dear. If I have made a mistake in coming now, I am sorry. But I am here. Let me stay a few days; I may be able to help you a little. Anyway, I promise not to be a trouble to you. It is so long since I have seen you, Alice. And—" Again the silence dropped.
Alice roused herself from the reverie which was creeping over her. She was glad to see Ethel, unfeignedly glad. The bright, animated presence of her cousin, during the next few days, could not fail to be a tonic. And, as Ethel had said, she herself had been the one to suggest the first idea of the winter visit. Chance and Captain Frazer had decreed that it should take place now, when Alice's hands were immoderately full of work. But then, so much the better. Ethel could make herself invaluable among the convalescents. She herself had not put on her Red-Cross badge for the sake of taking her rest hour at the bedside of Trooper Harvard Weldon.
Half undressed, Ethel paused, hair brush in hand. "You can't imagine how tired I am, Alice. It is a terrible journey up here nowadays. I was in terror of a train-wreck at any moment," she said drowsily. "Don't let me sleep too long in the morning, because," she pulled open her eyes long enough to dart a mocking glance over her shoulder at her cousin; "because you know, right after breakfast, you are going to let me begin to help you take care of some of your people."
From behind her own sheltering veil of ink-black hair, Alice laughed.
"Cooee, you are a dear; but you're rather a trial," she said slowly. "However, now that you are here, I think I shall ask the P. M. O. to set you to work to watch over the needs of Mr. Weldon. He won't be here much longer; but, while he stays, I shall consider him your patient." Then, brushing aside the veil, she bent forward and touched her lips to her cousin's cheek.
"Might I ask what brought you up here, Miss Dent?" Weldon asked, the next day.
Beside him sat Ethel, her hands demurely clasped in the lap of her broad white apron.
"My cousin's invitation," she replied.
"Then Miss Mellen knew you were coming?"
"Yes. She asked me to come, early in the winter."
"Strange she said nothing about it! We were talking about you, only yesterday."
"She didn't know, even then, that I was so imminent," Ethel answered. "I took her quite by surprise, at the last."
"A surprise all around, then," he said, with a boyish laugh. "I was astonished to find Miss Mellen here, and you must have been equally astonished to find me. If only Captain Frazer would appear, our old quartette would be complete."
"I am afraid we must get on without him," she said lightly.
"Unfortunately, yes. I wonder where he is."
"In Cape Town," she replied unexpectedly.
"Really? What is he doing there?"
"Don't expect me to tell. It has something to do with a staff; but whether he carries it, or becudgels recruits with it, I have no idea at all."
"He hasn't left the Scottish Horse?"
"In fact; but not in name. Your regiment is still in the Transvaal; but he keeps a sort of vicarious connection with it. Please don't expect me to grasp military details, Mr. Weldon. I merely repeat the facts, parrot fashion; you must interpret them to suit yourself."
He laughed again. Already, in that one morning, he appeared to have taken a long stride towards the regaining of his old self.
"You are a perfect gazette, Miss Dent, the first bit of news that has crept inside this place. Where did you get all your information?"
"From Captain Frazer." Her rising color belied her unconcerned tone.
"You have seen him, then?"
"Yes. He is usually very good about calling, whenever he comes to Cape Town."
"And is he well?"
"Absolutely. Also quite enthusiastic over his troopers and the work they did at Vlaakfontein."
"Were—many—"
She understood.
"Not very many; but several were wounded. Worst of all, one or two of the wounded ones were shot by the Boers. Mr. Carew told me that he left a dozen of your men in the hospital at Krugersdorp."
"Carew? Have you seen him, too, Miss Dent?"
"Didn't you know he was here?"
He stared at her in blank amazement.
"Here in Johannesburg?"
"Here in this hospital."
"In what shape?"
"Hilarious in his mind, and with a foot that is coming out right in course of time. Didn't Alice tell you?"
"No."
"Strange. She took me to see him, this morning, on my way here, because he was such a promising patient. She was quite surprised to find we were old acquaintances."
"Oh," Weldon said slowly. "I begin to see. Miss Mellen had never met Carew, so she had no idea we were friends. What a curious snarl it all is!"
"The hand of Fate is in it," Ethel assented idly.
"Do you believe in Fate, too?"
"Surely. Why not?"
"Nothing, only your cousin said you didn't."
The girl frowned.
"Alice doesn't know all my mental processes," she said a little severely.
"She didn't pretend to. We were speaking of Fate, yesterday, of the way certain events in one's life seem absolutely inevitable; at least, I was. Then the conversation worked around to you, and Miss Mellen suggested that you usually rose superior to Fate," Weldon explained at some length.
Once again, Ethel felt the note of finality in his tone. For an instant, she shut her lips. Then she reverted to the main question.
"How do you mean inevitable?"
"As if you chose your path, and then found that, for always, it had been the only thing for you to do. That's not so clear, I know; but I can't put it much better."
"For instance?"
"For instance, my coming out here when I did. I was interested in the war; but there was no real question of my coming, until the month I sailed. Then, all of a sudden, I seemed to know why it was that I had spent my life on horseback. They told me in England that the real war was over. When I landed at Cape Town, I found out that the one thing needed was a man who could ride, and shoot straight. From the day I sailed from home, until now, I have been like an actor walking through a part that some one else has written for him. I have chosen nothing; it all has been inevitable."
She rose to her feet, and stood leaning on the back of her chair.
"In that case, Mr. Weldon, you must include our meeting in your scheme of things," she said, with a smile.
His answering smile met her smile with perfect frankness.
"I sometimes wonder if that wasn't the most inevitable part of it all."
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