"He has been to sleep," said freckled Em.

"No," said beautiful little Lyndall, looking curiously at him: "he has
been crying."

She never made a mistake.

...


The Confession.

One night, two years after, the boy sat alone on the kopje. He had crept
softly from his father's room and come there. He often did, because, when
he prayed or cried aloud, his father might awake and hear him; and none
knew his great sorrow, and none knew his grief, but he himself, and he
buried them deep in his heart.

He turned up the brim of his great hat and looked at the moon, but most at
the leaves of the prickly pear that grew just before him. They glinted,
and glinted, and glinted, just like his own heart--cold, so hard, and very
wicked. His physical heart had pain also; it seemed full of little bits of
glass, that hurt. He had sat there for half an hour, and he dared not go
back to the close house.

He felt horribly lonely. There was not one thing so wicked as he in all
the world, and he knew it. He folded his arms and began to cry--not aloud;
he sobbed without making any sound, and his tears left scorched marks where
they fell. He could not pray; he had prayed night and day for so many
months; and tonight he could not pray. When he left off crying, he held