"No, you don't know now, but you will one day, and when you do, remember
that, however long it seems to wait, you may be quite sure, because I who
have the gift of knowing, told you so. Now tell me again what Richard
Darrien was like while you remember, for perhaps I may never live to see
his face, and I wish to get it into my mind."

So Rachel told her, and when she had described every detail, asked
suddenly:

"Must we really go on, mother, into this awful wilderness? Would not
father turn back if you asked him?"

"Perhaps," she answered. "But I shall not ask. He would never forgive me
for preventing him from doing what he thinks his duty. It is a madness
when we might be happy in the Cape or in England, but that cannot be
helped, for it is also his destiny and ours. Don't judge hardly of your
father, Rachel, because he is a saint, and this world is a bad place for
saints and their families, especially their families. You think that he
does not feel; that he is heartless about me and the poor babe, and
sacrifices us all, but I tell you he feels more than either you or I can
do. At night when I pretend to go to sleep I watch him groaning over his
loss and for me, and praying for strength to bear it, and for help to
enable him to do his duty. Last night he was nearly crazed about you, and
in all that awful storm, when the Kaffirs would not stir from the waggon,
went alone down to the river guided by the lightnings, but of course
returned half dead, having found nothing. By dawn he was back there again,
for love and fear would not let him rest a minute. Yet he will never tell
you anything of that, lest you should think that his faith in Providence
was shaken. I know that he is strange--it is no use hiding it, but if I
were to thwart him he would go quite mad, and then I should never forgive