It was during one of these rides on the Berea that I told him what I knew of the strange history of my grandfather and grandmother, not all of it indeed, for it was not until the book was dictated to me that I learned the exact facts, the matter being one of which our family spoke little. Ralph listened very attentively, and when I had done asked if I had the ring and locket of which I spoke.
"Here they are," I answered, for since my father's death I had always made a practice of wearing both of them.
He examined the ring with its worn device and proud motto of "Honour first," and as he deciphered it I saw him start, but when he came to look at the miniatures in the locket he turned quite pale.
"Do you know, Suzanne," he said presently, "I believe that we must be distant cousins; at the least I am sure that I have seen the picture from which one of these miniatures was originally copied, and the crest and motto are those of my family."
Now I became very curious, and plied him with questions, but he would say no more, only he led me on to talk of my grandfather, Ralph Kenzie, the castaway, and from time to time made a note in his pocket-book. Also afterwards I showed him the writing in the testament which was found on the body of the shipwrecked lady, my great-grandmother, and he asked me for an impression of the ring, and to allow the ivory miniatures and the writing to be photographed, which I did.
Within three days of that ride we separated for a while, not without heartache on both our parts and some tears on mine, for I feared that once he had lost sight of me he would put me from his mind, and as I loved him truly that thought was sore. But he, speaking very quietly, said that outside death only one thing should divide us from each other, namely, my own decree.
"Then, Ralph, we shall be one for ever," I answered, for at the moment I was too sad for any artifice of maiden coyness.
"You think so now, dear," he said, "but time will show. Supposing that I were not----" and he stopped, nor would he complete the sentence. Indeed those words of his tormented me day and night for weeks, for I finished them in a hundred ways, each more fatal than the last.
Well, I returned to the farm, and immediately afterwards my great-grandmother took the fancy of dictating her history, the ending of which seemed to affect her much, for when it was done she told me sharply to put the typed sheets away and let her hear or see no more of them. Then she rose with difficulty, for the dropsy in her limbs made her inactive, and walked with the help of a stick to the stoep, where she sat down, looking across the plain at the solemn range of the Drakensberg and thinking without doubt, of that night of fear when my grandfather had rushed down its steeps upon the great schimmel to save her daughter and his wife from an awful death.