If she had proposed to me to begin a ponderous work on Medical Jurisprudence, under the shadow of the big rock, I should have begun it incontinently.
She handed me her slip of paper; I took it and read: "Sebastian told you I was Dr.Yorke-Bannerman's daughter.

And you answered, 'If so, Yorke-Bannerman was innocent, and YOU are the poisoner.' Is not that correct ?" I handed her in answer my own paper.

She read it with a faint flush.
When she came to the words: "Either she is not Yorke-Bannerman's daughter; or else, Yorke-Bannerman was not a poisoner, and someone else was--I might put a name to him," she rose to her feet with a great rush of long-suppressed feeling, and clasped me passionately.

"My Hubert!" she cried, "I read you aright.

I knew it! I was sure of you!" I folded her in my arms, there, on the rusty-red South African desert.
"Then, Hilda dear," I murmured, "you will consent to marry me ?" The words brought her back to herself.