Farewell, my love, my first and only love, till in life or death we meet again, as meet we shall." Once more we clung together and kissed, muttering broken words, and then she tore herself from my embrace and was gone.

But oh! as I heard her feet steal through the dew-laden grass, I felt as though my heart were being rent from my breast.

I have suffered much in life, but I do not think that ever I underwent a bitterer anguish than in this hour of my parting from Marie.

For when all is said and done, what joy is there like the joy of pure, first love, and what bitterness like the bitterness of its loss?
Half an hour later the flowering trees of Maraisfontein were behind us, while in front rolled the fire-swept veld, black as life had become for me..