At last the woman appeared, bearing a steaming tureen of soup. They sat down together and fell to. It was good soup. Henshel continued to talk; his wife was silent. Schaefer contented himself with monosyllables and appropriate grunts. When Mrs Henshel left the room to bring in the next course, he said appreciatively: ‘Your wife is a good cook. You are lucky. Not all Dutch women cook well.’

Henshel stared at him.

‘My wife is not Dutch.’

Schaefer looked his astonishment, but the shortness of Henshel’s tone, and some unacknowledged uneasiness in himself forbade him asking further. It was odd, though. He had been so sure that she was Dutch.

After the meal, he sat on the stoep in the cool dusk smoking. Somewhere in the house behind him a door banged. It was followed by the noise of a horse’s hoofs. Vaguely uneasy, he sat forward listening as they grew fainter in the distance, then started violently to find Mrs Henshel standing at his elbow with a steaming cup of coffee. She set it down on a little table beside him.

‘My husband has ridden over to Cloete’s—to make the arrangements for getting you away in the morning,’ she explained.

‘Oh! I see.’

Curious, how his uneasiness persisted.

‘When will he be back?’

‘Some time after midnight.’

His uneasiness was not allayed. Yet what was it that he feared? Surely not that Henshel would give him up to the police? No, the man was sincere enough—a red-hot Revolutionist. The fact of the matter was that he, Conrad Schaefer, had got nerves! A German soldier (Schaefer unconsciously always thought of himself as a soldier) had no business with nerves. He took up the cup beside him and drank it down, making a grimace as he did so. What filthy stuff this Boer coffee always was! Roasted acorns! He was sure of it—roasted acorns!

He put the cup down again, and as he did so, a deep sigh came from the woman standing by his side. He had almost forgotten her presence.

‘Will you not sit down?’ he asked, making no motion, however, to rise from his own seat.

She shook her head.

‘I have to clear away, and wash the dishes, and make my house straight.’

Schaefer nodded an approving head.

‘The children are already in bed, I suppose,’ he said genially.

There was a pause before she answered.

‘I have no children.’

Schaefer was surprised. From the first moment he saw her he had definitely associated her with motherhood.

She took up the cup and walked to the entrance door with it. Then she spoke over her shoulder.

‘I had one child. It died . . .’

‘Ach! I am sorry,’ said Schaefer, kindly.

The woman did not answer. She stood there motionless. And suddenly Schaefer’s uneasiness returned a hundred-fold. Only this time, he connected it definitely—not with the house, not with Henshel, but with this slow-moving, grandly fashioned woman—this wife of Henshel’s who was neither English nor Dutch. His curiosity roused afresh, he asked her the question point blank. What nationality was she?