he repeated mechanically.

"I remember old Sophy," murmured Rita thoughtfully. "She cried
dreadfully when she went away. She was not allowed to kiss us because
she had turned all silver colour." She trilled into gay laughter.
"Mamma told me that it might have turned us all silver, too."

"I kissed her before she went, anyway!" burst from Roddy fiercely.
"And I would not have cared if it had turned me to silver."

Christine glanced wonderingly at him, astonished at this new theme of
silver.

"But if she went away, how is it that she is buried here, Roddy?"

"She isn't."

"But the grave we covered with portulaca--" She stopped abruptly, for
the boy's face had assumed the look she could not bear--the look of
enduring that only those hardened to life should know. "Come and
listen to this story of a magic carpet on which two children were
carried over strange lands and cities," she said gently, and drew them
all round her, with an arm through Roddy's.

The windows and shutters were thrown open at sunset, and the children
had their tea in the dining-room. Afterward, they went for a long walk
across the sands toward the kopjes, which had receded into distance
again and in the west were turning purple with mauve tops. But the
rest of the sky was coloured a threatening greenish bronze, with
monstrous-shaped clouds sprawled across it; and the air, though
sunless, was still sand-laden and suffocating, with the promise of
storm.

It would have been easy for Christine to take the children toward the
vicinity in which Saltire was occupied and where he would now be
putting up his instruments and dismissing his workers for the night,
but some instinct half modest, half self-sacrificing made her postpone
the happiness of seeing him again, and guided her feet in an opposite
direction. She was certain that, though he had refrained from dining
at the farm except for the one night of Mr. van Cannan's departure, she
would see him there that evening, and she dressed with special care and
joy in the beauty of her hair, her tinted, curving face, and the subtle
glamour that she knew she wore as the gift of happiness.

"How sweet it is to be young and desirable--and desired by the one man
in the world!" was the half-formed thought in her mind as she combed
her soft, cloudy black hair high above her face and fixed it with a
tall amber comb. But she would not converse too clearly with her
heart. Enough that she had heard it si