jerk she remembered that the man always sat on the corner of the
_stoep_ to await Burke if he arrived before their return from the
lands. It was his custom to wear rubber soles to his boots, and no
one ever heard him come or go. For some reason this fact had
always prejudiced her against Hans Schafen.

CHAPTER V

EVERYBODY'S FRIEND

When Burke came in to lunch half an hour later, he found Sylvia
alone in the sitting-room, laying the cloth.

She glanced up somewhat nervously at his entrance. "I've
frightened Rosamond away," she said.

"Little cuss! Good thing too!" he said. She proceeded rapidly
with her occupation.

"I believe there's a sand-storm coming," she said, after a moment.

"Yes, confound it!"' said Burke.

He went to the window and stood gazing out with drawn brows.

With an effort she broke the silence. "What has Schafen to report?
Is all well?"

He wheeled round abruptly and stood looking at her. For a few
seconds he said nothing whatever, then as with a startled sense of
uncertainty she turned towards him he spoke. "Schafen? Yes, he
reported--several things. The dam over by Ritter Spruit is dried
up for one thing. The animals will all have to driven down here.
Then there have been several bad _veldt_-fires over to the north.
It isn't only sand that's coming along. It's cinders too. We've
got to take steps to protect the fodder, or we're done. It's just
the way of this country. A single night may bring ruin."

He spoke with such unwonted bitterness that Sylvia was aroused out
of her own depression. She had never known him take so pessimistic
a view before. With an impulsiveness that was warm and very
womanly, she left her task and went to him.

"Oh, Burke!" she said. "But the worst doesn't happen, does it?
Anyway not often!"

He made an odd sound that was like a laugh choked at birth. "Not
often," he agreed. And then abruptly, straightening himself,
"Suppose it did,--what then?"

"What then?" She looked at him for a moment, still feeling
curiously unsure of her ground. "Well, we'd weather it somehow,
partner," she said, and held out her hand to him with a little
quivering smile.

He made no movement to take her hand. Perhaps he had already heard
what a few seconds later reached her own ears,--the sound of Guy's
feet upon the _stoep_ outside the window. But during those seconds
his eyes dwelt upon her, holding her own with a fixed intentness
that somehow mad