he declared. "That does me good. To be a
friend of both of ye is what I want. Burke and you together!
Ye're such a fine pair, and just made for each other, faith, made
for each other. When I saw you, Mrs. Burke, I didn't wonder that
he'd fallen in love at last. I give ye me word, I didn't. And
I'll never forget the look on his face when he thought he'd lost
ye; never as long as I live. It--it was as if he'd been stabbed to
the heart."

Tactless, clumsy, sentimental, he sought to pour balm upon the
wounded spirit of this girl with her tragic eyes that should have
held only the glad sunshine of youth. It hurt him to see her thus,
hurt him unspeakably, and he knew himself powerless to comfort.
Yet with that odd womanly tenderness of his, he did his best.

He wondered what she was thinking of as she sat her horse, gazing
out over the wide spaces, so wearily and yet so intently. She did
not seem to have heard his last remarks, or was that merely the
impression she desired to convey? A vague uneasiness took
possession of him. He did not like her to look like that.

"Shall we move on?" he said gently.

She pointed suddenly across the _veldt_. "I want to ride as far as
that skeleton tree," she said. "Don't come with me! I shall catch
you up if you ride slowly."

"Right!" said Kelly, and watched her lift her bridle and ride away.

He would have done anything to oblige her just then; but his
curiosity was whetted to a keen edge. For she rode swiftly, as one
who had a definite aim in view. Straight as an arrow across the
_veldt_ she went to the skeleton tree with its stripped trunk and
stark, outflung arms that seemed the very incarnation of the
barrenness around.

Here she checked her animal, and sat for a moment with closed eyes,
the evening sunlight pouring over her. Very strangely she was
trembling from head to foot, as if in the presence of a vision upon
which she dared not look. She had returned as she had always meant
to return--but ah, the dreary desert spaces and the cruel roughness
of the road! Her husband's words uttered only a few hours before
came back upon her as she stood there. "We may never reach the top
of the world now," No, they would never reach it. Had anyone ever
done so, she wondered drearily? But yet they had been near it
once--nearer than many. Did that count for nothing?

It seemed to her that aeons had passed over her since last she had
stood beneath that tree. She h