ad been a girl then, ardent and full
of courage. Now she was a woman, old and very tired, and there was
nothing left in life. It was almost as if she had ceased to live.

But yet she had come back to the starting-point, and here, as if
standing beside a grave and reading the inscription to one long
dead, she opened her eyes in the last glow of the sunshine to read
the words which Burke had cut into the bare wood on the evening of
his wedding-day. She remembered how she had waited for him, the
tumult of doubt, of misgiving, in her soul, how she had wished he
would not linger in that desolate place. Now, out of the midst of
a desolation to which this sandy waste was as nothing, she searched
with almost a feeling of awe as one about to read a message from
the dead.

The bare, bleached trunk of the tree shone strangely in the sinking
sun, faintly tinted with rose. The world all around her was
changing; slowly, imperceptibly, changing. A tender lilac glow was
creeping over the _veldt_. A curious sensation came upon Sylvia,
as if she were moving in a dream, as if she were stepping into a
new world and the old had fallen from her. The bitterness had
lifted from her spirit. Her heart beat faster. She was a
treasure-seeker on the verge of a great discovery. Trembling, she
lifted her eyes. . . .

There on the smooth wood, like a scroll upon a marble pillar, were
words, rough-hewn but unmistakable--_Fide et Amore_. . . .

It was as if a voice had spoken in her soul, a dear, insistent
voice, bidding her begone. She obeyed, scarcely knowing what she
did. Back across the dusty _veldt_ she rode, moving as one in a
trance. She joined the Irishman waiting for her, but she looked at
him with eyes that saw not.

"Well?" he said, frankly curious. "Did you find anything?"

She started a little, and came out of her dream. "I found what I
was looking for," she said.

"What was it?" Kelly was keenly interested; there was no checking
him now, he was like a hound on the scent.

She did not resent his questions. That was Kelly's privilege. But
neither did she answer him as fully as he could have wished. "I
found out," she said slowly, after a moment, "how to get to the top
of the world."

"Ah, really now!" said Kelly, opening his eyes to their widest
extent. "And are ye going to pack your bag and go?"

She smiled very faintly, looking, straight before her. "No. It's
too late now," she said. "I've missed the wa