“And what will the castle be like?” he said.

Sylvia’s eyes were on the far hills as they rode.  “The castle?” she said.  “Oh, the castle will be of grey granite—­the sparkling sort, very cool inside, with fountains playing everywhere; spacious rooms of course, and very lofty—­always lots of air and no dust.”

“Shall I be allowed to smoke a pipe in them?” asked Burke.

“You will do exactly what you like all day long,” she told him generously.

“So long as I don’t get in your way,” he suggested.

She laughed a little.  “Oh, we shall be too happy for that.  Besides, you can have a farm or two to look after.  There won’t be any dry watercourses there like that,” pointing with her whip.  “That is what you call a ‘spruit,’ isn’t it?”

“You are getting quite learned,” he said.  “Yes, that is a spruit and that is a kopje.”

“And that?” She pointed farther on suddenly.  “What is that just above the watercourse?  Is it a Kaffir hut?”

“No,” said Burke.

He spoke somewhat shortly.  The object she indicated was undoubtedly a hut; to Sylvia’s unaccustomed eyes it might have been a cattle-shed.  It was close to the dry watercourse, a little lonely hovel standing among stones and a straggling growth of coarse grass.

Something impelled Sylvia to check her horse.  She glanced at her companion as if half-afraid.  “What is it?” she said.  “It—­looks like a hermit’s cell.  Who lives there?”

“No one at the present moment,” said Burke.

His eyes were fixed straight ahead.  He spoke curtly, as if against his will.

“But who generally—­” began Sylvia, and then she stopped and turned suddenly white to the lips.

“I—­see,” she said, in an odd, breathless whisper.

Burke spoke without looking at her.  “It’s just a cabin.  He built it himself the second year he was out here.  He had been living at the farm, but he wanted to get away from me, wanted to go his own way without interference.  Perhaps I went too far in that line.  After all, it was no business of mine.  But I can’t stand tamely by and see a white man deliberately degrading himself to the Kaffir level.  It was as well he went.  I should have skinned him sooner or later if he hadn’t.  He realized that.  So did I. So we agreed to part.”

So briefly and baldly Burke stated the case, and every sentence he uttered was a separate thrust in the heart of the white-faced girl who sat her horse beside him, quite motionless, with burning eyes fixed upon the miserable little hovel that had enshrined the idol she had worshipped for so long.

She lifted her bridle at last without speaking a word and walked her animal forward through the sparse grass and the stones.  Burke moved beside her, still gazing straight ahead, as if he were alone.

They went down to the cabin, and Sylvia dismounted.  The only window space was filled with wire-netting instead of glass, and over this on the inside a piece of cloth had been firmly fastened so that no prying eyes could look in.  The door was locked and padlocked.  It was evident that the owner had taken every precaution against intrusion.