She was rattling on almost feverishly, never looking at him, restless in her saddle, shifting bridle, adjusting stirrups, gun-case, knotting and reknotting her neckerchief, all with that desperate attempt at composure which betrays the courage that summons it.

“Shiela, dear!”

“What!” she said, startled into flushed surprise.

“Look at me.”

She turned in her saddle, the colour deepening and waning on her white skin from neck to temples; and sustained his gaze to the limit of endurance.  Then again in her ears sounded the soft crash of her senses; he swung wide in his stirrups, looking recklessly into her eyes.  A delicate sense of intoxication stilled all speech between them for a moment.  Then, head bowed, eyes fixed on her bridle hand, the other hand, ungloved, lying hotly unresponsive in his, she rode slowly forward at his side.  Face to face with all the mad unasked questions of destiny and fate and chance still before her—­all the cold problems of truth and honour still to be discussed with that stirring, painful pulse in her heart which she had known as conscience—­silently, head bent, she rode into the west with the man she must send away.

Far to the north-east, above a sentinel pine which marks the outskirts of the flat-woods, streaks like smoke drifted in the sky—­the wild-fowl leaving the lagoons.  On the Lantana Road they drew bridle at a sign from her; then she wheeled her horse and sat silent in her saddle, staring into the western wilderness.

The character of the country had changed while they had been advancing along this white sandy road edged with jungle; for now west and south the Florida wilderness stretched away, the strange “Flat-woods,” deceptively open, almost park-like in their monotony where, as far as the eye could see, glade after glade, edged by the stately vivid green pines, opened invitingly into other glades through endlessly charming perspective.  At every step one was prepared to come upon some handsome mansion centring this park—­some bridge spanning the shallow crystal streams that ran out of jasmine thickets—­some fine driveway curving through the open woods.  But this was the wilderness, uninhabited, unplotted.  No dwelling stood within its vistas; no road led out or in; no bridge curved over the silently moving waters.  West and south-west into the unknown must he go who follows the lure of those peaceful, sunny glades where there are no hills, no valleys, nothing save trees and trees and trees again, and shallow streams with jungle edging them, and lonely lakes set with cypress, and sunny clearings, never made by human hands, where last year’s grass, shoulder-high, silvers under the white sun of the South.

Half a hundred miles westward lay the great inland lake; south-west, the Everglades.  The Hillsboro trail ran south-west between the upper and lower chain of lakes, over Little Fish Crossing, along the old Government trail, and over the Loxahatchi.  Westward no trail lay save those blind signs of the Seminoles across the wastes of open timber and endless stretches of lagoon and saw-grass which is called the Everglades.