“Yes?” he said, his voice low, intensely quiet, “Please finish!  What am I to do to-night?”

She faced him bravely, with all her strength.  “I hope,” she said, “you will come and tell me you are sorry.”

He threw up his head with a sharp gesture.  She saw his eyes kindle and burn with a flame she dared not meet.

A swift misgiving assailed her.  She tried to release herself, but he took her by the other shoulder also, holding her before him.

“And if I do all that,” he said, a deep quiver in his voice that thrilled her through and through, “what shall I get in return?  How shall I be rewarded?”

She gripped her self-control with a great effort, summoning that high courage of hers which had never before failed her.

She smiled straight up at him, a splendid, resolute smile.  “You shall have—­the kiss of peace,” she said.

His expression changed.  For a moment his hold became a grip that hurt her—­bruised her.  She closed her eyes with an involuntary catch of the breath, waiting, expecting she knew not what.  Then, very suddenly, the strain was over.  He set her free and turned from her.

“Thank you.” he said, in a voice that sounded oddly strangled.  “But I don’t find that—­especially satisfying—­just now.”

His hands were clenched as he left her.  She did not dare to follow him or call him back.

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE NEW ERA

Looking back later, it almost seemed to Sylvia that the days that followed were as an interval between two acts in the play of life.  It was a time of transition, though what was happening within her she scarcely realized.

One thing only did she fully recognize, and that was that the old frank comradeship between herself and Burke had come to an end.  During all the anxiety of those days and the many fluctuations through which Guy passed, Burke came and went as an outsider, scarcely seeming to be interested in what passed, never interfering.  He never spoke to Kieff unless circumstances compelled him, and with Sylvia herself he was so reticent as to be almost forbidding.  Her mind was too full of Guy, too completely occupied with the great struggle for his life, to allow her thoughts to dwell very much upon any other subject.  She saw that Burke’s physical wants were attended to, and that was all that she had time for just then.  He was sleeping in the spare hut which she had prepared for Guy with such tender care, and she was quite satisfied as to his comfort there.  It came to be something of a relief when every evening he betook himself thither.  Though she never actually admitted it to herself, she was always more at ease when he was out of the bungalow.