But when at length he came, her dread of him was uppermost and she felt she could not meet his look.  It was with relief that she saw Guy was still his first thought.  He had fetched Joe from the Kaffir huts, and the lamps were filled and lighted.  He was carrying one as he entered, and the light flung upwards on his face showed it to her as the face of a strong man.

He set the lamp on the table and went straight to Guy.  “Look here!” he said.  “I’m going to put you to bed.”

Guy, with his arms on the table, looked up at him and laughed.  “Oh, rats!  I’m all right.  Can’t you see I’m all right?  Well, I must have some tea first anyway.  I’ve been promised tea.”

“I’ll bring you your tea in bed,” Burke said.

But Guy protested.  “No, really, old chap.  I must sit up a bit longer.  I’ll be very good.  I want to hear all Kelly’s news.  I believe I shall have to go back to Brennerstadt with him to paint the town red.  I’d like to have a shot at that diamond.  You never know your luck when the devil’s on your side.”

“I know yours,” said Burke drily.  “And it’s about as rotten as it can be.  You’ve put too great a strain on it all your life.”

Guy laughed again.  He was in the wildest spirits.  But suddenly in the midst of his mirth he began to cough with a dry, harsh sound like the rending of wood.  He pushed his chair back from the table, and bent himself double, seeming to grope upon the floor.  It was the most terrible paroxysm that Sylvia had ever witnessed, and she thought it would never end.

Several times he tried to straighten himself, but each effort seemed to renew the anguish that tore him, and in the end he subsided limply against Burke who supported him till at last the convulsive choking ceased.

He was completely exhausted by that time and offered no remonstrance when Burke and Kelly between them bore him to the former’s room and laid him on the bed he had occupied for so long.  Burke administered brandy again; there was no help for it.  And then at Guy’s whispered request he left him for a space to recover.

He drew Sylvia out of the room, and Kelly followed.  “I’ll go back to him later, and help him undress,” he said.  “But he will probably get on better alone for the present.”

“What has been happening?” Sylvia asked him.  “Tell me what has been happening!”

A fevered desire to know everything was upon her.  She felt she must know.

Burke looked at her as if something in her eagerness struck him as unusual.  But he made no comment upon it.  He merely with his customary brevity proceeded to enlighten her.

“We went to Vreiboom’s, and had a pretty hot time.  Kieff was there too, by the way.  The fire got a strong hold, and if the wind, had held, we should probably have been driven out of it, and our own land would have gone too.  As it was,” he paused momentarily, “well, we have Guy to thank that it didn’t.”