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 way.  So has Burke.”

“But ye’ll try again—­ye’ll try again!” urged Kelly, eager as a child for the happy ending of a fairy-tale.

She shook her head.  Her lips were quivering, but still she made them smile.  “Not that way.  I am afraid it’s barred,” she said, and with the words she touched her horse with her heel and rode quickly forward towards the town.

Donovan followed her with a rueful countenance.  There were times when even he felt discouraged with the world.

CHAPTER III

THE PUNISHMENT

“Good evening, Mrs. Ranger!”

Sylvia started at the sound of a cool, detached voice as she re-entered the hotel.  Two eyes, black as onyx and as expressionless, looked coldly into hers.  A chill shudder ran through her.  She glanced instinctively back at Kelly, who came forward instantly in his bulky, protective fashion.

“Hullo, Kieff!  What are you doing here?  Gambling for the diamond?”

“I?” said Kieff, with a stretching of his thin, colourless lips that was scarcely a smile.  “I don’t gamble for diamonds, my good Kelly.  Well, Mrs. Ranger, I hope you had a pleasant journey here.”

“He gambles for souls,” was the thought in Sylvia’s mind, as with a quick effort she controlled herself and passed on in icy silence.  She would never voluntarily speak to Kieff again.  He was an open enemy; and she turned from him with the same loathing that she would have shown for a reptile in her path.

His laugh—­that horrible, slippery sound—­followed her.  He said something in Dutch to the man who lounged beside him, and at once another laugh—­Piet Vreiboom’s—­bellowed forth like the blare of a bull.  She flinched in spite of herself.  Every nerve shrank.  Yet the next moment, superbly, she wheeled and faced them.  There was something intolerable in that laughter, something that stung her beyond endurance.