There was no evading the questions though she would fain have avoided the whole subject.  In a very low voice Sylvia spoke of the violent scene she had witnessed.

Mrs. Merston listened with interest, but with no great surprise.  “Burke always was a savage,” she commented.  “But after all, Kieff had tried to kill him a day or two before.  Guy prevented that, so Donovan told me.  What made Guy go off in such a hurry?”

“I—­can’t tell you,” Sylvia said.

Something in her reply struck Mrs. Merston.  She became suddenly silent, and finished her task without another word.

Later, when she took Sylvia to the guest-room, which was no more than a corrugated iron lean-to lined with boarding, she unexpectedly drew the girl to her and kissed her.  But still she did not say a word.

CHAPTER VII

PIET VREIBOOM

It was a strange friendship that developed between Sylvia and Matilda Merston during the days that followed; for they had little in common.  The elder woman leaned upon the younger, and, perhaps in consequence of this, Sylvia’s energy seemed inexhaustible.  She amazed Bill Merston by her capacity for work.  She lifted the burden that had pressed so heavily upon her friend, and manfully mastered every difficulty that arose.  She insisted that her hostess should rest for a set time every day, and the effect of this unusual relaxation upon Matilda was surprising.  Her husband marvelled at it, and frankly told her she was like another woman.  For, partly from the lessening of the physical strain and partly from the influence of congenial companionship, the carping discontent that had so possessed her of late had begun to give way to a softer and infinitely more gracious frame of mind.  The bond of their womanhood drew the two together, and the intimacy between them nourished in that desert place though probably in no other ground would it have taken root.

Work was as an anaesthetic to Sylvia in those days.  She was thankful to occupy her mind and at night to sleep from sheer weariness.  The sense of being useful to someone helped her also.  She gave herself up to work as a respite from the torment of thought, resolutely refusing to look forward, striving so to become absorbed in the daily task as to crowd out even memory.  She and Merston were fast friends also, and his wholesome masculine selfishness did her good.  He was like a pleasant, rather spoilt child, unconventionally affectionate, and by no means difficult to manage.  They called each other by their Christian names before she had been twenty-four hours at the farm, and chaffed each other with cheery inconsequence whenever they met.  Sylvia sometimes marvelled at herself for that surface lightheartedness, but somehow it seemed to be in the atmosphere.  Bill Merston’s hearty laugh was irresistible to all but his wife.

It was but a brief respite.  She knew it could not last, but its very transience made her the more ready 10 take advantage of it.  And she was thankful for every day that carried her farther from that terrible time at Brennerstadt.  It had begun to seem more like an evil dream to her now—­a nightmare happening that never could have taken place in ordinary, normal existence.