It wound away into the gathering dusk where no lights gleamed, and a strong sense of desolation came to her, as it were, out of the desert and gripped her soul.  For the first time she looked forward with foreboding.

None came along the lonely track.  She heard no sound of hoofs.  She tried to whistle a tune to keep herself cheery, but very soon it failed.  The silent immensity of the veldt enveloped her.  She had a forlorn feeling of being the only living being in all that vastness, except for a small uneasy spirit out of the great solitudes that wandered to and fro and sometimes fanned her with an icy breath that made her start and shiver.

She turned her horse’s head at last.  “Come, Diamond, we’ll go home.”

The word slipped from her unawares, but the moment she had uttered it she remembered, and a warm flush mounted in her cheeks.  Was it really home to her—­that abode in the wilderness to which Burke Ranger had brought her?  Had she come already to regard it as she had once regarded that dear home of her childhood from which she had been so cruelly ousted?

The thought of the old home went through her with a momentary pang.  Did her father ever think of her now, she wondered?  Was he happy himself?  She had written to him after her marriage to Burke, telling him all the circumstances thereof.  It had been a difficult letter to write.  She had not dwelt overmuch upon Guy’s part because she could not bring herself to do so.  But she had tried to make the position intelligible to him, and she hoped she had succeeded.

But no answer had come to her.  Since leaving England, she had received letters from one or two friends, but not one from her old home.  It was as if she had entered another world.  Already she had grown so accustomed to it that she felt as if she had known it for years.  And she had no desire to return.  The thought of the summer gaieties she was foregoing inspired her with no regret.  Isolated though she was, she was not unhappy.  She had only just begun to realize it, and not yet could she ask herself wherefore.

A distinct chill began to creep round her with the approach of night.  She lifted the bridle, and Diamond broke into a trot.  Back to Blue Hill Farm they went, leaving the silence and the loneliness behind them as they drew near.  Mary Ann was scolding the girl from the open door of the kitchen.  Her shrill vituperations banished all retrospection from Sylvia’s mind.  She found herself laughing as she slipped to the ground and handed the horse over to Joe.

Then she went within, calling to the girl to light the lamps.  There was still mending to be done in Burke’s wardrobe.  She possessed herself of some socks, and went to their sitting-room.  Her former restlessness was returning, but she resolutely put it from her, and for more than an hour she worked steadily at her task.  Then, the socks finished, she took up a book on cattle-raising and tried to absorb herself in its pages.