"What were you doing?" she asked him, as he joined her.
He met her look with a directness oddly disconcerting. "I was
commemorating the occasion, he said.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"Never mind now!" said Burke, and took out his pipe.
The light still lingered in his eyes, firing her to something
deeper than curiosity. She turned her horse abruptly.
"I am going back to see for myself."
But in the same moment his hand came out, grasping her bridle. "I
shouldn't do that," he said. "It isn't worth it. Wait till we
come again!"
"The tree may be gone by then," she objected.
"In that case you won't have missed much," he rejoined. "Don't go
now!"
He had his way though she yielded against her will. They turned
their animals towards Brennerstadt, and rode back together over,
the sun-scorched _veldt_.
PART II
CHAPTER I
COMRADES
Some degree of normality seemed to come back into Sylvia's life
with her return to Blue Hill Farm. She found plenty to do there,
and she rapidly became accustomed to her surroundings.
It would have been a monotonous and even dreary existence but for
the fact that she rode with Burke almost every evening, and
sometimes in the early morning also, and thus saw a good deal of
the working of the farm. Her keen interest in horses made a strong
bond of sympathy between them.
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