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There was inexpressible bitterness in her voice. "Some day," she said, "I shall go there to die. That is all I have to look forward to now." "Oh, don't!" Sylvia said, with quick feeling. "Don't, please! You shouldn't feel like that." Mrs. Merston's face was twisted in a painful smile. She looked into the girl's face with a kind of cynical pity. "You will come to it," she said.
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.
What will the missis do without you?" "She'll manage all right. She's very capable. She is helping me with the farm. The life seems to suit her all right, only I shall have to see she doesn't work too hard." "That you will, my son. This climate's hard on women. Look at poor Bill Merston's wife! When she came out, she was as pretty and as sweet as a little wild rose.
"It's Merston's house-boy," he said. "I've sent him round to the kitchen to get a feed. Something's up there, I am afraid. Let's see what he has to say!" He opened the letter while he was speaking, and there fell a short silence while he read. Sylvia took up her duster again. Her hands were trembling. In a moment Burke spoke. "Yes, it's from Merston.
"No woman is happy if she despises her husband. If I were in Merston's place, I would see to it that she did not despise me. That's the secret of her trouble. It's poison to a woman to look down on her husband." "Egad!" laughed Kelly. "But you've studied the subject? Well, here's to the fair lady of your choice! May she fulfil all expectations and be a comfort to you all the days of your life!"
Sylvia assured her that she would not, and declared it would do her good to make herself useful. "Aren't you that at home?" said Mrs. Merston. "Well, there are plenty of Kaffirs to do the work. I am not absolutely necessary to Burke's comfort," Sylvia explained. "I thought you were," Matilda Merston's pale eyes gave her a shrewd glance.
He wanted to start back before the sun rose high. The track that led to Bill Merston's farm was even rougher than his own, but it did not daunt him. He suffered the horses to take their own pace, and they travelled superbly. They had scarcely slackened during the whole ten-mile journey. He smiled faintly to himself as he sighted the hideous iron building that was Bill Merston's dwelling-place.
Guy's hand fell from him. He stood for a moment as if irresolute, then he moved aside. "All right. I shall go there to-day," he said. And in silence Burke unbolted the door and went out. When Burke presented himself at the door of the main bungalow he found it half-open. The whirr of a sewing-machine came forth to him, but it paused in answer to his knock, and Mrs. Merston's voice bade him enter.
The Merstons' farm certainly did not compare favourably with Burke's. She could not actively condemn Mrs. Merston's obvious distaste for all that life held for her. So far as she could see, there was not a tree on the place, only the horrible prickly pear bushes thrusting out their distorted arms as if exulting in their own nakedness.
And she smiled and answered, "No, not unless he specially needs me." "You don't want to go ?" Matilda asked abruptly. "Not unless you are tired of me," Sylvia rejoined. "Don't be silly!" said Matilda briefly. Half an hour after Merston's departure there came the shambling trot of another horse, and Piet Vreiboom, slouched like a sack in the saddle rode up and rolled off at the door.
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