"And that?" She pointed farther on suddenly. "What is that just above the watercourse? Is it a Kaffir hut?"
"No," said Burke.
He spoke somewhat shortly. The object she indicated was undoubtedly a hut; to Sylvia's unaccustomed eyes it might have been a cattle-shed. It was close to the dry watercourse, a little lonely hovel standing among stones and a straggling growth of coarse grass.
Something impelled Sylvia to check her horse. She glanced at her companion as if half-afraid. "What is it?" she said. "It—looks like a hermit's cell. Who lives there?"
"No one at the present moment," said Burke.
His eyes were fixed straight ahead. He spoke curtly, as if against his will.
"But who generally—" began Sylvia, and then she stopped and turned suddenly white to the lips.
"I—see," she said, in an odd, breathless whisper.
Burke spoke without looking at her. "It's just a cabin. He built it himself the second year he was out here. He had been living at the farm, but he wanted to get away from me, wanted to go his own way without interference. Perhaps I went too far in that line. After all, it was no business of mine. But I can't stand tamely by and see a white man deliberately degrading himself to the Kaffir level. It was as well he went. I should have skinned him sooner or later if he hadn't. He realized that. So did I. So we agreed to part."
So briefly and baldly Burke stated the case, and every sentence he uttered was a separate thrust in the heart of the white-faced girl who sat her horse beside him, quite motionless, with burning eyes fixed upon the miserable little hovel that had enshrined the idol she had worshipped for so long.