He was gone with the words, snatching his hat from a chair where he had thrown it, and departing into the glare of the desert with never a backward glance.
Sylvia turned swiftly to her husband, and found his eyes upon her.
"With a gasping cry she caught his arm. Oh, can't you go after him? Can't you bring him back?"
He freed the arm to put it round her, with the gesture of one who comforts a hurt child. "My dear, it's no good," he said. "Let him go!"
"But, Burke—" she cried. "Oh, Burke——"
"I know," he made answer, still soothing her. "But it can't be done—anyhow at present. You'll drive him away if you attempt it. I know. I've done it. Leave him alone till the devil has gone out of him! He'll come back then—and be decent—for a time."
His meaning was unmistakable. The force of what he said drove in upon her irresistibly. She burst into tears, hiding her face against his shoulder in her distress.
"But how dreadful! Oh, how dreadful! He is killing himself. I think—the Guy—I knew—is dead already."
"No, he isn't," Burke said, and he held her with sudden closeness as he said it. "He isn't—and that's the hell of it. But you can't save him. No one can."
She lifted her face sharply. There was something intolerable in the words. With the tears upon her cheeks she challenged them.