CHAPTER XII.
THE STALE Whenever in after days Sylvia looked back upon her marriage, it seemed to be wrapped in a species of hazy dream like the early mists on that far-off range of hills.
They did not go again to Ritzen, but to a town of greater importance further down the line, a ride of nearly forty miles across the _veldt_.

It was a busy town in the neighbourhood of some mines, and its teeming life brought back again to her that sense of aloneness in a land of strangers that had so oppressed her in the beginning.

It drove her to seek Burke's society whenever possible.

He was the shield between her and desolation, and in his presence her misgivings always faded into the background.

He knew some of the English people at Brennerstadt, but she dreaded meeting them, and entreated him not to introduce anyone to her until they were married.
"People are all so curious.