king rapidly away to where he had left his horse,
still saddled. "You don't want to take the hand of a murderer--_and_
thief, especially the thief. Good-bye, Suffield."

He rode away in the broad glare of noontide, the shimmer of heat from
the scorching plains rising mirage-like in the distance. The screech of
cricket vibrated shrilly upon the burning, glowing atmosphere, to cease
abruptly in a silence that was well-nigh as oppressive; then bursting
forth again with a strident suddenness which brought back the
nerve-racking din tenfold. In the cloudless blue of the heavens, high
overhead above the brink of the rock-embattled crest of the mountain
range, something black was wheeling and soaring. He looked up, drawn by
the distant and raucous cry of the huge bird. It was a _dasje-vanger_
of noble size, like that which he had shot on the eventful day whereon
the secret of this new love had been opened to him, and now, in his
fierce and hard despair, it seemed that the great eagle was the sprite
of the one which he had slain, shrieking forth its hate and exultation.

This then was love! A thing that could take sides with the spiteful
clamour of the mob against its object. This then was the Ever
Endurable! The first adverse blast had scattered it to the winds.
"Mine for ever, throughout all the years," had been the declaration of
that love, yet the course of but a few months had sifted the passionate
vow, and had left--a few husks of chaff!

He had gained the "neck" where the waggon road crossed it, and beneath
lay the unprepossessing little township. There not a friendly hand
would be extended to him, not a friendly voice be lifted in greeting.
Those who looked on him would turn their backs, any group he approached
would quickly melt away. Yet, for such as these what cared he? Hugging
themselves in the security of their sordid daily swindles, in whose very
pettiness lay their safety, they would thank God devoutly they were not
as he, not as one who had struck down life, sacred life! No, not for
the good word, the good fellowship of such as these, cared he. But his
mind, seared beyond all further capacity for feeling, reverted to that
one heart which was shut towards him, to the pallid death-like face upon
whose lips he had refrained from pressing that last kiss, upon those
eyes into whose depths he had looked his last upon earth, as surely as
though the dull echo of the clods was sounding above a coffin. Yet