d, "It's nothing
new. He'll come round directly."

Guy came round, sat slowly up, and reached a shaking hand towards
the table on which lay his scarcely lighted cigarette.

"Oh, don't!" Sylvia said quickly. "See, I have just brought out
some coffee. Won't you have some?"

Burke settled the matter by picking up the cigarette and tossing it
away.

Guy gave him a queer look from eyes that seemed to bum like red
coals, but he said nothing whatever. He took the coffee Sylvia
held out to him and drank it as if parched with thirst.

Then he turned to her. "Sorry to have made such an exhibition of
myself. It's all this infernal sand. Yes, I'll have some more,
please. It does me good. Then I'll get back to my own den and
have a sleep."

"You can sleep here," Burke said unexpectedly. "No one will
disturb you. Sylvia never sits here in the afternoon."

Again Sylvia saw that strange look in Guy's eyes, a swift intent
glance and then the instant falling of the lids.

"You're very--kind," said Guy. "But I think I'll get back to my
own quarters all the same."

Impulsively Sylvia intervened. "Oh, Guy, please,--don't go back to
that horrible little shanty on the sand! I got a room all ready
for you yesterday--if you will only use it."

He turned to her. For a second his look was upon her also, and it
seemed to her in that moment that she and Burke had united cruelly
to bait some desperate animal. It sent such a shock through her
that she shrank in spite of herself.

And then for the first time she heard Guy laugh, and it was a sound
more dreadful than his cough had been, a catching, painful sound
that was more like a cry--the hunger-cry of a prowling beast of the
desert.

He got up as he uttered it, and stretched his arms above his head.
She saw that his hands were clenched.

"Oh, don't overdo it, I say!" he begged. "Hospitality is all very
well, but it can be carried too far. Ask Burke if it can't!
Besides, two's company and three's the deuce. So I'll be
going--and many thanks!"

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 dea