so brutally before.

She expected to be soothed, comforted, propitiated, but no word of
solace came. Finally she looked round with an indignant dabbing of
her tears. How dare he treat her thus? Was he quite heartless?
She began to utter a stream of reproaches, but stopped short and
gasped in incredulous disgust. He had actually--he had
actually--gone, and left her to wear her emotion out in solitude.

So overwhelming was the result of this piece of neglect, combined
with the failure of all her plans, that Mrs. Ingleton retired
forwith to bed, and remained there for the rest of the day.




CHAPTER VI

THE LAND OF STRANGERS

It had been a day of intense and brooding heat. Black clouds hung
sullenly low in the sky, and a heavy gloom obscured the face of the
earth. On each side of the railway the _veldt_ stretched for
miles, vivid green, yet strangely desolate to unaccustomed eyes.
The moving train seemed the only sign of life in all that
wilderness.

Sylvia leaned from the carriage window and gazed blankly forth.
She had hoped that Guy would meet her at Cape Town, but he had not
been there. She had come unwelcomed into this land of strangers.