That could never be so again, so she told herself. The power to love had been wrested from her. The object of her love had turned into a monstrous demon of jealousy from which now she shrank more and more--though she might never escape. Yes, she had loved them both, and still her compassion lingered pitifully around the thought of Guy. But for Burke she had only a shrinking that almost amounted to aversion. He had slain her love. She even believed she was beginning to hate him. She dreaded the prospect of another long day spent at Brennerstadt. It was the day of the diamond draw, too. The place would be a seething tumult. She was so unutterably tired. She thought with a weary longing of Blue Hill Farm. At least she would find a measure of peace there, though healing were denied her. This place had become hateful to her, an inferno of vice and destruction. She yearned to leave it. Something of this yearning she betrayed on the following morning when Burke told her that he was making arrangements to leave by the evening train for Ritzen. "Can't we go sooner?" she said. He looked at her as if surprised by the question. "There is a train at midday," he said. "But it is not a good time for travelling." "Oh, let us take it!" she said feverishly. "Please let us take it! We might get back to the farm by to-night then." He had sent his horse back to Ritzen the previous day in the care of a man he knew, so that both their animals would be waiting for them. "Do you want to get back?" said Burke. "Oh, yes--yes! Anything is better than this." She spoke rapidly, almost passionately. "Let us go! Do let us go!" "Very well," said Burke. "If you wish it." He paused at the door of the office a few minutes later, when they descended, to tell the girl there that they were leaving at noon. She looked up at him sharply as he stood looking in. "Heard the latest?" she asked. "What is the latest?" questioned Burke. "That dirty dog you thrashed last night--Kieff; he's dead," she told him briefly. "Killed himself with an overdose of opium, died at Hoffstein's early this morning." She glanced beyond him at Sylvia who stood behind. "And a good job, too," she said vindictively. "He's ruined more people in this town than I'd like to be responsible for--the filthy parasite. He was the curse of the place." Burke turned with a movement that was very deliberate. He also looked at Sylvia. For a long moment they stood so, in the man's eyes a growing hardness, in the woman's a horror undisguised. Then, with a very curious smile, Burke put his hand through his wife's arm and turned her towards the room where breakfast awaited them. "Come and have something to eat, partner!" he said, his voice very level and emotionless.