She wondered whether Dare had slept, whether he slept still? Involuntarily her thoughts turned back to the overnight vigil. She reviewed with a regretful sense as of something past, gone irrevocably, the quiet hours of intimate companionship, silent hours for the greater part,--silent with that eloquence of wordlessness more assertive than speech. A raised voice would have sounded intrusive, breaking the stillness of the darkened carriage where they had sat close together, gazing out upon the dusk, and whispering at intervals the thoughts which sprang straight from the heart to the lips. That night with its beauty; its stirrings of complex emotions, seeking and evading articulate expression; its untellable happiness, made up mainly of physical nearness and assimilated thoughts and feelings, had rolled back into the past,--was curtained off for ever behind the obnubilating folds of yesterday's mantle. Only memory remained; the vivid hours had faded away in the dawn. Would any night ever mean so much to them again? Pamela rose and made her toilet with the primitive arrangements provided in the carriage. She felt crumpled and unrefreshed, the effects of sleeping fully dressed. There was grit and sand in her hair. She brushed and rearranged it by the aid of the tiny suspended mirror. Then she dusted the compartment as well as she was able with a handkerchief; the fine red sand of the Karroo penetrated everywhere, and lay thick upon the baggage and the cushions of the seats. She heard Dare moving in the next compartment; and felt glad that he too was up early. When he joined her they would have an early breakfast of fruit and biscuits. She was ready for him when he tapped on the door. He slid the door back in response to her permission to enter, and came in quietly and kissed her. "Sleep well?" he asked. She nodded brightly. "Like a top," she answered. "You did it in a hurry then," he remarked. "It's only six now." "Only six!" she repeated. "And feel how hot it is. What will it be like at noon?" "If you travel through the Karroo in February," he said, "you must expect to find it sultry. You will have to keep the shutters closed on the sunny side." "But that shuts out the view," she objected. "I'm just loving this. I never imagined anything so desolate and grand and inspiring." "It's desolate enough," he admitted, glancing through the window out on the wide scene. They were in the heart of the Karroo now. The arid sandy soil was sparsely covered with scrub and stunted mimosa bushes, and at intervals low hills sprang unexpectedly to the view, giving the effect of dark excrescences on the flat face of the land. Nothing green was visible; everywhere the eye rested on parched, powdered soil and dry scrub, beneath a brazen sky of hard, relentless blue.