It was with surprise and relief that upon entering the kitchen on the following morning Sybil found Beelzebub back in his accustomed place. He greeted her with a wider grin than usual, which she took for an expression of gratitude. He seemed to have made a complete recovery, for which she was profoundly thankful.
She herself was feeling better that day. Her arm pained her less, and she no longer carried it in a sling. She had breakfasted in bed, Mercer himself waiting upon her.
She was amazed to hear him speak with kindness to Beelzebub, and even ask the boy if he thought he could manage the ride to Wallarroo. Beelzebub, abjectly eager to return to favour, professed himself ready to start at once. And so presently Sybil found herself alone.
The long day passed without event. The loneliness did not oppress her. She busied herself with preparing delicacies for the sick man, which Beelzebub could take on the following day. Beelzebub had had smallpox, and knew no fear.
He did not return from his errand till the afternoon was well advanced. She went to the door to hear his news, but he was in his least intelligent mood, and seemed able to tell her very little. By dint of close questioning she elicited that he had seen Curtis, who had told him that the man was worse. Beyond this, Beelzebub appeared to know nothing; and yet there was something about him that excited her attention. He seemed more than once to be upon the point of saying something, and to fail at the last moment, as though either his wits or his courage were unequal to the effort. She could not have said what conveyed this impression, but it was curiously strong. She tried hard to elicit further information, but Beelzebub only became more idiotic in response, and she was obliged to relinquish the attempt.
Mercer came in soon after, and she dismissed the matter from her mind. But a vivid dream recalled it. She started up in the night, agitated, incoherent, crying that someone wanted her, someone who could not wait, and she must go. She could not tell her husband what the dream had been and in the morning all memory of it had vanished. But it left a vague disquietude behind, a haunting anxiety that hung heavily upon her. She could not feel at peace.
Mercer left that morning. He had to go a considerable distance to an outlying farm. She saw him off from the gate, and then went back into the house, still with that inexplicable sense of oppression weighing her down.
She prepared the parcel that she purposed to send to Curtis, and went in search of Beelzebub. He was sweeping the kitchen.
"I shall want you to go to Wallarroo again to-day," she said. "You had better start soon, as I should like Mr. Curtis to get this in good time."
Beelzebub stopped sweeping, and cringed before her.
"Boss gone?" he questioned cautiously.
"Yes," she answered, wondering what was coming.
He drew a little nearer to her, still cringing.
"Missis," he whispered piercingly, "Beelzebub see the white man yesterday."
She stared at him.
"What white man, Beelzebub? What do you mean?"
"White man from Bowker Creek," said Beelzebub.
Her breathing stopped suddenly. She felt as if she had been stabbed. "Where!" she managed to gasp.
Beelzebub looked vacant. There was evidently something that she was expected to understand. She forced her startled brain into activity.
"Is he the man who is ill—the man Mr. Curtis is taking care of?"
Beelzebub looked intelligent again.
"White man very bad," he said.
"But—but—how was it you saw him? You were told to leave the parcel by the fence for Mr. Curtis to fetch."
Beelzebub exerted himself to explain.
"Mr. Curtis away, so Beelzebub creep up close and look in. But the white man see Beelzebub and curse; so Beelzebub go away again."
"And that is the man you thought Boss killed?" Sybil questioned, relief and fear strangely mingled within her.
Her brain was beginning to whirl, but with all her strength she controlled it. Now or never would she know the truth.
Beelzebub was scared by the question.
"Missis won't tell Boss?" he begged.
"No, no," she said impatiently. "When will you learn that I never repeat things? Now, Beelzebub, I want you to do something for me. Can you remember? You are to ask Mr. Curtis to tell you the white man's name. Say that Boss—do you understand?—say that Boss wants to know! And then come back as fast as you possibly can, before Boss gets home to-night, and tell me!"
She repeated these instructions many times over till it seemed impossible that he could make any mistake. And then she watched him go, and set herself with a heart like lead to face the interminable day.
She thought the hours would never pass, so restless was she, so continuous the torment of doubt that vexed her soul. There were times when she felt that if the thing she feared were true, it would kill her. If her husband—the man whom, in spite of almost every instinct, she had learnt to love—had deceived her, if he had played a double game to win her, if, in short, the man he had fought at Bowker Creek were Robin Wentworth, then she felt as if life for her were over. She might continue to exist, indeed, but the heart within her would be dead. There would be nothing left her but the grey ruins of that which had scarcely begun to be happiness.
She tried hard to compose herself, but all her strength could not still the wild fluttering of her nerves through the long-drawn-out suspense of that dreadful day. At every sound she hastened to the door to look for Beelzebub, long before he could possibly return. At the striking of every hour she strained her ears to listen.
But when at last she heard the hoof-beats that told of the negro's approach she felt that she could not go again; she lacked the physical strength to seek him and hear the truth.
For a time she sat quite still, gathering all her forces for the ordeal. Then at length she compelled herself, and rose.
Beelzebub was grooming his horse. He looked up at her approach and grinned.
"Well, Beelzebub," she said through her white lips, "have you seen Mr. Curtis?"
"Yes, missis." Beelzebub rolled his eyes intelligently. He seemed unaware of the tragedy in the English girl's drawn face.
"And the white man?" she said.
"Mr. Curtis think the white man die soon," said Beelzebub.
"Ah!" She pressed her hand tightly against her heart. She felt as if its throbbing would choke her. "And—his name?" she said.
Beelzebub paused and opened his eyes to their widest extent. He was making a supreme effort, and the result was monstrous. But Sybil did not quail; she scarcely saw him.
"His name?" she said; and again, raising her voice, "His name?"
The whole world seemed to rock while she waited, but she stood firm in the midst of chaos. Her whole soul was concentrated upon Beelzebub's reply.
It came at last with the effect of something uttered from an immense distance that was yet piercingly distinct.
"Went—" said Beelzebub, and paused; then, with renewed effort, "Wentworth."
And Sybil turned from him, shrinking as though something evil had touched her, and walked stiffly back into the house. She had known it all day long!
She never knew afterwards how long a time elapsed between the confirmation of her doubts and the sudden starting to life of a new resolution within her. It came upon her unexpectedly, striking through the numbness of her despair, nerving her to action—the memory of her dream and whence that dream had sprung. Robin Wentworth still lived. It might be he would know her. It might even be that he was wanting her. She would go to him.
It was the only thing left for her to do. Of the risk to herself she did not think, nor would it have deterred her had it presented itself to her mind. She felt as though he had called to her, and she had not answered.
To Beelzebub's abject entreaties she paid no heed. There were two fresh horses in the stable, and she ordered him to saddle them both. He did not dare to disobey her in the matter, but she knew that no power on earth would have induced him to remain alone at the farm till Mercer's coming.
She left no word to explain her absence. There seemed no time for any written message, nor was she in a state of mind to frame one. She was driven by a consuming fever that urged her to perpetual movement. It did not seem to matter how the tidings of her going came to Mercer.
Not till she was in the saddle and riding, riding hard, did she know a moment's relief. The physical exertion eased the inward tumult, but she would not slacken for an instant. She felt that to do so would be to lose her reason. Beelzebub, galloping after her, thought her demented already.
Through the long, long pastures she travelled, never drawing rein, looking neither to right nor left. The animal she rode knew the way to Wallarroo, and followed it undeviatingly. The sun was beginning to slant, and the shadows to lengthen.
Mile after mile of rolling grassland they left behind them, and still they pressed forward. At last came the twilight, brief as the soft sinking of a curtain, and then the dark. But the night was ablaze with stars, and the road was clear.
Sybil rode as one in a nightmare, straining forward eternally. She did not urge her horse, but he bore her so gallantly that she did not need to do so. Beelzebub had increasing difficulty in keeping up with her.
At last, after what seemed like the passage of many hours, they sighted from afar the lights of Wallarroo. Sybil drew rein, and waited for Beelzebub.
"Which way?" she said.
He pointed to a group of trees upon a knoll some distance from the road, and thither she turned her horse's head. Beelzebub rode up beside her.
They left the knoll on one side, and, skirting it, came to a dip in the hill-side. And here they came at length to the end of their journey—a journey that to Sybil had seemed endless—and halted before a wooden shed that had been built for cattle. A flap of canvas had been nailed above the entrance, behind which a dim light burned. Sybil dismounted and drew near.
At first she heard no sound; then, as she stood hesitating and uncertain, there came a man's voice that uttered low, disjointed words. She thought for a second that someone was praying, and then, with a thrill of horror, she knew otherwise. The voice was uttering the most fearful curses she had ever heard.
Scarcely knowing what she did, but unable to stand there passively listening, she drew aside the canvas flap and looked in.
In an instant the voice ceased. There fell a silence, followed by a wild, half-strangled cry. She had a glimpse of a prone figure in a corner struggling upwards, and then Curtis was before her—Curtis haggard and agitated as she had never seen him—pushing her back out of the dim place into the clean starlight without.
"Mrs. Mercer! Are you mad?" she heard him say.
She resisted his compelling hands; she was strangely composed and undismayed.
"I am coming in," she said. "Nothing on earth will keep me back. That man—Robin Wentworth—is a friend of mine. I am going to see him and speak to him."
"Impossible!" Curtis said.
But she withstood him unfalteringly.
"It is not impossible. You must let me pass. I mean to go to him, and you cannot prevent it."
He saw the hopelessness of opposing her. Her eyes told him that it was no whim but steadfast purpose that had brought her there. He looked beyond her to Beelzebub, but gathered no inspiration in that quarter.
"Let me pass, Mr. Curtis!" said Sybil gently. "I shall take no harm. I must see him before he dies."
And Curtis yielded. He was worn out by long and fruitless watching, and he could not cope with this fresh emergency. He yielded to her insistence, and suffered her to pass him.
"He is very far gone," he said.
As Sybil entered she heard again that strange, choked cry. The sick man was struggling to rise, but could not.
She went straight to the narrow pallet on which he lay and bent over him.
"Robin!" she said.
He gave a great start, and became intensely still, lying face downwards, his body twisted, his head on his arm.
She stooped lower. She touched him. A superhuman strength was hers.
"Robin," she said, "do you know me?"
He turned his face a little, and she saw the malignant horror of the disease that gripped him. It was a sight that would have turned her sick at any other time. But to-night she knew no weakness.
"Who are you?" he said, in a gasping whisper.
"I am Sybil," she answered steadfastly. "Don't you remember me?"
He lay motionless for a little, his breathing sharp and short. At length:
"You had better get away from this pestilent hole," he panted out. "It's no place for a woman."
"I have come to nurse you," she said.
"You!" He seemed to collect himself with an effort. He turned his face fully towards her. "Didn't you marry that devil Mercer, after all?" he gasped, gazing up at her with glassy eyes.
Only by his eyes would she have known him—this man whom once long ago she had fancied that she loved—and even they were strained and unfamiliar. She bent her head in answer. "Yes, Robin, I married him."
He began to curse inarticulately, spasmodically; but that she would not have. She knelt down suddenly by his side, and took his hand in hers. The terrible, disfigured countenance did not appal her, though the memory of it would haunt her all her life.
"Robin, listen!" she said earnestly. "We may not have very long together. Let us make the most of what time we have! Don't waste your strength! Try to tell me quietly what happened, how it was you gave me up! I want to understand it all. I have never yet heard the truth."
Her quiet words, the steady pressure of her hand, calmed him. He lay still for a space, gazing at her.
"You're not afraid?" he muttered at last.
"No," she said.
He continued to stare at her.
"Is he—good to you?" he said.
The words came with difficulty. She saw his throat working with the convulsive effort to produce sound.
Curtis touched her arm. "Give him this!"
She took a cup from his hand, and held it to the swollen lips. But he could not swallow. The liquid trickled down into his beard.
"He's past it," murmured Curtis.
"Sybil!" The words came with a hard, rending sound. "Is he—good to you?"
She was wiping away the spilt drops with infinite, unfaltering tenderness.
"Yes, dear," she answered. "He is very good to me."
He uttered a great gasping sigh.
"That's—all—that matters," he said, and fell silent, still gazing at her with eyes that seemed too fixed to take her in.
In the long, long silence that followed no one moved. But for those wild eyes Sybil would have thought him sleeping.
Minutes passed, and at last Curtis spoke under his breath.
"You had better go. You can't do any more."
But she would not stir. She had a feeling that Robin still wanted her.
Suddenly through the night silence there came a sound—the hoof-beats of a galloping horse.
She turned her head and listened. "What is that?"
As if in answer, Beelzebub's black face appeared in the entrance. His eyes were distended with fright.
"Missis!" he hissed in a guttural whisper.
"Here's Boss comin'!" and disappeared again like a monstrous goblin.
Sybil glanced up at Curtis. "Don't let him come here!" she said.
But for once he seemed to be at a loss. He made no response to her appeal. While they waited, the hoofs drew steadily nearer, thudding over the grass.
"Mr. Curtis!" she said urgently.
He made a sharp, despairing gesture. "I can't help it," he said. "You must go. For Heaven's sake, don't let him touch you, and burn the clothes you have on as soon as possible! I am going to set fire to this place immediately."
"Going to—set fire to it?" She stared at him in surprise, still scarcely understanding.
"The poor chap is dead," he said. "It's the only thing to do."
She turned back to the face upon the pillow with its staring, sightless eyes. She raised a pitying hand to close them, but Curtis intervened.
He drew her to her feet. "Go!" he said. "Go! Keep Mercer away, that's all!"
She heard the jingling of a horse's bit and knew that the rider was very near. Mechanically almost, she turned from the place of death and went to meet him.
He was off his horse and striding for the entrance when she encountered him. The starlight on his face showed it livid and terrible. At sight of her he stopped short.
"Are you mad?" he said.
They were the identical words that Curtis had used; but his voice, hoarse, unnatural, told her that he was in a dangerous mood.
She backed away from him. "Don't come near me!" she said quickly. "He—he is just dead. And I have been with him."
"He?" he flung at her furiously, and she knew by his tone that he suspected the truth.
She tried to answer him steadily, but her strength was beginning to fail her. The long strain was telling upon her at last. She was uncertain of herself.
"It—was Robin Wentworth," she said.
He took a swift stride towards her. His face was convulsed with passion. "You came here to see that soddened cur?" he said.
She shrank away from him. The tempest of his anger overwhelmed her. She could not stand against it. For the first time she quailed.
"I have seen him," she said. "And he is dead. Ah, don't—don't touch me!"
He paid no attention to her cry. He seized her by the shoulders and almost swung her from his path.
"It would have been better for you," he said between his teeth, "if he had died before you got here. You have begun to repent already, and you'll go on repenting for the rest of your life."
"What are you going to do?" she cried, seeing him turn. "Brett, don't go in there! Don't! Don't! You must not! You shall not!"
In a frenzy of fear she threw herself upon him, struggling with all her puny strength to hold him back.
"I tell you he is dead!" she gasped. "Why do you want to go in?"
"I am going to see for myself," he said stubbornly, putting her away.
"No!" she cried. "No!"
His eyes gleamed red with a savage fury as she clung to him afresh. He caught her wrists, forcing her backwards.
"I don't believe he is dead!" he snarled.
"He is! He is! Mr. Curtis told me so."
"If he isn't, I'll murder him!" Brett Mercer vowed, and flung her fiercely from him.
She fell with violence and lay half-stunned, while he, blinded with rage, possessed by devils, strode forward into that silent place, leaving her prone.
She thought later that she must have fainted, for the next thing she knew—and it must have been after the passage of several minutes—was Mercer kneeling beside her and lifting her. His touch was perfectly gentle, but she dared not look into his face. She cowered in his arms in mortal fear. He had crushed her at last.
"Have I hurt you?" he said.
She did not answer. Her voice was gone. She was as powerless as an infant. He raised her and bore her steadily away.
When he paused finally, it was to speak to Beelzebub, who was holding the horses. And then, without a word to her, he lifted her up on to a saddle, and mounted himself behind her. She lay against his breast as one dazed, incapable of speech or action. And so, with his arm about her, moving slowly through a world of shadows, they began the long, long journey back.
They travelled so for the greater part of the night, and during the whole of that time Mercer never uttered a word. The horse he rode was jaded, and he did not press it. Beelzebub, with the other two, rode far ahead.
It was still dark when at last they turned in to the Home Farm, and, still in that awful silence, Mercer dismounted and lifted his wife to the ground.
He set her on her feet, but her limbs trembled so much that she could scarcely stand. He kept his arm around her, and led her into the house.
He took her to her room and left her there; but in a few minutes he returned with food on a tray which he set before her without raising his eyes, and again departed. She did not see him again for many hours.
From sheer exhaustion she slept at last, but her sleep was broken and unrefreshing. She turned and tossed, dozing and waking in utter weariness of mind and body till the day was far advanced. Finally, too restless to lie any longer, she arose and dressed.
The sound of voices took her to her window before she left her room, and she saw her husband on horseback with Curtis standing by his side. A sense of relief shot through her at sight of the latter. She had come to rely upon him more than she knew. While she watched, Mercer raised his bridle and rode slowly away without a backward glance. And again she was conscious of relief.
Curtis stood looking after him for a few seconds, then turned and entered the house.
She met him in the passage outside her room. He greeted her gravely.
"I was just coming to see if I could do anything for you," he said.
"Thank you," she answered nervously. "I am better now. Where has my husband gone?"
He did not answer her immediately. He turned aside to the room in which she generally sat, standing back for her to pass him. "I have something to say to you," he said.
She glanced at him anxiously as she took the chair he offered her.
"In the first place," he said, "you will be wise if you keep absolutely quiet for the next few days. There will be nothing to disturb you. Mercer is not returning at present. He has left you in my charge."
"Oh, why?" she said.
Her hands were locked together. She had begun to tremble from head to foot.
Curtis was watching her quietly.
"I think," he said, "that he is better away from you for a time, and he agrees with me."
"Why?" she said again, lifting her piteous eyes. "Is he so angry with me?"
"With you? No. He has come to his senses in that respect. But he is not in a particularly safe mood, and he knows it. He has gone to fight it out by himself."
Curtis paused, but Sybil did not speak. Her attitude had relaxed. He read unmistakble relief in every line.
"Well, now," he said deliberately, "I am going to tell you the exact truth of this business, as Mercer himself has told it to me."
"He wishes me to know it?" she asked quickly.
"He is willing that I should tell you," Curtis answered. "In fact, until he saw me to-day he believed that you knew it already. That was the primary cause of his savagery last night. You have probably formed a very shrewd suspicion of what happened, but it is better for you to know things as they actually stand. If it makes you hate him—well, it's no more than he deserves."
"Ah, but I have to live with him," she broke in, with sudden passion. "It is easy for you to talk of hating him, but I—I am his wife. I must go on living by his side, whatever I may feel."
"Yes, I know," Curtis said. "But it won't make it any easier for either of you to feel that there is this thing between you. Even he sees that. You can't forgive him if you don't know what he has done."
"Then why doesn't he tell me himself?" she said.
"Because," Curtis answered, looking at her steadily, "it will be easier for you to hear it from me. He saw that, too."
She could not deny it, but for some reason it hurt her to hear him say so. She had a feeling that it was to Curtis's insistence, rather than to her husband's consideration, that she owed this present respite.
"I will listen to you, then," she said.
Curtis began to walk up and down the room.
"First, with regard to Wentworth," he said. "There was a time once when he occupied very much the position that I now hold. He was Mercer's right-hand man. But he took to drink, and that did for him. I am afraid he was never very sound. Anyhow, Mercer gave him up, and he disappeared.
"After he had gone, after I took his place, we found out one or two things he had done which might have landed him in prison if Mercer had followed them up. However, the man was gone, and it didn't seem worth while to track him. It was not till afterwards that we heard he was at Bowker Creek, and Mercer was then on the point of starting for England, and decided to leave him alone.
"It's a poor place—Bowker Creek. He had got a job there as boundary rider. I suppose he counted on the shearing season to set him up. But he wasn't the sort of chap who ever gets on. And when Mercer met you on his way out from the old country it was something of a shock to him to hear that you were on your way to marry Robin Wentworth.
"Of course, he ought to have told you the truth, but instead of that he made up his mind to take the business into his own hands and marry you himself. He cabled from Colombo to Wentworth to wait for him at Bowker Creek, hinted that if he went to the coast he would have him arrested, and said something vague about coming to an understanding which induced Wentworth to obey orders.
"Then he came straight here and pressed on to Rollandstown, taking Beelzebub with him to show him the short cuts. It's a hard day's ride in any case. He reached Bowker Creek the day after, and had it out with Wentworth. The man had been drinking, was unreasonable, furious, finally tried to shoot him.
"Well, you know Mercer. He won't stand that sort of thing. He thrashed him within an inch of his life, and then made him write and give you up. It was a despicable affair from start to finish. Mercer's only excuse was that Wentworth was not the sort of man to make any woman happy. Finally, when he had got what he wanted, Mercer left him, after swearing eternal vengeance on him if he ever came within reach of you. The rest you know."
Yes, Sybil knew the rest. She understood the whole story from beginning to end, realized with what unscrupulous ingenuity she had been trapped and wondered bitterly if she would ever endure her husband's presence again without the shuddering sense of nausea which now overcame her at the bare thought of him.
She sat in stony silence, till at last Curtis paused beside her.
"I want you to rest," he said. "I think, if you don't, the consequences may be serious."
She looked up at him uncomprehendingly.
"Come, Mrs. Mercer!" he said.
She shrank at the name.
"Don't call me that!" she said, and stumbled uncertainly to her feet. "I—I am going away."
He put a steadying hand on her shoulder.
"You can't," he said quietly. "You are not fit for it. Besides, there is nowhere for you to go to. But I will get Mrs. Stevens, the innkeeper's wife at Wallarroo, to come to you for a time. She is a good sort, you can count on her. As for Mercer, he will not return unless you—or I—send for him."
She shivered violently, uncontrollably.
"You will never send for him?"
"Never," he answered, "unless you need him."
She glanced around her wildly. Her eyes were hunted.
"Why do you say that?" she gasped.
"I think you know why I say it," said Curtis very steadily.
Her hands were clenched.
"No!" she cried back sharply. "No!"
Curtis was silent. There was deep compassion in his eyes.
She glanced around her wildly. Her eyes were on his eyes.
She shuddered again, shuddered from head to foot.
"If I thought that," she whispered, "if I thought that, I would——"
"Hush!" he interposed gently. "Don't say it! Go and lie down! You will see things differently by and bye."
She knew that he was right, and worn out, broken as she was, she moved to obey him. But before she reached the door her little strength was gone. She felt herself sinking swiftly into a silence that she hoped and even prayed was death. She did not know when Curtis lifted her.
During many days Sybil lay in her darkened room, facing, in weariness of body and bitterness of soul, the problem of life. She was not actually ill, but there were times when she longed intensely, passionately, for death. She was weak, physically and mentally, after the long strain. Courage and endurance had alike given way at last. She had no strength with which to face what lay before her.
So far as outward circumstances went, she was in good hands. Curtis watched over her with a care that never flagged, and the innkeeper's wife from Wallarroo, large and slow and patient, was her constant attendant. But neither of them could touch or in any way soothe the perpetual pain that throbbed night and day in the girl's heart, giving her no rest.
She left her bed at length after many days, but it was only to wander aimlessly about the house, lacking the energy to employ herself. Her nerves were quieter, but she still started at any sudden sound, and would sit as one listening yet dreading to hear. Her husband's name never passed her lips, and Curtis never made the vaguest reference to him. He knew that sooner or later a change would come, that the long suffering that lined her face must draw at last to a climax; but he would do nothing to hasten it. He believed that Nature would eventually find her own remedy.
But Nature is ever slow, and sometimes the wheel of life moves too quickly for her methods to take effect.
Sybil was sitting one day by an open window when Beelzebub dashed suddenly into view. He was on horseback, riding barebacked, and was evidently in a ferment of excitement. He bawled some incoherent words as he passed the window, words which Sybil could not distinguish, but which nevertheless sent a sharp sense of foreboding through her heart. Had he—or had he not—yelled something to her about "Boss"? She could not possibly have said, but the suspicion was sufficiently strong to rouse her to lean out of the window and try to catch something of what the boy was saying.
He had reached the yard, and had flung himself off the sweating animal. As she peered forth she caught sight of Curtis coming out of the stable. Beelzebub saw him too, and broke out afresh with his wild cry. This time, straining her ears to listen, she caught the words, all jumbled together though they were.
"Boss got smallpox!"
She saw Curtis stop dead, and she wondered if his heart, like hers, had ceased to beat. The next instant he moved forward, and for the first time she saw him deliberately punch the gesticulating negro's woolly head. Beelzebub cried out like a whipped dog and slunk back. Then, very calmly, Curtis took him by the scruff of his neck, and began to question him.
Sybil stood, gripping the curtain, and watched it all as one watches a scene on the stage. Somehow, though she knew herself to be vitally concerned, she felt no agitation. It was as if the blood had ceased to run in her veins.
At length she saw Curtis release the palpitating Beelzebub, and turn towards the house. Quite calmly she also turned.
They met in the passage.
"You needn't trouble to keep it from me," she said. "I know."
He gave her a keen look.
"I am going to him at once," was all he said.
She stood quite still, facing him; and suddenly she was conscious of a great glow pulsing through her, as though some arrested force had been set free. She knew that her heart was beating again, strongly, steadily, fearlessly.
"I shall come with you," she said.
She saw his face change.
"I am sorry," he said, "but that is out of the question. You must know it."
She answered him instantly, unhesitatingly, with some of the old, quick spirit that had won Brett Mercer's heart.
"There you are wrong. I know it to be the only thing possible for me to do."
Curtis looked at her for a second as if he scarcely knew her, and then abruptly abandoned the argument.
"I will not be responsible," he said, turning aside.
And she answered him unfalteringly:
"I will take the responsibility."
Slowly Brett Mercer raised himself and tried to peer through his swollen eyelids at the door.
"Don't bring any woman here!" he mumbled.
The effort to see was fruitless. He sank back, blind and tortured, upon the pillow. He had been taken ill at one of his own outlying farms, and here he had lain for days—a giant bereft of his strength, waiting for death.
His only attendant was a farm-hand who had had the disease, but knew nothing of its treatment, who was, moreover, afraid to go near him.
Curtis took in the whole situation at a glance as he bent over him.
"Why didn't you send for me?" he said.
"That you?" gasped Mercer. "Man, I'm in hell! Can't you give me something to put me out of my misery?"
Curtis was already at work over him.
"No," he said briefly. "I'm going to pull you through. You're wanted."
"You lie!" gasped back Mercer, and said no more.
Some hours after, starting suddenly from fevered sleep, he asked an abrupt question:
"Does my wife know?"
"Yes, she knows," Curtis answered.
He flung his arms wide with a bitter gesture. "She'll soon be free," he said.
"Not if I know it," said Curtis, in his quiet, unemotional style.
"You can't make me live against my will," muttered Mercer.
"Don't talk like a fool!" responded Curtis.
Late that night a hand that was not Curtis's smoothed the sick man's pillow, and presently gave him nourishment. He noticed the difference instantly, though he could not open his eyes; but he said nothing at the time, and she fancied he did not know her.
But presently, when she thought him sleeping, he spoke.
"When did you come?"
Even then she was not sure that he was in his right mind. His face was so swollen and disfigured that it told her nothing. She answered him very softly:
"I came with Mr. Curtis."
"Why?" That one word told her that he was in full possession of his senses. He moved his head to and fro on the pillow as one vainly seeking rest. "Did you want to see me in hell?" he questioned harshly.
She leaned towards him. She was sitting by his bed.
"No," she said, speaking under her breath. "I came because—because it was the only way out—for us both."
"What?" he said, and the old impatient frown drew his forehead. "You came to see me die, then?"
"I came," she answered, "to try and make you live."
He drew a breath that was a groan.
"You won't succeed," he said.
"Why not?" she asked.
Again feverishly he moved his head, and she smoothed his pillow afresh with hands that trembled.
"Don't touch me!" he said sharply. "What was Curtis dreaming of to bring you here?"
"Mr. Curtis couldn't help it," she answered, with more assurance. "I came." And then after a moment, "Are you—sorry—I came?"
"Yes," he muttered.
"Oh, why?" she said.
"I would sooner die—without you looking on," he said, forcing out his words through set teeth.
"Oh, why?" she said again. "Don't you believe—can't you believe—that I want you to live?"
"No," he groaned.
"Not if I swear it?" she asked, her voice sunk very low.
"No!" He flung the word with something of his ancient ferocity. She was torturing him past endurance. He even madly hoped that he could scare her away.
But Sybil made no move to go. She sat quite still for a few seconds. Then slowly she went down upon her knees beside his pillow.
"Brett," she said, and he felt her breath quick and tremulous upon his face as she spoke, "you may refuse to believe what I say. But—I can convince you without words."
And before he knew her meaning, she had pressed her quivering lips to his.
He recoiled, with an anguished sound that was half of protest and half of unutterable pain.
"Do you want to die too?" he said. "Or don't you know the risk?"
"Yes, I know it," she answered. "I know it," and in her voice was such a thrill of passion as he had never heard or thought to hear from her. "But I know this, too, and I mean that you shall know it. My life is nothing to me—do you understand?—nothing, unless you share it. Now—will you believe me?"
Yes, he believed her then. He had no choice. The knowledge was as a sword cutting its way straight to his heart. He tried to answer her, tried desperately hard, because he knew that she was waiting for him to speak, that his silence would hurt her who from that day forward he would never hurt again.
But no words would come. He could not force his utterance. The power of speech was gone from him. He turned his face away from her in choking tears.
And Sybil knew that the victory was hers. Those tears were more to her than words. She knew that he would live—if he could—for her sake.
It was more than six weeks later that Brett Mercer and his wife turned in at the Home Farm, as they had turned in on that memorable night that he had brought his bride from Wallarroo.
Now, as then, Curtis was ready for them in the open doorway, and Beelzebub advanced grinning to take the horses. But there the resemblance ceased. The woman who entered with her husband leaning on her shoulder was no nervous, shrinking stranger, but a wife entering her home with gladness, bearing her burden with rejoicing. The woman from Wallarroo looked at her with a doubtful sort of sympathy. She also looked at the gaunt, bowed man who accompanied her, and questioned with herself if this were indeed Brett Mercer.
Brett Mercer it undoubtedly was, nor could she have said, save for his slow, stooping gait, wherein lay the change that so amazed her.
Perhaps it was more apparent in Sybil than in the man himself as she raised her face on entering, and murmured:
"So good to get home again, isn't it, dear?"
He did not speak in answer. He scarcely spoke at all that night. But his silence satisfied her.
It was not till the following morning that he stretched out a great, bony hand to her as she waited on him, and drew her down to his side.
"There has been enough of this," he said, with a touch of his old imperiousness. "You have worked too hard already, harder than I ever meant you to work. You are to take a rest, and get strong."
She uttered her gay little laugh.
"My dearest Brett, I am strong."
He lay staring at her in his most direct, disconcerting fashion. She endured his look for a moment, and then averted her eyes. She would have risen, but he prevented her.
"Sybil!" he said abruptly.
"Yes?" she answered, with her head bent.
"Are you afraid of me?" he said.
She shook her head instantly.
"Don't be absurd!"
"Then look at me!" he said.
She raised her eyes slowly, not very willingly. But, having raised them, she kept them so, for there was that in his look which no longer made her shy.
He made a slight gesture towards her that was rather of invitation than insistence.
"Don't you think I'm nearly well enough to be let into the secret?" he said.
His action, his tone, above all his look, broke down the last of the barrier between them. She went into his arms with a shaky little laugh, and hid her face against him.
"I would have told you long ago," she whispered, "only somehow—I couldn't. Besides, I was so sure that you knew."
"Oh, yes, I knew," said Mercer. "Curtis saw to that; literally flayed me with it till I took his advice and cleared out. You know, I've often wondered since if it was that that made you want me, after all."
She shook her head, still with her face against his breast.
"No, dear, it wasn't. It—it made things worse at first. It was only when I heard you were ill that—that I found—quite suddenly—that I couldn't possibly go on without you. It was as if—as if something bound round my heart had suddenly given way, and I could breathe again. When I saw you I knew how terribly I wanted you."
"And that was how you came to kiss me with that loathsome disease upon me?" he whispered. "That was what made you follow me down to hell to bring me back?"
She turned her face upwards. Her eyes were shining.
"My dear," she said, and in her voice was a thrill like the first sweet notes of a bird in the dawning, "you don't need to ask me why did these things. For you know—you know. It was simply and only because I loved you."
"Heaven knows why," he said, as he bent to kiss her.
"Heavens knows," she answered, and softly laughed as she surrendered her lips to his.