The Top of the World by Ethel M. Dell (page 4)

a quivering grasp. There was something in that grasp that seemed to plead for understanding. He flashed her a swift look from eyes that burned with a fitful, feverish fire out of deep hollows. How well she remembered his eyes! But they had never before looked at her thus. With every moment that passed she realized that the change in him was greater than that first glance had revealed.

“Of course I want to speak to you!” she said gently. “I forgave you long ago–as, I hope, you have forgiven me.”

“I!” he said. “My dear girl, be serious!”

Somehow his tone pierced her. There was an oddly husky quality in his voice that seemed to veil emotion. The tears sprang to her eyes before she was aware.

“Whatever happens then, we are friends,” she said. “Remember that always, won’t you? It–it will hurt me very much if you don’t.”

“Bless your heart!” said Guy, and smiled a twisted smile. “You were always generous, weren’t you? Too generous sometimes. What did you want to rake me out of my own particular little comer of hell for? Was it a mistaken idea of kindness or merely curiosity? I wasn’t anyhow doing you any harm there.”

His words, accompanied by that painful smile, went straight to her heart. “Ah, don’t–don’t!” she said. “Did you think I could forget you so easily, or be any thing but wretched while you were there?”

He looked at her again, this time intently, “What can you be made of, Sylvia?” he said. “Do you mean to say you found it easy to forgive me?”

She dashed the tears from her eyes. “I don’t remember that I was ever–angry with you,” she said. “Somehow I realized–from the very first–that–that–it was just–bad luck.”

“You amaze me!” he said.

She smiled at him. “Do I? I don’t quite see why. Is it so amazing that one should want to pass on and make the best of things? That is how I feel now. It seems so long ago, Guy,–like another existence almost. It is too far away to count.”

“Are you talking of the old days?” he broke in, in a voice that grated. “Or of the time a few weeks ago when you got here to find yourself stranded?”

She made a little gesture of protest. “It wasn’t for long. I don’t want to think of it. But it might have been much worse. Burke was–is still–so good to me.”

“Is he?” said Guy. He was looking at her curiously, and instinctively she turned away, avoiding his eyes.

“Come and have some lunch!” she said. “He ought to be in directly.”

“He is in,” said Guy. “He went round to the stable.”

It was another instance of Burke’s goodness that he had not been present at their meeting. She turned to lead the way within with a warm feeling at her heart. It was solely due to this consideration of his that she had not suffered the most miserable embarrassment. Somehow she felt that she could not possibly have endured that first encounter in his presence. But now that it was over, now that she had made acquaintance with this new Guy–this stranger with Guy’s face, Guy’s voice, but not Guy’s laugh or any of the sparkling vitality that had been his–she felt she wanted him. She needed his help. For surely now he knew Guy better than she did!

It was with relief that she heard his step, entering from the back of the house. He came in, whistling carelessly, and she glanced instinctively at Guy. That sound had always made her think of him. Had he forgotten how to whistle also, she wondered?

She expected awkwardness, constraint; but Burke surprised her by his ease of manner. Above all, she noticed that he was by no means kind to Guy. He treated him with a curt friendliness from which all trace of patronage was wholly absent. His attitude was rather that of brother than host, she reflected. And its effect upon Guy was of an oddly bracing nature. The semi-defiant air dropped from him. Though still subdued, his manner showed no embarrassment. He even, as time passed, became in a sardonic fashion almost jocose.

In company with Burke, he drank lager-beer, and he betrayed not the smallest desire to drink too much. Furtively she watched him throughout the meal, trying to adjust her impressions, trying to realize him as the lover to whom she had been faithful for so long, the lover who had written those always tender, though quite uncommunicative letters, the lover, who had cabled her his welcome, and then had so completely and so cruelly failed her.

Her ideas of him were a whirl of conflicting notions which utterly bewildered her. Of one thing only did she become very swiftly and surely convinced, and that was that in failing her he had saved her from a catastrophe which must have eclipsed her whole life. Whatever he was, whatever her feelings for him, she recognized that this man was not the mate her girlish dreams had so fondly pictured. Probably she would have realized this in any case from the moment of their meeting, but circumstances might have compelled her to join her life to his. And then——

Her look passed from him to Burke, and instinctively she breathed a sigh of thankfulness. He had saved her from much already, and his rock-like strength stood perpetually between her and evil. For the first time she was consciously glad that she had entrusted herself to him.

At the end of luncheon she realized with surprise that there had not been an awkward moment. They went out on to the _stoep_ to smoke cigarettes when it was over, and drink the coffee which she went to prepare. It was when she was coming out with this that she first heard Guy’s cough–a most terrible, rending sound that filled her with dismay. Stepping out on to the _stoep_ with her tray, she saw him bent over the back of a chair, convulsed with coughing, and stood still in alarm. She had never before witnessed so painful a struggle. It was as if he fought some demon whose clutch threatened to strangle him.

Burke came to her and took the tray from her hands. “He’ll be better directly,” he said. “It was the cigarette.”

With almost superhuman effort, Guy succeeded in forcing back the monster that seemed to be choking him, but for several minutes thereafter he hung over the chair with his face hidden, fighting for breath.

Burke motioned to Sylvia to sit down, but she would not. She stood by Guy’s side, and at length as he grew calmer, laid a gentle hand upon his arm.

“Come and sit down, Guy. Would you like some water?”

He shook his head. “No–no! Give me–that damned cigarette!”

“Don’t you be a fool!” said Burke, but he said it kindly. “Sit down and be quiet for a bit!”

He came up behind Guy, and took him by the shoulders. Sylvia saw with surprise the young man yield without demur, and suffer himself to be put into the chair where with an ashen face he lay for a space as if afraid to move.

Burke drew her aside. “Don’t be scared!” he said, “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 dear, it’s no good,” he said. “Let him go!”

“But, Burke–” she cried. “Oh, Burke—-“

“I know,” he made answer, still soothing her. “But it can’t be done–anyhow at present. You’ll drive him away if you attempt it. I know. I’ve done it. Leave him alone till the devil has gone out of him! He’ll come back then–and be decent–for a time.”

His meaning was unmistakable. The force of what he said drove in upon her irresistibly. She burst into tears, hiding her face against his shoulder in her distress.

“But how dreadful! Oh, how dreadful! He is killing himself. I think–the Guy–I knew–is dead already.”

“No, he isn’t,” Burke said, and he held her with sudden closeness as he said it. “He isn’t–and that’s the hell of it. But you can’t save him. No one can.”

She lifted her face sharply. There was something intolerable in the words. With the tears upon her cheeks she challenged them.

“He can be saved! He must be saved! I’ll do it somehow–somehow!”

“You may try,” Burke said, as he suffered her to release herself. “You won’t succeed.”

She forced a difficult smile with quivering lips. “You don’t know me. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And I shall find it somehow.”

He looked grim for an instant, then smiled an answering smile. “Don’t perish in the attempt!” he said. “That do-or-die look of yours is rather ominous. Don’t forget you’re my partner! I can’t spare you, you know.”

She uttered a shaky laugh. “Of course you can’t. Blue Hill Farm would go to pieces without me, wouldn’t it? I’ve often thought I’m quite indispensable.”

“You are to me,” said Burke briefly; and ere the quick colour had sprung to her face, he also had gone his way.

CHAPTER VIII

THE INTERRUPTION

Sylvia meant to ride round to Guy’s hut in search of him that evening, but when the time came something held her back.

Burke’s words, “You’ll drive him away,” recurred to her again and again, and with them came a dread of intruding that finally prevailed against her original intention. He must not think for a moment that she desired to spy upon him, even though that dreadful craving in his eyes haunted her perpetually, urging her to action. It seemed inevitable that for a time at least he must fight his devil alone, and with all her strength she prayed that he might overcome.

In the end she rode out with Burke, covering a considerable distance, and returning tired in body but refreshed in mind.

They had supper together as usual, but when it was over he surprised her by taking up his hat again.

“You are going out?” she said.

“I’m going to have a smoke with Guy,” he said. “You have a game of Patience, and then go to bed!”

She looked at him uncertainly. “I’ll come with you,” she said.

He was filling his pipe preparatory to departure. “You do as I say!” he said.

She tried to laugh though she saw his face was grim. “You’re getting rather despotic, partner. I shall have to nip that in the bud. I’m not going to stay at home and play Patience all by myself. There!”

He raised his eyes abruptly from his task, and suddenly her heart was beating fast and hard. “All right,” he said. “We’ll stay at home together.”

His tone was brief, but it thrilled her. She was afraid to speak for a moment or two lest he should see her strange agitation. Then, as he still looked at her, “Oh no, partner,” she said lightly. “That wouldn’t be the same thing at all. I am much too fond of my own company to object to solitude. I only thought I would like to come, too. I love the _veldt_ at night.”

“Do you?” he said. “I wonder what has taught you to do that.”

He went on with the filling of his pipe as he spoke, and she was conscious of quick relief. His words did not seem to ask for an answer, and she made none.

“When are you going to take me to Ritzen?” she asked instead.

“To Ritzen!” He glanced up again in surprise. “Do you want to go to Ritzen?”

“Or Brennerstadt,” she said, “Whichever is the best shopping centre.”

“Oh!” He began to smile. “You want to shop, do you? What do you want to buy?”

She looked at him severely. “Nothing for myself, I am glad to say.”

“What! Something for me?” His smile gave him that look–that boyish look–which once she had loved so dearly upon Guy’s face. She felt as if something were pulling at her heart. She ignored it resolutely.

“You will have to buy it for yourself,” she told him sternly. “I’ve got nothing to buy it with. It’s something you ought to have got long ago–if you had any sense of decency.”

“What on earth is it?” Burke dropped his pipe into his pocket and gave her his full attention.

Sylvia, with a cigarette between her lips, got up to find the matches. She lighted it very deliberately under his watching eyes, then held out the match to him. “Light up, and I’ll tell you.”

He took the slender wrist, blew out the match, and held her, facing him.

“Sylvia,” he said. “I ought to have gone into the money question with you before. But all I have is yours. You know that, don’t you?”

She laughed at him through the smoke. “I know where you keep it anyhow, partner,” she said. “But I shan’t take any–so you needn’t be afraid.”

“Afraid!” he said, still holding her. “But you are to take it. Understand? It’s my wish.”

She blew the smoke at him, delicately, through pursed lips. “Good my lord, I don’t want it. Couldn’t spend it if I had it. So now!”

“Then what is it I am to buy?” he said.

Lightly she answered him. “Oh, you will only do the paying part. I shall do the choosing–and the bargaining, if necessary.”

“Well, what is it?” Still he held her, and there was something of insistence, something of possession, in his hold.

Possibly she had never before seemed more desirable to him–or more elusive. For she was beginning to realize and to wield her power. Again she took a whiff from her cigarette, and wafted it at him through laughing lips.

“I want some wool–good wool–and a lot of it, to knit some socks–for you. Your present things are disgraceful.”

His look changed a little. His eyes shone through the veil of smoke she threw between them, “I can buy ready-made socks. I’m not going to let you make them–or mend them.”

Sylvia’s red lips expressed scorn. “Ready-made rubbish! No, sir. With your permission I prefer to make. Then perhaps I shall have less mending to do.”

He was drawing her to him and she did not actively resist, though there was no surrender in her attitude.

“And why won’t you have any money?” he said. “We are partners.”

She laughed lightly. “And you give me board and lodging. I am not worth more.”

He looked her in the eyes. “Are you afraid to take too much–lest I should want too much in return?”

She did not answer. She was trembling a little in his hold, but her eyes met his fearlessly.

He put up a hand and took the cigarette very gently from her lips. “Sylvia, I’m going to tell you something–if you’ll listen.”

He paused a moment. She was suddenly throbbing from head to foot.

“What is it?” she whispered.

He snuffed out the cigarette with his fingers and put it in his pocket. Then he bent to her, his hand upon her shoulder.

His lips were open to speak, and her silence waited for the words, when like the sudden rending of the heavens there came an awful sound close to them, so close that is shook the windows in their frames and even seemed to shake the earth under their feet.

Sylvia started back with a cry, her hands over her face. “Oh, what–what–what is that?”

Burke was at the window in a second. He wrenched it open, and as he did so there came the shock of a thudding fall. A man’s figure, huddled up like an empty sack lay across the threshold. It sank inwards with the opening of the window, and Guy’s face white as death, with staring, senseless eyes, lay upturned to the lamplight.

Something jingled on the floor as his inert form collapsed, and a smoking revolver dropped at Burke’s feet.

He picked it up sharply, uncocked it and laid it on the table. Then he stooped over the prostrate body. The limbs were twitching spasmodically, but the movement was wholly involuntary. The deathlike face testified to that. And through the grey flannel shirt above the heart a dark stain spread and spread.

“He is dead!” gasped Sylvia at Burke’s shoulder.

“No,” Burke said.

He opened the shirt with the words and exposed the wound beneath. Sylvia shrank at the sight of the welling blood, but Burke’s voice steadied her.

“Get some handkerchiefs and towels,” he said, “and make a wad! We must stop this somehow.”

His quietness gave her strength. Swiftly she moved to do his bidding.

Returning, she found that he had stretched the silent figure full length upon the floor. The convulsive movements had wholly ceased. Guy lay like a dead man.

She knelt beside Burke. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it! I’ll do–anything!”

“All right,” he said. “Get some cold water!”

She brought it, and he soaked some handkerchiefs and covered the wound.

“I think we shall stop it,” he said. “Help me to get this thing under his shoulders! I shall have to tie him up tight. I’ll lift him while you get it underneath.”

She was perfectly steady as she followed his instructions, and even though in the process her hands were stained with Guy’s blood, she did not shrink again. It was no easy task, but Burke’s skill and strength of muscle accomplished it at last. Across Guy’s body he looked at her with a certain grim triumph.

“Well played, partner! That’s the first move. Are you all right?”

She saw by his eyes that her face betrayed the horror at her heart. She tried to smile at him, but her lips felt stiff and cold. Her look went back to the ashen face on the floor.

“What–what must be done next?” she said.

“He will have to stay as he is till we can get a doctor,” Burke answered. “The bleeding has stopped for the present, but–” He broke off.

“Child, how sick you look!” he said. “Here, come and wash! There’s nothing more to be done now.”

She got up, feeling her knees bend beneath her but controlling them with rigid effort. “I–am all right,” she said. “You–you think he isn’t dead?”

Burke’s hand closed upon her elbow. “He’s not dead,–no! He may die of course, but I don’t fancy he will at present,–not while he lies like that.”

He was drawing her out of the room, but she resisted him suddenly. “I can’t go. I can’t leave him–while he lives. Burke, don’t, please, bother about me! Are you–are you going to fetch a doctor?”

“Yes,” said Burke.

She looked at him, her eyes wide and piteous. “Then please go now–go quickly! I–will stay with him till you come back.”

“I shall have to leave you for some hours,” he said.

“Oh, never mind that!” she answered, “Just be as quick as you can, that’s all! I will be with him. I–shan’t be afraid.”

She was urging him to the door, but he turned back. He went to the table, picked up the revolver he had laid there, and put it away in a cupboard which he locked.

She marked the action, and as he came to her again, laid a trembling hand upon his arm. “Burke! Could it–could it have been an accident?”

“No. It couldn’t,” said Burke. He paused a moment, looking at her in a way she did not understand. She wondered afterwards what had been passing in his mind. But he said no further word except a brief, “Good-bye!”

Ten minutes later, she heard the quick thud of his horse’s hoofs as he rode into the night.

CHAPTER IX

THE ABYSS

“Sylvia!”

Was it a voice that spoke in the overwhelming silence, or was it the echo in her soul of a voice that would never speak again? Sylvia could not decide. She had sat for so long, propped against a chair, watching that still figure on the floor, straining her senses to see or hear some sign of breathing, trying to cheat herself into the belief that he slept, and then with a wrung heart wondering if he were not better dead.

All memory of the bitterness and the cruel disappointment that he had brought into her life had rolled away from her during those still hours of watching. She did not think of herself at all; only of Guy, once so eager and full of sparkling hope, now so tragically fallen in the race of life. All her woman’s tenderness was awake and throbbing with a passionate pity for this lover of her youth. Why, oh why had he done this thing? The horror of it oppressed her like a crushing, physical weight. Was it for this that she had persuaded Burke to rescue him from the depths to which he had sunk? Had she by her rash interference only precipitated his final doom–she who had suffered so deeply for his sake, who had yearned so ardently to bring him back?

Burke had been against it from the beginning; Burke knew to his cost the hopelessness of it all. Ah, would it have been better if she had listened to him and refrained from attempting the impossible? Would it not have been preferable to accept failure rather than court disaster? What had she done? What had she done?

“Sylvia!”

Surely the old Guy was speaking to her! Those pallid lips could make no sound; the new, strange Guy was dead.

As in a dream, she answered him through the silence, feeling as if she spoke into the shadows of the Unknown.

“Yes, Guy? Yes? I am here.”

“Will you–forgive me,” he said, “for making–a boss shot!”

Then she turned to the prostrate form beside her on the floor, and saw that the light of understanding had come back into those haunted eyes.

She knelt over him and laid her hand upon his rough hair. “Oh, Guy, hush–hush!” she said. “Thank God you are still here!”

A very strange expression flitted over his upturned face, a look that was indescribably boyish and yet so sad that she caught her breath to still the intolerable pain at her heart.

“I shan’t be–long.” he said. “Thank God for that–too! I’ve been–working myself up to it–all day.”

“Guy!” she said.

He made a slight movement of one hand, and she gathered it close into her own. It seemed to her that the Shadow of Death had drawn very near to them, enveloping them both.

“It had–to be,” he said, in the husky halting voice so unfamiliar to her. “It–was a mistake–to try to bring me back. I’m–beyond–redemption. Ask Burke;–he knows!”

“You are not–you are not!” she told him vehemently. “Guy!” She was holding his hand hard pressed against her heart; her words came with a rush of pitying tenderness that swept over every barrier. “Guy! I want you! You must stay. If you go now–you–you will break my heart.”

His eyes kindled a little at her words, but in a moment the emotion passed. “It’s too late, my dear;–too late,” he said and turned his head on the pillow under it as if seeking rest. “You don’t–understand. Just as well for me perhaps. But I’m better gone–for your sake, better gone.”

The conviction of his words went through her like a sword-thrust. He seemed to have passed beyond her influence, almost, she fancied, not to care. Yet why did the look in his eyes make her think of a lost child–frightened, groping along an unknown road in the dark? Why did his hand cling to hers as though it feared to let go?

She held it very tightly as she made reply. “But, Guy, it isn’t for us to choose. It isn’t for us to discharge ourselves. Only God knows when our work is done.”

He groaned. “I’ve given all mine to the devil. God couldn’t use me if He tried.”

“You don’t know,” she said. “You don’t know. We’re none of us saints, I think He makes allowances–when things go wrong with us–just as–just as we make allowances for each other.”

He groaned again. “You would make allowances for the devil himself,” he muttered. “It’s the way you’re made. But it isn’t justice. Burke would tell you that.”

An odd little tremor of impatience went through her. “I know you better than Burke does,” she said. “Better, probably–than anyone else in the world.”

He turned his head to and fro upon the pillow. “You don’t know me, Sylvia. You don’t know me–at all.”

Yet the husky utterance seemed to plead with her as though he longed for her to understand.

She stooped lower over him. “Never mind, dear! I love you all the same,” she said. “And that’s why I can’t bear you–to go–like this.” Her voice shook unexpectedly. She paused to steady it. “Guy,” she urged, almost under her breath at length, “you will live–you will try to live–for my sake?”

Again his eyes were upon her. Again, more strongly, the flame kindled. Then, very suddenly, a hard shudder went through him, and a dreadful shadow arose and quenched that vital gleam. For a few moments consciousness itself seemed to be submerged in the most awful suffering that Sylvia had ever beheld. His eyeballs rolled upwards under lids that twitched convulsively. The hand she held closed in an agonized grip upon her own. She thought that he was dying, and braced herself instinctively to witness the last terrible struggle, the rending asunder of soul and body.

Then–as one upon the edge of an abyss–he spoke, his voice no more than a croaking whisper.

“It’s hell for me–either way. Living or dead–hell!”

The paroxysm spent itself and passed like an evil spirit. The struggle for which she had prepared herself did not come. Instead, the flickering lids closed over the tortured eyes, the clutching hand relaxed, and there fell a great silence.

She sat for a long time not daring to move, scarcely breathing, wondering if this were the end. Then gradually it came to her, that he was lying in the stillness of utter exhaustion. She felt for his pulse and found it beating, weakly but unmistakably. He had sunk into a sleep which she realized might be the means of saving his life.

Thereafter she sat passive, leaning against a chair, waiting, watching, as she had waited and watched for so long. Once she leaned her head upon her hand and prayed “O dear God, let him live!” But something–some inner voice–seemed to check that prayer, and though her whole soul yearned for its fulfilment she did not repeat it. Only, after a little, she stooped very low, and touched Guy’s forehead with her lips.

“God bless you!” she said softly. “God bless you!”

And in the silence that followed, she thought there was a benediction.

CHAPTER X

THE DESIRE TO LIVE

In the last still hour before the dawn there came the tread of horses’ feet outside the bungalow and the sound of men’s voices.

Sylvia looked up as one emerging from a long, long dream, though she had not closed her eyes all night. The lamp was burning low, and Guy’s face was in deep shadow; but she knew by the hand that she still held close between her own that he yet lived. She even fancied that the throb of his pulse was a little stronger.

She looked at Burke with questioning, uncertain eyes as he entered. In the dim light he seemed to her bigger, more imposing, more dominant, than he had ever seemed before. He rolled a little as he walked as if stiff from long hours in the saddle.

Behind him came another man–a small thin man with sleek black hair and a swarthy Jewish face, who moved with a catlike deftness, making no sound at all.

“Well, Sylvia?” Burke said. “Is he alive?”

He took the lamp from the table, and cast its waning light full upon her. She shrank a little involuntarily from the sudden glare. Almost without knowing it, she pressed Guy’s inert hand to her breast. The dream was still upon her. It was hardly of her own volition that she answered him.

“Yes, he is alive. He has been speaking. I think he is asleep.”

“Permit me!” the stranger said.

He knelt beside the still form while Burke held the lamp. He opened the shirt and exposed the blood-soaked bandage.

Then suddenly he looked at Sylvia with black eyes of a most amazing brightness. “Madam, you cannot help here. You had better go.”

Somehow he made her think of a raven, unscrupulous, probably wholly without pity, possibly wicked, and overwhelmingly intelligent. She avoided his eyes instinctively. They seemed to know too much.

“Will he–do you think he win–live?” she whispered.

He made a gesture of the hands that seemed to indicate infinite possibilities. “I do not think at present. But I must be undisturbed. Go to your room, madam, and rest! Your husband will come to you later and tell you what I have done–or failed to do.”

He spoke with absolute fluency but with a foreign accent. His hands were busy with the bandages, dexterous, clawlike hands that looked as if they were delving for treasure.

She watched him, speechless and fascinated, for a few seconds. Then Burke set the lamp upon the chair against which she had leaned all the night, and bent down to her.

“Let me help you!” he said.

A shuddering horror of the sight before her came upon her. She yielded herself to him in silence. She was shivering violently from head to foot. Her limbs were so numb she could not stand. He raised her and drew her away.

The next thing she knew was that she was sitting on the bed in her own room, and he was making her drink brandy and water in so burning a mixture that it stung her throat.

She tried to protest, but he would take no refusal till she had swallowed what he had poured out. Then he put down the glass, tucked her feet up on the bed with an air of mastery, and spread a rug over her.

He would have left her then with a brief injunction to remain where she was, but she caught and held his arm so that he was obliged to pause.

“Burke, is that dreadful man a doctor?”

“The only one I could get hold of,” said Burke. “Yes, he’s a doctor all right. Saul Kieff his name is. I admit he’s a scoundrel, but anyway he’s keen on his job.”

“You think he’ll save Guy?” she said tremulously. “Oh, Burke, he must be saved! He must be saved!”

An odd look came into Burke’s eyes. She remembered it later, though it was gone in an instant like the sudden flare of lightning across a dark sky.

“We shall do our best,” he said. “You stay here till I come back!”

She let him go. Somehow that look had given her a curious shock though she did not understand it. She heard the door shut firmly behind him, and she huddled herself down upon the pillow and lay still.

She wished he had not made her drink that fiery draught. All her senses were in a tumult, and yet her body felt as if weighted with lead. She lay listening tensely for every sound, but the silence was like a blanket wrapped around her–a blanket which nothing seemed to penetrate.

It seemed to overwhelm her at last, that silence, to blot out the clamour of her straining nerves, to deprive her of the power to think. Though she did not know it, the stress of that night’s horror and vigil had worn her out. She sank at length into a deep sleep from which it seemed that nought could wake her. And when more than an hour later, Burke came, treading softly, and looked upon her, he did not need to keep that burning hunger-light out of his eyes. For she was wholly unconscious of him as though her spirit were in another world.

He looked and looked with a gaze that seemed as if it would consume her. And at last he leaned over her, with arms outspread, and touched her sunny, disordered hair with his lips. It was the lightest touch, far too light to awaken her. But, as if some happy thought had filtered down through the deeps of her repose, she stirred in her sleep. She turned her face up to him with the faint smile of a slumbering child.

“Good night!” she murmured drowsily.

Her eyes half-opened upon him. She gave him her lips.

And as he stooped, with a great tremor, to kiss them, “Good night, dear–Guy!” Her voice was fainter, more indistinct. She sank back again into that deep slumber from which she had barely been roused.

And Burke went from her with the flower-like memory of her kiss upon his lips, and the dryness of ashes in his mouth.

It was several hours later that Sylvia awoke to full consciousness and a piercing realization of a strange presence that watched by her side.

She opened her eyes wide with a curious conviction that there was a cat in the room, and then all in a moment she met the cool, repellent stare of the black-browed doctor whom Burke had brought from Ritzen.

A little quiver of repugnance went through her at the sight, swiftly followed by a sharp thrill of indignation. What was he doing seated there by her side–this swarthy-faced stranger whom she had disliked instinctively at first sight?

And then–suddenly it rushed through her mind that he was the bearer of evil tidings, that he had come to tell her that Guy was dead. She raised herself sharply.

“Oh, what is it? What is it?” she gasped. “Tell me quickly! It’s better for me to know. It’s better for me to know.”

He put out a narrow, claw-like hand and laid it upon her arm. His eyes were like onyxes, Oriental, quite emotionless.

“Do not agitate yourself, madam!” he said. “My patient is better. I think, that with care–he may live. That is, if he finds it worth while.”

“What do you mean?” she said in a whisper.

That there was a veiled meaning to his words she was assured at the outset. His whole bearing conveyed something mysterious, something sinister, to her startled imagination. She wanted to shake off the hand upon her arm, but she had to suffer it though the man’s bare touch revolted her.

He was leaning slightly towards her, but yet his face was utterly inanimate. It was obvious that though he had imposed his personality upon her with a definite end in view, he was personally totally indifferent as to whether he achieved that end or not.

“I mean,” he said, after a quiet pause, “that the desire to live is sometimes the only medicine that is of any avail. I know Guy Ranger. He is a fool in many ways, but not in all. He is not for instance fool enough to hang on to life if it holds nothing worth having. He was born with an immense love of life. He would not have done this thing if he had not somehow lost this gift–for it is a gift. If he does not get it back–somehow–then,” the black, stony eyes looked into hers without emotion–“he will die.”

She shrank at the cold deliberation of his words. “Oh no–no! Not like this! Not–by his own hand!”

“Ah!” He leaned towards her, bringing his sallow, impassive countenance close to hers, repulsively close, to her over-acute sensibilities. “And how is that to be prevented? Who is to give him that priceless remedy–the only medicine that can save him? Can I?” He lifted his shoulders expressively, indicating his own helplessness. And then in a voice dropped to a whisper, “Can you?”

She did not answer him. There was something horrible to her in that low-spoken question, something that yet possessed for her a species of evil fascination that restrained her from open revolt.

He waited for a while, his eyes so immovably fixed upon hers that she had a mild wonder if they were lidless–as the eyes of a serpent.

Then at last, through grim pale lips that did not seem to move, he spoke again. “Madam, it lies with you whether Guy Ranger lives or dies. You can open to him the earthly paradise or you can hurl him back to hell. I have only Drought him a little way. I cannot keep him. Even now, he is slipping–he is slipping from my hold. It is you, and you alone, who can save him. How do I know this thing? How do I know that the sun rises in the east? I–have–seen. It is you who have taken from him the desire to live–perhaps unintentionally; that I do not know. It is you–and you alone–who can restore it. Need I say more than this to open your eyes? Perhaps they are already open. Perhaps already your heart has been in communion with his. If so, then you know that I have told you the truth. If you really desire to save him–and I think you do–then everything else in life must go to that end. Women were made for sacrifice, they say.” A sardonic flicker that was scarcely a smile touched his face. “Well, that is the only way of saving him. If you fail him, he will go under.”

He got up with the words. He had evidently said his say. As his hand left hers, Sylvia drew a deep hard breath, as of one emerging from a suffocating atmosphere. She had never felt so oppressed, so fettered, with evil in the whole of her life. And yet he had not urged her to any line of action. He had merely somewhat baldly, wholly dispassionately, told her the truth, and the very absence of emotion with which he had spoken had driven conviction to her soul. She saw him go with relief, but his words remained like a stone at the bottom of her heart.

CHAPTER XI

THE REMEDY

When Sylvia went to Guy a little later, she found him installed in Burke’s room. Burke himself was out on the farm, but it was past the usual hour for luncheon, and she knew he would be returning soon.

Kieff rose up noiselessly from the bedside at her entrance, and she saw that Guy was asleep. She was conscious of a surging, passionate longing to be alone with him as she crept forward. The silent presence of this stranger had a curious, nauseating effect upon her. She suppressed a shudder as she passed him.

He stood behind her in utter immobility as she bent over the bed. Guy was lying very still, but though he was pale, the deathly look had gone from his face. He looked unutterably tired, but very peaceful.

Lying so, with all the painful lines of his face relaxed, she saw the likeness of his boyhood very clearly on his quiet features, and her heart gave a quick hard throb within her that sent the hot tears to her eyes. The sight of him grew blurred and dim. She just touched his black hair with trembling fingers as she fought back a sob.

And then quite suddenly his eyes were open, looking at her. The pupils were enormously enlarged, giving him an unfamiliar look. But at sight of her, a quick smile flashed across his face–his old glad smile of welcome, and she knew him again. “Hullo–darling!” he said.

She could not speak in answer. She could only lay her hand over his and hold it fast.

He went on, his speech rapid, slightly incoherent. Guy had been like that, she remembered, in moments of any excitement or stress.

“I’ve had a beastly bad dream, sweetheart. Thought I’d lost you–somehow I was messing about in a filthy fog, and there were beastly precipices about. And you–you were calling somewhere–telling me not to forget something. What was it? I’m dashed if I can remember now.”

“It–doesn’t matter,” she managed to say, though her voice was barely audible.

He opened his eyes a little wider. “Are you crying, I say? What’s the matter? What, darling? You’re not crying for me? Eh? I shall get over it. I always come up again. Ask Kelly! Ask Kieff!”

“Yes, you always come up again,” Kieff said, in his brief, mechanical voice.

Guy threw him a look that was a curious blend of respect and disgust. “Hullo, Lucifer!” he said. “What are you doing here? Come to show us the quickest way to hell? He’s an authority on that, Sylvia. He knows all the shortest cuts.”

He broke off with a sudden hard breath, and Sylvia saw again that awful shadow gather in his eyes. She made way for Kieff, though not consciously at his behest, and there followed a dreadful struggling upon which she could not look. Kieff spoke once or twice briefly, authoritatively, and was answered by a sound more anguished than any words. Then at the end of several unspeakable seconds she heard Burke’s footstep outside the door. She turned to him as he entered, with a thankfulness beyond all expression.

“Oh, Burke, he is suffering–so terribly. Do see if you can help!”

He passed her swiftly and went to the other side of the bed. Somehow his presence braced her. She looked again upon Guy in his extremity.

He was propped against Kieff’s shoulder, his face quite livid, his eyes roaming wildly round the room, till suddenly they found and rested upon her own. All her life Sylvia was to remember the appeal those eyes held for her. It was as if his soul were crying aloud to her for freedom.

She came to the foot of the bed. The anguish had entered into her also, and it was more than she could bear.

She turned from Burke to Kieff. “Oh, do anything–anything–to help him!” she implored him. “Don’t let him suffer–like this!”

Kieff’s hand went to his pocket. “There is only one thing,” he said.

Burke, his arm behind Guy’s convulsed body, made an abrupt gesture with his free hand. “Wait! He’ll come through it. He did before.”

And still those tortured eyes besought Sylvia, urged her, entreated her.

She left the foot of the bed, and went to Kieff. Her lips felt stiff and numb, but she forced them to speak.

“If you have anything that will help him, give it to him now! Don’t wait! Don’t wait!”

Kieff the impassive, nodded briefly, and took his hand from his pocket.

“Wait! He is better,” Burke said.

But, “Don’t wait! Don’t wait!” whispered Sylvia. “Don’t let him die–like this!”

Kieff held out to her a small leather case. “Open it!” he said.

She obeyed him though her hands were trembling. She took out the needle and syringe it contained.

Burke said no more. Perhaps he realized that the cause was already lost. And so he looked on in utter silence while Sylvia and Kieff between them administered the only thing that could ease the awful suffering that seemed greater than flesh and blood could bear.

It took effect with marvellous quickness–that remedy of Kieff’s. It was, to Sylvia’s imagination, like the casting forth of a demon. Guy’s burning eyes ceased to implore her. He strained no longer in the cruel grip. His whole frame relaxed, and he even smiled at her as they laid him back against the pillows.

“That’s better,” he said.

“Thank God!” Sylvia whispered.

His eyes were drooping heavily. He tried to keep them open. “Hold my hand!” he murmured to her.

She sat on the edge of the bed, and took it between her own.

His finger pressed hers. “That’s good, darling. Now I’m happy. Wish we–could go on like this–always. Don’t you?”

“No,” she whispered back. “I want you well again.”

“Ah!” His eyes were closing; he opened them again. “You mean that, sweetheart? You really want me?”

“Of course I do,” she said.

Guy was still smiling but there was pathos in his smile. “Ah, that makes a difference,” he said, “–all the difference. That means you’ve quite forgiven me. Quite, Sylvia?”

“Quite,” she answered, and she spoke straight from her heart. She had forgotten Burke, forgotten Kieff, forgotten everyone in that moment save Guy, the dear lover of her youth.

And he too was looking at her with eyes that saw her alone. “Kiss me, little sweetheart!” he said softly. “And then I’ll know–for sure.”

It was boyishly spoken, and she could not refuse. She had no thought of refusing.

As in the old days when they had been young together, her heart responded to the call of his. She leaned down to him instantly and very lovingly, and kissed him.

“Sure you want me?” whispered Guy.

“God knows I do,” she answered him very earnestly.

He smiled at her and closed his eyes. “Good night!” he murmured.

“Good night, dear!” she whispered back.

And then in the silence that followed she knew that he fell asleep.

Someone touched her shoulder, and she looked up. Burke was standing by her side.

“You can leave him now,” he said. “He won’t wake.”

He spoke very quietly, but she thought his face was stern. A faint throb of misgiving went through her. She slipped her hand free and rose.

She saw that Kieff had already gone, and for a moment she hesitated. But Burke took her steadily by the arm, and led her from the room.

“He won’t wake,” he reiterated. “You must have something to eat,”

They entered the sitting-room, and she saw with relief that Kieff was not there either. The table was spread for luncheon, and Burke led her to it.

“Sit down!” he said. “Never mind about Kieff! He can look after himself.”

She sat down in silence. Somehow she felt out of touch with Burke at that moment. Her long vigil beside Guy seemed in some inexplicable fashion to have cut her off from him. Or was it those strange words that Kieff had uttered and which even yet were running in her brain? Whatever it was, it prevented all intimacy between them. They might have been chance-met strangers sitting at the same board. He waited upon her as if he were thinking of other things.

Her own thoughts were with Guy alone. She ate mechanically, half unconsciously watching the door, her ears strained to catch any sound.

“He will probably sleep for hours,” Burke said, breaking the silence.

She looked at him with a start. She had almost forgotten his presence. She met his eyes and felt for a few seconds oddly disconcerted. It was with an effort she spoke in answer.

“I hope he will. That suffering is so terrible.”

“It’s bad enough,” said Burke. “But the morphia habit is worse. That’s damnable.”

She drew a sharp breath. She felt almost as if he had struck her over the heart. “Oh, but surely–” she said–“surely–having it just once–like that—-“

“Do you think he is the sort of man to be satisfied with just once of anything?” said Burke.

The question did not demand an answer, she made none. With an effort she controlled her distress and changed the subject.

“How long will Dr. Kieff stay?”

Burke’s eyes were upon her again. She wished he would not look at her so intently. “He will probably see him through,” he said. “How long that will take it is impossible to say. Not long, I hope.”

“You don’t like him?” she ventured.

“Personally,” said Burke, “I detest him. He is not out here in his professional capacity. In fact I have a notion that he was kicked out of that some years ago. But that doesn’t prevent him being a very clever surgeon. He likes a job of this kind.”

Sylvia caught at the words. “Then he ought to succeed,” she said. “Surely he will succeed!”

“I think you may trust him to do his best,” Burke said.

They spoke but little during the rest of the meal. There seemed to be nothing to say. In some curious fashion Sylvia felt paralyzed. She could not turn her thought in any but the one direction, and she knew subtly but quite unmistakably that in this they were not in sympathy. It was a relief to her when Burke rose from the table. She was longing to get back to Guy. She had an almost overwhelming desire to be alone with him, even though he lay unconscious of her. They had known each other so long ago, before she had come to this land of strangers. Was it altogether unnatural that meeting thus again the old link should have been forged anew? And his need of her was so great–infinitely greater now than it had ever been before.

She lingered a few moments to set the table in order for Kieff; then turned to go to him, and was surprised to find Burke still standing by the door.

She looked at him questioningly, and as if in answer he laid his hand upon her shoulder, detaining her. He did not speak immediately, and she had a curious idea that he was embarrassed.

“What is it, partner?” she said, withdrawing her thoughts from Guy with a conscious effort.

He bent slightly towards her. His hold upon her was not wholly steady. It was as if some hidden force vibrated strongly within him, making itself felt to his very finger-tips. Yet his face was perfectly composed, even grim, as he said, “There is one thing I want to say to you before you go. Sylvia, I haven’t asserted any right over you so far. But don’t forget–don’t let anyone induce you to forget–that the right is mine! I may claim it–some day.”

That aroused her from preoccupation very effectually. The colour flamed in her face. “Burke! I don’t understand you!” she said, speaking quickly and rather breathlessly, for her heart was beating fast and hard. “Have you gone mad?”

“No, I am not mad,” he said, and faintly smiled.

“I am just looking after our joint interests, that’s all.”

She opened her eyes wide. “Still I don’t understand you,” she said. “I thought you promised–I thought we agreed–that you were never to interfere with my liberty.”

“Unless you abused it,” said Burke.

She flinched a little in spite of herself, so uncompromising were both his tone and attitude. But in a moment she drew herself erect, facing him fearlessly.

“I don’t think you know–quite–what you are saying to me,” she said. “You are tired, and you are looking at things–all crooked. Will you please take a rest this afternoon? I am sure you need it. And to-night–” She paused a moment, for, her courage notwithstanding, she had begun to tremble–“to-night,”–she said again, and still paused, feeling his hand tighten upon her, feeling her heart quicken almost intolerably under its weight.

“Yes?” he said, his voice low, intensely quiet, “Please finish! What am I to do to-night?”

She faced him bravely, with all her strength. “I hope,” she said, “you will come and tell me you are sorry.”

He threw up his head with a sharp gesture. She saw his eyes kindle and burn with a flame she dared not meet.

A swift misgiving assailed her. She tried to release herself, but he took her by the other shoulder also, holding her before him.

“And if I do all that,” he said, a deep quiver in his voice that thrilled her through and through, “what shall I get in return? How shall I be rewarded?”

She gripped her self-control with a great effort, summoning that high courage of hers which had never before failed her.

She smiled straight up at him, a splendid, resolute smile. “You shall have–the kiss of peace,” she said.

His expression changed. For a moment his hold became a grip that hurt her–bruised her. She closed her eyes with an involuntary catch of the breath, waiting, expecting she knew not what. Then, very suddenly, the strain was over. He set her free and turned from her.

“Thank you.” he said, in a voice that sounded oddly strangled. “But I don’t find that–especially satisfying–just now.”

His hands were clenched as he left her. She did not dare to follow him or call him back.

PART III

CHAPTER I

THE NEW ERA

Looking back later, it almost seemed to Sylvia that the days that followed were as an interval between two acts in the play of life. It was a time of transition, though what was happening within her she scarcely realized.

One thing only did she fully recognize, and that was that the old frank comradeship between herself and Burke had come to an end. During all the anxiety of those days and the many fluctuations through which Guy passed, Burke came and went as an outsider, scarcely seeming to be interested in what passed, never interfering. He never spoke to Kieff unless circumstances compelled him, and with Sylvia herself he was so reticent as to be almost forbidding. Her mind was too full of Guy, too completely occupied with the great struggle for his life, to allow her thoughts to dwell very much upon any other subject. She saw that Burke’s physical wants were attended to, and that was all that she had time for just then. He was sleeping in the spare hut which she had prepared for Guy with such tender care, and she was quite satisfied as to his comfort there. It came to be something of a relief when every evening he betook himself thither. Though she never actually admitted it to herself, she was always more at ease when he was out of the bungalow.

She and Kieff were fighting inch by inch to save Guy, and she could not endure any distractions while the struggle lasted. For it was a desperate fight, and there was little rest for either of them. Her first sensation of repugnance for this man had turned into a species of unwilling admiration, His adroitness, his resource, the almost uncanny power of his personality, compelled her to a curious allegiance. She gave him implicit obedience, well knowing that, though in all else they were poles asunder, in this thing they were as one. They were allied in the one great effort to defeat the Destroyer. They fought day and night, shoulder to shoulder, never yielding, never despairing, never slacking.

And very gradually at last the tide that had ebbed so low began to turn. Through bitter suffering, often against his will, Guy Ranger was drawn slowly back again to the world he had so nearly left. Kieff never let him suffer for long. He gave him oblivion whenever the weakened endurance threatened to fail. And Sylvia, seeing that the flickering strength was always greater under the influence of Kieff’s remedy, raised no protest. They fought death with the weapon of death. It would be time enough when the battle was won to cast that weapon aside.

During those days of watching and conflict, she held little converse with Guy. He was like a child, content in his waking hours to have her near him, and fretful if she were ever absent. Under Kieff’s guidance, she nursed him with unfailing care, developing a skill with which she had never credited herself. As gradually his strength returned, he would have her do everything for him, resenting even Kieff’s interference though never actively resisting his authority. He seemed to stand in awe of Kieff, Sylvia noticed, a feeling from which she herself was not wholly free. For there was a subtle mastery about him which influenced her in spite of herself. But she had put aside her instinctive dislike of the man because of the debt she owed him. He had brought Guy back, had wrenched him from the very jaws of Death, and she would never forget it. He had saved her from a life-long sorrow.

And so, as slowly Guy returned, she schooled herself to subdue a certain distrust of him which was never wholly absent from her consciousness. She forced herself to treat him as a friend. She silenced the warning voice within her that had bade her so constantly beware. Perhaps her own physical endurance had begun to waver a little after the long strain. Undoubtedly his influence over her was such as it could scarcely have become under any other circumstances. Her long obedience to his will in the matter of Guy had brought her to a state of submission at which once she would have scoffed. And when at last, the worst of the battle over, she was overtaken by an overpowering weariness of mind and body, all things combined to place her at a hopeless disadvantage.

One day, after three weeks of strenuous nursing, she quitted Guy’s room very suddenly to battle with a ghastly feeling of faintness which threatened to overwhelm her. Kieff, who had been present with Guy, followed her almost immediately to her own room, and found her with a deathly face groping against the wall as one stricken blind.

He took her firmly by the shoulders and forced her down over the back of a chair, holding her so with somewhat callous strength of purpose, till with a half-hysterical gasp she begged him to set her free. The colour had returned to her face when she stood up, but those few moments of weakness had bereft her of her self-control. She could not restrain her tears.

Kieff showed no emotion of any sort. With professional calm, he put her down upon the bed, and stood over her, feeling her pulse.

“You want sleep,” he said.

She turned her face away from him, ashamed of the weakness she could not hide. “Yes, I know. But I can’t sleep. I’m always listening. I can’t help it. My brain feels wound up. Sometimes–sometimes it feels as if it hurts me to shut my eyes.”

“There’s a remedy for that,” said Kieff, and his hand went to his pocket.

She looked at him startled. “Oh, not that! Not that! I couldn’t. It would be wrong.”

“Not if I advise it,” said Kieff, with a self-assurance that seemed to knock aside her resistance as of no account.

She knew she ought to have resisted further, but somehow she could not. His very impassivity served to make opposition impossible. It came to her that the inevitable was upon her, and whatever she said would make no difference. Moreover, she was too tired greatly to care.

She uttered a little cry when a few seconds later she felt the needle pierce her flesh, but she submitted without a struggle. After all, what did it matter for once? And she needed rest so much.

With a sigh she surrendered herself, and was amazed at the swift relief that came to her. It was like the rolling away of an immense weight, and immediately she seemed to float upwards, upwards, like a soaring bird.

Kieff remained by her side, but his presence did not trouble her. She was possessed by an ecstasy so marvellous that she had no room for any other emotion; She was as one borne on wings, ascending, ever ascending, through an atmosphere of transcendent gold.

Once he touched her forehead, and bringing his hand slowly downwards compelled her to close her eyes. A brief darkness came upon her, and she uttered a muffled protest. But when he lifted his hand again, her eyes did not open. The physical had fallen from her, material things had ceased to matter. She was free–free as the ether through which she floated. She was mounting upwards, upwards, upwards, through celestial morning to her castle at the top of the world. And the magic–the magic that beat in her veins–was the very elixir of life within her, inspiring her, uplifting her. For a space she hovered thus, still mounting, but imperceptibly, caught as it were between earth and heaven. Then the golden glamour about her turned to a mystic haze. Strange visions, but half comprehended, took shape and dissolved before her. She believed that she was floating among the mountain-crests with the Infinite all about her. The wonder of it and the rapture were beyond all utterance, beyond the grasp of human knowledge; the joy exceeded all that she had ever known. And so by exquisite phases, she entered at last a great vastness–a slumber-space where all things were forgotten, lost in the radiance of an unbroken peace.

She folded the wings of her enchantment with absolute contentment and slept. She had come to a new era in her existence. She had reached the top of the world. . . .

It was long, long after that she awoke, returning to earth with the feeling of one revisiting old haunts after half a lifetime. She was very tired, and her head throbbed painfully, but at the back of her brain was an urgent sense of something needed, something that must be done. She raised herself with immense effort,–and met the eyes of Burke seated by her side.

He was watching her with a grave, unstirring attention that did not waver for an instant as she moved. It struck her that there was a strange remoteness about him, almost as if he belonged to another world. Or was it she–she who had for a space overstepped the boundary and wandered awhile through the Unknown?

He spoke, and in his voice was a depth that awed her.

“Do you know me?” he said.

She gazed at him, bewildered, wondering. “But of course I know you! Why do you ask? Are you–changed in any way?”

He made an odd movement, as if the question in her wide eyes pierced him. He did not answer her in words; only after a moment he took her hand and pushed up the sleeve as though looking for something.

She lay passive for a few seconds, watching him. Then suddenly, blindly, she realized what was the object of his search. She made a quick, instinctive movement to frustrate him.

His hand tightened instantly upon hers; he pointed to a tiny mark upon the inside of her arm. “How did you get that?” he said.

His eyes looked straight into hers. There was something pitiless, something almost brutal, in their regard. In spite of herself she flinched, and lowered her own.

“Answer me!” he said.

She felt the hot colour rush in a guilty flood over her face. “It was only–for once,” she faltered. “I wanted sleep, and I couldn’t get it.”

“Kieff gave it you,” he said, his tone grimly insistent.

She nodded. “Yes. He meant well. He saw I was fagged out.”

Burke was silent for a space, still grasping her hand. Her head was throbbing dizzily, but she would not lower it to the pillow again in his presence. She felt almost like a prisoner awaiting sentence.

“Did he give it you against your will?” he asked at length.

“Not altogether.” Her voice was almost a whisper. Her heart was beating with hard, uneven strokes. She felt sick and faint.

Burke moved suddenly, releasing her hand. He rose with that decision characteristic of him and walked across the room. She heard the splash of water in a basin, and then he came back to her. As if she had been a child, he raised her to lean against him, and proceeded very quietly to bathe her face and head with ice-cold water.

She shrank at the chill of it, but he persisted in his task, and very soon she began to feel refreshed.

“Thank you,” she murmured at last. “I am better now. I will get up.”

“You had better lie still for the present,” he said. “I will send you in some supper later.”

His tone was repressive. She could not look him in the face. But, as he made as if he would rise, something impelled her to lay a detaining hand upon his arm.

“Please wait a minute!” she said,

He waited, and in a moment, with difficulty, she went on.

“Burke, I have done wrong, I know. I am sorry. Please don’t be angry with me! I–can’t bear it.”

There was a catch in her voice that she could not restrain. She had a great longing to hide her face on his shoulder and burst into tears. But something–some inner, urgent warning–held her back.

Burke sat quite still. There was a touch of rigidity in his attitude. “All right,” he said at last. “I am not angry–with you.”

Her fingers closed upon his arm. “Please don’t quarrel with Dr. Kieff about it!” she said nervously. “It won’t happen again.”

She felt him stiffen still further at her words. “It certainly won’t,” he said briefly, “Tell me, have you got any of the infernal stuff by you?”

She glanced up at him, startled by the question. “Of course I haven’t!” she said.

His eyes held a glitter that was almost bestial. She dropped her hand from, his arm as if she had received an electric shock. He got up instantly.

“Very well. I will leave you now. You had better go to bed.”

“I must see Guy first,” she objected.

“I am attending to Guy,” he said.

That opened her eyes. She started up, facing him, a sudden sharp misgiving at her heart. “Burke! You! Where–is Dr. Kieff?”

He uttered a grim, exultant sound that made her quiver. “He is on his way back to Ritzen–or Brennerstadt. He didn’t mention which.”

“Ah!” Her hands were tightly clasped upon her breast. “What–what have you done to him?” she panted.

Burke had risen to his feet. “I have–helped him on his way, that’s all,” he said.

She tried to stand up also, but the moment she touched the ground, she reeled. He caught her, and held her, facing him. His eyes shone with a glow as of molten metal,

“Do you think,” he said, breathing deeply, “that I would suffer that accursed fiend to drag my wife–my wife–down into that infernal slough?”

She was trembling from head to foot; her knees doubled under her, but he held her up. The barely repressed violence of his speech was perceptible in his hold also. She had no strength to meet it.

“But what of Guy?” she whispered voicelessly. “He will die!”

“Guy!” he said, and in the word there was a bitterness indescribable. “Is be to be weighed in the balance against you?”

She was powerless to reason with him, and perhaps it was as well for her that this was so, for he was in no mood to endure opposition. His wrath seemed to beat about her like a storm-blast. But yet he held her up, and after a moment, seeing her weakness, he softened somewhat.

“There! Lie down again!” he said, and lowered her to the bed. “I’ll see to Guy. Only remember,” he stooped over her, and to her strained senses he loomed gigantic, “if you ever touch that stuff again, my faith in you will be gone. And where there is no trust, you can’t expect–honour.”

The words seemed to pierce her, but he straightened himself the moment after and turned to go.

She covered her face with her hands as the door closed upon him. She felt as if she had entered upon a new era, indeed, and she feared with a dread unspeakable to look upon the path which lay before her.

CHAPTER XI

INTO BATTLE

When Sylvia saw Guy again, he greeted her with an odd expression in his dark eyes, half-humorous, half-speculative. He was lying propped on pillows by the open window, a cigarette and a box of matches by his side.

“Hullo, Sylvia!” he said. “You can come in. The big _baas_ has set his house in order and gone out.”

The early morning sunshine was streaming across his bed. She thought he looked wonderfully better, and marvelled at the change.

He smiled at her as she drew near. “Yes, I’ve been washed and fed and generally made respectable. Thank goodness that brute Kieff has gone anyway! I couldn’t have endured him much longer. What was the grand offence? Did he make love to you or what?”

“Make love to me! Of course not!” Sylvia flushed indignantly at the suggestion.

Guy laughed; he seemed in excellent spirits. “He’d better not, what? But the big _baas_ was very angry with him, I can tell you. And I can’t think it was on my account. I’m inoffensive enough, heavens knows.”

He reached up a hand as she stood beside him, and took and held hers.

“You’re a dear girl, Sylvia,” he said. “Just the very sight of you does me good. You’re not sorry Kieff has gone?”

“Sorry! No!” She looked down at him with doubt in her eyes. “Only–we owe him a good deal, remember. He saved your life.”

“Oh, that!” said Guy lightly. “You may set your mind quite at rest on that score, my dear. He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t felt like it. He pleases himself in all he does. But I should like to have witnessed his exit last night. That, I imagine, was more satisfactory from Burke’s point of view than from his. He–Burke–came back with that smile-on-the-face-of-the-tiger expression of his. You’ve seen it, I daresay. It was very much in evidence last night.”

Sylvia repressed a sudden shiver. “Oh, Guy! What do you think happened?”

He gave her hand a sudden squeeze. “Nothing to worry about, I do assure you. He’s a devil of a fellow when he’s roused, isn’t he? But–so far as my knowledge goes–he’s never killed anyone yet. Sit down, old girl, and let’s have a smoke together! I’m allowed just one to-day–as a reward for good behaviour.”

“Are you being good?” said Sylvia.

Guy closed one eye. “Oh, I’m a positive saint to-day. I’ve promised–almost–never to be naughty again. Do you know Burke slept on the floor in here last night? Decent of him, wasn’t it?”

Sylvia glanced swiftly round. “Did he? How uncomfortable for him! He mustn’t do that again,”

“He didn’t notice,” Guy assured her. “He was much too pleased with himself. I rather like him for that, you know. He has a wonderful faculty for–what shall we call it?–mental detachment? Or, is it physical? Anyway, he knows how to enjoy his emotions, whatever they are, and he doesn’t let any little personal discomfort stand in his way.”

He ended with a careless laugh from which all bitterness was absent, and after a little pause Sylvia sat down by his side. His whole attitude amazed her this morning. Some magic had been at work. The fretful misery of the past few weeks had passed like a cloud. This was her own Guy come back to her, clean, sane, with the boyish humour that she had always loved in him, and the old quick light of understanding and sympathy in his eyes.

He watched her with a smile. “Aren’t you going to light up, too? Come, you’d better. It’ll tone you up,”

She looked back at him. “Had you better smoke?” she said. “Won’t it start your cough?”

He lifted an imperious hand. “It won’t kill me if it does. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” she said.

“As if I’d come back from the dead.” He frowned at her abruptly though his eyes still smiled. “Don’t!” he said.

She smiled in answer, and picked up the matchbox. It was of silver and bore his initials.

“Yes,” Guy said, “I’ve taken great care of it, haven’t I? It’s been my mascot all these years.”

She took out a match and struck it without speaking. There was something poignant in her silence. She was standing again in the wintry dark of her father’s park, pressed close to Guy’s heart, and begging him brokenly to use that little parting gift of hers with thoughts of her when more than half the world lay between them. Guy’s cigarette was in his mouth. She stooped forward to light it. Her hand was trembling. In a moment he reached up, patted it lightly, and took the match from her fingers. The action said more than words. It was as if he had gently turned a page in the book of life, and bade her not to look back.

“Now don’t you bother about me!” he said. “I’m being good–as you see. So go and cook the dinner or do anything else that appeals to your housekeeper’s soul! That is, if you feel it’s immoral to smoke a cigarette at this early hour. Needless to say, I shall be charmed if you will join me.”

But he did not mean to talk upon intimate subjects, and his tone conveyed as much. She lingered for a while, and they spoke of the farm, the cattle, Burke’s prospects, everything under the sun save personal matters. Yet there was no barrier in their reserve. They avoided these by tacit consent.

In the end she left him, feeling strangely comforted. Burke had been right. The devil had gone out of Guy, and he had come back.

She pondered the matter as she went about her various tasks, but she found no solution thereof. Something must have happened to cause the change in him; she could not believe that Kieff’s departure had effected it. Her thoughts went involuntarily to Burke–Burke whose wrath had been so terrible the previous night. Was it due to him? Had he accomplished what neither Kieff’s skill nor her devotion had been able to achieve? Yet he had spoken of Guy as one of his failures. He had impressed upon her the fact that Guy’s, case was hopeless. She had even been convinced of it herself until to-day. But to-day all things were changed. Guy had come back.

The thought of her next meeting with Burke tormented her continually, checking all gladness. She dreaded it unspeakably, listening for him with nerves on edge during the busy hours that followed.

She made the Kaffir boy bring the camp-bed out of the guest-hut which Burke had occupied of late and set it up in a corner of Guy’s room. Kieff had slept on a long-chair in the sitting-room, taking his rest at odd times and never for any prolonged spell. She had even wondered sometimes if he ever really slept at all, so alert had he been at the slightest sound. But she knew that Burke hated the long-chair because it creaked at every movement, and she was determined that he should not spend another night on the floor. So, while with trepidation she awaited him, she made such preparations as she could for his comfort.

Joe, the house-boy, was very clumsy in all his ways, and Guy, looking on, seemed to derive considerable amusement from his performance. “I always did like Joe,” he remarked. “There’s something about his mechanism that is irresistibly comic. Oh, do leave him alone, Sylvia! Let him arrange the thing upside down if he wants to!”

Joe’s futility certainly had something of the comic order about it. He had a dramatic fashion of rolling his eyes when expectant of rebuke, which was by no means seldom. And the vastness of his smile was almost bewildering. Sylvia had never been able quite to accustom herself to his smile.

“He’s exactly like a golliwog, isn’t he?” said Guy. “His head will split in two if you encourage him.”

But Sylvia, hot and anxious, found it impossible to view Joe’s exhibition with enjoyment. He was more stupid in the execution of her behests than she had ever found him before, and at length, losing patience, she dismissed him and proceeded to erect the bed herself.

She was in the midst of this when there came the sound of a step in the room, and Guy’s quick,

“Hullo!” told her of the entrance of a third person. She stood up sharply, and met Burke face to face.

She was panting a little from her exertions, and her hand went to her side. For the moment a horrible feeling of discomfiture overwhelmed her. His look was so direct; it seemed to go straight through her.

“What is this for?” he said.

She mastered her embarrassment with a swift effort. “Guy said you slept on the floor last night. I am sure it wasn’t very comfortable, so I have brought this in instead. You don’t mind?” with a glance at him that held something of appeal.

“I mind you putting it up yourself,” he said briefly. “Sit down! Where’s that lazy hound, Joe?”

“Oh, don’t call Joe!” Guy begged. “He has already reduced her to exasperation. She won’t listen to me either when I tell her that I can look after myself at night. You tell her, Burke! She’ll listen to you perhaps.”

But Burke ended the matter without further discussion by putting her on one side and finishing the job himself. Then he stood up.

“Let Mary Ann do the rest! You have been working too hard. Come, and have some lunch! You’ll be all right, Guy?”

“Oh, quite,” Guy assured him. “Mary Ann can take care of me. She’ll enjoy it.”

Sylvia looked back at him over her shoulder as she went out, but she did not linger. There was something imperious about Burke just then.

They entered the sitting-room together. “Look here!” he said. “You’re not to tire yourself out. Guy is convalescent now. Let him look after himself for a bit!”

“I haven’t been doing anything for Guy,” she objected. “Only I can’t have you sleeping on the floor.”

“What’s it matter,” he said gruffly, “where or how I sleep?” And then suddenly he took her by the shoulders and held her before him. “Just look at me a moment!” he said.

It was a definite command. She lifted her eyes, but the instant they met his that overwhelming confusion came upon her again. His gaze was so intent, so searching. All her defences seemed to go down before it.

Her lip suddenly quivered, and she turned her face aside. “Be–kind to me, Burke!” she said, under her breath.

He let her go; but he stood motionless for some seconds after as if debating some point with himself. She went to the window and nervously straightened the curtain. After a considerable pause his voice came to her there.

“I want you to rest this afternoon, and ride over with me to the Merstons after tea. Will you do that?”

She turned sharply. “And leave Guy? Oh, no!”

Across the room she met his look, and she saw that he meant to have his way. “I wish it,” he said.

She came slowly back to him. “Burke,–please! I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be right. We can’t leave Guy to the Kaffirs.”

“Guy can look after himself,” he reiterated. “You have done enough–too much–in that line already. He doesn’t need you with him all daylong.”

She shook her head. “I think he needs–someone. It wouldn’t be right–I know it wouldn’t be right to leave him quite alone. Besides, the Merstons won’t want me. Why should I go?”

“Because I wish it,” he said again. And, after a moment, as she stood silent, “Doesn’t that count with you?”

She looked up at him quickly, caught by something in his tone, “Of course your wishes count with me!” she said. “You know they do. But all the same–” She paused, searching for words.

“Guy comes first,” he suggested, in the casual voice of one stating an acknowledged fact.

She felt the hot colour rise to her temples. “Oh, it isn’t fair of you to say that!” she said.

“Isn’t it true?” said Burke.

She collected herself to answer him. “It is only because his need has been so great. If we had not put him first–before everything else–we should never have saved him.”

“And now that he is saved,” Burke said, a faint ring of irony in his voice, “isn’t it almost time to begin to consider–other needs? Do you know you are looking very ill?”

He asked the question abruptly, so abruptly that she started. Her nerves were on edge that day.

“Am I? No, I didn’t know. It isn’t serious anyway. Please don’t bother about that!”

He smiled faintly. “I’ve got to bother. If you don’t improve very quickly, I shall take you to Brennerstadt to see a decent doctor there.”

“Oh, don’t be absurd!” she said, with quick annoyance. “I’m not going to do anything so silly.”

He put his hand on her arm. “Sylvia, I’ve got something to say to you,” he said.

She made a slight movement as if his touch were unwelcome. “Well? What is it?” she said.

“Only this.” He spoke very steadily, but while he spoke his hand closed upon her. You’ve gone your own way so far, and it hasn’t been specially good for you. That’s why I’m going to pull you up now, and make you go mine.”

“Make me!” Her eyes flashed sudden fire upon him. She was overwrought and weary, and he had taken her by surprise, or she would have dealt with the situation–and with him–far otherwise. “Make me!” she repeated, and in second, almost before she knew it, she was up in arms, facing him with open rebellion. “I’ll defy you to do that!” she said.

The moment she had said it, the word still scarcely uttered, she repented. She had not meant to defy him. The whole thing had come about so swiftly, so unexpectedly, hardly, she felt, of her own volition. And now, more than half against her will, she stood committed to carry through an undertaking for which even at the outset, she had no heart. For there was no turning back. The challenge, once uttered, could not be withdrawn. She was no coward. The idea came to her that if she blenched then she would for all time forfeit his respect as well as her own.

So she stood her ground, slim and upright, braced to defiance, though at the back of all her bravery there lurked a sickening fear.

Burke did not speak at once. His look scarcely altered, his hold upon her remained perfectly steady and temperate. Yet in the pause the beating of her heart rose between them–a hard, insistent throbbing like the fleeing feet of a hunted thing.

“You really mean that?” he asked at length.

“Yes.” Straight and unhesitating came her answer. It was now or never, she told herself. But she was trembling, despite her utmost effort.

He bent a little, looking into her eyes. “You really wish me to show you who is master?” he said.

She met his look, but her heart was beating wildly, spasmodically. There was that about him, a ruthlessness, a deadly intention, that appalled her. The ground seemed to be rocking under her feet, and a dreadful consciousness of sheer, physical weakness rushed upon her. She went back against the table, seeking for support.

But through it all, desperately she made her gallant struggle for freedom. “You will never master me against my will,” she said. “I–I–I’ll die first!”

And then, as the last shred of her strength went from her she covered her face with her hands, shutting him out.

“Ah!” he said. “But who goes into battle without first counting the cost?”

He spoke sombrely, without anger; yet in the very utterance of the words there was that which made her realize that she was beaten. Whether he chose to avail himself of the advantage or not, the victory was his.

At the end of a long silence, she lifted her head. “I give you best, partner,” she said, and held out her hand to him with a difficult smile. “I’d no right–to kick over the traces–like that. I’m going to be good now–really.”

It was a frank acceptance of defeat; so frank as to be utterly disarming. He took the proffered hand and held it closely, without speaking.

She was still trembling a little, but she had regained her self-command. “I’m sorry I was such a little beast,” she said. “But you’ve got me beat. I’ll try and make good somehow.”

He found his voice at that. It came with an odd harshness. “Don’t!” he said. “Don’t!–You’re not–beat. The battle isn’t always to the strong.”

She laughed faintly with more assurance, though still somewhat shakily. “Not when the strong are too generous to take advantage, perhaps. Thank you for that, partner. Now–do you mind if I take Guy his nourishment?”

She put the matter behind her with that inimitable lightness of hers which of late she had seemed to have lost. She went from him to wait upon Guy with the tremulous laugh upon her lips, and when she returned she had fully recovered her self-control, and talked with him upon many matters connected with the farm which he had not heard her mention during all the period of her nursing. She displayed all her old zest. She spoke as one keenly interested. But behind it all was a feverish unrest, a nameless, intangible quality that had never characterized her in former days. She was elusive. Her old delicate confidence in him was absent. She walked warily where once she had trodden without the faintest hesitation.

When the meal was over, she checked him as he was on the point of going to Guy. “How soon ought we to start for the Merstons?” she asked.

He paused a moment. Then, “I will let you off to-day,” he said. “We will ride out to the _kopje_ instead.”

He thought she would hail this concession with relief, but she shook her head instantly, her face deeply flushed.

“No, I think not! We will go to the Merstons–if Guy is well enough. We really ought to go.”

She baffled him completely. He turned away. “As you will,” he said. “We ought to start in two hours.”

“I shall be ready,” said Sylvia.

CHAPTER III

THE SEED

“Well!” said Mrs. Merston, with her thin smile. “Are you still