The Top of the World by Ethel M. Dell (page 6)

now!” There was actually a sound of tears in Kelly’s voice. “I’d give me right hand,” he vowed tremulously, “I’d give me soul–such as it is–to be out of this job.”

“You want a drink,” said Kieff.

Kelly sniffed and began a clumsy search for refreshment.

Kieff came forward kindly and helped him. It was he who measured the drinks finally when they were produced, and even Kelly, who could stand a good deal, opened his eyes somewhat at the draught he prepared for himself.

“Dry weather!” remarked Kieff, as he tossed it down. “You’re not going back to Merston’s to-night, are you?”

“Must,” said Kelly laconically.

“Why not wait till the morning?” suggested Kieff. “I shall be passing that way myself then. We could go together.”

There was a gleam in his black eyes that made Kelly look at him hard. “And what would you want to be there for?” he demanded aggressively. “Isn’t one bearer of evil tidings enough?”

Kieff smiled. “I wonder if the lady left any message behind,” he suggested. “Possibly she has written a note to explain her own absence. How long did the good Burke propose to be away?”

“Two or three nights in the first place. But he is coming back to-morrow.” A sudden idea flashed upon Kelly. “Ah, p’raps she’s hoping to be back before he is! Maybe there’s more to this than we understand! I’ll not go over. I’ll wait and see. She may be back in the morning, she and young Guy too. They’re old friends. P’raps there’s nothing in it but just a jaunt.”

Kieff’s laugh had a sound like the slipping of a stone in a slimy cave. “You always had ideas,” he remarked. “But they will scarcely be back from Brennerstadt by the morning. Can’t you devise some means of persuading Burke to extend his visit to the period originally intended? Then perhaps they might return in time.”

Kelly looked at him sternly. That laugh was abominable in his ears. “Faith, I’ll go now,” he said. “And I’ll go alone. You’ve done your part, and I’ll not trouble you at all to help me do mine.”

Kieff turned to go. “I always admired your sense of duty, Donovan,” he said. “Let us hope it will bring you out on the right side,–and your friends the Rangers with you!”

He was gone with the words, silent as a shadow on the wall, and Kelly was left wondering why he had not seized the bearer of evil tidings and kicked the horrible laughter out of him.

“Faith, I’ll do it when I get to Brennerstadt,” he said to himself vindictively. “But it’s friends first, eh, Burke, my lad?–Ah, Burke, my boy, friends first!”

CHAPTER XI

THE SHARP CORNER

Was it only a few months since last she had looked out over the barren _veldt_ from the railway at Ritzen? It seemed to Sylvia like half a lifetime.

In the dark of the early morning she sat in the southward-bound train on her way to Brennerstadt, and tried to recall her first impressions. There he had stood under the lamp waiting for her–the man whom she had taken for Guy. She saw herself springing to meet him with eager welcome on her lips and swift-growing misgiving at her heart. How good he had been to her! That thought came up above the rest, crowding out the memory of her first terrible dismay. He had surrounded her with a care as chivalrous as any of the friends of her former life could have displayed. He had sheltered her from the dreadful loneliness, and from the world upon the mercy of which she had been so completely thrown. He had not seemed to bestow, but she realized now how at every turn his goodness had provided, his strength had shielded. He had not suffered her to feel the obligation under which she was placed. He had treated her merely as a comrade in distress. He had given her freely the very best that a man could offer, and he had done it in a fashion that had made acceptance easy, almost inevitable.

Her thoughts travelled onwards till they came to her marriage. Again the memory of the man’s unfailing chivalry came before all else. Again, how good he had been to her! And she had taken full advantage of his goodness. For the first time she wondered if she had been justified in so doing. She asked herself if she had behaved contemptibly. She had not been ready to make a full surrender, and he had not asked for it. But it seemed to her now that she had returned his gifts with a niggardliness which must have made her appear very small-minded. He had been great. He had subordinated his wishes to her. He had been patient; ah yes, perhaps too patient! Probably her utter dependence upon him had made him so.

Slowly her thoughts passed on to the coming of Guy. She realized that the rapid events that had succeeded his coming had rendered her impressions of Burke a little blurred. Through all those first stages of Guy’s illness, she could scarcely recall him at all. Her mind was full of the image of Kieff, subtle, cruel, almost ghoulish, a man of deep cunning and incomprehensible motives. It had suited his whim to save Guy. She had often wondered why. She was certain that no impulse of affection had moved him or was capable of moving him. No pity, no sympathy, had ever complicated this man’s aims or crippled his achievements. He had a clear, substantial reason for everything that he did. It had pleased him to bring Guy back to life, and so he had not scrupled as to the means he had employed to do so. He had practically forced her into a position which circumstances had combined to make her retain. He had probably, she reflected now, urged Guy upon every opportunity to play the traitor to his best friend. He had established over him an influence which she felt that it would take her utmost effort to overthrow. He had even forced him into the quagmire of crime. For that Guy had done this thing, or would ever have dreamed of doing it, on his own initiative she did not believe. And it was that certainty which had sent her from his empty hut on the sand in pursuit of him, daring all to win him back ere he had sunk too deep for deliverance. She had ridden to Ritzen by way of the Vreiboom’s farm, half-expecting to find Guy there. But she had seen only Kieff and Piet Vreiboom. Her face burned still at the memory of the former’s satirical assurance that Guy was but a few miles ahead of her and she would easily overtake him. He had translated this speech to Piet Vreiboom who had laughed, laughed with a sickening significance, at the joke. In her disgust she had ridden swiftly on without stopping to ascertain if Guy had gone to Ritzen or had decided to ride the whole forty miles to Brennerstadt.

The lateness of the hour, however, had decided her to make for the former place since she knew she could get a train there on the following morning and she could not face the long journey at night alone on the _veldt_. It had been late when she reached Ritzen, but she had thankfully found accommodation for the night at the by no means luxurious hotel in which she had slept on the night of her arrival so long ago.

Now in the early morning she was ready to start again, having regretfully left her horse, Diamond, in the hotel-stable to await her return.

If all went well, she counted upon being back, perhaps with Guy accompanying her, in the early afternoon. And then she would probably be at Blue Hill Farm again before Burke’s return. She hoped with all her heart to accomplish this. For though it would be impossible to hide the fact of her journey from him, she did not want him to suspect the actual reason that had made it so urgent. Let him think that anxiety for Guy–their mutual charge–had sent her after him! But never, for Guy’s sake, let him imagine the actual shameful facts of the case! She counted upon Burke’s ignorance as the strongest weapon for Guy’s persuasion. Let him but realize that a way of escape yet remained to him, and she believed that he would take it. For surely–ah, surely, if she knew him–he had begun already to repent in burning shame and self-loathing.

He must have ridden all the way to Brennerstadt, for he was not at Ritzen. Ritzen was not a place to hide in. Would she find him at Brennerstadt? There were only two hotels there, and Kieff had said he would stop at one of them. She did not trust Kieff for a moment, but some inner conviction told her that it was his intention that she should find Guy. He did not expect her influence to overcome his. That she fully realized. He was not afraid of being superseded. Perhaps he wanted to demonstrate to her her utter weakness. Perhaps he had deeper schemes. She did not stop to imagine what they were. She shrank from the thought of them as purity shrinks instinctively from the contemplation of evil. She believed that, if once she could meet Guy face to face, she could defeat him. She counted upon that understanding which had been between them from the beginning and which had drawn them to each other in spite of all opposition. She counted upon that part of Guy which Kieff had never known, those hidden qualities which vice had overgrown like a fungus but which she knew were still existent under the surface evil. Guy had been generous and frank in the old days, a lover of fair play, an impetuous follower of anything that appealed to him as great. She was sure that these characteristics had been an essential part of his nature. He had failed through instability, through self-indulgence and weakness of purpose. But he was not fundamentally wicked. She was sure that she could appeal to those good impulses within him, and that she would not appeal in vain. She was sure that the power of good would still be paramount over him if she held out to him the helping hand which he so sorely needed. She had the strength within her–strength that was more than human–and she was certain of the victory, if only she could find him quickly, quickly!

As she sat there waiting feverishly to start, her whole being was in a passion of supplication that she might be in time. Even in her sleep she had prayed that one prayer with a fierce urging that had rendered actual repose an impossibility. She had never in her life prayed with so intense a force. It was as if she were staking the whole of her faith upon that one importunate plea, and though no answer came to her striving spirit, she told herself that it could not be in vain. In all her maddening anxiety and impatience she never for a moment dwelt upon the chance of failure. God could not suffer her to fail when she had fought so hard. Her very brain seemed on fire with the urgency of her mission, and again for a space the thought of Burke was crowded out. He occupied the back of her mind, but she would not voluntarily turn towards him. That would come later when her mission was fulfilled, when she could look him in the face again with no sense of a charge neglected, or trust betrayed. She must stand straight with Burke, but she must save Guy first, whatever the effort, whatever the cost. She felt she had forfeited the right to think of her own happiness till her negligence–and the terrible consequences thereof–had been remedied. Perhaps it was in a measure self-blame that inspired her frantic prayer, the feeling that the responsibility was hers, and therefore that she was a sharer of the guilt. That was another plea, less worthy perhaps; but one to which Guy could not refuse to listen. It could not be his intention to wreck her happiness. He could not know all that hung upon it. Her happiness! She shivered suddenly in the chill of the morning air. Could it be that happiness–the greatest of all–had been actually within her grasp, and she had let it slip unheeded? Sharply she turned her thoughts back. No, she must not–must not think of Burke just then.

The chance would come again. The chance must come again. But she must not suffer herself to contemplate it now. She had forfeited the right.

Time passed. She thought the train would never start. The long waiting had become almost a nightmare. She felt she would not be able to endure it much longer. The night had seemed endless too, a perpetual dozing and waking that had seemed to multiply the hours. Now and then she realized that she was very tired; but for the most part the fever of impatience that possessed her kept the consciousness of fatigue at bay. If only she could keep moving she felt that she could face anything.

The day broke over the _veldt_ and the scattered open town, with a burning splendour like the kindling of a great fire. She watched the dawn-light spread till the northern hills shone with a celestial radiance. She leaned from the train to watch it; and as she watched, the whole world turned golden.

Burke’s words flashed back upon her with a force irresistible. “Let us go to the top of the world by ourselves!” Her eyes filled with sudden tears, and as she sank down again in her seat the train began to move. It bore her relentlessly southwards, and the land of the early morning was left behind.

She reflected later that that journey must have been doomed to disaster from the very outset. It was begun an hour late, and all things seemed to conspire to hinder them. After many halts, the breaking of an engine-piston rendered them helpless, and the heat of the day found them in a desolate place among _kopjes_ that seemed to crowd them in, cutting off every current of air, while the sun blazed mercilessly overhead and the sand-flies ceaselessly buzzed and tormented. It was the longest day that Sylvia had ever known, and she thought that the smell of Kaffirs would haunt her all her life. Of the few white men on the train she knew not one, and the desolation of despair entered into her.

By the afternoon, when she had hoped to be on her way back, tardy help arrived, and they crawled into Brennerstadt station, parched and dusty and half-starved, some three hours later.

Hope revived in her as at length she left the train. Anything was better than the awful inactivity of that well-nigh interminable journey. There was yet a chance–a slender one–that by an early start or possibly travelling by a night train she and Guy might yet be back at Blue Hill Farm by the following evening in time to meet Burke on his return.

Yes, the chance was there, and still she could not think that all this desperate effort of hers could be doomed to failure. If she could only find Guy quickly–oh, quickly! She almost ran out of the station in her haste.

She turned her steps instinctively towards the hotel in which she had stayed for her marriage, It was not far from the station, and it was the first place that occurred to her. The town was full of people, men for the most part, men it seemed to her, of all nationalities and colours. She heard Dutch and broken English all around her.

She went through the crowds, shrinking a little now and then from any especially coarse type, nervously intent upon avoiding contact with any. She found the hotel without difficulty, but when she found it she checked her progress for the first time. For she was afraid to enter.

The evening was drawing on. She felt the welcome chill of it on her burning face, and it kept her from yielding to the faintness that oppressed her. But still she could not enter, till a great, square-built Boer lounging near the doorway came up to her and looked into her eyes with an evil leer.

Then she summoned her strength, drew herself up, and passed him with open disgust.

She had to push her way through a crowd of men idling in the entrance, and one or two accosted her, but she went by them in stony unresponsiveness.

At the little office at the end she found a girl, sandy-haired and sandy-eyed, who looked up for a moment from a great book in front of her, and before she could speak, said briskly, “There’s no more accommodation here. The place is full to overflowing. Better try at the Good Hope over the way.”

She had returned to her occupation before the words were well uttered, but Sylvia stood motionless, a little giddy, leaning against the woodwork for support.

“I only want to know,” she said, after a moment, speaking with an effort in a voice that sounded oddly muffled even to herself, “if Mr. Ranger is here.”

“Who?” The girl looked up sharply. “Hullo!” she said. “What’s the matter?”

“If Mr. Ranger–Mr. Ranger–is here,” Sylvia repeated through a curious mist that had gathered unaccountably around her.

The girl got up and came to her. “Yes, he’s here, I believe, or will be presently. He’s engaged a room anyhow. I didn’t see him myself. Look here, you’d better come and sit down a minute. I seem to remember you. You’re Mrs. Ranger, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Sylvia.

She was past explanation just then, and that simple affirmative seemed her only course. She leaned thankfully upon the supporting arm, fighting blindly to retain her senses.

“Come and sit down!” the girl repeated. “I expect he’ll be in before long. They’re all mad about this diamond draw. The whole town is buzzing with it. The races aren’t in it. Sit down and I’ll get you something.”

She drew Sylvia into a small inner sanctum and there left her, sitting exhausted in a wooden armchair. She returned presently with a tray which she set in front of her, observing practically, “That’s what you’re wanting. Have a good feed, and when you’ve done you’d better go up and lie down till he comes.”

She went back to her office then, closing the door between, and Sylvia was left to recover as best she might. She forced herself after a time to eat and drink, reflecting that physical weakness would utterly unfit her for the task before her. She hoped with all her heart that Guy would come soon–soon. There was a night train back to Ritzen. She had ascertained that at the station. They might catch that. The diamond draw was still two days away. She prayed that he had not yet staked anything upon it, that when he came the money might be still in his possession.

She finished her meal and felt considerably revived. For a while she sat listening to the hubbub of strange voices without, then the fear that her presence might be forgotten by the busy occupant of the office moved her to rise and open the intervening door.

The girl was still there. She glanced round with the same alert expression. “That you, Mrs. Ranger? He hasn’t come in yet. But you go up and wait for him! It’s quieter upstairs. I’ll tell him you’re here as soon as he comes in.”

She did not want to comply, but certainly the little room adjoining the office was no place for private talk, and she dreaded the idea of meeting Guy before the curious eyes of strangers. He would be startled; he would be ashamed! None but herself must see him in that moment.

So, without protest, she allowed herself to be conducted upstairs to the room he had engaged, her friend in the office promising faithfully not to forget to send him up to her at once.

The room was at the top of the house, a bare apartment but not uncomfortable. It possessed a large window that looked across the wide street.

She sat down beside it and listened to the tramping crowds below.

Her faintness had passed, but she was very tired, overwhelmingly so. Very soon her senses became dulled to the turmoil. She suffered herself to relax, certain that the first sound of a step outside would recall her. And so, as night spread over the town, she sank into sleep, lying back in the cane-chair like a worn-out child, her burnished hair vivid against the darkness beyond.

She did not wake at the sound of a step outside, or even at the opening of the door. It was no sound that aroused her hours later, but a sudden intense consciousness of expediency, as if she had come to a sharp comer that it needed all her wits to turn in safety. She started up with a gasp. “Guy!” she said. And then, as her dazzled eyes saw more clearly, a low, involuntary exclamation of dismay. “Ah!”

It was Burke who stood with his back against the closed door, looking at her, and his face had upon it in those first waking moments of bewilderment a look that appalled her. For it was to her as the face of a murderer.

CHAPTER XII

THE COST

He did not speak in answer to her exclamation, merely stood there looking at her, almost as if he had never seen her before. His eyes were keen with a sort of icy fierceness. She thought she had never before realized the cruelty of his mouth.

It was she who spoke first. The silence seemed so impossible. “Burke!” she said. “What–is the matter?”

He came forward to her with an abruptness that was like the breaking of bonds. He stopped in front of her, looking closely into her face. “What are you doing here?” he said.

In spite of herself she shrank, so terrible was his look. But she was swift to master her weakness. She stood up to her full height, facing him. “I have come to find Guy,” she said.

He threw a glance around; it was like the sweep of a rapier. “You are waiting for him–here?”

Again for a moment she was disconcerted. She felt the quick blood rise to her forehead. “They told me he would come here,” she said.

He passed on, almost as if she had not spoken, but his eyes were mercilessly upon her, marking her confusion. “What do you want with him?”

His words were like the snap of a steel rope. They made her flinch by their very ruthlessness. She had sprung from sleep with bewildered senses. She was not-prepared to do battle in her own defence.

She hesitated, and immediately his hand closed upon her shoulder. It seemed to her that she had never known what anger could be like before this moment. All the force of the man seemed to be gathered together in one tremendous wave, menacing her.

“Tell me what you want with him!” he said.

She shuddered from head to foot as if she had been struck with a scourge. “Burke! What do you mean?” she cried out desperately. “You–you must be mad!”

“Answer me!” he said.

His hold was a grip. The ice in his eyes had turned to flame. Her heart leapt and quivered within her like a wild thing fighting to escape.

“I–don’t know what you mean,” she panted. “I have done nothing wrong. I came after him to–to try and bring him back.”

“Then why did you come secretly?” he said,

She shrank from the intolerable inquisition of his eyes. “I wanted to see him–alone,” she said.

“Why?” Again it was like the merciless cut of a scourge. She caught her breath with a sharp sound that was almost a cry.

“Why?” he reiterated. “Answer me! Answer me!”

She did not answer him. She could not. And in the silence that followed, it seemed to her that something within her–something that had been Vitally wounded–struggled and died.

“Look at me!” he said.

She lifted an ashen face. His eyes held hers, and the torture of his hell encompassed her also.

“Tell me the truth!” he said. “I shall know if you lie. When did you see him last?”

She shook her head. “A long while ago. Ages ago. Before you left the farm.”

The memory of his going, his touch, his smile went through her with the words. She had a sickening sensation as of having been struck over the heart.

“Where did you spend last night?” he said.

“At Ritzen.” Her white lips seemed to speak mechanically. She herself stood apart as it were, stunned beyond feeling.

“You came here by rail—alone?”

The voice of the inquisitor pierced her numbed sensibilities, compelling–almost dictating–her answer.

“Yes–alone.”

“You had arranged to meet here then?”

Still the scourging continued, and she marvelled at herself, that she felt so little. But feeling was coming back. She was waiting for it, dreading it.

She answered without conscious effort. “No–I came after him. He doesn’t know I am here.”

“And yet you are posing as his wife?”

She felt that. It cut through her apathy irresistibly. A sharp tremor went through her. “That,” she said rather breathlessly, “was a mistake.”

“It was.” said Burke. “The greatest mistake of your life. It is a pity you took the trouble to lie to me. The truth would have served you better.” He turned from her contemptuously with the words, setting her free.

For a moment the relief of his going was such that the intention that lay behind it did not so much as occur to her. Then suddenly it flashed upon her. He was going in search of Guy.

In an instant her passivity was gone. The necessity for action drove her forward. With a cry she sprang to the door before him, and set herself against it. She could not let him go with that look of the murderer in his eyes.

“Burke!” she gasped. “Burke! What–are you going to do?”

His lips parted a little, and she saw his teeth. “You shall hear what I have done–afterwards,” he said. “Let me pass!”

But she barred his way. Her numbed senses were all awake now and quivering. The very fact of physical effort seemed to have restored to her the power to suffer. She stood before him, her bosom heaving with great sobs that brought no tears or relief of any sort to the anguish that tore her.

“You–you can’t pass,” she said. “Not–not–like this! Burke, listen! I swear to you–I swear—-“

“You needn’t,” he broke in. “A woman’s oath, when it is her last resource, is quite valueless. I will deal with you afterwards. Let me pass!”

The command was curt as a blow. But still she withstood him, striving to still her agitation, striving with all her desperate courage to face him and endure.

“I will not!” she said, and with the words she stood up to her full, slim height, thwarting him, making her last stand.

His expression changed as he realized her defiance. She was panting still, but there was no sign of yielding in her attitude. She was girt for resistance to the utmost.

There fell an awful pause–a silence which only her rapid breathing disturbed. Her eyes were fixed on his. She must have seen the change, but she dared it unflinching. There was no turning back for her now.

The man spoke at last, and his voice was absolutely quiet, dead level. “You had better let me go,” he said.

She made a sharp movement, for there was that in the steel-cold voice that sent terror to her heart. Was this Burke–the man upon whose goodness she had leaned ever since she had come to this land of strangers? Surely she had never met him before that moment!

“Open that door!” he said.

A great tremor went through her. She turned, the instinct to obey urging her. But in the same instant the thought of Guy–Guy in mortal danger–flashed across her. She paused for a second, making a supreme effort, while every impulse fought in mad tumult within her, crying to her to yield. Then, with a lightning twist of the hand she turned the key and pulled it from the lock. For an instant she held it in her hand, then with a half-strangled sound she thrust it deep into her bosom.

Her eyes shone like flames in her white face as she turned back to him. “Perhaps you will believe me–now!” she said.

He took a single step forward and caught, her by the wrists. “Woman!” he said. “Do you know what you are doing?”

The passion that blazed in his look appalled her. Yet some strange force within her awoke as it were in answer to her need. She flung fear aside. She had done the only thing possible, and she would not look back.

“You must believe me–now!” she panted. “You do believe me!”

His hold became a grip, merciless, fierce, tightening upon her like a dosing trap. “Why should I believe you?” he said, and there was that in his voice that was harder to bear than his look. “Have I any special reason for believing you? Have you ever given me one?”

“You know me,” she said, with a sinking heart.

He uttered a scoffing sound too bitter to be called a laugh. “Do I know you? Have I ever been as near to you as this devil who has made himself notorious with Kaffir women for as long as he has been out here?”

She flinched momentarily from the stark cruelty of his words. But she faced him still, faced him though every instinct of her womanhood shrank with a dread unspeakable.

“You know me,” she said again. “You may not know me very well, but you know me well enough for that.”

It was bravely spoken, but as she ceased to speak she felt her strength begin to fail her. Her throat worked spasmodically, convulsively, and a terrible tremor went through her. She saw him as through a haze that blotted out all beside.

There fell a silence between them–a dreadful, interminable silence that seemed to stretch into eternities. And through it very strangely she heard the wild beating of her own heart, like the hoofs of a galloping horse, that seemed to die away. . . .

She did not know whether she fell, or whether he lifted her, but when the blinding mist cleared away again, she was lying in the wicker-chair by the window, and he was walking up and down the room with the ceaseless motion of a prowling animal. She sat up slowly and looked at him. She was shivering all over, as if stricken with cold.

At her movement he came and stood before her, but he did not speak. He seemed to be watching her. Or was he waiting for something?

She could not tell; neither, as he stood there, could she look up at him to see. Only, after a moment, she leaned forward. She found and held his hand.

“Burke!” she said.

His fingers closed as if they would crush her own. He did not utter a word.

She waited for a space, gathering her strength. Then, speaking almost under her breath, she went on. “I have–something to say to you. Please will you listen–till I have finished?”

“Go on!” he said.

Her head was bent. She went on tremulously. “You are quite right–when you say–that you don’t know me–that I have given you no reason–no good reason–to believe in me. I have taken–a great deal from you. And I have given–nothing in return. I see that now. That is why you distrust me. I–have only myself to thank.”

She paused a moment, but he waited in absolute silence, neither helping nor hindering.

With a painful effort she continued. “People make mistaken–sometimes–without knowing it. It comes to them afterwards–perhaps too late. But–it isn’t too late with me, Burke. I am your partner–your wife. And–I never meant to–defraud you. All I have–is yours. I–am yours.”

She stopped. Her head was bowed against his hand. That dreadful sobbing threatened to overwhelm her again, but she fought it down. She waited quivering for his answer.

But for many seconds Burke neither moved nor spoke. The grasp of his hand was vicelike in its rigidity. She had no key whatever to what was passing in his mind.

Not till she had mastered herself and was sitting in absolute stillness, did he stir. Then, very quietly, with a decision that brooked no resistance, he took her by the chin with his free hand and turned her face up to his own. He looked deep into her eyes. His own were no longer ablaze, but a fitful light came and went in them like the flare of a torch in the desert wind.

“So,” he said, and his voice was curiously unsteady also; it vibrated as if he were not wholly sure of himself, “you have made your choice–and counted the cost?”

“Yes,” she said.

He looked with greater intentness into her eyes, searching without mercy, as if he would force his way to her very soul. “And for whose sake this–sacrifice?” he said.

She shrank a little; for there was something intolerable in his words. Had she really counted the cost? Her eyelids fluttered under that unsparing look, fluttered and sank. “You will know–some day,” she whispered.

“Ah! Some day!” he said.

Again his voice vibrated. It was as if some door that led to his innermost being had opened suddenly, releasing a savage, primitive force which till then he had held restrained.

And in that moment it came to her that the thing she valued most in life had been rudely torn from her. She saw that new, most precious gift of hers that had sprung to life in the wilderness and which she had striven so desperately to shield from harm–that holy thing which had become dearer to her than life itself–desecrated, broken, and lying in the dust. And it was Burke who had flung it there, Burke who now ruthlessly trampled it underfoot.

Her throat worked again painfully for a moment or two; and then with a great effort of the will she stilled it. This thing was beyond tears–a cataclysm wrecking the whole structure of existence. Neither tears nor laughter could ever be hers again. In silence she took the cup of bitterness, and drank it to the dregs.

PART IV

CHAPTER I

SAND OF THE DESERT

Donovan Kelly was out of temper. There was no denying it, though with him such a frame of mind was phenomenal. He leaned moodily against the door-post at the hotel-entrance, smoking a short pipe of very strong tobacco, and speaking to no one. He had been there for some time, and the girl in the office was watching him with eyes round with curiosity. For he had not even said “Good morning” to her. She wanted to accost him, but somehow the hunch of his shoulders was too discouraging even for her. So she contented herself with waiting developments.

There were plenty of men coming and going, but though several of them gave him greeting as they passed, Kelly responded to none. He seemed to be wrapped in a gloomy fog of meditation that cut him off completely from the outside world. He was alone with himself, and in that state he obviously intended to remain.

But the girl in the office had her own shrewd suspicions as to the reason of his waiting there, suspicions which after the lapse of nearly half an hour she triumphantly saw verified. For presently through the shifting, ever-changing crowd a square-shouldered man made his appearance, and without a glance to right or left went straight to the big Irishman lounging in the doorway, and took him by the shoulder.

Kelly started round with an instant smile of welcome. “Ah, and is it yourself at last? I’ve been waiting a devil of a time for ye, my son. Is all well?”

The girl in the office did not hear Burke’s reply though she craned far forward to do so. She only saw his shoulders go up slightly, and the next moment the two men turned and entered the public dining-room together.

Kelly’s ill-temper had gone like an early morning fog. He led the way to a table reserved in a corner, and they sat down.

“I was half afraid ye wouldn’t have anything but a kick for Donovan this morning,” he said, with a somewhat rueful smile.

Burke’s own brief smile showed for a moment. “I shouldn’t start on you anyway,” he said. “You found young Guy?”

Kelly made an expressive gesture. “Oh yes, I found him, him and his master too. At Hoffstein’s of course. Kieff was holding one of his opium shows, the damn’ dirty skunk. I couldn’t get the boy away, but I satisfied myself that he was innocent of this. He never engaged a room here or had any intention of coming here. What Kieff’s intentions were I didn’t enquire. But he had got the devil’s own grip on Guy last night, He could have made him do–anything.” Kelly ended with a few strong expressions which left no doubt as to the opinion he entertained of Kieff and all his works.

Burke ate his breakfast in an absorbed silence. Finally he looked up to enquire, “Have you any idea what has become of Guy this morning?”

Kelly shook his head. “Not the shadow of a notion. I shall look for him presently on the racecourse. He seems to have found some money to play with, for he told me he had taken two tickets for the diamond draw, one for himself and one for another. But he was just mad last night. The very devil had got into him. What will I do with him if I get him?”

Burke’s eyes met his for a moment. “You can do–anything you like with him,” he said.

“Ah, but he saved your life, Burke,” said the Irishman pleadingly. “It’s only three days ago.”

“I know what he did,” said Burke briefly, both before and after that episode. “He may think himself lucky that I have no further use for him.”

“But aren’t you satisfied, Burke?” Kelly leaned forward impulsively. “I’ve told you the truth. Aren’t you satisfied?”

Burke’s face was grim as if hewn out of rock. “Not yet,” he said. “You’ve told me the truth–what you know of it. But there’s more to it. I’ve got to know–everything before I’m satisfied.”

“Ah, but sure!” protested Kelly. “Women are very queer, you know. Ye can’t tell what moves a woman. Often as not, it’s something quite different from what you’d think.”

Burke was silent, continuing his breakfast.

Kelly looked at him with eyes of pathetic persuasion. “I’ve been lambastin’ meself all night,” he burst forth suddenly, “for ever bringing ye out on such a chase. It was foul work. I see it now. She’d have come back to ye, Burke lad. She didn’t mean any harm. Sure, she’s as pure as the stars.”

Burke’s grey eyes, keen as the morning light, looked suddenly straight at him. Almost under his breath, Burke spoke. “Don’t tell me–that!” he said. “Just keep Guy out of my way! That’s all.”

Kelly sighed aloud. “And Guy’ll go to perdition faster than if the devil had kicked him. He’s on his way already.”

“Let him go!” said Burke.

It was his last word on the subject. Having spoken it, he gave his attention to the meal before him, and concluded it with a deliberate disregard for Kelly’s depressed countenance that an onlooker might have found somewhat brutal.

“What are you going to do?” asked Kelly meekly, as at length he pushed back his chair.

Burke’s eyes came to him again. He smiled faintly at the woebegone visage before him. “Cheer up, Donovan!” he said. “You’re all right. You’ve had a beastly job, but you’ve done it decently. I’m going back to my wife now. She breakfasted upstairs. We shall probably make tracks this evening.”

“Ah!” groaned Kelly. “Your wife’ll never speak to me again after this. And I thinking her the most charming woman in the world!”

Burke turned to go, “Don’t fret yourself on that account!” he said. “My wife will treat my friends exactly as she would treat her own.”

He spoke with a confidence that aroused Kelly’s admiration. “Sure, you know how to manage a woman, don’t ye, Burke, me lad?” he said.

He watched the broad figure till it was out of sight, then got up and went out into the hot sunshine, intent upon another quest.

Burke went on steadily up the stairs till he reached the top story where he met a servant carrying a breakfast-tray with the meal practically untouched upon it. With a brief word Burke took the tray himself, and went on with the same air of absolute purpose to the door at the end of the passage.

Here, just for a moment he paused, standing in semi-darkness, listening. Then he knocked. Sylvia’s voice answered him, and he entered.

She was dressed and standing by the window. “Oh, please, Burke!” she said quickly, at sight of what he carried. “I can’t eat anything more.”

He set down the tray and looked at her. “Why did you get up?” he said.

Her face was flushed. There was unrest in every line of her. “I had to get up,” she said feverishly. “I can’t rest here. It is so noisy. I want to get out of this horrible place. I can’t breathe here. Besides–besides—-“

“Sit down!” said Burke.

“Oh, don’t make me eat anything!” she pleaded. “I really can’t. I am sorry, but really—-“

“Sit down!” he said again, and laid a steady hand upon her.

She yielded with obvious reluctance, avoiding his eyes. “I am quite all right,” she said. “Don’t bully me, partner!”

Her voice quivered suddenly, and she put her hand to her throat. Burke was pouring milk into a cap. She watched him, fighting with herself.

“Now,” he said, “you can drink this anyway. It’s what you’re needing.” He gave her the cup, and she took it from him without a word. He turned away, and stood at the window, waiting.

At the end of a full minute, he spoke. “Has it gone?”

“Yes,” she said.

He turned back and looked at her. She met his eyes with an effort.

“I am quite all right,” she said again.

“Ready to start back?” he said.

She leaned forward in her chair, her hands clasped very tightly in front of her. “To-day?” she said in a low voice.

“I thought you wanted to get away,” said Burke.

“Yes–yes, I do.” Her eyes suddenly fell before his. “I do,” she said again. “But–but–I’ve got–something–to ask of you–first.”

“Well?” said Burke.

Her breath came quickly; her fingers were straining against each other. “I–don’t quite know–how to say it,” she said.

Burke stood quite motionless, looking down at her. “Must it be said?” he asked.

“Yes.” She sat for a moment or two, mustering her strength. Then, with an abrupt effort, she got up and faced him. “Burke, I think I have a right to your trust,” she said.

He looked straight back at her with piercing, relentless eyes. “If we are going to talk of rights,” he said, “I might claim a right to your confidence.”

She drew back a little, involuntarily, but the next moment, quickly, she went to him and clasped his arm between her hands. “Please be generous, partner!” she said. “We won’t talk of rights, either of us. You–are not–angry with me now, are you?”

He stiffened somewhat at her touch, but he did not repulse her. “I’m afraid you won’t find me in a very yielding mood,” he said.

She held his arm a little more tightly, albeit her hands were trembling. “Won’t you listen to me?” she said, in a voice that quivered. “Is there–no possibility of–of–coming to an understanding?”

He drew a slow hard breath. “We have a very long way to go first,” he said.

“I know,” she answered, and her voice was quick with pain. “I know. But–we can’t go on–like this. It–just isn’t bearable. If–even if you can’t understand me–Burke, won’t you–won’t you try at least to give me–the benefit of the doubt?”

It was very winningly spoken, but as she spoke she leaned her head suddenly against the arm she held and stifled a sob. “For both our sakes!” she whispered.

But Burke stood, rigid as rock, staring straight before him into the glaring sunlight. She did not know what was passing in his mind; that was the trouble of it. But she felt his grim resistance like a wall of granite, blocking her way. And the brave heart of her sank in spite of all her courage.

He moved at last, but it was a movement of constraint. He laid his free hand on her shoulder. “Crying won’t help,” he said. “I think we had better be getting back.”

And then, for the sake of the old love, she made her supreme effort. She lifted her face; it was white to the lips, but it bore no sign of tears. “I can’t go,” she said, “till–I have seen Guy.”

He made a sharp gesture. “Ah!” he said. “I thought that was coming.”

“Yes, you knew it! You knew it!” Passionately she uttered the words. “It’s the one thing that’s got to be settled between us–the only thing left that counts. Yes, you mean to refuse. I know that. But–before you refuse–wait, please wait! I am asking it quite as much for your sake as for mine.”

“And for his,” said Burke, with a twist of the lips more bitter than the words.

But she caught them up unflinching. “Yes, and for his. We’ve set out to save him, you and I. And–we are not going to turn back. Burke, I ask you to help me–I implore you to help me–in this thing. You didn’t refuse before.”

“I wish to Heaven I had!” he said, “I might have known how it would end!”

“No–no! And you owe him your life too. Don’t forget that! He saved you. Are you going to let him sink–after that?” She reached up and held him by the shoulders, imploring him with all her soul. “You can’t do it! Oh, you can’t do it!” she said. “It isn’t–you.”

He looked at her with a certain doggedness. “Not your conception of me perhaps,” he said, and suddenly his arms closed about her quivering form. “But–am I–the sort of man you have always taken me to be? Tell me! Am I?”

She turned her face aside, hiding it against his shoulder. “I know–what you can be,” she said faintly.

“Yes.” Grimly he answered her. “You’ve seen the ugly side of me at last, and it’s that that you are up against now.” He paused a moment, then very sombrely he ended. “I might force you to tell me the whole truth of this business, but I shall not–simply because I don’t want to hear it now. I know very well he’s been making love to you, tempting you. But I am going to put the infernal matter away, and forget it–as far as possible. We may never reach the top of the world now, but we’ll get out of this vile slough at any cost. You won’t find me hard to live with if you only play the game,–and put that damned scoundrel out of your mind for good.”

“And do you think I shall ever be able to forgive you?” She lifted her head with an unexpectedness that was almost startling. Her eyes were alight, burning with a ruddy fire out of the whiteness of her face. She spoke as she had never spoken before. It was as if some strange force had entered into and possessed her. “Do you think I shall ever forget–even if you do? Perhaps I am not enough to you now to count in that way. You think–perhaps–that a slave is all you want, and that partnership, comradeship, friendship, doesn’t count. You are willing to sacrifice all that now, and to sacrifice him with it. But how will it be–afterwards? Will a slave be any comfort to you when things go wrong–as they surely will? Will it satisfy you to feel that my body is yours when my soul is so utterly out of sympathy, out of touch, that I shall be in spirit a complete stranger to you? Ah yes,” her voice rang on a deep note of conviction that could not be restrained–“you think you won’t care. But you will–you will. A time will come when you will feel you would gladly give everything you possess to undo what you are doing to-day. You will be sick at heart, lonely, disillusioned, suspicious of me and of everybody. You will see the horrible emptiness of it all, and you will yearn for better things. But it will be too late then. What once we fling away never comes again to us. We shall be too far apart by that time, too hopelessly estranged, ever to be more to each other than what we are at this moment–master and slave. Through all our lives we shall never be more than that.”

She ceased to speak, and the fire went out of her eyes. She drooped in his hold as if all her strength had gone from her.

He turned and put her steadily down into the chair again. He had heard her out without a sign of emotion, and he betrayed none then. He did not speak a word. But his silence said more to her than speech. It was as the beginning of a silence which was to last between them for as long as they lived.

She sank back exhausted with closed eyes. The struggle–that long, fierce battle for Guy’s soul–was over. And she had failed. Her prayers had been in vain. All her desperate effort had been fruitless, and nothing seemed to matter any more. She told herself that she would never be able to pray again. Her faith had died in the mortal combat. And there was nothing left to pray for. She was tired to the very soul of her, tired unto death; but she knew she would not die. For death was rest, and there could be no rest for her until the days of her slavery were accomplished. The sand of the desert would henceforth be her portion. The taste of it was in her mouth. The desolation of it encompassed her spirit.

Two scalding tears forced their way through her closed lids and ran down her white cheeks. She did not stir to wipe them away. She hoped he did not see them. They were the only tears she shed.

CHAPTER II

THE SKELETON TREE

“Ah, Mrs. Burke, and is it yourself that I see again? Sure, and it’s a very great pleasure!” Kelly, his face crimson with embarrassment and good-will, took the hand Sylvia offered and held it hard. “A very great pleasure!” he reiterated impressively, before he let it go.

She smiled at him as one smiles at a shy child. “Thank you, Mr. Kelly,” she said.

“Ah, but you’ll call me Donovan,” he said persuasively, “the same as everyone else! So you’ve come to Brennerstadt after all! And is it the diamond ye’re after?”

She shook her head. They were standing on a balcony that led out of the public smoking-room, an awning over their heads and the open street at their feet. It was from the street that he had spied her, and the sight of her piteous, white face with its deeply shadowed eyes had gone straight to his impulsive Irish heart. “No,” she said. “We are not bothering about the diamond. I think we shall probably start back to Ritzen to-night.”

“Ah now, ye might stay one day longer and try your luck,” wheedled the Irishman. “The Fates would be sure to favour ye. Where’s himself?”

“I don’t know.” She spoke very wearily. “He left me here to rest. But it’s so dusty–and airless–and noisy.”

Kelly gave her a swift, keen look. “Come for a ride!” he said.

“A ride!” She raised her heavy eyes with a momentary eagerness, but it was gone instantly. “He–might not like me to go,” she said. “Besides, I haven’t a horse.”

“That’s soon remedied,” said Kelly. “I’ve got a lamb of a horse to carry ye. And he wouldn’t care what ye did in my company. He knows me. Leave him a note and come along! He’ll understand. It’s a good gallop that ye’re wanting. Come along and get it!”

Kelly could be quite irresistible when he chose, and he had evidently made up his mind to comfort the girl’s forlornness so far as in him lay. She yielded to him with the air of being too indifferent to do otherwise. But Kelly had seen that moment’s eagerness, and he built on that.

A quarter of an hour later they met again in the sweltering street, and he complimented her in true Irish fashion upon the rose-flush in her cheeks. He saw that she looked about uneasily as she mounted, but with unusual tact he omitted to comment upon the fact.

The sun was slanting towards the west as they rode away. The streets were crowded, but Kelly knew all the short cuts, and guided her unerringly till they reached the edge of the open _veldt_.

Then, “Come along!” he cried. “Let’s gallop!”

The sand flew out behind them, the parched air rushed by, and the blood quickened in Sylvia’s veins. She felt as if she had left an overwhelming burden behind her in the town. The great open spaces drew her with their freedom and their vastness. She went with the flight of a bird. It was like the awakening from a dreadful dream.

They drew rein in the shadow of a tall _kopje_ that rose abruptly from the plain like a guardian of the solitudes. Kelly was laughing with a boy’s hearty merriment.

“Faith, but ye can ride!” he cried, with keen appreciation, “Never saw a prettier spectacle in me life. Was it born in the saddle ye were?”

She laughed in answer, but her heart gave a quick throb of pain. It was the first real twinge of homesickness she had known, and for a moment it was almost intolerable. Ah, the fresh-turned earth and the shining furrows, and the sweet spring rain in her face! And the sun of the early morning that shone through a scud of clouds!

“My father and I used to ride to hounds,” she said. “We loved it.”

“I’ve done it meself in the old country,” said Kelly. “But ye can ride farther here. There’s more room before ye reach the horizon.”

Sylvia stifled a quick sigh. “Yes, it’s a fine country. At least it ought to be. Yet I sometimes feel as if there is something lacking. I don’t know quite what it is, but it’s the quality that makes one feel at home.”

“That’ll come,” said Kelly, with confidence. “You wait till the spring! That gets into your veins like wine. Ye’ll feel the magic of it then. It’s life itself.”

Sylvia turned her face up to the brazen sky. “I must wait for the spring then,” she said, half to herself. And then very suddenly she became aware of the kindly curiosity of her companion’s survey and met it with a slight heightening of colour.

There was a brief silence before, in a low voice, she said, “We can’t–all of us–afford to wait.”

“You can,” said Kelly promptly.

She shook her head. “I don’t think by the time the spring comes that there will be much left worth having.”

“Ah, but ye don’t know,” said Kelly. “You say that because you can’t see all the flowers that are hiding down below. But you might as well believe in ’em all the same, for they’re there all right, and they’ll come up quick enough when God gives the word.”

Sylvia looked around her over the barren land. “Are there flowers here?” she said.

“Millions,” said Kelly. “Millions and millions. Why, if you were to come along here in a few weeks’ time ye’d be trampling them underfoot they’d be so thick, such flowers as only grow here, on the top of the world.”

“The top of the world!” She looked at him as if startled. “Is that what you call–this place?”

He laughed. “Ye don’t believe me! Well, wait–wait and see!”

She turned her horse’s head, and began to walk round the _kopje_. Kelly kept pace beside her. He was not quite so talkative as usual, but it was with obvious effort that he restrained himself, for several times words sprang to his eager lips which he swallowed unuttered. He seemed determined that the next choice of a subject should be hers.

And after a few moments he was rewarded. Sylvia spoke.

“Mr. Kelly!”

“Sure, at your service–now and always!” he responded with a warmth that no amount of self-restraint could conceal.

She turned towards him. “You have been very kind to me, and I want–I should like–to tell you something. But it’s something very, very private. Will you–will you promise me—-“

“Sure and I will!” vowed the Irishman instantly. “I’ll swear the solemn oath if it’ll make ye any happier.”

“No, you needn’t do that.” She held out her hand to him with a gesture that was girlishly impulsive. “I know I can trust you. And I feel you will understand. It’s about–Guy.”

“Ah, there now! Didn’t I know it?” said Kelly. He held her hand tight for a moment, looking into her eyes, his own brimful of sympathy.

“Yes. You know–all about him.” She spoke with some hesitation notwithstanding. “You know—just as I do–that he isn’t–isn’t really bad; only–only so hopelessly weak.”

There was a little quiver in her voice as she said the words. She looked at him with appeal in her eyes.

“I know,” said Kelly.

With a slight effort she went on. “He–Burke–thinks otherwise. And because of that, he won’t let me see Guy again. He is very angry with me–I doubt if he will ever really forgive me–for following Guy to this place. But,–Mr. Kelly,–I had a reason–an urgent reason for doing this. I hoped to be back again before he found out; but everything was against me.”

“Ah! Didn’t I know it?” said Kelly. “It’s the way of the world in an emergency. Nothing ever goes right of itself.”

She smiled rather wanly. “Life can be–rather cruel,” she said. “Something is working against me. I can feel it. I have forfeited all Burke’s respect and his confidence at a stroke. He will never trust me again. And Guy–Guy will simply go under.”

“No–no!” said Kelly. “Don’t you believe it! He’ll come round and lead a decent life after this; you’ll see. There’s nothing whatever to worry about over Guy. No real vice in him!”

It was a kindly lie, stoutly spoken; but it failed to convince. Sylvia shook her head even while, he was speaking.

“You don’t know all yet. I haven’t told you. But I will tell you–if you will listen. Once when Burke and I were talking of Guy–it was almost the first time–he said that he had done almost everything bad except one thing. He had never robbed him. And somehow I felt that so long as there was that one great exception he would not regard him as utterly beyond redemption. But now–but now–” her voice quivered again–“well, even that can’t be said of him now,” she said.

“What? He has taken money?” Kelly looked at her in swift dismay. “Ye don’t mean that!” he said. And then quickly: “Are ye sure now it wasn’t Kieff?”

“Yes.” She spoke with dreary conviction. “I am fairly sure Kieff’s at the back of it, but–it was Guy who did it, thanks to my carelessness.”

“Yours!” Kelly’s eyes bulged. “Ye don’t mean that!” he said again.

“Yes, it’s true.” Drearily she answered him. “Burke left the key of the strong-box in my keeping on the day of the sand-storm. I dropped it in the dark. I was hunting for it when you came. Then–I forgot it. Afterwards, you remember, Burke and Guy came in together. He must have found it–somehow–then.”

“He did!” said Kelly suddenly. “Faith, he did! Ye remember when he had that attack? He picked up something then–on the floor against his foot. I saw him do it, the fool that I am! He’d got it in his hand when we helped him up, and I never noticed,–never thought. The artful young devil!”

A hint of admiration sounded in his voice. Kelly the simple-minded had ever been an admirer of art.

Sylvia went on very wearily. “The box was kept in a cupboard in the room he was sleeping in. The rest was quite easy. He left the key behind him in the lock. I found it after you and Burke had gone to the Merstons’. I guessed what had happened of course. I went round to his hut, but it was all fastened up as usual. Then I went to Piet Vreiboom’s.” She shuddered suddenly. “I saw Kieff as well as Vreiboom. They seemed hugely amused at my appearance, and told me Guy was just ahead on the way to Brennerstadt. It was too late to ride the whole way, so I went to Ritzen, hoping to find him there. But I could get no news of him, so I came on by train in the morning. I ought to have got here long ago, but the engine broke down. We were held up for hours, and so I arrived–too late.”

The utter dreariness of her speech went straight to Kelly’s heart. “Ah, there now–there now!” he said. “If I’d only known I’d have followed and helped ye that night.”

“You see, I didn’t know you were coming back,” she said. “And anyhow I couldn’t have waited. I had to start at once. It was–my job.” She smiled faintly, a smile that was sadder than tears.

“And do ye know what happened?” said Kelly. “Did Burke tell ye what happened?”

She shook her head. “No. He told me very little. I suppose he concluded that we had run away together.”

“Ah no! That wasn’t his doing,” said Kelly, paused a moment, then plunged valiantly at the truth. “That was mine. I thought so meself–foul swine as ye may very well call me. Kieff told me so–the liar; and I–like a blasted fool–believed it. At least, no, I didn’t right at the heart of me, Mrs. Ranger. I knew what ye were, just the same as I know now. But I’d seen ye look into his eyes when ye begged him off the brandy-bottle, and I knew the friendship between ye wasn’t just the ordinary style of thing; no more is it. But it was that devil Kieff that threw the mud. I found him waiting that night when I got back. He was waiting for Burke, he said; and his story was that he and Vreiboom had seen the pair of ye eloping. I nearly murdered him at the time. Faith, I wish I had!” ended Kelly pathetically, with tears in his eyes. “It would have stopped a deal of mischief both now and hereafter.”

“Never mind!” said Sylvia gently. “You couldn’t tell. You hadn’t known me more than a few hours.”

“It was long enough!” vowed Kelly. “Anyway, Burke ought to have known better. He’s known you longer than that.”

“He has never known me,” she said quietly. “Of course he believed the story.”

“He doesn’t believe it now,” said Kelly quickly.

A little quiver went over her face. “Perhaps not. I don’t know what he believes, or what he will believe when he finds the money gone. That is what I want to prevent–if only I can prevent it. It is Guy’s only chance. What he did was done wickedly enough, but it was at a time of great excitement, when he was not altogether master of himself. But unless it can be undone, he will go right down–and never come up again. Oh, don’t you see–” a sudden throb sounded in her tired voice–“that if once Burke knows of this, Guy’s fate is sealed? There is no one else to help him. Besides,–it wasn’t all his own doing. It was Kieff’s. And away from Kieff, he is so different.”

“Ah! But how to get him away from Kieff!” said Kelly. “The fellow’s such a damn’ blackguard. Once he takes hold, he never lets go till he’s got his victim sucked dry.”

Sylvia shuddered. “Can’t you do anything?” she said.

Kelly looked at her with his honest kindly eyes, “If it were me, Mrs. Ranger,” he said, “I should tell me husband the whole truth–and–let him deal with it.”

She shook her head instantly. “It would be the end of everything for Guy. Even if Burke let him off, he could never come back to us. It would be as bad as sending him to prison–or even worse.”

“Not it!” said Kelly. “You don’t trust Burke. It’s a pity. He’s such a fine chap. But look here, I’ll do me best, I’ll get hold of young Guy and make him disgorge. How much did the young ruffian take?”

“I don’t know. That’s the hopeless part of it. That is why I must see him myself.”

Kelly pursed his lips for a moment, but the next he smiled upon her, “All right. I’ll manage somehow. But you mustn’t go to-night. You tell Burke you’re too tired. He’ll understand.”

“Do you know where Guy is?” she said.

“Oh yes, I can put me hand on the young divil if I want him. You leave that to me! I’ll do me best all round. Now–suppose we have another trot, and then go back!”

Sylvia turned her horse’s head. “I’m–deeply grateful to you, Mr. Kelly,” she said.

“Donovan!” insinuated Kelly.

She smiled a little. She seemed almost more piteous to him when she smiled. “Donovan,” she said.

“Ah, that’s better!” he declared. “That does me good. To be a friend of both of ye is what I want. Burke and you together! Ye’re such a fine pair, and just made for each other, faith, made for each other. When I saw you, Mrs. Burke, I didn’t wonder that he’d fallen in love at last. I give ye me word, I didn’t. And I’ll never forget the look on his face when he thought he’d lost ye; never as long as I live. It–it was as if he’d been stabbed to the heart.”

Tactless, clumsy, sentimental, he sought to pour balm upon the wounded spirit of this girl with her tragic eyes that should have held only the glad sunshine of youth. It hurt him to see her thus, hurt him unspeakably, and he knew himself powerless to comfort. Yet with that odd womanly tenderness of his, he did his best.

He wondered what she was thinking of as she sat her horse, gazing out over the wide spaces, so wearily and yet so intently. She did not seem to have heard his last remarks, or was that merely the impression she desired to convey? A vague uneasiness took possession of him. He did not like her to look like that.

“Shall we move on?” he said gently.

She pointed suddenly across the _veldt_. “I want to ride as far as that skeleton tree,” she said. “Don’t come with me! I shall catch you up if you ride slowly.”

“Right!” said Kelly, and watched her lift her bridle and ride away.

He would have done anything to oblige her just then; but his curiosity was whetted to a keen edge. For she rode swiftly, as one who had a definite aim in view. Straight as an arrow across the _veldt_ she went to the skeleton tree with its stripped trunk and stark, outflung arms that seemed the very incarnation of the barrenness around.

Here she checked her animal, and sat for a moment with closed eyes, the evening sunlight pouring over her. Very strangely she was trembling from head to foot, as if in the presence of a vision upon which she dared not look. She had returned as she had always meant to return–but ah, the dreary desert spaces and the cruel roughness of the road! Her husband’s words uttered only a few hours before came back upon her as she stood there. “We may never reach the top of the world now,” No, they would never reach it. Had anyone ever done so, she wondered drearily? But yet they had been near it once–nearer than many. Did that count for nothing?

It seemed to her that aeons had passed over her since last she had stood beneath that tree. She had been a girl then, ardent and full of courage. Now she was a woman, old and very tired, and there was nothing left in life. It was almost as if she had ceased to live.

But yet she had come back to the starting-point, and here, as if standing beside a grave and reading the inscription to one long dead, she opened her eyes in the last glow of the sunshine to read the words which Burke had cut into the bare wood on the evening of his wedding-day. She remembered how she had waited for him, the tumult of doubt, of misgiving, in her soul, how she had wished he would not linger in that desolate place. Now, out of the midst of a desolation to which this sandy waste was as nothing, she searched with almost a feeling of awe as one about to read a message from the dead.

The bare, bleached trunk of the tree shone strangely in the sinking sun, faintly tinted with rose. The world all around her was changing; slowly, imperceptibly, changing. A tender lilac glow was creeping over the _veldt_. A curious sensation came upon Sylvia, as if she were moving in a dream, as if she were stepping into a new world and the old had fallen from her. The bitterness had lifted from her spirit. Her heart beat faster. She was a treasure-seeker on the verge of a great discovery. Trembling, she lifted her eyes. . . .

There on the smooth wood, like a scroll upon a marble pillar, were words, rough-hewn but unmistakable–_Fide et Amore_. . . .

It was as if a voice had spoken in her soul, a dear, insistent voice, bidding her begone. She obeyed, scarcely knowing what she did. Back across the dusty _veldt_ she rode, moving as one in a trance. She joined the Irishman waiting for her, but she looked at him with eyes that saw not.

“Well?” he said, frankly curious. “Did you find anything?”

She started a little, and came out of her dream. “I found what I was looking for,” she said.

“What was it?” Kelly was keenly interested; there was no checking him now, he was like a hound on the scent.

She did not resent his questions. That was Kelly’s privilege. But neither did she answer him as fully as he could have wished. “I found out,” she said slowly, after a moment, “how to get to the top of the world.”

“Ah, really now!” said Kelly, opening his eyes to their widest extent. “And are ye going to pack your bag and go?”

She smiled very faintly, looking, straight before her. “No. It’s too late now,” she said. “I’ve missed the way. So has Burke.”

“But ye’ll try again–ye’ll try again!” urged Kelly, eager as a child for the happy ending of a fairy-tale.

She shook her head. Her lips were quivering, but still she made them smile. “Not that way. I am afraid it’s barred,” she said, and with the words she touched her horse with her heel and rode quickly forward towards the town.

Donovan followed her with a rueful countenance. There were times when even he felt discouraged with the world.

CHAPTER III

THE PUNISHMENT

“Good evening, Mrs. Ranger!”

Sylvia started at the sound of a cool, detached voice as she re-entered the hotel. Two eyes, black as onyx and as expressionless, looked coldly into hers. A chill shudder ran through her. She glanced instinctively back at Kelly, who came forward instantly in his bulky, protective fashion.

“Hullo, Kieff! What are you doing here? Gambling for the diamond?”

“I?” said Kieff, with a stretching of his thin, colourless lips that was scarcely a smile. “I don’t gamble for diamonds, my good Kelly. Well, Mrs. Ranger, I hope you had a pleasant journey here.”

“He gambles for souls,” was the thought in Sylvia’s mind, as with a quick effort she controlled herself and passed on in icy silence. She would never voluntarily speak to Kieff again. He was an open enemy; and she turned from him with the same loathing that she would have shown for a reptile in her path.

His laugh–that horrible, slippery sound–followed her. He said something in Dutch to the man who lounged beside him, and at once another laugh–Piet Vreiboom’s–bellowed forth like the blare of a bull. She flinched in spite of herself. Every nerve shrank. Yet the next moment, superbly, she wheeled and faced them. There was something intolerable in that laughter, something that stung her beyond endurance.

“Tell me,” she commanded Kelly, “tell me what these–gentlemen–find about me to laugh at!”

Her face was white as death, but her eyes shone red as leaping flame. She was terrible in that moment–terrible as a lioness at bay–and the laughter died. Piet Vreiboom slunk a little back, his low brows working uneasily.

Kelly swallowed an oath in his throat; his hands were clenched. But Kieff, in a voice smooth as oil, made ready, mocking answer.

“Oh, not at you, madam! Heaven forbid! What could any man find to smile at in such a model of virtuous propriety as yourself?”

He was baiting her openly, and she knew it. An awful wave of anger surged through her brain, such anger as had never before possessed her. For the moment she felt sick, as if she had drunk of some overpowering drug. He meant to humiliate her publicly. She realized it in a flash. And she was powerless to prevent it. Whether she went or whether she stayed, he would accomplish his end. Among all the strange faces that stared at her, only Kelly’s, worried and perplexed, betrayed the smallest concern upon her account. And he, since her unexpected action, had been obviously at a loss as to how to deal with the situation or with her. Single-handed, he would have faced the pack; but with her at his side he was hopelessly hampered, afraid of blundering and making matters worse.

“Ah, come away!” he muttered to her. “It’s not the place for ye at all. They’re hogs and swine, the lot of ’em. Don’t ye be drawn by the likes of them!”

But she stood her ground, for there was hot blood in Sylvia and a fierce pride that would not tamely suffer outrage. Moreover, she had been wounded cruelly, and the desire for vengeance welled up furiously within her. Now that she stood in the presence of her enemy, the impulse to strike back, however futile the blow, urged her and would not be denied.

She confronted Saul Kieff with tense determination. “You will either repeat–and explain–what you said to your friend regarding me just now,” she said, in tones that rang fearlessly, echoing through the crowded place, “or you will admit yourself a contemptible coward for vilely slandering a woman whom you know to be defenceless!”

It was regally spoken. She stood splendidly erect, facing him, withering him from head to foot with the scorching fire of her scorn. A murmur of sympathy went through the rough crowd of men gathered before her. One or two cursed Kieff in a growling undertone. But Kieff himself remained absolutely unmoved. He was smoking a cigarette and he inhaled several deep breaths before he replied to her challenge. Then, with his basilisk eyes fixed immovably upon her, as it were clinging to her, he made his deadly answer: “I will certainly tell you what I said, madam, since you desire it. But the explanation is one which surely only you can give. I said to my friend, ‘There goes the wife of the Rangers.’ Did I make a mistake?”

“Yes, you damned hound, you did!” The voice that uttered the words came from the door that led into the office. Burke Ranger swung suddenly out upon them, moving with a kind of massive force that carried purpose in every line. Men drew themselves together as he passed them with the instinctive impulse to leave his progress unimpeded; for this man would have forced his way past every obstacle at that moment. He went straight for his objective without a glance to right or left.

Sylvia started back at his coming. That which her enemy could not do was accomplished by her husband by neither word nor look. The regal poise went out of her bearing. She shrank against Kelly as if seeking refuge. For she had seen Burke’s eyes, as she had seen them the night before; and they were glittering with the lust for blood. They were the eyes of a murderer.

Straight to Kieff he came, and Kieff waited for him, quite motionless, with thin lips drawn back, showing a snarling gleam of teeth. But just as Burke reached him he moved. His right arm shot forth with a serpentine ferocity, and in a flash the muzzle of a revolver gleamed between them.

“Hands up, if you please, Mr. Ranger!” he said smoothly. “We shall talk better that way.”

But for once in his life he had made a miscalculation, and the next instant he realized it. He had reckoned without the blunderer Kelly. For a fierce oath broke from the Irishman at sight of the weapon, and in the same second he beat it down with the stock of his riding-whip with a force that struck it out of Kieff’s grasp. It spun along the floor to Sylvia’s feet, and she stooped and snatched it up.

Burke did not so much as glance round. He had Kieff by the collar of his coat, and the fate of the revolver was obviously a matter of no importance to him. “Give me that horse-whip of yours, Donovan!” he said,

Kelly complied with the childlike obedience he invariably yielded to Burke. Then he fell back to Sylvia, and very gently took the revolver out of her clenched hand.

She looked at him, her eyes wide, terror-stricken. “He will kill him!” she said, in a voiceless whisper.

“Not a bit of it,” said Kelly, and put his arm around her. “These poisonous vermin don’t die so easy. Pity they don’t.”

And then began the most terrible scene that Sylvia had ever looked upon. No one intervened between Burke and his victim. There was even a look of brutal satisfaction upon some of the faces around. Piet Vreiboom openly gloated, as if he were gazing upon a spectacle of rare delight.

And Burke thrashed Kieff, thrashed him with all the weight of his manhood’s strength, forced him staggering up and down the open space that had been cleared for that awful reckoning, making a public show of him, displaying him to every man present as a crawling, contemptible thing that not one of them would have owned as friend. It was a ghastly chastisement, made deadly by the hatred that backed it. Kieff writhed this way and that, but he never escaped the swinging blows. They followed him mercilessly,–all the more mercilessly for his struggles. His coat tore out at the seams and was ripped to rags. And still Burke thrashed him, his face grim and terrible and his eyes shot red and gleaming–as the eyes of a murderer.

In the end Kieff stumbled and pitched forward upon his knees, his arms sprawling helplessly out before him. It was characteristic of the man that he had not uttered a sound; only as Burke stayed his hand his breathing came with a whistling noise through the tense silence, as of a wounded animal brought to earth. His face was grey.

Burke held him so for a few seconds, then deliberately dropped the horse-whip and grasped him with both hands, lifting him. Kieff’s head was sunk forward. He looked as if he would faint. But inexorably Burke dragged him to his feet and turned him till he stood before Sylvia.

She was leaning against Kelly with her hands over her face. Relentlessly Burke’s voice broke the silence.

“Now,” he said briefly, “you will apologize to my wife for insulting her.”

She uncovered her face and raised it. There was shrinking horror in her look. “Oh, Burke!” she said. “Let him go!”

“You will–apologize,” Burke said again very insistently, with pitiless distinctness.

There was a dreadful pause. Kieff’s breathing was less laboured, but it was painfully uneven and broken. His lips twitched convulsively. They seemed to be trying to form words, but no words came.

Burke waited, and several seconds dragged away. Then suddenly from the door of the office the girl who had received Sylvia the previous evening emerged.

She carried a glass. “Here you are!” she said curtly. “Give him this!”

There was neither pity nor horror in her look. Her eyes dwelt upon Burke with undisguised admiration.

“You’ve given him a good dose this time,” she remarked. “Serve him right–the dirty hound! Hope it’ll be a lesson to the rest of ’em,” and she shot a glance at Piet Vreiboom which was more eloquent than words.

She held the glass to Kieff’s lips with a contemptuous air, and when he had drunk she emptied the dregs upon the floor and marched back into the office.

“Now,” Burke said again, “you will apologize.”

And so at last in a voice so low as to be barely audible, Saul Kieff, from whose sneer all women shrank as from the sting of a scorpion, made unreserved apology to the girl he had plotted to ruin. At Burke’s behest he withdrew the vile calumny he had launched against her, and he expressed his formal regret for the malice that had prompted it.

When Burke let him go, no one attempted to offer him help. There was probably not a man present from whom he would have accepted it. He slunk away like a wounded beast, staggering, but obviously intent upon escape, and the gathering shadows of the coming night received him.

A murmur as of relief ran round the circle of spectators he left behind, and in a moment, as it were automatically, the general attention was turned upon Sylvia. She was still leaning against Kelly, her death-white face fixed and rigid. Her eyes were closed.

Burke went to her. “Come!” he said. “We will go up.”

Her eyes opened. She looked straight at him, seeing none beside. “Was that how you treated Guy?” she said.

He laid an imperative hand upon her. “Come!” he said again.

She made a movement as though to evade him, and then suddenly she faltered. Her eyes grew wide and dark. She threw out her hands with a groping gesture as if stricken blind, and fell straight forward.

Burke caught her, held her for a moment; then as she sank in his arms he lifted her, and bore her away.

CHAPTER IV

THE EVIL THING

When Sylvia opened her eyes again she was lying in the chair by the open window where she had waited so long the previous evening. Her first impression was that she was alone, and then with a sudden stabbing sense of fear she realized Burke’s presence.

He was standing slightly behind her, so that the air might reach her, but leaning forward, watching her intently. With a gasp she looked up into his eyes.

He put his hand instantly upon her, reassuring her. “All right. It’s all right,” he said.

Both tone and touch were absolutely gentle, but she shrank from him, shrank and quivered with a nervous repugnance that she was powerless to control. He took his hand away and turned aside.

She spoke then, her voice quick and agitated. “Don’t go! Please don’t go!”

He came and stood in front of her, and she saw that his face was grim. “What is the matter?” he said. “Surely you don’t object to a serpent like that getting his deserts for once!”

She met his look with an effort. “Oh, it’s not that–not that!” she said.

“What then? You object to me being the executioner?” He spoke curtly, through lips that had a faintly cynical twist.

She could not answer him; only after a moment she sat up, holding to the arms of the chair. “Forgive me for being foolish!” she said. “I–you gave me–rather a fright, you know. I’ve never seen you–like that before. I felt–it was a horrible feeling–as if you were a stranger. But–of course–you are you–just the same. You are–really–you.”

She faltered over the words, his look was so stern, so forbidding. She seemed to be trying to convince herself against her own judgment.

His eyes met hers relentlessly. “Yes, I am myself–and no one else,” he said. “I fancy you have never quite realized me before. Possibly you have deliberately blinded yourself. But you know me now, and it is as well that you should. It is the only way to an ultimate understanding.”

She blenched a little in spite of herself. “And you–and you–once–thrashed–Guy,” she said, her voice very low, sunk almost to a whisper. “Was it–was it–was it like–that?”

He turned sharply away as if there were something intolerable in the question. He went to the window and stood there in silence. And very oddly at that moment the memory of Kelly’s assurance went through her that he had been fond of Guy. She did not believe it, yet just for the moment it influenced her. It gave her strength. She got up, and went to his side.

“Burke,” she said tremulously, “promise me–please promise me–that you will never do that again!”

He gave her a brief, piercing glance. “If he keeps out of my way, I shan’t run after him,” he said.

“No–no! But even if he doesn’t–” she clasped her hands hard together–“Burke, even if he doesn’t–and even though he has disappointed you–wronged you–oh, have you no pity? Can’t you–possibly–forgive?”

He turned abruptly and faced her. “Forgive him for making love to you?” he said. “Is that what you are asking?”

She shivered at the question. “At least you won’t–punish him like that–whatever he has done,” she said.

He was looking full at her. “You want my promise on that?” he said.

“Yes, oh yes.” Very earnestly she made reply though his eyes were as points of steel, keeping her back. “I know you will keep a promise. Please–promise me that!”

“Yes,” he said drily. “I keep my promises. He can testify to that. So can you. But if I promise you this, you must make me a promise too.”

“What is it?” she said.

“Simply that you will never have anything more to do with him without my knowledge–and consent.” He uttered the words with the same pitiless distinctness as had characterized his speech when dictating to Kieff.

She drew sharply. “Oh, but why–why ask such a promise of me when you have only just proved your own belief in me?”

“How have I done that?” he said.

“By taking my part before all those horrible men downstairs.” She suppressed a hard shudder. “By–defending my honour.”

Burke’s face remained immovable. “I was defending my own,” he said. “I should have done that–in any case.”

She made a little hopeless movement with her hands and dropped them to her sides. “Oh, how hard you are!” she said, “How hard–and how cruel!”

He lifted his shoulders slightly, and turned away in silence. Perhaps there was more of forbearance in that silence than she realized.

He did not ask her where she had been with Kelly or comment upon the fact that she had been out at all. Only after a brief pause he told her that they would not leave till the following day as he had some business to attend to. Then to her relief he left her. At least he had promised that he would not go in search of Guy!

Later in the evening, a small packet was brought to her which she found to contain some money in notes wrapped in a slip of paper on which was scrawled a few words.

“I have done my best with young G., but he is rather out of hand for the present. I enclose the ‘loan.’ Just put it back, and don’t worry any more. Yours, D. K.”

She put the packet away with a great relief at her heart. That danger then, had been averted. There yet remained a chance for Guy. He was not–still he was not–quite beyond redemption. If only–ah, if only–she could have gone to Burke with the whole story! But Burke had become a stranger to her. She had begun to wonder if she had ever really known him. His implacability frightened her almost more than his terrible vindictiveness. She felt that she could never again turn to him with confidence.

That silence that lay between them was like an ever-widening gulf severing them ever more and more completely. She believed that they would remain strangers for the rest of their lives. Very curiously, those three words which she had read upon the tree served to strengthen this conviction. They were, indeed, to her as a message from the dead. The man who had written them had ceased to exist. Guy might have written them in the old days, but his likeness to Guy was no more. She saw them both now with a distinctness that was almost cruel–the utter weakness of the one, the merciless strength of the other. And in the bitterness of her soul she marvelled that either of them had ever managed to reach her heart.

That could never be so again, so she told herself. The power to love had been wrested from her. The object of her love had turned into a monstrous demon of jealousy from which now she shrank more and more–though she might never escape. Yes, she had loved them both, and still her compassion lingered pitifully around the thought of Guy. But for Burke she had only a shrinking that almost amounted to aversion. He had slain her love. She even believed she was beginning to hate him.

She dreaded the prospect of another long day spent at Brennerstadt. It was the day of the diamond draw, too. The place would be a seething tumult. She was so unutterably tired. She thought with a weary longing of Blue Hill Farm. At least she would find a measure of peace there, though healing were denied her. This place had become hateful to her, an inferno of vice and destruction. She yearned to leave it.

Something of this yearning she betrayed on the following morning when Burke told her that he was making arrangements to leave by the evening train for Ritzen.

“Can’t we go sooner?” she said.

He looked at her as if surprised by the question. “There is a train at midday,” he said. “But it is not a good time for travelling.”

“Oh, let us take it!” she said feverishly. “Please let us take it! We might get back to the farm by to-night then.”

He had sent his horse back to Ritzen the previous day in the care of a man he knew, so that both their animals would be waiting for them.

“Do you want to get back?” said Burke.

“Oh, yes–yes! Anything is better than this.” She spoke rapidly, almost passionately. “Let us go! Do let us go!”

“Very well,” said Burke. “If you wish it.”

He paused at the door of the office a few minutes later, when they descended, to tell the girl there that they were leaving at noon.

She looked up at him sharply as he stood looking in. “Heard the latest?” she asked.

“What is the latest?” questioned Burke.

“That dirty dog you thrashed last night–Kieff; he’s dead,” she told him briefly. “Killed himself with an overdose of opium, died at Hoffstein’s early this morning.” She glanced beyond him at Sylvia who stood behind. “And a good job, too,” she said vindictively. “He’s ruined more people in this town than I’d like to be responsible for–the filthy parasite. He was the curse of the place.”

Burke turned with a movement that was very deliberate. He also looked at Sylvia. For a long moment they stood so, in the man’s eyes a growing hardness, in the woman’s a horror undisguised. Then, with a very curious smile, Burke put his hand through his wife’s arm and turned her towards the room where breakfast awaited them.

“Come and have something to eat, partner!” he said, his voice very level and emotionless.

She went with him without a word; but her whole being throbbed and quivered under his touch as if it were torture to her. Stark and hideous, the evil thing reared itself in her path, and there was no turning aside. She saw him, as she had seen him on the night of her arrival, as she had seen him the night after, as she believed that she would always see him for the rest of her life. And the eyes that looked into hers–those eyes that had held her, dominated her, charmed her–were the eyes of a murderer. Go where she would, there could be no escape for her for ever. The evil thing had her enchained.

CHAPTER V

THE LAND OF BLASTED HOPES

They were still at breakfast when Kelly came dashing in full of the news of the death of Kieff. No one knew whether it had been accidental or intentional, but he spoke–as the girl in the office had spoken–as if a curse had been lifted from the town. And Sylvia sat at the table and listened, feeling as if her heart had been turned to ice. The man had died by his own hand, but she could not shake from her the feeling that she and Burke had been the cause of his death.

She saw Kelly for a few minutes alone when the meal was over, and whispered her thanks to him for what he had done with regard to Guy. He would scarcely listen to her, declaring it had been a pleasure to serve her, that it had been the easiest thing in the world, and that now it was done she must not worry any more.

“But was it really easy?” she questioned.

“Yes–yes! He was glad enough of the chance to give it back. He only acted on impulse, ye see, and Kieff was pushing behind. He’d never have done it but for Kieff. Very likely he’ll pull round now and lead a respectable life,” said Kelly cheerily. “He’s got the