Produced by Al Haines
THE TOP OF THE WORLD
By
Ethel M. Dell
Author of "The Way of an Eagle," "The Lamp in the Desert."
1920
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
TO THE PRECIOUS MEMORY
OF MY MOTHER
"The years shall not outgo my thinking of thee"
When you have reached the top of the world
And only the stars remain,
Where there is never the sound of storm
And neither cold nor rain,
Will it be by wealth, success, or fame
That you mounted to your goal?
Nay, I mount only by faith and love
And God's goodness to my soul.
When you have reached the top of the world
And the higher stars grow near,
When greater dreams succeed our dreams
And the lesser disappear,
Will the world at your feet seem good to you,
A vision fair to see?
Nay, I look upward for one I love
Who has promised to wait for me.
For to those who reach the top of the world
The things of the world seem less
Than the rungs of the ladder by which they climbed
To their place of happiness,
And I think that success and wealth and fame
Will be the first to pall,
For they reach their goal but by faith and love
And God's goodness over all.
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER
I.—ADVICE II.—THE NEW MISTRESS III.—THE WHIP-HAND IV.—THE VICTORY V.—THE MIRACLE VI.—THE LAND OF STRANGERS VII.—THE WRONG TURNING VIII.—THE COMRADE IX.—THE ARRIVAL X.—THE DREAM XI.—THE CROSS-ROADS XII.—THE STAKE
PART 11
I.—COMRADES II.—THE VISITORS III.—THE BARGAIN IV.—THE CAPTURE V.—THE GOOD CAUSE VI.—THE RETURN VII.—THE GUEST VIII.—THE INTERRUPTION IX.—THE ABYSS X.—THE DESIRE TO LIVE XI.—THE REMEDY
PART III
I.—THE NEW ERA II.—INTO BATTLE III.—THE SEED IV.—MIRAGE V.—EVERYBODY'S FRIEND VI.—THE HERO VII.—THE NET VIII.—THE SUMMONS IX.—FOR THE SAKE OF THE OLD LOVE X.—THE BEARER OF EVIL TIDINGS XI.—THE SHARP CORNER XII.—THE COST
PART IV
I.—SAND OF THE DESERT II.—THE SKELETON TREE III.—THE PUNISHMENT IV.—THE EVIL THING V.—THE LAND OF BLASTED HOPES VI.—THE PARTING VII.—PIET VREIBOOM VIII.—OUT OF THE DEPTHS IX.—THE MEETING X.—THE TRUTH XI.—THE STORM XII.—THE SACRIFICE XIII.—BY FAITH AND LOVE
The Top of the World
PART I
CHAPTER I
ADVICE
"You ought to get married, Miss Sylvia," said old Jeffcott, the head gardener, with a wag of his hoary beard. "You'll need to be your own mistress now."
"I should hope I am that anyway," said, Sylvia with a little laugh.
She stood in the great vinery—a vivid picture against a background of clustering purple fruit. The sunset glinted on her tawny hair. Her red-brown eyes, set wide apart, held a curious look, half indignant, half appealing.
Old Jeffcott surveyed her with loving admiration. There was no one in the world to compare with Miss Sylvia in his opinion. He loved the open English courage of her, the high, inborn pride of race. Yet at the end of the survey he shook his head.
"There's not room for two mistresses in this establishment, Miss
Sylvia," he said wisely. "Three years to have been on your own, so
to speak, is too long. You did ought to get married, Miss Sylvia.
You'll find it's the only way."
His voice took on almost a pleading note. He knew it was possible to go too far.
But the girl facing him was still laughing. She evidently felt no resentment.
"You see, Jeffcott," she said, "there's only one man in the world I could marry. And he's not ready for me yet."
Jeffcott wagged his beard again commiseratingly. "So you've never got over it, Miss Sylvia? Your feelings is still the same—after five years?"
"Still the same," said Sylvia. There was a momentary challenge in her bright eyes, but it passed. "It couldn't be any different," she said softly. "No one else could ever come anywhere near him."
Jeffcott sighed aloud. "I know he were a nice young gentleman," he conceded. "But I've seen lots as good before and since. He weren't nothing so very extraordinary, Miss Sylvia."
Sylvia's look went beyond him, seeming to rest upon something very far away. "He was to me, Jeffcott," she said. "We just—fitted each other, he and I."
"And you was only eighteen," pleaded Jeffcott, "You wasn't full-grown in those days."
"No?" A quick sigh escaped her; her look came back to him, and she smiled. "Well, I am now anyway; and that's the one thing that hasn't altered or grown old—the one thing that never could."
"Ah, dear!" said old Jeffcott. "What a pity now as you couldn't take up with young Mr. Eversley or that Mr. Preston over the way, or—or—any of them young gents with a bit of property as might be judged suitable!"
Sylvia's laugh rang through the vinery, a gay, infectious laugh.
"Oh, really, Jeffcott! You talk as if I had only got to drop my handkerchief for the whole countryside to rush to pick it up! I'm not going to take up with anyone, unless it's Mr. Guy Ranger. You don't seem to realize that we've been engaged all this time."
"Ah!" said old Jeffcott, looking sardonic. "And you not met for five years! Do you ever wonder to yourself what sort of a man he may be after five years, Miss Sylvia? It's a long time for a young man to keep in love at a distance. It's a very long time."
"It's a long time for both of us," said Sylvia. "But it hasn't altered us in that respect."
"It's been a longer time for him than it has for you," said
Jeffcott shrewdly. "I'll warrant he's lived every minute of it.
He's the sort that would."
Sylvia's wide brows drew together in a little frown. She had caught the note of warning in the old man's words, and she did not understand it.
"What do you mean, Jeffcott?" she said, with a touch of sharpness.
But Jeffcott backed out of the vinery and out of the discussion at the same moment. "You'll know what I mean one day, Miss Sylvia," he said darkly, "when you're married."
"Silly old man!" said Sylvia, taking up the cluster of grapes for which she had come and departing in the opposite direction. Jeffcott was a faithful old servant, but he could be very exasperating when he liked.
The gardens were bathed in the evening sunlight as she passed through them on her way to the house. The old Manor stood out grey and ancient against an opal sky. She looked up at it with loving eyes. Her home meant very much to Sylvia Ingleton. Until the last six months she had always regarded it as her own life-long possession. For she was an only child, and for the past three years she had been its actual mistress, though virtually she had held the reins of government longer than that. Her mother had been delicate for as long as she could remember, and it was on account of her failing health that Sylvia had left school earlier than had been intended, that she might be with her. Since Mrs. Ingleton's death, three years before, she and her father had lived alone together at the old Manor in complete accord. They had always been close friends, the only dissension that had ever arisen between them having been laid aside by mutual consent.
That dissension had been caused by Guy Ranger. Five years before, when Sylvia had been only eighteen, he had flashed like a meteor through her sky, and no other star had ever shone for her again. Though seven years older than herself, he was little more than a boy, full of gaiety and life, possessing an extraordinary fascination, but wholly lacking in prospects, being no more than the son of Squire Ingleton's bailiff.
The Rangers were people of good yeoman extraction, and Guy himself had had a public school education, but the fact of their position was an obstacle which the squire had found insuperable. Only his love for his daughter had restrained him from violent measures. But Sylvia had somehow managed to hold him, how no one ever knew, for he was a man of fiery temper. And the end of if it had been that Guy had been banished to join a cousin farming in South Africa on the understanding that if he made a success of it he might eventually return and ask Sylvia to be his wife. There was to be no engagement between them, and if she elected to marry in the meantime so much the better, in the squire's opinion. He had had little doubt that Sylvia would marry when she had had time to forget some of the poignancy of first love. But in this he had been mistaken. Sylvia had steadfastly refused every lover who had come her way.
He had found another billet for old Ranger, and had installed a dour Scotchman in his place. But Sylvia still corresponded with young Guy, still spoke of him as the man she meant to marry. It was true she did not often speak of him, but that might have been through lack of sympathetic listeners. There was, moreover, about her an innate reserve which held her back where her deepest feelings were concerned. But her father knew, and she meant him to know, that neither time nor distance had eradicated the image of the man she loved from her heart. The days on which his letters reached her were always marked with a secret gladness, albeit the letters themselves held sometimes little more than affectionate commentary upon her own.
That Guy was making his way and that he would eventually return to her were practical certainties in her young mind. If his letters contained little to support this belief, she yet never questioned it for a moment. Guy was the sort to get on. She was sure of it. And he was worth waiting for. Oh, she could afford to be patient for Guy. She did not, moreover, believe that her father would hold out for ever. Also, and secretly this thought buoyed her up in rare moments of depression, in another two years—when she was twenty-five—she would inherit some money from her mother. It was not a very large sum, but it would be enough to render her independent. It would very greatly increase her liberty of action. She had little doubt that the very fact of it would help to overcome her father's prejudices and very considerably modify his attitude.
So, in a fashion, she had during the past three years come to regard her twenty-fifth birthday as a milestone in her life. She would be patient till it came, but then—at last—if circumstances permitted, she would take her fate into her own hands, She would—at last—assume the direction of her own life.
So she had planned, but so it was not to be. Her fate had already begun to shape itself in a fashion that was little to her liking. Travelling with her father in the North earlier in the summer, she had met with a slight accident which had compelled her to make the acquaintance of a lady staying at the same hotel whom she had disliked at the outset and always sought to avoid. This lady, Mrs. Emmott, was a widow with no settled home. Profiting by circumstances she had attached herself to Sylvia and her father, and now she was the latter's wife.
How it had come about, even now Sylvia scarcely realized. The woman's intentions had barely begun to dawn upon her before they had become accomplished fact. Her father's attitude throughout had amazed her, so astoundingly easy had been his capture. He was infatuated, possibly for the first time in his life, and no influence of hers could remove the spell.
Sylvia's feelings for Mrs. Emmott passed very rapidly from dislike to active detestation. Her iron strength of will, combined with an almost blatant vulgarity, gave the girl a sense of being borne down by an irresistible weight. Very soon her aversion became such that it was impossible to conceal it. And Mrs. Emmott laughed in her face. She hated Sylvia too, but she looked forward to subduing the unbending pride that so coldly withstood her, and for the sake of that she kept her animosity in check. She knew her turn would come.
Meantime, she concentrated all her energies upon the father, and with such marked success that within two months of their meeting they were married. Sylvia had gone to that wedding in such bitterness of soul and seething inward revolt as she had never experienced before. She did not know how she had come through it, so great had been her disgust. But that was nearly six weeks ago, and she had had time to recover. She had spent part of that period very peacefully and happily at the seaside with a young married cousin and her babies, and it had rested and refreshed her. She had come back with a calm resolve to endure what had to be endured in a philosophical spirit, to face the inevitable without futile rebellion.
Girt in an impenetrable armour of reserve, she braced herself to bear her burdens unflinching, so that none might ever guess how it galled her. And on that golden evening in September she prepared herself with a smiling countenance to meet her enemy in the gate.
They were returning from a prolonged honeymoon among the Italian lakes, and she had made everything ready for their coming. The great west-facing bedroom, which her father had never occupied since her mother's death, had been redecorated and prepared as for a bride. Sylvia had changed it completely, so that it might never again look as it had looked in the old days. She had hated doing it, but it had been in a measure a relief to her torn heart. It was thus she rendered inviolate that inner sanctuary of memory which none might enter.
As she passed along the terrace in the golden glow, the slight frown was still upon her brow. It had been such a difficult time. Her one ray of comfort had been the thought of Guy, dear, faithful lover working for her far away. And now old Jeffcott had cast a shade even upon that. But then he did not really know Guy. No one knew him as she knew him. She quickened her steps a little. Possibly there might be a letter from him that evening.
There was. She spied it lying on the hall table as she entered. Eagerly she went forward and picked it up. But as she did so there came the sound of a car in the drive before the open front door, and quickly she thrust it away in the folds of her dress. The travellers had returned.
With a resolutely smiling face she went to meet them.
CHAPTER II
THE NEW MISTRESS
"Here is our dear Sylvia!" said Mrs. Ingleton.
She embraced the girl with much empressement, and then, before
Sylvia could reach her father, turned and embraced him herself.
"So very nice to be home, dear!" she said effusively. "We shall be very happy here."
Gilbert Ingleton bestowed a somewhat embarrassed salute upon her, one eye on his daughter. She greeted him sedately the next moment, and though her face was smiling, her welcome seemed to be frozen at its source; it held no warmth.
Mrs. Ingleton, tall, handsome, assertive, cast an appraising eye around the oak-panelled hall. "Dear me! What severe splendour!" she commented. "I have a great love for cosiness myself. We must scatter some of those sweet little Italian ornaments about, Gilbert. You won't know the place when I have done with it. I am going to take you all in hand and bring you up-to-date."
Her keen dark eyes rested upon her step-daughter with a smile of peculiar meaning. Sylvia met them with the utmost directness.
"We like simplicity," she said.
Mrs. Ingleton pursed her lips, "Oh, but there is simplicity and simplicity! Give me warmth, homeliness, and plenty of pretty things. This place is archaically cold—quite like a convent. And you, my dear, might be the Sister Superior from your air. Now, Gilbert darling, you and I are going to be very firm with this child. I can plainly see she needs a guiding hand. She has had much too much responsibility for so young a girl. We are going to alter all that. We are going to make her very happy—as well as good."
She tapped Sylvia's shoulder with smiling significance, looking at her husband to set his seal to the declaration.
Mr. Ingleton was obviously feeling very uncomfortable. He glanced at Sylvia almost appealingly.
"I hope we are all going to be happy," he said rather gruffly. "Don't see why we shouldn't be, I'm sure. I like a quiet life myself. Got some tea for us, Sylvia?"
Sylvia turned, stiffly unresponsive to her step-mother's blandishments. "This way," she said, and crossed the hall to the drawing-room.
It was a beautiful room aglow just then with the rays of the western sun. Mrs. Ingleton looked all around her with smiling criticism, and nodded to herself as if seeing her way to many improvements. She walked to the windows.
"What a funny, old-fashioned garden! Quite medieval! I foresee a very busy time in store. Who lives on the other side of this property?"
"Preston—George Preston, the M.F.H.," said her husband, lounging up behind her. "About the richest man about here. Made his money on the Turf."
She gave him a quick look. "Is he young?" she asked.
He hesitated, "Not very."
"Married?" questioned Mrs. Ingleton, with the air of a ferret pursuing its quarry down a hole.
"No," said the squire, somewhat reluctantly.
"Ah!" said Mrs. Ingleton, in a tone of satisfaction.
"Won't you have some tea?" said Sylvia's grave voice behind them.
Mrs. Ingleton wheeled. "Bless the child!" she exclaimed. "She has a face as long as a fiddle. Let us have tea by all means. I am as hungry as a hunter. I hope there is something really substantial for us."
"It is less than an hour to dinner," said Sylvia.
She hardly looked at her father. Somehow she had a feeling that he did not want to meet her eyes.
He sat in almost unbroken silence while she poured out the tea, "for the last time, dear," as her step-mother jocosely remarked, and for his sake alone she exerted herself to make polite conversation with this new mistress of the Manor.
It was not easy, for Mrs. Ingleton did not want to talk upon indifferent subjects. Her whole attitude was one of unconcealed triumph. It was obvious that she meant to enjoy her conquest to the utmost. She was not in the least tired after her journey; she was one of those people who never tire. And as soon as she had refreshed herself with tea she announced her intention of going round the house.
Her husband, however, intervened upon this point, assuring her that there would be ample time in the morning, and Mrs. Ingleton yielded it not very gracefully.
She was placed at the head of the table at dinner, but she could not accept the position without comment.
"Poor little Sylvia! We shall have to make up for this, or I shall never be forgiven," with an arch look at the squire which completely missed its mark.
There were no subtleties about Gilbert Ingleton. He was thoroughly uncomfortable, and his manner proclaimed the fact aloud. If he were happy with his enchantress away from home, the home atmosphere completely dispelled all enchantment. Was it the fault of the slim, erect girl with the red-brown eyes who sat so gravely silent on his right hand?
He could not in justice accuse her, and yet the strong sense of her disapproval irritated him. What right had she, his daughter, to sit in judgment upon him? Surely he was entitled to act for himself—choose his own course—make his own hell if he wished! It was all quite unanswerable. He knew she would not have attempted to answer if he had put it to her, but that very fact made him the more sore. He hated to feel himself at variance with Sylvia.
"Can't you play something?" he said to her in desperation as they entered the drawing-room after dinner.
She looked at bun, her wide brows slightly raised.
"Well?" he questioned impatiently.
"Ask—Mrs. Ingleton first!" she said in a rapid whisper.
Mrs. Ingleton caught it, however. She had the keen senses of a lynx. "Now, Sylvia, my child, come here!" she commanded playfully. "I can't have you calling me that, you know. If we are going to live together, we must have absolutely clear understanding between us on all points. Don't you agree with me, Gilbert?"
Ingleton growled something unintelligible, and made for the open window.
"Don't go!" said his wife with a touch of peremptoriness. "I want you here. Tell this dear child that as I have determined to be a mother to her she is to address me as such!"
Ingleton barely paused. "You must settle that between yourselves," he said gruffly. "And for heaven's sake, don't fight over it!"
He passed heavily forth, and Sylvia, after a very brief hesitation, sat down in a chair facing her step-mother.
"I am sorry," she said quietly. "But I can't call you Mother.
Anything else you like to suggest, but not that."
Mrs. Ingleton uttered an unpleasant laugh. "I hope you are going to try and be sensible, my dear," she said, "for I assure you high-flown sentiment does not appeal to me in the very least. As head of your father's house, I must insist upon being treated with due respect. Let me warn you at the outset, though quite willing to befriend you, I am not a very patient woman. I am not prepared to put up with any slights."
Her voice lifted gradually as she proceeded till she ended upon a note that was almost shrill.
Sylvia sat very still. Her hands were clasped tightly about her knee. Her face was pale, and the red-brown eyes glittered a little, but she betrayed no other signs of emotion,
"I quite understand," she said after a moment. "But that doesn't solve the present difficulty, does it? I cannot possibly call you by a name that is sacred to someone else."
She spoke very quietly, but there was indomitable resolution in her very calm—a resolution that exasperated Mrs. Ingleton almost beyond endurance.
She arose with a sweeping gesture. "Oh, very well then," she said.
"You shall call me Madam!"
Sylvia looked up at her. "I think that is quite a good idea," she said in a tone that somehow stung her hearer, unbearably. "I will do that."
"And don't be impertinent!" she said, beginning to pace to and fro like an angry tigress. "I will not put up with it, Sylvia. I warn you. You have been thoroughly spoilt all your life. I know the signs quite well. And you have come to think that you can do anything you like. But that is not so any longer. I am mistress here, and I mean to maintain my position. Any hint of rebellion from you or anyone else I shall punish with the utmost severity. So now you understand."
"I do indeed," said Sylvia.
She had not stirred from her chair, but sat watching her step-mother's agitated pacing with grim attention. It was her first acquaintance with the most violent temper she had ever encountered in a woman, and it interested her. She was no longer conscious of being angry herself. The whole affair had become a sort of bitter comedy. She looked upon it with a species of impersonal scorn.
Mrs. Ingleton was obviously lashing herself to fury. She could not imagine why, not realizing at that stage that she was the victim of a jealousy so fierce as to amount almost to a mania. She wondered if her father were watching them from the terrace, and contemplated getting up to join him, but hesitated to do so, reflecting that it might appear like flight. At the same time she did not see why she should remain as a target for her step-mother's invective, and she had just decided upon departure when Bliss, the butler, opened the door with his own peculiarly quiet flourish and announced, "Captain Preston!"
A clean-shaven little man, with a horsey appearance about the legs which evening-dress wholly failed to conceal, entered, and instinctively Sylvia rose to receive him.
Mrs. Ingleton stopped short and stared as they met in the middle of the room.
"Hullo, Sylvia!" said the little man, and stamped forward as if he had just dismounted after a long ride. He had a loud voice and an assertive manner, and Mrs. Ingleton gazed at him in frozen surprise.
Sylvia turned towards her. "May I introduce Mr. Preston—the M.F.H.?" Her tone was cold. If the newcomer's advent had been a welcome diversion it obviously gave her no pleasure.
Preston, however, plainly did not stand in need of any encouragement. He strode up to Mrs. Ingleton, confronting her with aggressive self-assurance, "Delighted to meet you, madam. You are Sylvia's step-mother, I presume? I hope we shall be more nearly connected before long. Anyone belongin' to Sylvia has my highest esteem. She has the straightest seat on a horse of any woman I know. Ingleton and I between us taught her all she knows about huntin', and she does us credit, by gad!"
He winked at Mrs. Ingleton as he ended, and Sylvia bit her lip.
Mrs. Ingleton, however, held out her hand.
"Pray sit down, Mr. Preston! You are most welcome. Sylvia, my dear, will you find the cigarettes?"
Sylvia took a box from the table and handed it to him. He took it from her, openly pinching her fingers as he did so, and offered it to her instead.
"After you, Cherry-ripe! You're lookin' spiffin' to-night, hey,
Mrs. Ingleton? What do you think of your new daughter?"
Mrs. Ingleton was smiling. "I am only wondering what all you young men can be about," she said. "I should have thought one of you would have captured her long ago."
Sylvia turned round, disgust in every line, and walked to the window. "I will find Dad," she said.
Preston looked after her, standing with legs wide apart on the hearth-rug. "It's none of my fault, I assure you," he said. "I've been tryin' to rope her for the last two years. But she's so damn' shy. Can't get near her, by George."
"Really?" smiled Mrs. Ingleton. "Perhaps you have not gone quite the right way to work. I think I shall have to take a hand in the game and see what I can do."
Preston bowed with his hand on his heart, "I always like to get the fair sex on my side whenever possible. If you can put the halter on her, you've only to name your price, madam, and it's yours."
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Ingleton. "You're very generous."
"I can afford to be," declared Preston. "She's a decent bit of goods—the only one I've ever wanted and couldn't get. If you can get the whip-hand of her and drive her my way—well, it'll be pretty good business for all concerned. You like diamonds, hey, madam?"
"Very much," laughed Mrs. Ingleton coquettishly. "But you mustn't make my husband jealous. Remember that now!"
Preston closed one eye deliberately and poked his tongue into his cheek. "You leave that to me, my good madam. Anythin' of that sort would be the gift of the bridegroom. See?"
"Oh, quite," said Mrs. Ingleton. "I shall certainly do my best for you, Mr. Preston."
"Good for you!" said Preston jocularly. "It's a deal then. And you play every trump you've got!"
"You may depend upon me," said Mrs. Ingleton.
CHAPTER III
THE WHIP-HAND
"Why isn't Mr. Preston engaged to Sylvia?" demanded Mrs. Ingleton of her husband as she faced him across the breakfast-table on the following morning.
"He'd like to be," said Ingleton with his face bent over the morning paper.
"Then why isn't he?" demanded Mrs. Ingleton with asperity. "He is a rich country gentleman, and he has a position in the County. What more could you possibly want for her?"
Reluctantly the squire made answer. "Oh, I'm willing enough. He's quite a decent chap so far as I know. I dare say he'd make her quite a good husband if she'd have him. But she won't. So there's an end of that."
"Ridiculous!" exclaimed Mrs. Ingleton. "And, pray, why won't she?"
"Why? Oh, because there's another fellow, of course. There always is," growled Ingleton. "Girls never fall in love with the right man. Haven't you found that out yet?"
"I have found out," said Mrs. Ingleton tartly, "that Sylvia is a most wilful and perverse girl, and I think you are very unwise to put up with her whims. I should be ashamed to have a girl of that age still on my hands."
"I'd like to know how you'd have managed her any differently," muttered the squire, without looking up.
Mrs. Ingleton laughed unpleasantly. "You don't know much about women, do you, my dear? Of course I could have managed her differently. She'd have been comfortably married for the past two years at least if I had been in command."
Ingleton looked sourly incredulous. "You don't know Sylvia," he observed. "She has a will like cast-iron. You'd never move her."
Mrs. Ingleton tossed her head. "Never? Well, look here! If you want the girl to marry that really charming Mr. Preston, I'll undertake that she shall—and that within a year. How is that?"
Ingleton stared a little, then slowly shook his head. "You'll never do it, my dear Caroline."
"I will do it if it is your wish," said Mrs. Ingleton firmly.
He looked at her with a touch of uneasiness. "I don't want the child coerced."
She laughed again. "What an idea! Are children ever coerced in these days? It's usually the parents who have to put up with that sort of treatment. Now tell me about the other man. What and where is he?"
Ingleton told her with surly reluctance. "Oh, he was a handsome young beggar she met five years ago—the son of my then bailiff, as a matter of fact. The boy had had a fairly decent education; he was a gentleman, but he wasn't good enough for my Sylvia, had no prospects of any sort. And so I put my foot down."
Mrs. Ingleton smiled with her thin, hard lips, but no gleam of humour reached her eyes. "With the result, I suppose, that she has been carrying on with him ever since."
Ingleton stirred uneasily in his chair. "Well, she hasn't given him up. They correspond, I believe. But he is far enough away at present. He is in South Africa. She'll never marry him with my approval. I'm pretty certain now that the fellow is a rotter."
"She probably deems herself very heroic for sticking to him in spite of opposition," observed Mrs. Ingleton.
"Very likely," he conceded. "But I think she genuinely cares for him. That's just the mischief of it. And, unfortunately, in another couple of years she'll be in a position to please herself. She inherits a little money from her mother then."
Mrs. Ingleton's smile became more pronounced, revealing her strong white teeth behind. "You need not look forward so far as that, my love," she said. "Leave Sylvia entirely to me! I will undertake, as I said, to have her married to Mr. Preston well within a year. So you may set your mind at rest on that point."
"He is certainly fond of her," said the squire. "And they both have sporting tastes. He ought to have a very good chance with her if only the other fellow could be wiped out."
"Then leave her to me!" said Mrs. Ingleton, rising. "And mind, dear"—she paused behind her husband's chair and placed large white hands upon his shoulders—"whatever I do, you are not to interfere. Is that a bargain?"
Ingleton moved again uncomfortably. "You won't be unkind to the child?" he said.
"My dear Gilbert, don't you realize that the young lady is more than capable of holding her own against me or anyone else?" protested Mrs. Ingleton.
"And yet you say you can manage her?" he said.
"Well, so I can, if you will only trust to my discretion. What she needs is a little judicious treatment, and that is what I intend to give her. Come, that is understood, isn't it? It is perfectly outrageous that she should have ridden roughshod over you so long. A chit like that! And think how pleasant it will be for everyone when she is settled and provided for. Dear me! I shall feel as if a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. We shall really enjoy ourselves then."
She smiled down into her husband's dubious face, and after a moment with a curt sigh he pulled her down and kissed her. "Well, you're a woman, you ought to know how to manage your own kind," he said. "Sylvia's mother was an invalid for so long that I expect the child did grow a bit out of hand. I'll leave her to you then, Caroline. If you can manage to marry her to Preston I believe you'll do her the biggest service possible."
"Of course I should like to do that!" said Mrs. Ingleton, kissing him loudly. "Ah! Here she comes! She mustn't catch us love-making at this hour. Good morning, my dear child! What roses to be sure! No need to ask where you have been."
Sylvia came in, riding-whip in hand. Her face was flushed and her eyes shining.
"Had a ripping run, Dad. You ought to have been there," she said. "Good morning!" She paused and kissed him, then turned to her step-mother. "Good morning, Madam! I hope the keys have been duly handed over. I told Mrs. Hadlow to see to it."
Mrs. Ingleton kissed her effusively. "You poor child! I am afraid it is a very sore point with you to part with your authority to me. The only thing for you to do is to be quick and get a home of your own."
Sylvia laughed. "Breakfast is my most pressing need at the present moment. Winnie carried me beautifully, Dad. George says she is a positive marvel for her years; dear little soul."
"George—George!" repeated Mrs. Ingleton with playful surprise. "I presume that is the estimable young man who called upon me last night. Well, well, if you are so intimate, I suppose I shall have to be too. He was in a great hurry to pay his respects, was he not?"
Sylvia was staring at her from the other side of the table. "I meant George the groom," she said coldly after a moment. "Is there any news, Dad?"
She turned deliberately to him, but before he could speak in answer
Mrs. Ingleton intervened.
"Now, Sylvia, my love, I have something really rather serious to say to you. Of course, I fully realize that you are very young and inexperienced and not likely to think of these things for yourself. But I must tell you that it is very bad for the servants to have meals going in the dining-room at all hours. Therefore, my child, I must ask you to make a point of being punctual—always. Breakfast is at eight-thirty. Please bear that in mind for the future!"
Again Sylvia's wide eyes were upon her. They looked her straight in the face. "Dad and I are never back by eight-thirty when we go cubbing, are we, Dad?" she said.
The squire cleared his throat, and did not respond.
Mrs. Ingleton smiled. "But we are changing all that," she said. "At my particular request your dear father has promised me to give up hunting."
"What?" said Sylvia, and turned upon her father with a red flash in her eyes. "Dad, is that true?"
He looked at her unwillingly. "Oh, don't make a scene!" he said irritably. "Your mother is nervous, so I have given it up for the present, that's all."
"Please don't call Mrs. Ingleton my mother!" said Sylvia, suddenly deadly calm. "Am I always to hunt alone, then, for the future?"
"You have got—George," smiled Mrs. Ingleton.
Sylvia's eyes fell abruptly from her father's face, but they did not return to her step-mother. She turned away to the sideboard, and helped herself from a dish that stood there. In absolute silence she sat down at the table and began to eat.
Her father sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment or two, then got up with a non-committal, "Well!" gathered up his letters, and tramped from the room.
Mrs. Ingleton took up the paper and perused it, humming. Sylvia ate her breakfast in dead silence.
She rose finally to pour herself out some coffee, and at the movement her step-mother looked up. There was a glitter in her hard grey eyes that somewhat belied the smile she sought to assume. "Now, my dear," she said, in the tone of one lecturing a refractory child, "you were a very wilful and impertinent girl last night. I told you I should punish you, and I have kept my word. I do not advise you to aggravate the offence by sulking."
"Will you tell me what you mean?" said Sylvia, standing stiff and straight before her.
Mrs. Ingleton slightly shrugged her shoulders. "You are behaving like a child of six, and really, if you go on, you will provoke me into treating you as such. The attitude you have chosen to adopt is neither sensible nor dignified, let me tell you. You resent my presence here. Very well; but you cannot prevent it. Would it not be much wiser of you either to submit to my authority or——"
"Or?" repeated Sylvia icily.
"Or take the obvious course of providing yourself with a home elsewhere," said Mrs. Ingleton.
Sylvia put up a quick hand to her throat. She was breathing very quickly. "You wish to force me to marry that horrible Preston man?" she said.
"By no means, my dear," smiled Mrs. Ingleton. "But you might do a good deal worse. I tell you frankly, you will be very much underdog as long as you elect to remain in this establishment. Oh yes!" She suddenly rose to her full majestic height, dwarfing the girl before her with conscious triumph. "I may have some trouble with you, but conquer you I will. Your father will not interfere between us. You have seen that for yourself. In fact, he has just told me that he leaves the management of you entirely to me. He has given me an absolutely free hand—very wisely. If I choose to lock you in your room for the rest of the day he will not interfere. And as I am quite capable of doing so, I warn you to be very careful."
Sylvia stood as if turned to stone. She was white to the lips, but she confronted her step-mother wholly without fear.
"Do you really think I would submit to that?" she said. "I am not a child, I assure you, whatever I may appear to you. You will certainly never manage me by that sort of means."
Her clear, emphatic voice fell without agitation. Now that the first shock of the encounter was past she had herself quite firmly in hand.
But Mrs. Ingleton took her up swiftly, realizing possibly that a moment's delay would mean the yielding of the ground she had so arrogantly claimed.
"I shall manage you exactly as I choose," she said, raising her voice with abrupt violence. "I know very well your position in this house. You are absolutely dependent, and—unless you marry—you will remain so, being quite unqualified to earn your own living. Therefore the whip-hand is mine, and if I find you insolent or intractable I shall use it without mercy. How dare you set yourself against me in this way?" She stamped with sudden fury upon the ground. "No, not a word! Leave the room instantly—I will have no more of it! Do you hear me, Sylvia? Do you hear me?"
She raised a menacing hand, but the fearless eyes never flinched.
"I think you must be mad," Sylvia said.
"Mad!" raved Mrs. Ingleton. "Mad because I refuse to be dictated to by an impertinent girl? Mad because I insist upon being mistress in my own house? You—you little viper—how dare you stand there defying me? Do you want to be turned out into the street?"
She had worked herself up into unreasoning rage again. Sylvia saw that further argument would be worse than useless. Very quietly, without another word, she turned, gathered up riding-whip and gloves, and went from the room. She heard Mrs. Ingleton utter a fierce, malignant laugh as she went.
CHAPTER IV
THE VICTOR
The commencement of the fox-hunting season was always celebrated by a dance at the Town Hall—a dance which Sylvia had never failed to attend during the five years that she had been in society and had been a member of the Hunt.
It was at her first Hunt Ball, on the occasion of her debut, that she had met young Guy Ranger, and she looked back to that ball with all its tender reminiscences as the beginning of all things.
How superlatively happy she had been that night! Not for anything that life could offer would she have parted with that one precious romance of her girlhood. She clung to the memory of it as to a priceless possession. And year after year she had gone to the Hunt Ball with that memory close in her heart.
It was at the last of these that George Preston had asked her to be his wife. She had made every effort to avoid him, but he had mercilessly tracked her down; and though she had refused him with great emphasis she had never really felt that he had taken her seriously. He was always seeking her out, always making excuses to be alone with her. It was growing increasingly difficult to evade him. She had never liked the man, but Fate or his own contrivance was continually throwing him in her way. If she hunted, he invariably rode home with her. If she remained away, he invariably came upon her somehow, and wanted to know wherefore.
She strongly suspected that her step-mother was in league with him, though she had no direct proof of this. Preston was being constantly asked to the house, and whenever they went out to dine they almost invariably met him. She had begun to have a feeling that people eyed them covertly, with significant glances, that they were thrown together by design. Wherever they met, he always fell to her lot as dinner-partner, and he had begun to affect an attitude of proprietorship towards her which was yet too indefinite for her actively to resent,
She felt as if a net were closing around her from which, despite her utmost effort, she was powerless to escape. Also, for weeks now she had received no letter from Guy, and that fact disheartened her more than any other. She had never before had to wait so long for word from him. Very brief, often unsatisfying, as his letters had been, at least they had never failed to arrive. And she counted upon them so. Without them, she felt bereft of her mainstay. Without them, the almost daily, nerve-shattering scenes which her step-mother somehow managed to enact, however discreet her attitude, became an infliction hardly to be borne. She might have left her home for a visit among friends, but something held her back from this. Something warned her that if she went her place would be instantly filled up, and she would never return. And very bitterly she realized the fact that for the next two years she was dependent. She had not been trained to earn her own living, and she lacked the means to obtain a training. Her father, she knew, would not hear of such a thing, nor would he relinquish the only means he possessed of controlling her actions. She believed that privately he did not wish to part with her, though her presence was a very obvious drawback to his comfort. He never took her part, but also he never threw his weight into the balance against her. He merely, with considerable surliness, looked on.
And so the cruel struggle went on till it seemed to Sylvia that her physical strength was ultimately beginning to fail. She came to dread her step-mother's presence with a feeling akin to nausea, to shrink in every nerve from the constant ordeals so ruthlessly thrust upon her,
So far she had never faltered or shown any sign of weakness under the long-drawn-out persecution, but she was becoming aware that, strive as she might, her endurance had its limits. She was but human, and she was intensely sensitive to unkindness. Her nerves were beginning to give way under the strain. There were even times when she felt a breakdown to be inevitable, and only the thought of her step-mother's triumph warded it off. Once down, and she knew she would be a slave, broken beyond redemption to the most pitiless tyranny. And so, though her strength was worn threadbare through perpetual strain, she clung to it still. If only—oh, if only—Guy would write! If he should be ill—if he should fail her—she felt that it would be the end of everything. For nothing else mattered.
She did not greatly wish to go to the Hunt Ball that year. She felt utterly out of tune with all gaiety. But she could think of no decent excuse for remaining away. And she was still buoying herself up with the thought that Guy's silence could not last much longer. She was bound to hear from him soon.
She went to the Ball, therefore, feeling tired and dispirited, and looking quite passee, as her step-mother several times assured her.
She had endured a long harangue upon jealousy that evening, which vice Mrs. Ingleton declared she was allowing to embitter her whole life, and she was weary to death of the subject and the penetrating voice that had discoursed upon it. Once or twice she had been stung into some biting rejoinder, but for the most part she had borne the lecture in silence. After all, what did it matter? What did it matter?
They reached the Town Hall and went up the carpeted steps. Preston, in hunting pink, received them. He captured Sylvia's hand and pressed it tight against his heart.
She stared at him with wide unsmiling eyes. "Seen the local rag?" he asked, as he grinned amorously into them. "There's something to interest you in it. Our local prophet has been at work."
She did not know what he meant, or feel sufficiently interested to inquire. She pulled her hand free, and passed on. His familiarity became more marked and more insufferable every time she encountered him. But still she asked herself again, what did it matter?
He laughed and let her go.
In the cloak-room people looked at her oddly, but beyond ordinary greetings no one spoke to her. She did not know that it was solely her utter wretchedness that kept them at a distance.
She entered the ballroom behind Mrs. Ingleton, and at once Preston descended upon her again. He had scrawled his name against half a dozen dances on her card before she realized what he was doing. She began to protest, but again that deadly feeling of apathy overcame her. She was worn out—worn out. What did it matter whether she danced with the man or not?
Young Vernon Eversley, a friendly boy whom she had always liked, pursed his lips when he saw her programme.
"It's true then, is it?" he said.
"What is true?" She looked at him questioningly, not feeling greatly interested in his answer.
He met her look with straight, honest eyes. "I saw the announcement of your engagement in the paper this morning; but somehow I didn't believe it. He's a dashed lucky man."
That startled her out of her lethargy. She began a quick disclaimer, but they were interrupted. One of the stewards came up and swept young Eversley away.
The next moment Preston came and took possession of her. He was laughing still as he whirled her in among the dancers, refusing to give her any breathing-space.
"I want to see a little colour in those cheeks of yours, Cherry-ripe," he said. "What's the Ingleton dragon been doin' to you, my pretty?"
She danced with him with a feeling that the net was drawn close about her, and she was powerless to struggle any longer. When he suffered her to stand at last, her head was whirling so that she had to cling to him for support.
He led her to a secluded corner and put her into a chair. Then he bent over her and spoke into her ear. "Look here! I'm not such a bad sort. They've coupled our names together in the local rag. Why not let 'em?"
She looked up at him, summoning her strength with a great effort.
"So it was your doing!" she said.
"No, it wasn't!" he declared. "I swear it wasn't! I'm not such a fool as that. But see here, Sylvia! Where's the use of holdin' out any longer? You know I want you, and there's no sense in goin' on pinin' for a fellow in South Africa who's probably married a dozen blacks already. It isn't like you to cry for the moon. Put up with me instead! You might do worse, and anyone can see you're havin' a dog's time at the Manor now. You'll be your own boss anyway if you come to me."
She heard him with her eyes fixed before her. Her brief energy had gone. Her life seemed to stretch before her in a long, dreary waste. His arguments were unanswerable. Physical weariness, combined with the despair which till then she had refused to acknowledge, overwhelmed her. She was down.
He put his hand upon her. "Come, I say! Is it a bargain? I swear
I won't bully you. I'm awfully fond of you, Cherry-ripe."
She raised herself slowly. It was her last effort. "One thing first," she said, and put his hand away from her. "I must—cable to Guy, and get an answer."
"Oh, rot!" he said. "What for?"
"Because I haven't heard from him lately, and I must know—I must know"—she spoke with rising agitation—"the reason why. He might be—I don't say it is likely, but he might be—on his way home to me. I can't—I can't give him up without knowing."
Preston grimaced wryly, but he was shrewd enough to grasp and hold such advantage as was his. "Well, failing him, you'll have me, what? That's a promise, is it?"
She looked at him again. "If you want me under those conditions."
He put his arms about her. "Of course I want you, Cherry-ripe! We'd be awfully happy together, you and I. I'll soon make you forget him, if that's all. You can't be very deeply in love with the fellow after all this time. I don't suppose he's in the least the sort of person you take him for. You're wastin' your time over a myth. Come, it's settled, isn't it? We're engaged."
He pressed her closer. He bent to kiss her, but she turned her face away. His lips only found her neck, but he made the most of that. She had to exert her strength to free herself.
"No," she said. "We're not engaged. We can't be engaged—until I have heard from Guy."
He suppressed a short word of impatience. "And suppose you don't hear?" he asked.
She made a blind movement with her hands. "Then—-I give in."
"You will marry me?" he insisted.
"If you like," she answered drearily. "I expect you will very soon get tired of me."
"There's a remedy for everything," he answered jauntily. "But we needn't consider that. I'm just mad to get you, you poor little icicle. I'll warm you up, never fear. When you've been married to me a week, you won't know yourself." She shivered and was silent.
He turned in his tracks, perceiving he was making no headway.
"Then we're engaged provisionally anyway," he insisted. "There's
no need to contradict the general impression—unless we're obliged.
We'll behave like lovers—till further notice."
She got to her feet. Her knees were trembling. The net was close at last. She seemed to feel it pressing on her throat. "You are not—to kiss me," she managed to say.
He frowned at the condition, but he conceded it. The game was so nearly his that he could afford to be generous. Besides, he would exact payment in full later for any little concessions she wrung from him now.
"I'm bein' awfully patient," he said pathetically. "I hope you'll take that into account. You really might just as well give in first as last."
But Sylvia had given in, and she knew it. Nothing but a miracle could save her now. The only loophole she had for herself was one which she realized already was highly unlikely to serve her. She had been practically forced into submission, and she did not attempt to disguise the fact from herself.
Yet if only Guy had not failed her, she knew that no power on earth would have sufficed to move her, no clamour of battle could ever have made her quail. That had been the chink in her armour, and through that she had been pierced again and again, till she was vanquished at last.
She felt too weary now, too utterly overwhelmed by circumstances, to care what happened. Yes, she would cable to Guy as she had said. But her confidence was gone. She was convinced already that no word would come back in answer out of the void that had swallowed him,
She went through the evening as one in a dream. People offered her laughing congratulations, and she never knew how she received them. She seemed to be groping her way through an all-enveloping mist of despair.
One episode only stood out clearly from all the rest, and that was when all were assembled at supper and out of the gay hubbub she caught the sound of her own name. Then for a few intolerable moments she became vividly alive to that which was passing around her. She knew that George Preston's arm encircled her, and that everyone present had risen to drink to their happiness.
As soon as it was over she crept away like a wounded thing and hid herself. Only a miracle could save her now.
CHAPTER V
THE MIRACLE
"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Ingleton, rising to kiss her step-daughter on the following morning, "I consider you are a very—lucky—girl."
Sylvia received the kiss and passed on without reply. She was very pale, but the awful inertia of the previous night had left her. She was in full command of herself. She took up some letters from a side table, and sat down with them.
Her step-mother eyed her for a moment or two in silence. Then:
"Well, my dear?" she said. "Have you nothing to say for yourself?"
"Nothing particular," said Sylvia.
The letters were chiefly letters of congratulation. She read them with that composure which Mrs. Ingleton most detested, and put them aside.
"Am I to have no share in the general rejoicing?" she asked at length, in a voice that trembled with indignation.
Sylvia recognized the tremor. It had been the prelude to many a storm. She got up and turned to the window. "You can read them all if you like," she said. "I see Dad on the terrace. I am just going to speak to him."
She passed out swiftly with the words before her step-mother's gathering wrath could descend upon her. One of Mrs. Ingleton's main grievances was that it was so difficult to corner Sylvia when she wanted to give free vent to her violence.
She watched the girl's slim figure pass out into the pale November sunshine, and her frown turned to a very bitter smile.
"Ah, my girl, you wait a bit!" she murmured. "You've met your match, or I'm much mistaken."
The squire was smoking his morning pipe in a sheltered corner. He looked round with his usual half-surly expression as his daughter joined him.
She came to him very quietly and put her hand on his arm.
"Well?" he said gruffly.
She stood for a moment or two in silence, then:
"Dad," she said very quietly, "I am going to cable to Guy. I haven't heard from him lately. I must know the reason why before—before——" A quiver of agitation sounded in her voice and she stopped.
"If you've made up your mind to marry Preston, I don't see why you want to do that," said the squire curtly.
"I am going to do it," she answered steadily. "I only wish I had done it sooner."
Ingleton burrowed into his paper. "All right," he growled.
Sylvia stood for a few seconds longer, but he did not look up at her, and at length, with a sharp sigh, she turned and left him.
She did not return to her step-mother, however. She went to her room to write her message.
A little later she passed down the garden on her way to the village. A great restlessness was upon her, and she thought the walk to the post-office would do her good.
She came upon Jeffcott in one of the shrubberies, and he stopped her with the freedom of an old servant.
"Beggin' your pardon, missie, but you'll let me wish you joy?" he said. "I heard the good news this morning."
She stood still. His friendly look went straight to her heart, stirring in her an urgent need for sympathy.
"Oh, Jeffcott," she said, "I'd never have given in if Mr. Ranger hadn't stopped writing."
"Lor!" said Jeffcott. "Did he now?" He frowned for an instant.
"But—-didn't you have a letter from him last week?" he questioned.
"Friday morning it were. I see Evans, the postman, and he said as
there were a South African letter for you. Weren't that from Mr.
Ranger, missie?"
"What?" said Sylvia sharply.
"Last Friday it were," the old man repeated firmly. "Why, I see the letter in his hand top of the pile when he stopped in the drive to speak to me. We both of us passed a remark on it."
Sylvia was staring at him. "Jeffcott, are you sure?" she said.
"Sure as I stand here, Miss Sylvia," he returned. "I couldn't have made no mistake. Didn't you have it then, missie? I'll swear to heaven it were there."
"No," Sylvia said. "I didn't have it." She paused a moment; then very slowly, "The last letter I had from Guy Ranger," she said, "was more than six weeks ago—the day that the squire brought Madam to the Manor."
"Lor!" ejaculated old Jeffcott again. "But wherever could they have got to, Miss Sylvia? Don't Bliss have the sortin' of the letters?"
"I—don't—know." Sylvia was gazing straight before her with that in her face which frightened the old man. "Those letters have been—kept back."
She turned from him with the words, and suddenly she was running, running swiftly up the path.
Like a young animal released from bondage she darted out of his sight, and Jeffcott returned to his hedge-trimming with pursed lips. That last glimpse of Miss Sylvia's face had—to express it in his own language—given him something of a turn.
It had precisely the same effect upon Sylvia's step-mother a little later, when the girl burst in upon her as she sat writing letters in her boudoir.
She looked round at her in amazement, but she had no time to ask for an explanation, for Sylvia, white to the lips, with eyes of flame, went straight to the attack. She was in such a whirlwind of passion as had never before possessed her.
She was panting, yet she spoke with absolute distinctness. "I have just found out," she said, "how it is that I have had no letters from Guy during the past six weeks. They have been—stolen."
"Really, Sylvia!" said Mrs. Ingleton. She arose in wrath, but no wrath had any effect upon Sylvia at that moment. She was girt for battle—the deadliest battle she had ever known.
"You took them!" she said, pointing an accusing finger full at her step-mother. "You kept them back! Deny it as much as you like—as much as you dare! None but you would have stooped to do such a thing. And it has been done. The letters have been delivered—and I have not received them. I have suffered—horribly—because of it. You meant me to suffer!'
"You are wrong, Sylvia! You are wrong!" Shrilly Mrs. Ingleton broke in upon her, for there was something awful in the girl's eyes—they had a red-hot look. "Whatever I have done has been for your good always. Your father will testify to that. Go and ask him if you don't believe me!"
"My father had nothing to do with this!" said Sylvia in tones of withering scorn. "Whatever else he lacks, he has a sense of honour. But you—you are a wicked woman, unprincipled, cruel, venomous. It may be my father's duty to live with you, but—thank heaven—it is not mine. You have come into my home and cursed it. I will never sleep under the same roof with you again."
She turned with the words to leave the room, and found her father and George Preston just coming out of the library on the other side of the hall. Fearlessly she swung round and confronted them. The utter freedom of her at that moment made her superb. The miracle had happened. She had rent the net that entangled her to shreds.
Mrs. Ingleton was beginning to clamour in the room behind her. She turned swiftly and shut and locked the door. Then she faced the two men with magnificent courage.
"I have to tell you," she said, addressing them both impersonally, "that my engagement to Guy Ranger is unbroken. I have just found out that my step-mother has been suppressing his letters to me. That, of course, alters everything. And—also of course—it makes it impossible for me to stay here any longer. I am going to him—at once."
Her eyes went rapidly from her father's face to Preston's. It was he who came forward and answered her. The squire seemed struck dumb.
"Egad!" he said. "I've never seen you look so rippin' in all my life! That's how you look when you're angry, is it? Now I shall know what to watch out for when we're married."
She answered him with a quiver of scorn. "We never shall be married, Mr. Preston. You may put that out of your mind for ever. I am going to Guy by the next boat."
"Not you!" laughed Preston. "You're in a paddy just now, my dear, but when you've thought it over soberly you'll find there are a good many little obstacles in the way of that. You haven't been brought up to rough it for one. And Guy Ranger, as I think we settled last night, has probably married half a dozen blacks already. It's too great a risk, Cherry-ripe! And—if I know you—you won't take it."
"You don't know me," said Sylvia. She turned, from him and went to her father. "Have you nothing to say," she asked, "about this vile and hateful plot? But I suppose you can't. She is your wife. However much you despise her, you have got to endure her. But I have not. And so I am going—to-day!"
Her voice rang clear and unfaltering. She looked him straight in the eyes. He made a sharp movement, almost as if that full regard pierced him.
He spoke with manifest effort. "You won't go with my consent."
"No?" said Sylvia. "Yet—you would never respect me again if I stayed. I could never respect myself." She glanced over her shoulder at the door which Mrs. Ingleton was violently shaking. "You can let her out," she said contemptuously. "I have had my turn. I leave her—in possession." She turned to go to the stairs, then abruptly checked herself, stepped up to her father, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him. The anger had gone out of her eyes. "Good-bye, Dad! Think of me sometimes!" she said.
And with that she was gone, passing Preston by as though she saw him not, and ascending the stairs quickly, but wholly without agitation. They heard her firm, light tread along the corridor above. Then with a hunch of the shoulders the squire turned and unlocked the boudoir door.
Mrs. Ingleton burst forth in a fury. "You cad to keep me boxed up here with that little serpent pouring all sorts of poison into your ears! Where is she? Where is she? I'll give her such a trouncing as she's never had before!"
But Ingleton stretched an arm in front of her, barring the way.
His face was grim and unyielding. "No, you won't!" he said.
"You'll leave her alone. She's my daughter—not yours. And you'll
not interfere with her any further."
There was a finality in his tone. Mrs. Ingleton stopped short, glaring at him.
"You take her part, do you?" she demanded.
"On this occasion—yes, I do," said the squire.
"And what about me?" said Preston.
Ingleton looked at him—still barring his wife's progress—with a faint, sardonic smile. "Well, she seems to have given you the boot, anyway. If I were in your place, I should—quit."
"She'll repent it!" raved Mrs. Ingleton. "Oh, she will repent it bitterly!"
"Very likely," conceded Ingleton. "But she's kicked over the traces now, and that fact won't pull her up—anyhow, at present,"
Mrs. Ingleton's look held fierce resentment. "Are you going to let her go?" she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Seeing I can't help myself, I suppose I shall. There's no sense in making a fuss now. It's done, so you leave her alone!"
Mrs. Ingleton turned upon Preston. "You can bring an action for breach of promise!" she said. "I'll support you."
He made her an ironical bow. "You are more than kind," he said. "But—I think I shall get on better for the future without your support."
And with the words he turned on his heel and went out.
"Hateful person!" cried Mrs. Ingleton. "Gilbert, he has insulted me! Go after him and kick him! Gilbert! How dare you?"
Ingleton was quietly but firmly impelling her back into the boudoir. "You go and sit down!" he said. "Sit down and be quiet! There's been enough of this."
It was the first time in her knowledge that he had ever asserted himself. Mrs. Ingleton stared at him wildly for a second or two, then, seeing that he was in earnest, subsided into a chair with a burst of hysterical weeping, declaring that no one ever treated her so brutally before.
She expected to be soothed, comforted, propitiated, but no word of solace came. Finally she looked round with an indignant dabbing of her tears. How dare he treat her thus? Was he quite heartless? She began to utter a stream of reproaches, but stopped short and gasped in incredulous disgust. He had actually—he had actually—gone, and left her to wear her emotion out in solitude.
So overwhelming was the result of this piece of neglect, combined with the failure of all her plans, that Mrs. Ingleton retired forwith to bed, and remained there for the rest of the day.
CHAPTER VI
THE LAND OF STRANGERS
It had been a day of intense and brooding heat. Black clouds hung sullenly low in the sky, and a heavy gloom obscured the face of the earth. On each side of the railway the veldt stretched for miles, vivid green, yet strangely desolate to unaccustomed eyes. The moving train seemed the only sign of life in all that wilderness.
Sylvia leaned from the carriage window and gazed blankly forth. She had hoped that Guy would meet her at Cape Town, but he had not been there. She had come unwelcomed into this land of strangers. But he would be at Ritzen. He had cabled a month before that he would meet her there if he could not get to Cape Town.
And now she was nearing Ritzen. Across the mysterious desolation she discerned its many lights. It was a city in a plain, and the far hills mounted guard around it, but she saw them only dimly in the failing light.
Ritzen was the nearest railway station to the farm on which Guy worked. From here she would have to travel twenty miles across country. But that would not be yet. Guy and she would be married first. There would be a little breathing-space at Ritzen before she went into that new life that awaited her beyond the hills. Somehow she felt as if those hills guarded her destiny. She did not fear the future, but she looked forward to it with a certain awe.
Paramount within her, was the desire for Guy, the sight of his handsome, debonair countenance, the ring of his careless laugh. As soon as she saw Guy she knew she would be at home, even in the land of strangers, as she had never been at the Manor since the advent of her father's second wife. She had no misgivings on that point, or she had never come across the world to him thus, making all return impossible. For there could be be no going back for her. She had taken a definite and irrevocable step. There could be no turning back upon this road that she had chosen.
It might not be an easy road. She was prepared for obstacles. But with Guy she was ready to face anything. The adversity through which she had come had made the thought of physical hardship of very small account. And deep in her innermost soul she had a strong, belief in her own ultimate welfare. She was sure that she had done the right thing in thus striking out for herself, and she was equally sure that, whatever it might entail, she would not regret it in the end.
The lights were growing nearer. She discerned the brick building of the station. Over the wide stretch of land that yet intervened there came to her the smell of smoke and human habitation. A warm thrill went through her. In two minutes now—in less—the long five years' separation would be over, and she would be clasping Guy's hand again.
She leaned from the window, scanning the few outstanding houses of the town as the train ran past. Then they were in the station, and a glare of light received them.
A crowd of unfamiliar faces swam before her eyes, and then—she saw him. He stood on the platform awaiting her, distinct from all the rest to her eager gaze—a man of medium height, broader than she remembered, with a keen, bronzed face and eagle eyes that caught and held her own.
She sprang form the train almost before it shopped. She held out both her hands to him.
"Guy! Guy!"
Her voice came sobbingly. He gripped the hands hard and close.
"So you've got here!" he said.
She was staring at him, her face upraised. What was there about him that did not somehow tally with the Guy of her memory and her dreams? He was older, of course; he was more mature, bigger in every way. But she missed something. There was no kindling of pleasure in his eyes. They looked upon her kindly. Ah, yes; but the rapture—where was the rapture of greeting?
A sense of coldness went through her. Her hands fell from his. He had changed—he had changed indeed! His eyes were too keen. She thought they held a calculating expression. And the South African sun had tanned him almost bronze. His chin had a stubbly look. The Guy she had known had been perfectly smooth of skin.
She looked at him with a rather piteous attempt to laugh. "I wonder I knew you at all," she said, "with that hideous embryo beard. I'm sure you haven't shaved to-day."
He put up a hand and felt his chin. "No, I shaved yesterday," he said, and laughed. "I've been too busy to-day."
That reassured her. The laugh at least was like Guy, brief though it was. "Horrid boy!" she said. "Well, help me collect my things. We'll talk afterwards."
He helped her. He went into the carriage she had just left and pulled out all her belongings. These he dumped on the platform and told her to wait while he collected the rest.
She stood obediently in the turmoil of Britons, Boers, and Kaffirs, that surged around. She felt bewildered, strung up, unlike herself. It was a land of strangers, indeed, and she felt forlorn and rather frightened. Why had Guy looked at her so oddly? Why had his welcome been so cold? Could it be—could it be—that he was not pleased to see her, that—that—possibly he did not want her? The dreadful chill went through her again like a sword thrusting at her heart, and with it went old Jeffcott's warning words: "Do you ever ask yourself what sort of man he may be after five years? I'll warrant he's lived every minute of it. He's the sort that would."
She had felt no doubt then, nor ever since, until this moment. And now—now it came upon her and overwhelmed her. She glanced about her, almost as one seeking escape.
"I've fixed everything up. Come along to the railway hotel! You must be pretty tired." He had returned to her, and he stood looking at her with those strangely keen eyes, almost as if he had never seen her before, she thought to herself desolately.
She looked bade at him with unconscious appeal in her own. "I am tired," she said, and was aware of a sudden difficulty in speaking. "Is it far?"
"No," he said; "only a step."
He gathered up her hand-baggage and led the way, making a path for her through the throng.
She scarcely noticed where she went, so completely did he fill her mind. He had changed enormously, developed in a fashion that she had never deemed possible. He walked with a free swing, and carried himself as one who counted. He had the look of one accustomed to command. She seemed to read prosperity in every line. But was he prosperous? If so, why had he not sent for her long ago?
They reached the hotel. He led the way without pause straight to a small private room where a table had been prepared for a meal.
"Sit down!" he said. "Take off your things! You must be starved."
He rang the bell and gave an order while she mutely obeyed. All her confidence was gone. She had begun to tremble. The wonder crossed her mind if perhaps she, too, had altered, grown beyond all his previous conception of her. Possibly she was as much a stranger to him as he to her. Was that why he had looked at her with that oddly critical expression? Was that why he did not now take her in his arms?
Impulsively she took off her hat and turned round to him.
He was looking at her still, and again that awful sense of doubt mastered and possessed her. A great barrier seemed to have sprung up between them. He was formidable, actually formidable. The Guy of old days, impetuous, hot-tempered even, had never been that.
She stood before him, controlling her rising agitation with a great effort. "Why do you look at me like that?" she said. "I feel—you make me feel—as if—you are a total stranger!"
His face changed a little, but still she could not read his look.
"Sit down!" he said. "We must have a talk."
She put out her hand to him. The aloofness of his speech cut her with an anguish intolerable. "What has happened?" she said. "Quick! Tell me! Don't you want to—marry me?"
He took her hand. She saw that in some fashion he was moved, though still she could not understand. "I'm trying to tell you," he said; "but—to be honest—you've hit me in the wind, and I don't know how. I think you have forgotten in all these years what Guy was like."
She gazed at him blankly. Again Jeffcott's words were running in her mind. And something—something hidden behind them—arose up like a menace and terrified her.
"I haven't forgotten," she whispered voicelessly. "I couldn't forget. But go on! Don't—don't mind telling me!"
She was white to the lips. All the blood in her body seemed concentrated at her heart. It was beating in heavy, sickening throbs like the labouring of some clogged machinery.
He put his free hand on her shoulder with an abrupt movement that made him for the moment oddly familiar. "It's a damned shame," he said, and though his voice was low he spoke with feeling. "Look here, child! This is no fault of mine. I never thought you could make this mistake, never dreamed of such a possibility. I'm not Guy at all. I am Burke Ranger—his cousin. And let me tell you at once, we are not much alike now—whatever we have been in the past. Here, don't faint! Sit down!"
He shifted his hand from her shoulder to her elbow, and supported her to a chair. But she remained upon her feet, her white face upraised, gazing at him—gazing at him.
"Not Guy! Not Guy!" She said it over and over as if to convince herself. Then: "But where is Guy?" She clutched at his arm desperately, for all her world was shaking. "Are you going to tell me he is—dead?"
"No." Burke Ranger spoke with steady eyes looking straight into hers. "He is not."
"Then why—then why—" She could get no further. She stopped, gasping. His face swam blurred before her quivering vision,—Guy's face, yet with an inexplicable something in it that was not Guy.
"Sit down!" he said again, and put her with quiet insistence into the chair. "Wait till you have had something to eat! Then we'll have a talk and decide what had better be done."
She was shivering from head to foot, but she faced him still. "I can't eat," she said through white lips. "I can't do anything till—till I know—all there is to know."
He stood looking down at her. The fingers of his right hand were working a little, but his face was perfectly calm, even grim.
As he did not speak immediately, she went on with piteous effort. "You must forgive me for making that stupid mistake. I see now—you are not Guy, though there is a strong likeness. You see, I have not seen Guy for five years, and I—I was allowing for certain changes."
"He is changed," said Burke Ranger.
That nameless terror crept closer about her heart. Her eyes met his imploringly.
"Really I am quite strong," she said. "Won't you tell me what is wrong? He—cabled to me to come to him. It was in answer to my cable."
"Yes, I know," said Ranger.
He turned from her abruptly and walked to the window. The darkness had drawn close. It hung like a black curtain beyond the pane. The only light in the room was a lamp that burned on a side table. It illumined him but dimly, and again it seemed to the girl who watched him that this could be no other than the Guy of her dreams—the Guy she had loved so faithfully, for whose sake she had waited so patiently for so many weary years. Surely it was he who had made the mistake! Surely even yet he would turn and gather her to his heart, and laugh at her folly for being so easily deluded!
Ah! He had turned. He stood looking at her across the dimly-lighted space. Her very heart stood still to hear his voice.
He spoke. "The best thing you can do is to go back to the place you came from—and marry someone else."
The words went through her. They seemed to tear and lacerate her. As in a nightmare vision she saw the bitterness that lay behind her, the utter emptiness before. She still stared full at him, but she saw him not. Her terror had taken awful shape before her, and all her courage was gone. She cowered before it.
"I can't—I can't!" she said, and even to herself her voice sounded weak and broken, like the cry of a lost child. "I can't go back!"
He came across the room to her, moving quickly, as if something urged him. She did not know that she had flung out her hands in wild despair until she felt him gather them together in his own.
He bent over her, and she saw very clearly in his countenance that which had made her realize that he was not Guy. "Look here!" he said. "Have a meal and go to bed! We will talk it out in the morning. You are worn out now."
His voice held insistence. There was no softness in it. Had he displayed kindness in that moment she would have burst into tears. But he put her hands down again with a brief, repressive gesture, and the impulse passed. She yielded him obedience, scarcely knowing what she did.
He brought her food and wine, and she ate and drank mechanically while he watched her with his grey, piercing eyes, not speaking at all.
Finally she summoned strength to look up at him with a quivering smile. "You are very kind. I am sorry to have given you so much trouble."
He made an abrupt movement that she fancied denoted impatience.
"Can't you eat any more?" he said.
She shook her head, still bravely smiling. "I can't—really. I think—I think perhaps you are right. I had better go to bed, and you will tell me everything in the morning."
"Finish the drink anyhow!" he said.
She hesitated momentarily, but he pushed the glass firmly towards her and she obeyed.
She stood up then and faced him. "Will you please tell me one thing—to—to set my mind at rest? Guy—Guy isn't ill?"
He looked her straight in the face. "No."
"You are sure?" she said.
"Yes." He spoke with curt decision, yet oddly she wondered for a fleeting second if he had told her the truth.
His look seemed to challenge the doubt, to beat it down. Half shyly, she held out her hand.
"Good night," she said.
His fingers grasped and released it. He turned with her to the door. "I will show you your room" he said.
CHAPTER VII
THE WRONG TURNING
Sylvia slept that night the heavy, unstirring sleep of utter weariness though when she lay down she scarcely expected to sleep at all. The shock, the bewilderment, the crushing dread, that had attended her arrival after the long, long journey had completely exhausted her mentally, and physically. She slept as a child sleeps at the end of a strenuous day.
When she awoke, the night was gone and all the world was awake and moving. The clouds had all passed, and a brilliant morning sun shone down upon the wide street below her window. She felt refreshed though the heat was still great. The burden that had overwhelmed her the night before did not seem so intolerable by morning light. Her courage had come back to her.
She dressed with a firm determination to carry a brave face whatever lay before her. Things could not be quite so bad as they had seemed the previous night. Guy could not really have changed so fundamentally. Perhaps he only feared that she could not endure poverty with him. If that were all, she would soon teach him otherwise. All she wanted in life now was his love.
She had almost convinced herself that this was practically all she had to contend with, and the ogre of her fears was well in the background, when she finally left her room and went with some uncertainty through the unfamiliar passages.
She found the entrance, but a crowd of curious Boers collected about the door daunted her somewhat, and she was turning back from their staring eyes when Burke Ranger suddenly strode through the group and joined her.
She gave him a quick, half-startled glance as they met, and the first thing that struck her about him was the obvious fact that he had shaved. His eyes intercepted hers, and she saw the flicker of a smile pass across them and knew he had read her thought.
She flushed as she held out her hand to him. "Good morning," she said with a touch of shyness. "I hope you haven't been wasting your time waiting for me."
He took her hand and turned her towards the small room in which they had talked together the previous night. "No, I haven't wasted my time," he said. "I hope you have had a good rest?"
"Oh, quite, thank you," she answered. "I slept like the dead. I feel—fit for anything."
"That's right," he said briefly. "We will have some breakfast before we start business."
"Oh, you have been waiting!" she exclaimed with compunction. "I'm so sorry. I'm not generally so lazy."
"Don't apologize!" he said. "You've done exactly what I hoped you'd do. Sit down, won't you? Take the end of the table!"
His manner was friendly though curt. Her embarrassment fell from her as she complied. They sat, facing one another, and, the light being upon him, she gave him a steady look. He was not nearly so much like Guy as she had thought the previous night, though undoubtedly there was a strong resemblance. On a closer inspection she did not think him handsome, but the keen alertness of him attracted her. He looked as if physical endurance were a quality he had brought very near to perfection. He had the stamp of the gladiator upon him. He had wrestled against odds.
After a moment or two he turned his eyes unexpectedly to hers. It was a somewhat disconcerting habit of his.
"A satisfactory result, I hope?" he said.
She did not look away. "I don't consider myself a good character reader," she said. "But you are certainly not so much like Guy as I thought at first sight."
"Thank you," he said. "I must confess I prefer to be like myself."
She laughed a little. "It was absurd of me to make such a mistake. But yours was the only face that looked in the least familiar in all that crowd. I was so glad to see it."
"You have never been in this country before?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Never. I feel a dreadful outsider at present. But I shall soon learn.'
"Do you ride?" he said.
Her eyes kindled. "Yes. I was keen on hunting in England. That will be a help, won't it?"
"It would be," he said, "if you stayed."
"I have come to stay," she said with assurance.
"Wait a bit!" said Burke Ranger.
His manner rather than his words checked her. She felt again that cold dread pressing against her heart. She turned from the subject as one seeking escape.
She ate a good breakfast almost in spite of herself. Ranger insisted upon it, and since he was evidently hungry himself it seemed churlish not to keep him company. He told her a little about the country, while they ate, but he strenuously avoided all things personal, and she felt compelled to follow his lead. He imposed a certain restraint upon her, and even when he rose from the table at length with the air of a man about to face the inevitable, she did not feel it to be wholly removed.
She got up also and watched him fill his pipe with something of her former embarrassment. She expected him to light it when he had finished, but he did not. He put it in his pocket, and somewhat abruptedly turned to her.
"Now!" he said.
She met his look with a brave face. She even smiled—a gallant, little smile to which he made no response. "Well, now," she said, "I want you to tell me the quickest way to get to Guy."
He faced her squarely. "I've got to tell you something about him first," he said.
"Yes?" Her heart was beating very quickly, but she had herself well in hand. "What is it?"
But he stood mutely considering her. It was as if the power of speech had suddenly gone from him.
"What is it?" she said again. "Won't you tell me?"
He made a curious gesture. It was almost a movement of flinching.
"You're so young," he said.
"Oh, but I'm not—I'm not!" she assured him. "It's only my face.
I'm quite old really. I've been through a lot."
"You've never seen life yet," he said.
"I have!" she declared with an odd vehemence. "I've learnt lots of things. Why—do you look like that? I'm not a child."
Her voice quivered a little in spite of her. Why did he look like that? The compassion in his eyes smote her with a strange pain. Why—why was he sorry for her?
He saw her rising agitation, and spoke, slowly, choosing his words. "The fact is, Guy isn't what you take him for—isn't the right man for you. Nothing on this earth can make him so now, whatever he may have been once. He's taken the wrong turning, and there's no getting back."
She gazed at him with wide eyes. Her lips felt stiff and cold.
"What—what—do you mean, please?" she said.
She saw his hands clench. "I don't want to tell you what I mean," he said. "Haven't I said enough?"
She shook her head slowly, with drawn brows. "No—no! I've got to understand. Do you mean Guy doesn't want me after all? Didn't he really mean me to come? He—sent a message."
"I know. That's the infernal part of it." Burke Ranger spoke with suppressed force. "He was blind drunk when he sent it."
"Oh!" She put up her hands to her face for a moment as if to shield herself from a blow. "He—drinks, does he?"
"He does everything he ought not to do, except steal," said Ranger bluntly. "I've tried to keep him straight—tried every way. I can't. It isn't to be done."
Sylvia's hands fell again. "Perhaps," she said slowly, "perhaps I could."
The man started as if he had been shot. "You!" he said.
She met his look with her wide eyes. "But why not?" she said. "We love each other."
He turned from her, grinding the floor with his heel. "God help me to make myself intelligible!" he said.
It was the most forcible prayer she had ever heard. It struck through to her very soul. She stood motionless, but she felt crushed and numb.
Ranger walked to the end of the room and then came straight back to her.
"Look here!" he said. "This is the most damnable thing I've ever had to do. Let's get it over! He's a rotter and a blackguard. Can you grasp that? He hasn't lived a clean life all these years he's been away from you. He went wrong almost at the outset. He's the sort that always does go wrong. I've done my best for him. Anyhow, I've kept him going. But I can't make a decent man of him. No one can. He has lucid intervals, but they get shorter and shorter. Just at present—" he paused momentarily, then plunged on—"I told you last night he wasn't ill. That was a lie. He is down with delirium tremens, and it isn't the first time."
"Ah!" Sylvia said. He had made her understand at last. She stood for a space staring at him, then with a groping movement she found and grasped the back of a chair. "Why—why did you lie to me?" she said.
"I did it for your sake," he answered briefly. "You couldn't have faced it then."
"I see," she said, and paused to collect herself. "And does he—does he realize that I am here?" she asked painfully. "Doesn't he—want to see me?"
"Just now," said Ranger grimly, "he is too busy thinking about his own troubles to worry about anyone else's. He does know you are coming. He was raving about it two nights ago. Then came your wire from Cape Town. That was what brought me here to meet you."
"I see," she said again. "You—you have been very good. It would have been dreadful if—if I had been stranded here alone."
"I'd have stopped you at Cape Town if I could," he said.
"No, you wouldn't have stopped me," she answered, with a drear little smile. "I should have had to come on and see Guy in any case. I shall have to see him now. Where is he?"
Ranger stood close to her. He bent slightly, looking into her eyes. "You have understood me?" he questioned.
She looked straight back at him; it was no moment for shrinking avoidance. "Yes," she said,
"And you believe me?" he proceeded.
Her red-brown eyes widened a little. "But of course I believe you."
"And, still you want to see him?" said Burke Ranger.
"I must see him," she answered quietly. "You must realize that.
You would do the same in my place."
"If I did," said Ranger, dropping his voice, "it would be to tell him to go to hell!" Then, as involuntarily she drew back: "No, I shouldn't put it like that to you, I know. But what's the point of your seeing him? It will only make things worse for you."
"I must see him," she said firmly. "Please tell me where he is!"
He looked at her for a moment or two in silence. "He is in his own shanty on my farm," he said then. "Blue Hill Farm it is called. You can't go to him there. It's a twenty-mile ride from here."
"Can't I get a horse to take me?" she asked.
"I could take you in my cart," said Burke slowly.
"And will you?" Sylvia said.
"I suppose you will go in any case," he said.
"I must go," she answered steadily.
"I don't see why," he said. "It's a degrading business. It won't do any good."
Her face quivered. She controlled it swiftly. "Will you take me?" she said.
He frowned. "What is going to happen afterwards? Have you thought of that?"
She shook her head. "No. I can't see the future at all. I only know that I must see Guy, and I can't go back to England."
"Why not?" he said.
She pressed a hand to her throat as if she found speaking a difficulty. "I have no place there. My father has married again. I must earn my living here somehow."
He moved abruptly. "You!" he said again. She tried to smile. "You seem to think I am very helpless. I assure you I am not. I have managed my father's house for five years. I am quite willing to learn anything, and I am very strong."
"You are very brave," he said, almost as if he spoke in spite of himself. "But—you've got to be sensible too. You won't marry him?"
She hesitated. "I must see him. I must judge for myself."
He nodded, still frowning. "Very well,—if you must. But you won't marry him as a way out of your difficulties? You've got to promise me that."
"Why?" she said.
He answered her with that sudden force which before had startled her. "Because I can't stand by and see purity joined to corruption. Some women will sacrifice anything for sentiment. You wouldn't do anything so damn' foolish as that."
"No," said Sylvia.
"Then it's a promise?" he said.
She held out her hand to him with her brave little smile. "I promise you I won't do anything damn' foolish for the sake of—sentiment. Will that do?"
He gripped her hand for a moment. "Yes. I think it will," he said.
"And thank you for being so good to me," she added.
He dropped her hand, and turned away. "As to that—I please myself," he said briefly. "Be ready to start in an hour from now!"
CHAPTER VIII
THE COMRADE
That twenty-mile ride in Burke Ranger's high cart, with a pair of skittish young horses pulling at the reins, was an experience never to be eradicated from Sylvia's memory. They followed a course across the veldt that began as a road and after a mile or two deteriorated into a mere rough track. Up and down many slopes they travelled, but the far hills never seemed to draw any nearer. Here and there they passed kopjes stacked against the blazing blue of the sky. They held a weird attraction for her. They were like the stark bones of the earth pushing up through the coarse desert grasses. Their rugged strength and their isolation made her marvel. The veldt was swept by a burning wind. The clouds of the night before had left no rain behind.
Sylvia would have liked to ask many things of her companion but his attention was completely absorbed by the animals he drove. Also talking was wellnigh impossible during that wild progress, for though the horses presently sobered down somewhat, the roughness of the way was such that most of the time her thoughts were concentrated upon maintaining her seat. She clung to her perch with both hands, and mutely admired Burke Ranger's firm control and deftness. He seemed to know by instinct when to expect any sudden strain.
The heat of the sun was intense, notwithstanding the shelter afforded by the hood of the cart. The air seemed to quiver above the burning earth. She felt after a time as if her eyes could endure the glare no longer. The rapid, bumping progress faded into a sort of fitful unpleasant dream through which the only actual vivid consciousness that remained to her centred in the man beside her. She never lost sight of his presence. It dominated all besides, though he drove almost entirely in silence and never seemed to look her way.
At the end of what appeared an interminable stretch of time during which all her sensibilities had gradually merged into one vast discomfort, Burke spoke at her side.
"We've got a bit of tough going before us. Hang on tight! We'll have a rest after it."
She opened her eyes and saw before her a steep slant between massive stones, leading down to a wide channel of running water. On the further side a similar steep ascent led up again.
"Ritter Spruit," said Ranger. "It's not deep enough to be dangerous. Hold on! We shall soon be through."
He spoke to the horses and they gathered themselves as if for a race. They thundered down the incline and were dashing through the stony watercourse almost before Sylvia, clinging dazed to her seat, realized what was happening. Her sensations were indescribable. The water splashed high around them, and every bone in her body seemed to suffer a separate knock or jar. If Ranger had not previously impressed her with his level-headedness she would have thought him mad. But her confidence in him remained unshaken, and in a very few seconds it proved to be justified. They were through the spruit and halfway up the further side before she drew breath. Then she found that they were slackening pace.
She turned to Ranger with kindling eyes. "Oh, you are a sportsman!" she said. "How I should love to be able to drive like that!"
He smiled without turning his head. "I'm afraid this last is a man's job. So you are awake now, are you? I was afraid you were going to tumble out."
She laughed. "The heat makes one drowsy. I shall get used to it."
He was pulling in the horses. "There's some shade round the corner. We'll rest for an hour or two."
"I shall like that," said Sylvia.
A group of small larch-trees grew among the stones at the top of the slope, and by these he stopped. Sylvia looked around her with appreciation as she alighted.
"I am going to like South Africa," she said,
"I wonder!" said Ranger.
He began to unbuckle the traces, and she went round to the other side and did the same.
"Poor dears, they are hot!" she said.
"Don't you do that!" said Ranger.
She was tugging at the buckle. "Why not? I like doing it. I love horses, don't you? But I know you do by the way you handle them. Do you do your own horse-breaking? That's a job you might give me."
"Am I going to find you employment, then?" said Burke.
She laughed a little, bending her flushed face down. "Don't women do any work out here?"
"Yes. They work jolly hard, some of 'em."
"Are you married?" said Sylvia.
"No."
She heaved a sigh.
"Sorry?" he enquired.
She finished her task and looked up. Her frank eyes met his across the horses' backs. "No. I think I'm rather glad. I don't like feminine authority at all."
"That means you like your own way," observed Burke.
She nodded. "Yes. But I don't always get it."
"Are you a good loser?" he said.
She hesitated. "I hope I'm a sportsman. I try to be."
He moved to the horses' heads. "Come and hold this animal for me while I hobble the other!" he said.
She obeyed him readily. There was something of boyish alertness in her movements that sent a flicker of approval into the man's eyes. She drew the horse's head to her breast with a crooning sound.
"He is a bit tricky with strangers," observed Burke, as he led the other away.
"Oh, not with me!" said Sylvia, "He knows I love him."
When he returned to relieve her of her charge she was kissing the forehead between the full soft eyes that looked at her with perfect confidence.
"See!" she said. "We are friends already."
"I shall call you The Enchantress," said Burke. "Will you see if you can find a suitable spot for a picnic now?"
"Yes, but I can't conjure up a meal," said Sylvia.
"I can," he said. "There's a basket under the seat."
"How ripping!" she said. "I think you are the magician."
He smiled. "Rather a poor specimen, I am afraid. You go and select the spot, and I will bring it along!"
Again she obeyed with cheerful alacrity. Her choice was unhesitating. A large boulder threw an inviting shade, and she sat down among the stones and took off her hat.
Her red-gold hair gleamed against the dark background. Burke Ranger's eyes dwelt upon it as he moved to join her. She looked up at him.
"I love this place. It feels so—good."
He glanced up at the brazen sky. "You wouldn't say so if you wanted rain as badly as I do," he observed. "We haven't had nearly enough this season. But I am glad you can enjoy it."
"I like it more and more," said Sylvia. She stretched an arm towards the wide veldt all about them. "I am simply aching for a gallop over that—a gallop in the very early morning, and to see the sun rise from that knoll!"
"That's a kopje," said Burke.
Again half-unconsciously his eyes dwelt upon her vivid face. She seemed to draw his look almost in spite of him. He set down the basket by her side.
"Am I to unpack?" said Sylvia.
He dropped his eyes. "No. I will. It isn't much of a feed; only enough to keep us from starvation. Tell me some more about yourself! Tell me about your people—your home!"
"Have you never heard of me before?" she asked. "Did—Guy—never speak of me?"
"I knew there was someone." Burke spoke rather unwillingly. "I don't think he ever actually spoke of you to me. We're not exactly—kindred spirits, he and I."
"You don't like him," said Sylvia.
"Nor he me," said Burke Ranger.
She looked at him with her candid eyes. "I don't think you are very tolerant of weakness, are you?" she said gently.
"I don't know," he said non-committally. "Won't you tell me about yourself?"
The subject of Guy was obviously distasteful to him, yet her whole life during the past five years had been so closely linked to the thought of that absent lover of hers that it was impossible to speak of the one without the other. She told him all without reservation, feeling in a fashion that it was his right to know.
He listened gravely, without comment, until she ended, when he made one brief observation. "And so you chose the deep sea!"
"Could I have done anything else?" she said. "Would you have done anything else?"
"Probably not," he said. "But a man is better equipped to fight the undercurrents!"
"You think I was very rash?" she questioned.
He smiled. "One doesn't look for caution in a girl. I think your father deserved a horsewhipping, for letting you go."
"He couldn't prevent me," said Sylvia quickly.
"Pshaw!" said Burke Ranger.
"You're very rude," she protested.
His smile became a laugh. "I could have prevented you," he said.
She flushed. "Indeed you couldn't! I am not a namby-pamby miss. I go my own way. I——"
She broke off suddenly. Burke's eyes, grey as steel in his sun-tanned face, were upon her. He looked amused at her vehemence.
"Well?" he said encouragingly. "Finish!"
She laughed in spite of herself. "No, I shan't say any more. I never argue with the superior male. I just—go my own way, that's all."
"From which I gather that you are not particularly partial to the superior male," said Burke.
"I hate the species," said Sylvia with simplicity.
"Except when it kneels at your feet," he suggested, looking ironical.
"No, I want to kick it then," she said.
"You seem difficult to please," he observed.
Sylvia looked out across the veldt. "I like a man to be just a jolly comrade," she said. "If he can't be that, I've no use for him."
"I see," said Burke slowly. "That's to be my role, is it?"
She turned to him impulsively with extended hand. "I think you can fill it if you try."
He took the hand, grasping it strongly. "All right. I'll try," he said.
"You don't mind?" she said half-wistfully. "You see, it makes such a difference to feel there's someone like that to turn to in trouble—someone who won't let you down."
"I shan't let you down," said Burke.
Her fingers closed hard on his. "You're a brick," she said. "Now let's have some lunch, and then, if you don't mind, I'm going to sleep!"
"Best thing you can do," said Burke.
They rested for the greater part of the afternoon in the shadow of their boulder. Sylvia lay with her head on a light rug that he spread for her, and he sat with his back to the rock and smoked with eyes fixed straight before him.
Sleep came to the girl very quickly for she was tired, and her healthy young body was swift to find repose. But the man, watching beside her, did not even doze. He scarcely varied his position throughout his vigil, scarcely glanced at the figure nestled in the long grass so close to him. But his attitude had the alertness of the man on guard, and his brown face was set in grimly resolute lines. It gave no indication whatever of that which was passing in his mind.
CHAPTER IX
THE ARRIVAL
It was drawing towards evening when Sylvia at length stirred, stretched, and opened her eyes. A momentary bewilderment showed in them, then with a smile she saw and recognized her companion.
She sat up quickly. "I must have been asleep for ages. Why didn't you wake me?"
"I didn't want to," he said.
She looked at him. "What have you been doing? Have you been asleep?"
He raised his shoulders to the first question. To the second he replied merely, "No."
"Why didn't you smoke?" she asked next.
For an instant he looked half-ashamed, then very briefly, "I don't live on tobacco," he said.
"How very silly of you!" said Sylvia. "It wouldn't have disturbed me in the least. I smoke cigarettes myself."
Burke said nothing. After a moment he got to his feet.
"Time to go?" she said.
"Yes. I think we ought to be moving. We have some miles to go yet. You sit still while I get the horses in!"
But Sylvia was on her feet. "No. I'm coming to help. I like to do things. Isn't it hot? Do you think there will be a storm?"
He looked up at the sky. "No, not yet. It'll take some time to break. Are you afraid of storms?"
"Of course not!" said Sylvia.
He smiled at her prompt rejoinder. "Not afraid of anything?" he suggested.
She smiled back. "Not often anyway. And I hope I don't behave like a muff even when I am."
"I shouldn't think that very likely," he observed.
They put in the horses, and started again across the veldt. The burning air that blew over the hot earth was like a blast from a furnace. Over the far hills the clouds hung low and menacing, A mighty storm seemed to be brewing somewhere on the further side of those distant heights.
"It is as if someone had lighted a great fire just out of sight," said Sylvia. "Is it often like this?"
"Very often," said Burke.
"How wonderful!" she said.
They drove on rapidly, and as they went, the brooding cloud-curtain seemed to advance to meet them, spreading ominously across the sky as if it were indeed the smoke from some immense conflagration.
Sylvia became silent, awed by the spectacle.
All about them the veldt took on a leaden hue. The sun still shone; but vaguely, as if through smoked glass. The heat seemed to increase.
Sylvia sat rapt. She did not for some time wake to the fact that Burke was urging the horses, and only when they stretched themselves out to gallop in response to his curt command did she rouse from her contemplation to throw him a startled glance. He was leaning slightly forward, and the look On his face sent a curious thrill through her. It was the look of a man braced to utmost effort. His eyes were fixed steadily straight ahead, marking the road they travelled. His driving was a marvel of skill and confidence. The girl by his side forgot to watch the storm in front of them in her admiration of his ability. It was to her the most amazing exhibition of strength and adroitness combined that she had ever witnessed. The wild enjoyment of that drive was fixed in her memory for all time.
At the end of half-an-hour's rapid travelling a great darkness had begun to envelope them, and obscurity so pall-like that even near objects were seen as it were through a dark veil.
Burke broke his long silence. "Only two miles more!"
She answered him exultantly. "I could go on for ever!"
They seemed to fly on the wings of the wind those last two miles. She fancied that they had turned off the track and were racing over the grass, but the darkness was such that she could discern nothing with any certainty. At last there came a heavy jolting that flung her against Burke's shoulder, and on the top of it a frightful flash and explosion that made her think the earth had rent asunder under their feet.
Half-stunned and wholly blinded, she covered her face, crouching down almost against the foot-board of the cart, while the dreadful echoes rolled away.
Then again came Burke's voice, brief yet amazingly reassuring.
"Get down and run in! It's all right."
She realized that they had come to a standstill, and mechanically she raised herself to obey him.
As she groped for the step, he grasped her arm. "Get on to the stoep! There's going to be rain. I'll be with you in a second."
She thanked him, and found herself on the ground. A man in front of her was calling out unintelligibly, and somewhere under cover a woman's voice was uplifted in shrill tones of dismay. This latter sound made her think of the chattering of an indignant monkey, so shrill was it and so incessant.
A dark pile of building stood before her, and she blundered towards it, not seeing in the least where she was going. The next moment she kicked against some steps, and sprawled headlong.
Someone—Burke—uttered an oath behind her, and she heard him leap to the ground. She made a sharp effort to rise, and cried out with a sudden pain in her right knee that rendered her for an instant powerless. Then she felt his hands upon her, beneath her. He lifted her bodily and bore her upwards.
She was still half-dazed when he set her down in a chair. She held fast to his arm. "Please stay with me just a moment—just a moment!" she besought him incoherently.
He stayed, very steady and quiet beside her. "Are you hurt?" he asked her.
She fought with herself, but could not answer him. A ridiculous desire to dissolve into tears possessed her. She gripped his arm with both hands, saying no word.
"Stick to it!" he said.
"I—I'm an awful idiot!" she managed to articulate.
"No, you're not. You're a brave girl," he said. "I was a fool not to warn you. I forgot you didn't know your way. Did you hurt yourself when you fell?"
"My knee—a little," she said. "It'll be all right directly." She released his arm. "Thank you. I'm better now. Oh, what is that? Rain?"
"Yes, rain," he said.
It began like the rushing of a thousand wings, sweeping irresistibly down from the hills. It swelled into a pandemonium of sound that was unlike anything she had ever heard. It was as if they had suddenly been caught by a seething torrent. Again the lightning flared, dancing a quivering, zigzag measure across the verandah in which she sat, and the thunder burst overhead, numbing the senses.
By that awful leaping glare Sylvia saw her companion. He was stooping over her. He spoke; but she could not hear a word he uttered.
Then again his arms were about her and he lifted her. She yielded herself to him with the confidence of a child, and he carried her into his home while the glancing lightning showed the way.
The noise within the house was less overwhelming. He put her down on a long chair in almost total darkness, but a few moments later the lightning glimmered again and showed her vividly the room in which she lay. It was a man's room, half-office, half-lounge, extremely bare, and devoid of all ornament with the exception of a few native weapons on the walls.
The kindling of a lamp confirmed this first impression, but the presence of the man himself diverted her attention from her surroundings. He turned from lighting the lamp to survey her. She thought he looked somewhat stern.
"What about this knee of yours?" he said. "Is it badly damaged?"
"Oh, not badly," she answered. "I'm sure not badly. What a lot of trouble I am giving you! I am so sorry."
"You needn't be sorry on that account," he said. "I blame myself alone. Do you mind letting me, see it? I am used to giving first-aid."
"Oh, I don't think that is necessary," said Sylvia. "I—can quite easily doctor myself."
"I thought we were to be comrades," he observed bluntly.
She coloured and faintly laughed, "You can see it if you particularly want to."
"I do." said Burke.
She sat up without further protest, and uncovered the injured knee for his inspection. "I really don't think anything of a tumble like that," she said, as he bent to examine it. But the next moment at his touch she flinched and caught her breath.
"That hurts, does it?" he said. "It's swelling up. I'm going to get some hot water to bathe it."
He stood up with the words and turned away. Sylvia leaned back again, feeling rather sick. Certainly the pain was intense.
The rain was still battering on the roof with a sound like the violent jingling together of tin cans, She listened to it with a dull wonder. The violence of it would have made a deeper impression upon her had she been suffering less. But she felt as one immersed in an evil dream which clogged all her senses save that of pain.
When Burke returned she was lying with closed eyes, striving hard to keep herself under control. The clatter of the rain had abated somewhat, and she heard him speak over his shoulder to someone behind him. She looked up and saw an old Kaffir woman carrying a basin.
"This is Mary Ann," said Burke, intercepting her glance of surprise. "A useful old dog except when there is any dope about! Hope you don't mind niggers."
"I shall get used to them," said Sylvia rather faintly.
"There's nothing formidable about this one," he said, "She can't help being hideous. She is quite tame."
Sylvia tried to smile. Certainly Mary Ann was hideous, but her lameness was equally obvious. She evidently stood in considerable awe of her master, obeying his slightest behest with clumsy solicitude and eyes that rolled unceasingly in his direction.
Burke kept her in the room while he bathed the injury. He was very gentle, and Sylvia was soon conscious of relief. When at length he applied a pad soaked in ointment and proceeded to bandage with a dexterity that left nothing to be desired, she told him with a smile that he was as good as a professional.
"One has to learn a little of this sort of thing," he said. "How does it feel now?"
"Much better," she answered. "I shall have forgotten all about it by to-morrow."
"No, you won't," said Burke. "You will rest it for three days at least. You don't want to get water on the joint."
"Three days!" she echoed in dismay, "I can't—possibly—lie up here."
He raised his eyes from his bandaging for a moment, and a curious thrill went through her; it was as if his look pierced her. "The impossible often happens here," he said briefly.
She expressed a sharp tremor that caught her unawares. "What does that mean?" she asked, striving to speak lightly.
He replied with his eyes lowered again to his task. "It means among other things that you can't get back to Ritzen until the floods go down. Ritter Spruit is a foaming torrent by this time."
"Good heavens!" she exclaimed. "But isn't there—isn't there a bridge anywhere?"
"Forty miles away," said Burke Ranger laconically.
"Good—heavens!" she gasped again.
He finished his bandaging and stood up. "Now I am going to carry you to bed," he said, "and Mary Ann shall wait on you. You won't be frightened?"
She smiled in answer. "You've taken my breath away, but I shall get it again directly. I don't think I want to go to bed yet. Mayn't I stay here for a little?"
He looked down at her. "You've got some pluck, haven't you?" he said.
She flushed. "I hope so—a little."
He touched her shoulder unexpectedly, with a hint of awkwardness.
"I'm afraid I can only offer you—rough hospitality. It's the best
I can do. My guests have all been of the male species till now.
But you will put up with it? You won't be scared anyhow?"
She reached up an impulsive hand and put it into his. "No, I shan't be scared at all. You make me feel quite safe. I'm only—more grateful than I can say."
His fingers closed upon hers. "You've nothing to be grateful for. Let me take you to the guestroom and Mary Ann shall bring you supper. You'll be more comfortable there. Your baggage is there already."
She clung to his hand for an instant, caught by an odd feeling of forlornness. "I will do whatever you wish. But—but—you will let me see Guy in the morning?"
He stooped to lift her. For a moment his eyes looked straight into hers. Then: "Wait till the morning comes!" he said quietly.
There was finality in his tone, and she knew that it was no moment for discussion. With a short sigh she yielded to the inevitable, and suffered him to carry her away.
CHAPTER X
THE DREAM
She had no further communication with Burke that night. The old Kaffir woman helped her, brought her a meal on a tray, and waited upon her until dismissed.
Sylvia had no desire to detain her. She longed for solitude. The thought of Guy tormented her perpetually. She ached and yearned—even while she dreaded—to see him. But Burke had decreed that she must wait till the morning, and she had found already that what Burke decreed usually came to pass. Besides, she knew that she was worn out and wholly unfit for any further strain.
Very thankfully she sank down at last upon the bed in the bare guest-room. Her weariness was such that she thought that she must sleep, yet for hours she lay wide awake, listening to the rain streaming down and pondering—pondering the future. Her romance was ended. She saw that very clearly. Whatever came of her meeting with Guy, it would not be—it could not be—the consummation to which she had looked forward so confidently during the past five years. Guy had failed her. She faced the fact with all her courage. The Guy she had loved and trusted did not exist any longer, if he ever had existed. Life had changed for her. The path she had followed had ended suddenly. She must needs turn back and seek another. But whither to turn she knew not. It seemed that there was no place left for her anywhere.
Slowly the long hours dragged away. She thought the night would never pass. Her knee gave her a good deal of pain, and she relinquished all hope of sleep. Her thoughts began to circle about Burke Ranger in a worried, confused fashion. She felt she would know him better when she had seen Guy. At present the likeness between them alternately bewildered her or hurt her poignantly. She could not close her mind to the memory of having taken him for Guy. He was the sort of man—only less polished—that she had believed Guy would become. She tried to picture him as he must have been when younger, but she could see only Guy. And again the bitter longing, the aching disappointment, tore her soul.
Towards morning she dozed, but physical discomfort and torturing anxiety went with her unceasingly, depriving her of any real repose. She was vaguely aware of movements in the house long before a low knock at the door called her back to full consciousness.
She started up on her elbows. "Come in! I am awake."
Burke Ranger presented himself. "I was afraid Mary Ann might give you a shock if she woke you suddenly," he said. "Can I come in?"
"Please do!" she said.
The sight of his tanned face and keen eyes came as a great relief to her strained and weary senses. She held out a welcoming hand, dismissing convention as superfluous.
He came to her side and took her hand, but in a moment his fingers were feeling for her pulse. He looked straight down at her. "You've had a bad night," he said.
She admitted it, mustering a smile as she did so. "It rained so hard, I couldn't forget it. Has it left off yet?"
He paid no attention whatever to the question. "What's the trouble?" he said. "Knee bad?"
"Not very comfortable," she confessed. "It will be better presently, no doubt."
"I'll dress if again," said Burke, "when you've had some tea. You had better stay in bed to-day."
"Oh, must I?" she said in dismay.
"Don't you want to?" said Burke.
"No. I hate staying in bed. It makes me so miserable." She spoke with vehemence. Besides—besides——"
"Yes?" he said.
"I want—to see Guy," she ended, colouring very deeply.
"That's out of the question," said Burke, with quiet decision.
"You certainly won't see him to-day."
"Oh, but I must! I really must!" she pleaded desperately. "My knee isn't very bad. Have you—have you told him I am here yet?"
"No," said Burke.
"Then won't you? Please won't you?" She was urging him almost feverishly now. "I can't rest till I have seen him—indeed. I can't see my way clearly. I can't do anything until—until I have seen him."
Burke was frowning. He looked almost savage, But she was not afraid of him. She could think only of Guy at that moment and of her urgent need to see him. It was all that mattered. With nerves stretched and quivering, she waited for his answer.
It did not come immediately. He was still holding her hand in one of his and feeling her pulse with the other.
"Listen!" he said at length. "There is no need for all this wearing anxiety. You must make up your mind to rest to-day, or you will be ill. It won't hurt you—or him either—to wait a few hours longer."
"I shan't be ill!" she assured him earnestly. "I am never ill. And I want to see him—oh, so much. I must see him. He isn't—he isn't worse?"
"No," said Burke.
"Then why mustn't I see him?" she urged. "Why do you look like that? Are you keeping back something? Has—has something happened that you don't want me to know? Ah, that is it! I thought so! Please tell me what it is! It is far better to tell me."
She drew her hand from his and sat up, steadily facing him. She was breathing quickly, but she had subdued her agitation. Her eyes met his unflinchingly.
He made an abrupt gesture—as if compelled against his will.
"Well—if you must have it! He has gone."
"Gone!" she repeated. "What—do you mean by that?"
He looked down into her whitening face, and his own grew sterner. "Just what I say. He cleared out yesterday morning early. No one knows where he is."
Sylvia's hand unconsciously pressed her heart. It was beating very violently. She spoke with a great effort. "Perhaps he has gone to Ritzen—to look for me."
"I think not," said Burke drily.
His tone said more than his words. She made a slight involuntary movement of shrinking. But in a moment she spoke again with a pathetic little smile.
"You are very good to me. But I mustn't waste any more of your time. Please don't worry about me any more! I can quite well bandage my knee myself."
The grimness passed from his face. "I shall have to see it to satisfy myself it is going on all right," he said. "But I needn't bother you now. I'll send Mary Ann in with some tea."
"Thank you," said Sylvia. She was gathering her scattered forces again after the blow; she spoke with measured firmness. "Now please don't think about me any more! I am not ill—or going to be. You may look at my knee this evening—if you are very anxious. But not before."
"Then you will stay in bed?" said Burke.
"Very well; if I must," she conceded.
He turned to go; then abruptly turned back. "And you won't lie and worry? You've too much pluck for that."
She smiled again—a quivering, difficult smile. "I am not at all plucky, really. I am only pretending."
He smiled back at her suddenly. "You're a brick! I've never seen any woman stand up to hard knocks as you do. They generally want to be carried over the rough places. But you—you stand on your feet."
The genuine approbation of his voice brought the colour back to her face. His smile too, though it reminded her piercingly of Guy, sent a glow of comfort to her chilled and trembling heart.
"I want to if I can," she said. "But I've had rather a—knock-out this time. I shall be all right presently, when I've had time to pull myself together."
He bent abruptly and laid his hand upon hers.
"Look here!" he said. "Don't worry!"
She lifted clear eyes to his. "No—I won't! There is always a way out of every difficulty, isn't there?"
"There certainly is out of this one," he said.
"I'll show it you presently—if you'll promise not to be offended."
"Offended!" said Sylvia. "That isn't very likely, is it?"
"I don't know," said Burke. "I hope not. Good-bye!" He straightened himself, stood a moment looking down at her, then turned finally and left her.
There was something in the manner of his going that made her wonder.
The entrance of the old Kaffir woman a few minutes later diverted her thoughts. She found Mary Ann an interesting study, being the first of her kind that she had viewed at close quarters. She was very stout and ungainly. She moved with elephantine clumsiness, but her desire to please was so evident that Sylvia could not regard her as wholly without charm. Her dog-like amiability outweighed her hideousness. She found it somewhat difficult to understand Mary Ann's speech, for it was more like the chattering of a monkey than human articulation, and being very weary she did not encourage her to talk.
There was so much to think about, and for a while her tired brain revolved around Guy and all that his departure meant to her. She tried to take a practical view of the situation, to grapple with the difficulties that confronted her. Was there the smallest chance of his return? And even if he returned, what could it mean to her? Would it help her in any way? It was impossible to evade the answer to that question. He had failed her finally. She was stranded in a strange land and only her own efforts could avail her now.
She wondered if Burke would urge her to return to her father's house. If so, he would not succeed. She would face any hardship sooner than that. She was not afraid of work. She would make a living for herself somehow if she worked in the fields with Kaffir women. She would be independent or die in the attempt. After all, she reflected forlornly, it would not matter very much to anyone if she did die. She stood or fell alone.
Thought became vague at last and finally obscured in the mists of sleep. She lay still on the narrow bed and slept long and deeply.
It must have been after several hours that her dream came to her. It arose out of a sea of oblivion—a vision unsummoned, wholly unexpected. She saw Burke Ranger galloping along the side of a dry and stony ravine where doubtless water flowed in torrents when the rain came. He was bending low in the saddle, his dark face set forward scanning the path ahead. With a breathless interest she watched him, and the thunder of his horse's hoofs drummed in her brain. Suddenly, turning her eyes further along the course he followed, she saw with horror round a bend that which he could not see. She beheld another horseman galloping down from the opposite direction. The face of this horseman was turned from her, but she did not need to see it. She knew, as it is given in dreams to know beyond all doubting, that it was Guy. She recognized his easy seat in the saddle, the careless grace of his carriage. He was plunging straight ahead with never a thought of danger, and though he must have seen the turn as he approached it, he did not attempt to check the animal under him. Rather he seemed to be urging it forward. And ever the thunder of the galloping hoofs filled her brain.
Tensely she watched, in a suspense that racked her whole body. Guy reached the bend first. There was room for only one upon that narrow ledge. He went round the curve with the confidence of one who fully expected a clear path ahead. And then—on the very edge of the precipice—he caught sight of the horseman galloping towards him. He reined back. He threw up one hand as his animal staggered under him, and called a warning. But the thudding of the hoofs drowned all other sound.
Sylvia's heart stood still as if it could never beat again. Her look flashed to Burke Ranger. He was galloping still—galloping hard. One glimpse she had of his face as he drew near, and she knew that he saw the man ahead of him, for it was set and terrible—the face of a devil.
The next instant she heard the awful crash of collision. There was a confusion indescribable, there on the very brink of the ravine. Then one horse and its rider went hurling headlong down that wall of stones. The other horseman struck spurs into his animal and galloped up the narrow path to the head of the ravine without a backward glance.
She was left transfixed by horror in a growing darkness that seemed to penetrate to her very soul. Which of the two had galloped free? Which lay shattered there, very far below her in an abyss that had already become obscure? She agonized to know, but the darkness hid all things. At last she tore it aside as if it had been a veil. She went down, down into that deep place. She stumbled through a valley of awful desolation till she came to that which she sought;—a fallen horse, a rider with glassy eyes upturned.
But the hand of Death had wiped out every distinguishing mark. Was it Guy? Was it Burke? She knew not. She turned from the sight with dread unspeakable. She went from the accursed spot with the anguish of utter bewilderment in her soul. She was bereft of all. She walked alone in a land of strangers.
CHAPTER XI
THE CROSS-ROADS
When Sylvia started awake from that terrible dream it was to hear the tread of horses' feet outside the house and the sound of men's voices talking to each other. As she listened, these drew nearer, and soon she heard footsteps on the stoep outside. It was drawing towards sunset, and she realized that she had slept for a long time.
She felt refreshed in spite of her dream and very thankful to regain possession of her waking senses. Her knee too was decidedly better. She found with relief that with care she could use it.
The smell of tobacco wafted in, and she realized that the two men were sitting smoking together on the stoep. One of them, she felt sure, was Burke Ranger, though it very soon dawned upon her that they were conversing in Dutch. She lay for awhile watching the orange light of evening gleaming through the creeper that entwined the comer of the stoep outside her window. Then, growing weary of inaction, she slipped from her bed and began to dress.
Her cabin-trunk had been placed in a corner of the bare room. She found her key and opened it.
Guy's photograph—the photograph she had cherished for five years—lay on the top. She saw it with a sudden, sharp pang, remembering how she had put it in at the last moment and smiled to think how soon she would behold him in the flesh. The handsome, boyish face looked straight into hers. Ah, how she had loved him. A swift tremor went through her. She closed her eyes upon the smiling face. And suddenly great tears welled up from her heart. She laid her face down upon the portrait and wept.
The voices on the stoep recalled her. She remembered that she had a reputation for courage to maintain. She commanded herself with an effort and finished her dressing. She did not dare to look at the portrait again, but hid it deep in her trunk.
Mary Ann seemed to have forsaken her, and she was in some uncertainty as to how to proceed when she was at length ready to leave her room. She did not want to intrude upon Burke and his visitor, but a great longing to breathe the air of the veldt was upon her. She wondered if she could possibly escape unseen.
Finally, she ventured out into the passage, and followed it to an open door that seemed to lead whither she desired to go. She fancied that it was out of sight of the two men on the stoep, but as she reached it, she realized her mistake. For there fell a sudden step close to her, and as she paused irresolute, Burke's figure blocked the opening. He stood looking at her, pipe in hand.
"So—you are up!" he said.
His voice was quite friendly, yet she was possessed by a strong feeling that he did not want her there.
She looked back at him in some embarrassment. "I hope you don't mind," she said. "I was only coming out for a breath of air."
"Why should I mind?" said Burke. "Come and sit on the stoep! My neighbour, Piet Vreiboom, is there, but he is just going."
He spoke the last words with great distinctness, and it occurred to her that he meant them to be overheard.
She hung back. "Oh, I don't think I will. I can't talk Dutch.
Really I would rather——"
"He understands a little English," said Burke. "But don't be surprised at anything he says! He isn't very perfect."
He stood against the wall for her to pass him, and she did so with a feeling that she had no choice. Very reluctantly she moved out on to the wooden stoep, and turned towards the visitor. The orange of the sunset was behind her, turning her hair to living gold. It fell full upon the face of the man before her, and she was conscious of a powerful sense of repugnance. Low-browed, wide-nosed, and prominent of jaw, with close-set eyes of monkeyish craft, such was the countenance of Piet Vreiboom. He sat and stared at her, his hat on his head, his pipe in his mouth.
"How do you do, Mrs. Ranger?" he said.
Sylvia checked her advance, but in a moment Burke Ranger's hand closed, upon her elbow, quietly impelling her forward.
"Mr. Vreiboom saw you with me at Ritzen yesterday," he said, and she suddenly remembered the knot of Boer farmers at the hotel-door and the staring eyes that had abashed her.
She glanced up at Burke, but his face was quite emotionless. Only something about him—an indefinable something—held her back from correcting the mistake that Vreiboom had made. She looked at the seated Boer with a dignity wholly unconscious. "How do you do?" she said coolly.
He stretched out a hand to her. His smile was familiar. "I hope you like the farm, Mrs. Ranger," he said.
"She has hardly seen it yet," said Burke.
There was a slight pause before Sylvia gave her hand. This man filled her with distaste. She resented his manner. She resented the look in his eyes.
"I have no doubt I shall like it very much," she said, removing her hand as speedily as possible.
"You like to be—a farmer's wife?" questioned Piet, still freely staring.
She resented this question also, but she had to respond to it. "It is what I came out for," she said.
"You do not look like a farmer's wife," said Piet.
Sylvia stiffened.
"Give him a little rope!" said Burke. "He doesn't know much. Sit down! I'll get him on the move directly."
She sat down not very willingly, and he resumed his talk with Vreiboom in Dutch, lounging against the wall. Sylvia sat quite silent, her eyes upon the glowing sky and the far-away hills. In the foreground was a kopje shaped like a sugar-loaf. She wished herself upon its summit which was bathed in the sunset light.
Once or twice she was moved to glance up at the brown face of the man who leaned between herself and the objectionable visitor. His attitude was one of complete ease, and yet something told her that he desired Piet's departure quite as sincerely as she did.
He must have given a fairly broad hint at last, she decided; for Piet moved somewhat abruptly and knocked out the ashes of his pipe on the floor with a noisy energy that made her start. Then he got up and addressed her in his own language. She did not understand in the least what he said, but she gave him a distant smile realizing that he was taking leave of her. She was somewhat surprised to see Burke take him unceremoniously by the shoulder as he stood before her and march him off the stoep. Piet himself laughed as if he had said something witty, and there was that in the laugh that sent the colour naming to her cheeks.
She quivered with impotent indignation as she sat. She wished with all her heart that Burke would kick him down the steps.
The sunset-light faded, and a soft dusk stole up over the wide spaces. A light breeze cooled her hot face, and after the lapse of a few minutes she began to chide herself for her foolishness. Probably the man had not meant to be offensive. She was certain Burke would never permit her to be insulted in his presence. She heard the sound of hoof-beats retreating away into the distance, and, with it, the memory of her dream came back upon her. She felt forlorn and rather frightened. It was only a dream of course; it was only a dream! But she wished that Burke would come back to her. His substantial presence would banish phantoms.
He did not come for some time, but she heard his step at last. And then a strange agitation took her so that she wanted to spring up and avoid him. She did not do so; she forced herself to appear normal. But every nerve tingled as he approached, and she could not keep the quick blood from her face.
He was carrying a tray which he set down on a rough wooden table near her.
"You must be famished," he said.
She had not thought of food, but certainly the sight of it cheered her failing spirits. She smiled at him.
"Are we going to have another picnic?"
He smiled in answer, and she felt oddly relieved, All sense of strain and embarrassment left her. She sat up and helped him spread the feast.
The fare was very simple, but she found it amply satisfying. She partook of Mary Ann's butter with appreciation.
"I can make butter," she told him presently. "And bake bread?" said Burke.
She nodded, laughing. "Yes, and cook joints and mend clothes, too.
Who does your mending? Mary Ann?"
"I do my own," said Burke. "I cook, too, when Mary Ann takes leave of absence. But I have a Kaffir house boy, Joe, for the odd jobs. And there's a girl, too, uglier than Mary Ann, a relation of hers—called Rose, short for Fair Rosamond. Haven't you seen Rose yet?"
Sylvia's laugh brought a smile to his face. It was a very infectious laugh. Though she sobered almost instantly, it left a ripple of mirth behind on the surface of their conversation. He carried the tray away again when the meal was over, firmly refusing her offer to wash up.
"Mary Ann can do it in the morning," he said.
"Where is she now?" asked Sylvia.
He sat down beside her, and took out his pipe. "They are over in their own huts. They don't sleep in the house."
"Does no one sleep in the house?" she asked quickly.
"I do," said Burke.
A sudden silence fell. The dusk had deepened into a starlit darkness, but there was a white glow behind the hills that seemed to wax with every instant that passed. Very soon the whole veldt would be flooded with moonlight.
In a very small voice Sylvia spoke at length.
"Mr. Ranger!"
It was the first time she had addressed him by name. He turned directly towards her. "Call me Burke!" he said.
It was almost a command. She faced him as directly as he faced her. "Burke—if you wish it!" she said. "I want to talk things over with you, to thank you for your very great goodness to me, and—and to make plans for the future."
"One moment!" he said. "You have given up all thought of marrying
Guy?"
She hesitated. "I suppose so," she said slowly.
"Don't you know your own mind?" he said.
Still she hesitated. "If—if he should come back——"
"He will come back," said Burke.
She started. "He will?"
"Yes, he will." His voice held grim confidence, and somehow it sounded merciless also to her ears. "He'll turn up again some day. He always does. I'm about the only man in South Africa who wouldn't kick him out within six months. He knows that. That's why he'll come back."
"You are—good to him," said Sylvia, her voice very low.
"No, I'm not; not specially. He knows what I think of him anyhow."
Burke spoke slowly. "I've done what I could for him, but he's one
of my failures. You've got to grasp the fact that he's a rotter.
Have you grasped that yet?"
"I'm beginning to," Sylvia said, under her breath.
"Then you can't—possibly—many him," said Burke.
She lowered her eyes before the keenness of his look. She wished the light in the east were not growing so rapidly.
"The question is, What am I going to do?" she said.
Burke was silent for a moment. Then with a slight gesture that might have denoted embarrassment he said, "You don't want to stay here, I suppose?"
She looked up again quickly. "Here—on this farm, do you mean?"
"Yes." He spoke brusquely, but there was a certain eagerness in his attitude as he leaned towards her.
A throb of gratitude went through her. She put out her hand to him very winningly. "What a pity I'm not a boy!" she said, genuine regret in her voice.
He took her hand and kept it. "Is that going to make any difference?" he said.
She looked at him questioningly. It was difficult to read his face in the gloom. "All the difference, I am afraid," she said. "You are very generous—a real good comrade. If I were a boy, there's nothing I'd love better. But, being a woman, I can't live here alone with you, can I? Not even in South Africa!"
"Why not?" he said.
His hand grasped hers firmly; she grasped his in return. "You heard what your Boer friend called me," she said. "He wouldn't understand anything else."
"I told him to call you that," said Burke.
"You—told him!" She gave a great start. His words amazed her.
"Yes." There was a dogged quality in his answer. "I had to protect you somehow. He had seen us together at Ritzen. I said you were my wife."
Sylvia gasped in speechless astonishment.
He went on ruthlessly. "It was the only thing to do. They're not a particularly moral crowd here, and, as you say, they wouldn't understand anything else—decent. Do you object to the idea? Do you object very strongly?"
There was something masterful in the persistence with which he pressed the question. Sylvia had a feeling as of being held down and compelled to drink some strangely paralyzing draught.
She made a slight, half-scared movement and in a moment his hand released hers.
"You do object!" he said.
She clasped her hands tightly together. "Please don't say—or think—that! It is such a sudden idea, and—it's rather a wild one, isn't it?" Her breath came quickly. "If—if I agreed—and let the pretence go on—people would be sure to find out sooner or later. Wouldn't they?"
"I am not suggesting any pretence," he said.
"What do you mean then?" Sylvia said, compelling herself to speak steadily.
"I am asking you to marry me," he said, with equal steadiness.
"Really, do you mean? You are actually in earnest?" Her voice had a sharp quiver in it. She was trembling suddenly. "Please be quite plain with me!" she said. "Remember, I don't know you very well. I have got to get used to the ways out here."
"I am quite in earnest," said Burke. "You know me better than you knew the man you came out here to marry. And you will get used to things more quickly married to me than any other way. At least you will have an assured position. That ought to count with you."
"Of course it would! It does!" she said rather incoherently. "But—you see—I've no one to help me—no one to advise me. I'm on a road I don't know. And I'm so afraid of taking a wrong turning."
"Afraid!" he said. "You!"
She tried to laugh. "You think me a very bold person, don't you?
Or you wouldn't have suggested such a thing."
"I think you've got plenty of grit," he said, "but that wasn't what made me suggest it." He paused a moment. "Perhaps it's hardly worth while going on," he said then. "I seem to have gone too far already. Please believe I meant well, that's all!"
"Oh, I know that!" she said.
And then, moved by a curious impulse, she did an extraordinary thing. She leaned forward and laid her clasped hands on his knee.
"I'm going to be—awfully frank with you," she said rather tremulously. You—won't mind?''
He sat motionless for a second. Then very quietly he dropped his pipe back into his pocket and grasped her slender wrists. "Go on!" he said.
Her face was lifted, very earnest and appealing, to his. "You know," she said, "we are not strangers. We haven't been from the very beginning. We started comrades, didn't we?"
"We should have been married by this time, if I hadn't put the brake on," said Burke.
"Yes," Sylvia said. "I know. That is what makes me feel so—intimate with you. But it is different for you. I am a total stranger to you. You have never met me—or anyone like me—before. Have you?"
"And I have never asked anyone to marry me before," said Burke.
The wrists he held grew suddenly rigid. "You have asked me out of—out of pity—and the goodness of your heart?" she whispered.
"Quite wrong," said Burke. "I want a capable woman to take care of me—when Mary Ann goes on the bust."
"Please don't make me laugh!" begged Sylvia rather shakily. "I haven't done yet. I'm going to ask you an awful thing next. You'll tell me the truth, won't you?"
"I'll tell you before you ask," he said. "I can be several kinds of beast, but not the kind you are afraid of. I am not a faddist, but I am moral. I like it best."
The curt, distinct words were too absolute to admit of any doubt.
Sylvia breathed a short, hard sigh.
"I wonder," she said, "if it would be very wrong to marry a person you only like."
"Marriage is a risk—in any case," said Burke. "But if you're not blindly in love, you can at least see where you are going."
"I can't," she said rather piteously.
"You're afraid of me," he said.
"No, not really—not really. It's almost as big a risk for you as for me. You haven't bothered about—my morals, have you?" Her faint laugh had in it a sound of tears.
The hands that held her wrists closed with a steady pressure. "I haven't," said Burke with simplicity.
"Thank you," she said. "You've been very kind to me. Really I am not afraid of you."
"Sure?" said Burke.
"Only I still wish I were a boy," she said. "You and I could be just pals then."
"And why not now?" he said.
"Is it possible?" she asked.
"I should say so. Why not?"
She freed her hands suddenly and laid them upon his arms. "If I marry you, will you treat me just as a pal?"
"I will," said Burke.
She was still trembling a little. "You won't interfere with my—liberty?"
"Not unless you abuse it," he said.
She laughed again faintly. "I won't do that. I'll be a model of discretion. You may not think it, but I am—very discreet."
"I am sure of it," said Burke.
"No, you're not. You're not in the least sure of anything where I am concerned. You've only known me—two days."
He laughed a little. "It doesn't matter how long it has taken. I know you."
She laughed with him, and sat up, "What must you have thought of me when I told you you hadn't shaved?"
He took out his pipe again. "If you'd been a boy, I should probably have boxed your ears," he said. "By the way, why did you get up when I told you to stay in bed?"
"Because I knew best what was good for me," said Sylvia. "Have you got such a thing as a cigarette?"
He got up. "Yes, in my room. Wait while I fetch them!"
"Oh, don't go on purpose!" she said. "I daresay I shouldn't like your kind, thanks all the same."
He went nevertheless, and she leaned back with her face to the hills and waited. The moon was just topping the great summits. She watched it with a curious feeling of weakness. It had not been a particularly agitating interview, but she knew that she had just passed a cross-roads, in her life.
She had taken a road utterly unknown to her and though she had taken it of her own accord, she did not feel that the choice had really been hers. Somehow her faculties were numbed, were paralyzed. She could not feel the immense importance of what she had done, or realize that she had finally, of her own action, severed her life from Guy's. He had become such a part of herself that she could not all at once divest herself of that waiting feeling, that confident looking forward to a future with him. And yet, strangely, her memory of him had receded into distance, become dim and remote. In Burke's presence she could not recall him at all. The two personalities, dissimilar though she knew them to be, seemed in some curious fashion to have become merged into one. She could not understand her own feelings, but she was conscious of relief that the die was cast. Whatever lay before her, she was sure of one thing. Burke Ranger would be her safeguard against any evil that might arise and menace her. His protection was of the solid quality that would never fail her. She felt firm ground beneath her feet at last.
At the sound of his returning step, she turned with the moonlight on her face and smiled up at him with complete confidence.
CHAPTER XII
THE STALE
Whenever in after days Sylvia looked back upon her marriage, it seemed to be wrapped in a species of hazy dream like the early mists on that far-off range of hills.
They did not go again to Ritzen, but to a town of greater importance further down the line, a ride of nearly forty miles across the veldt. It was a busy town in the neighbourhood of some mines, and its teeming life brought back again to her that sense of aloneness in a land of strangers that had so oppressed her in the beginning. It drove her to seek Burke's society whenever possible. He was the shield between her and desolation, and in his presence her misgivings always faded into the background. He knew some of the English people at Brennerstadt, but she dreaded meeting them, and entreated him not to introduce anyone to her until they were married.
"People are all so curious. I can't face it," she said. "Mine is rather a curious story, too. It will only set them talking, and I do so hate gossip."
He smiled a little and conceded the point. And so she was still a stranger to everyone on the day she laid her hand in Burke's and swore to be faithful to him. The marriage was a civil one. That also robbed it of all sense of reality for her. The ceremony left her cold. It did not touch so much as the outer tissues of her most vital sensibilities. She even felt somewhat impatient of the formalities observed, and very decidedly glad when they were over.
"Now let's go for a ride and forget it all!" she said. "We'll have a picnic on the veldt."
They had their picnic, but the heat was so great as to rob it of much enjoyment. Sylvia was charmed by a distant view of a herd of springbok, and her eyes shone momentarily when Burke said that they would have to do some shooting together. But almost immediately she shook her head.
"No, they are too pretty to kill. I love the hunt, but I hate the kill. Besides, I shall be too busy. If I am going to be your partner, one of us will have to do some work."
He laughed at that. "When do you want to begin?"
"Very soon," she said energetically. "Tomorrow if you like. I don't think much of Brennerstadt, do you? It's such a barren sort of place." He looked at her. "I believe you'll hate the winter on the farm."
"No, I shan't. I shan't hate anything. I'm not so silly as to expect paradise all the time."
"Is this paradise?" said Burke.
She glanced at him quickly. "No, I didn't say that. But I am enjoying it. And," she flushed slightly, "I am very grateful to you for making that possible."
"You've nothing to be grateful to me for," he said.
"Only I can't help it," said Sylvia.
Burke's eyes were scanning the far stretch of veldt towards the sinking sun, with a piercing intentness. She wondered what he was looking for.
There fell a silence between them, and a vague feeling of uneasiness began to grow up within her. His brown face was granite-like in its immobility, but it was exceedingly grim.
Something stirred within her at last, impelling her to action. She got up.
"Do you see that blasted tree right away over there with horrid twisted arms that look as if they are trying to clutch at something?"
His eyes came up to hers on the instant. "What of it?" he said.
She laughed down at him. "Let's mount! I'll race you to it."
He leapt to his feet like, a boy. "What's the betting?"
"Anything you like!" she threw back gaily. "Whoever gets there first can fix the stakes."
He laughed aloud, and the sound of his laugh made her catch her breath with a sharp, involuntary start. She ran to her mount feeling as if Guy were behind her, and with an odd perversity she would not look round to disillusion herself.
During the fevered minutes that followed, the illusion possessed her strongly, so strongly that she almost forgot the vital importance of being first. It was the thudding hoofs of his companion that made her animal gallop rather than any urging of hers. But once started, with the air swirling past her and the excitement of rapid motion setting her veins on fire, the spirit of the race caught her again, and she went like the wind.
The blasted tree stood on a slope nearly a mile away. The ground was hard, and the grass seemed to crackle under the galloping hoofs. The horse she rode carried her with superb ease. He was the finest animal she had ever ridden, and from the first she believed the race was hers.
On she went through the orange glow of evening. It was like a swift entrancing dream. And the years fell away from her as if they had never been, and she and Guy were racing over the slopes of her father's park, as they had raced in the old sweet days of youth and early love. She heard him urging his horse behind her, and remembered how splendid he always looked in the saddle.
The distance dwindled. The stark arms of the naked tree seemed to be stretching out to receive her. But he was drawing nearer also. She could hear the thunder of his animal's hoofs close behind. She bent low in the saddle, gasping encouragement to her own.
There came a shout beside her—a yell of triumph such as Guy had often uttered. He passed her and drew ahead. That fired her. She saw victory being wrested from her.
She cried back at him "You—bounder!" and urged her horse to fresh effort.
The ground sped away beneath her. The heat-haze seemed to spin around. Her eyes were fixed upon their goal, her whole being was concentrated upon reaching it. In the end it was as if the ruined tree shot towards her. The race was over. A great giddiness came upon her. She reeled in the saddle.
And then a hand caught her; or was it one of those outstretched skeleton arms? For a moment she hung powerless; then she was drawn close—close—to a man's breast, and felt the leap and throb of a man's heart against her own.
Breathless and palpitating, she lifted her face. His eyes looked deeply into hers, eyes that glowed like molten steel, and in an instant her illusion was swept away. It seemed to her that for the first time she looked upon Burke Ranger as he was, and her whole being recoiled in sudden wild dismay from what she saw.
"Ah! Let me go!" she said.
He held her still, but his hold slackened. "I won the race," he said.
"Yes, but—but it was only a game," she gasped back incoherently.
"You—you can't—you won't——"
"Kiss you?" he said. "Not if you forbid it." That calmed her very strangely. His tone was so quiet; it revived her courage. She uttered a faint laugh. "Is that the stake? I can't refuse to pay—a debt of honour."
"Thank you," he said, and she saw a curious smile gleam for a moment on his face. "That means you are prepared to take me like a nasty pill, doesn't it? I like your pluck. It's the best thing about you. But I won't put it to the test this time."
He made as if he would release her, but with an odd impulse she checked him. Somehow it was unbearable to be humoured like that. She looked him straight in the eyes.
"We are pals, aren't we?" she said.
The smile still lingered on Burke's face; it had an enigmatical quality that disquieted her, she could not have said wherefore. "It's rather an ambiguous term, isn't it?" he said.
"No, it isn't," she assured him, promptly and Very earnestly. "It means that we are friends, but we are not in love and we are not going to pretend we are. At least," she flushed suddenly under his look, "that is what it means to me."
"I see," said Burke. "And what would happen if we fell in love with each other?"
Her eyes sank in spite of her. "I don't think we need consider that," she said.
"Why not?" said Burke.
"I could never be in love with anyone again," she said, her voice very low.
"Quite sure?" said Burke.
Something in his tone made her look up sharply. His eyes were intently and critically upon her, but the glow had gone out of them. They told her nothing.
"Do you think we need discuss this subject?" she asked him uneasily.
"Not if you prefer to shirk it," he said. She flushed a little.
"But I don't shirk. I'm not that sort."
"No," he said. "I don't think you are. You may be frightened, but you won't run away."
"But I'm not frightened," she asserted boldly, looking him squarely in the face. "We are friends, you and I. And—we are going to trust each other. Being married isn't going to make any difference to us. It was just a matter of convenience and—we are going to forget it."
She paused. Burke's face had not altered. He was looking back at her with perfectly steady eyes.
"Very simple in theory," he said. "Won't you finish?"
"That's all," she said lightly. "Except—if you really want to kiss me now and then—you can do so. Only don't be silly about it!"
Burke's quick movement of surprise told her that this was unexpected. The two horses had recovered their wind and begun to nibble at one another. He checked them with a growling rebuke. Then very quietly he placed Sylvia's bridle in her hand, and put her from him.
"Thank you," he said again. "But you mustn't be too generous at the outset. I might begin to expect too much. And that would be—silly of me, wouldn't it?"
There was no bitterness in voice or action, but there was unmistakable irony. A curious sense of coldness came upon her, as if out of the heart a distant storm-cloud an icy breath had reached her.
She looked at him rather piteously. "You are not angry?" she said.
He leaned back in the saddle to knock a blood-sucking fly off his horse's flank. Then he straightened himself and laughed.
"No, not in the least," he said.
She knew that he spoke the truth, yet her heart misgave her. There was something baffling, something almost sinister to her, in the very carelessness of his attitude. She turned her horse's head and walked soberly away.
He did not immediately follow her, and after a few moments she glanced back for him. He had dismounted and was scratching something on the trunk of the blasted tree with a knife. The withered arms stretched out above his head. They looked weirdly human in the sunset glow. She wished he would not linger in that eerie place.
She waited for him, and he came at length, riding with his head up and a strange gleam of triumph in his eyes.
"What were you doing?" she asked him, as he joined her.
He met her look with a directness oddly disconcerting. "I was commemorating the occasion, he said.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"Never mind now!" said Burke, and took out his pipe.
The light still lingered in his eyes, firing her to something deeper than curiosity. She turned her horse abruptly.
"I am going back to see for myself."
But in the same moment his hand came out, grasping her bridle. "I shouldn't do that," he said. "It isn't worth it. Wait till we come again!"
"The tree may be gone by then," she objected.
"In that case you won't have missed much," he rejoined. "Don't go now!"
He had his way though she yielded against her will. They turned their animals towards Brennerstadt, and rode back together over, the sun-scorched veldt.
PART II
CHAPTER I
COMRADES
Some degree of normality seemed to come back into Sylvia's life with her return to Blue Hill Farm. She found plenty to do there, and she rapidly became accustomed to her surroundings.
It would have been a monotonous and even dreary existence but for the fact that she rode with Burke almost every evening, and sometimes in the early morning also, and thus saw a good deal of the working of the farm. Her keen interest in horses made a strong bond of sympathy between them. She loved them all. The mares and their foals were a perpetual joy to her, and she begged hard to be allowed to try her powers at breaking in some of the young animals. Burke, however, would not hear of this. He was very kind to her, unfailingly considerate in his treatment of her, but by some means he made her aware that his orders were to be respected. The Kaffir servants were swift to do his bidding, though she did not find them so eager to fulfil their duties when he was not at hand.
She laughingly commented upon this one day to Burke, and he amazed her by pointing to the riding-whip she chanced to be holding at the time.
"You'll find that's the only medicine for that kind of thing," he said. "Give 'em a taste of that and they'll respect you!"
She decided he must be joking, but only a few days later he quite undeceived her on that point by dragging Joe, the house boy, into the yard and chastising him with a sjambok for some neglected duty.
Joe howled lustily, and Sylvia yearned to fly to the rescue, but there was something so judicial about Burke's administration of punishment that she did not venture to intervene.
When he came in a little later, she was sitting in their living-room nervously stitching at the sleeve of a shirt that he had managed to tear on some barbed wire. He had his pipe in his hand, and there was an air of grim satisfaction about him that seemed to denote a consciousness of something well done.
Sylvia set her mouth hard and stitched rapidly, trying to forget Joe's piercing yells of a few minutes before. Burke went to the window and stood there, pensively filling his pipe.
Suddenly, as if something in her silence struck him, he turned and looked at her. She felt his eyes upon her though she did not raise her own.
After a moment or two he came to her. "What are you doing there?" he said.
It was the first piece of work she had done for him. She glanced up. "Mending your shirt," she told him briefly.
He laid his hand abruptly upon it. "What are you doing that for?
I don't want you to mend my things."
"Oh, don't be silly, Burke!" she said. "You can't go in tatters.
Please don't hinder me! I want to get it done."
She spoke with a touch of sharpness, not feeling very kindly disposed towards him at the moment. She was still somewhat agitated, and she wished with all her heart that he would go and leave her alone.
She almost said as much in the next, breath as he did not remove his hand. "Why don't you go and shoot something? There's plenty of time before supper."
"What's the matter?" said Burke.
"Nothing," she returned, trying to remove her work from his grasp.
"Nothing!" he echoed. "Then why am I told not to be silly, not to hinder you, and to go and shoot something?"
Sylvia sat up in her chair, and faced him. "If you must have it—I think you've been—rather brutal," she said, lifting her clear eyes to his. "No doubt you had plenty of excuse, but that doesn't really justify you. At least—I don't think so."
He met her look in his usual direct fashion. Those eagle eyes of his sent a little tremor through her. There was a caged fierceness about them that strangely stirred her.
He spoke after the briefest pause with absolute gentleness. "All right, little pal! It's decent of you to put it like that. You're quite wrong, but that's a detail. You'll change your views when you've been in the country a little longer. Now forget it, and come for a ride!"
It was disarmingly kind, and Sylvia softened in spite of herself. She put her hand on his arm. "Burke, you won't do it again?" she said.
He smiled a little. "It won't be necessary for some time to come. If you did the same to Fair Rosamond now and then you would marvellously improve her. Idle little cuss!"
"I never shall," said Sylvia with emphasis.
He heaved a sigh. "Then I shall have to kick her out I suppose. I can see she is wearing your temper to a fine edge."
She bit her lip for a second, and then laughed. "Oh, go away, do? You're very horrid. Rose may be trying sometimes, but I can put up with her."
"You can't manage her," said Burke.
"Anyway, you are not to interfere," she returned with spirit.
"That's my department."
He abandoned the discussion. "Well, I leave it to you, partner. You're not to sit here mending shirts anyhow. I draw the line at that."
Sylvia's delicate chin became suddenly firm. "I never leave a thing unfinished," she said. "You will have to ride alone this evening."
"I refuse," said Burke.
She opened her eyes wide. "Really"—she began.
"Yes, really," he said. "Put the thing away! It's a sheer fad to mend it at all. I don't care what I wear, and I'm sure you don't."
"But I do," she protested. "You must be respectable."
"But I am respectable—whatever I wear," argued Burke. "It's my main characteristic."
His brown hand began to draw the garment in dispute away from her, but Sylvia held it tight.
Burke, don't—please—be tiresome! Every woman mends her husband's clothes if there is no one else to do it. I want to do it. There!"
"You don't like doing it!" he challenged.