Emergency gave her strength. She moved to the trap-door, and, she knew not how, found the ladder with her feet.

Grey-faced, dazed, and cold as marble, she descended. Yet she did not stumble. Her limbs moved mechanically, unfalteringly.

When she reached the bottom she turned with absolute steadiness and found Brett Mercer standing in the doorway watching her.

XI

He stood looking at her in silence as she came forward. She did not stop to ascertain if he were angry or not. Somehow it did not seem to matter.

She only dealt with the urgent necessity for averting his suspicion.

"I just ran across with some soup for Beelzebub," she said, her pale face raised unflinchingly. "I am glad to say he has taken it. Please don't go up! I want him to get to sleep."

She spoke, with a wholly unconscious authority. The supreme effort she was making seemed to place her upon a different footing. She laid a quiet hand upon his arm and drew him out of the stable.

He went with her as one surprised into submission. One of the farm men who had taken his horse stared after them in amazement.

As they crossed the yard together Mercer found his voice.

"I told Curtis you weren't to go near Beelzebub."

"I know," she answered. "Mr. Curtis told me."

He cracked his whip savagely.

"Where is Curtis?"

"I don't know," she answered. "But, Brett, if you are angry because I went you must deal with me, not with Mr. Curtis. He had nothing whatever to do with it."

Mercer was silent, and she divined with no sense of elation that he would not turn his anger against her.

They entered the house together, and he strode through the pa.s.sage, calling for Curtis. But when the latter appeared in answer to the summons, to her surprise Mercer began to speak upon a totally different subject.

"I have just seen Stevens from Wallarroo. They are all in a mortal funk there. He was on his way over here to ask you to go and look at a man who is very bad with something that looks like smallpox. You can please yourself about going; though, if you take my advice, you'll stay away."

Curtis did not at once reply. He gravely took the empty bowl from Sybil's hand, and it was upon her that his eyes rested as he finally said, "Do you think you could manage without me?"

She looked up with perfect steadiness.

"Certainly I could. Please do as you think right!"

"What about Beelzebub?" he said.

Mercer made a restless movement.

"He will be on his legs again in a day or two. One of the men must look after him."

"I shall look after him," Sybil said, with a calmness of resolution that astounded both her hearers.

Mercer put his hand on her shoulder, but said nothing. It was Curtis who spoke with the voice of authority.

"You will have to take care of her," he said bluntly. "Bear in mind what I said to you last night! I will show you how to treat the arm. And then I think I had better go. It may prevent an epidemic."

Thereafter he a.s.sumed so businesslike an air that he seemed to Sybil to be completely transformed. There never had been much deference in his att.i.tude towards Mercer, but he treated him now without the smallest ceremony. He was as a man suddenly awakened from a long lethargy. From that moment to the moment of his departure his activity was unceasing.

Sybil and Mercer watched him finally ride away, and it was not till he was actually gone that the fact that she was left absolutely alone with her husband came home to her.

With a sense of shock she realized it, and those words of Beelzebub's--the words that she had been so resolutely forcing into the back of her mind--came crowding back upon her with a vividness and persistence that were wholly beyond her control.

What was she going to do, she wondered? What could she do with this awful, this unspeakable doubt pressing ever upon her? It might all be a mistake, a hideous mistake on Beelzebub's part. She had no great faith in his intelligence. It might be that by some evil chance his muddled brain had registered the name of Bowker Creek in connection with the fight which she did not for a moment doubt had at some time taken place. Beelzebub was never reliable in the matter of details, and he had not been able to answer her question regarding the place.

Over and over again she tried to convince herself that her fear was groundless, and over and over again the words came back to her, refusing to be forgotten or ignored--"the white man from Bowker Creek." Who was this white man whom Mercer had fought, this man who had tried to shoot him? She shuddered whenever she pictured the conflict. She was horribly afraid.

Yet she played her part unfalteringly, and Mercer never suspected the seething anguish of suspense and uncertainty that underlay her steadfast composure. He thought her quieter than usual, deemed her shy; and he treated her in consequence with a tenderness of which she had not believed him capable--a tenderness that wrung her heart.

She was thankful when the morning came, and he left her, for the strain was almost more than she could endure.

But in the interval of solitude that ensued she began to build up her strength anew. Alone with her doubts, she faced the fact that she would probably never know the truth. She could not rely upon Beelzebub for accuracy, and she could not refer to her husband. The only course open to her was to bury the evil thing as deeply as might be, to turn her face resolutely away from it, to forget--oh, Heaven, if she could but forget!

All through that day Beelzebub slept, curled up in the straw. She visited him several times, but he needed nothing. Nature had provided her own medicine for his tortured body. In the evening a man came with a note from Curtis. The case was undoubtedly one of smallpox, he wrote, and he did not think his patient would recover. There was a good deal of panic at Wallarroo, and he had removed the man to a cattle-shed at some distance from the township where they were isolated. There were one or two things he needed which he desired Mercer to send on the following day to a place he described, whence he himself would fetch them.

"Beelzebub can go," said Mercer.

"If he is well enough!" said Sybil.

He frowned.

"You don't seem to realize what these n.i.g.g.e.rs are made of. Of course, he will be well enough."

She said no more, for she saw that the topic was unwelcome; but she determined to make a stand on Beelzebub's behalf the next day, unless his condition were very materially improved.

XII

It was with surprise and relief that upon entering the kitchen on the following morning Sybil found Beelzebub back in his accustomed place. He greeted her with a wider grin than usual, which she took for an expression of grat.i.tude. He seemed to have made a complete recovery, for which she was profoundly thankful.

She herself was feeling better that day. Her arm pained her less, and she no longer carried it in a sling. She had breakfasted in bed, Mercer himself waiting upon her.

She was amazed to hear him speak with kindness to Beelzebub, and even ask the boy if he thought he could manage the ride to Wallarroo.

Beelzebub, abjectly eager to return to favour, professed himself ready to start at once. And so presently Sybil found herself alone.

The long day pa.s.sed without event. The loneliness did not oppress her.

She busied herself with preparing delicacies for the sick man, which Beelzebub could take on the following day. Beelzebub had had smallpox, and knew no fear.

He did not return from his errand till the afternoon was well advanced.

She went to the door to hear his news, but he was in his least intelligent mood, and seemed able to tell her very little. By dint of close questioning she elicited that he had seen Curtis, who had told him that the man was worse. Beyond this, Beelzebub appeared to know nothing; and yet there was something about him that excited her attention. He seemed more than once to be upon the point of saying something, and to fail at the last moment, as though either his wits or his courage were unequal to the effort. She could not have said what conveyed this impression, but it was curiously strong. She tried hard to elicit further information, but Beelzebub only became more idiotic in response, and she was obliged to relinquish the attempt.

Mercer came in soon after, and she dismissed the matter from her mind.

But a vivid dream recalled it. She started up in the night, agitated, incoherent, crying that someone wanted her, someone who could not wait, and she must go. She could not tell her husband what the dream had been and in the morning all memory of it had vanished. But it left a vague disquietude behind, a haunting anxiety that hung heavily upon her. She could not feel at peace.