"Don't call me that!" she said, and stumbled uncertainly to her feet.

"I--I am going away."

He put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"You can't," he said quietly. "You are not fit for it. Besides, there is nowhere for you to go to. But I will get Mrs. Stevens, the innkeeper's wife at Wallarroo, to come to you for a time. She is a good sort, you can count on her. As for Mercer, he will not return unless you--or I--send for him."

She shivered violently, uncontrollably.

"You will never send for him?"

"Never," he answered, "unless you need him."

She glanced around her wildly. Her eyes were hunted.

"Why do you say that?" she gasped.

"I think you know why I say it," said Curtis very steadily.

Her hands were clenched.

"No!" she cried back sharply. "No!"

Curtis was silent. There was deep compa.s.sion in his eyes.

She glanced around her wildly. Her eyes were on his eyes.

She shuddered again, shuddered from head to foot.

"If I thought that," she whispered, "if I thought that, I would----"

"Hush!" he interposed gently. "Don't say it! Go and lie down! You will see things differently by and bye."

She knew that he was right, and worn out, broken as she was, she moved to obey him. But before she reached the door her little strength was gone. She felt herself sinking swiftly into a silence that she hoped and even prayed was death. She did not know when Curtis lifted her.

XVII

During many days Sybil lay in her darkened room, facing, in weariness of body and bitterness of soul, the problem of life. She was not actually ill, but there were times when she longed intensely, pa.s.sionately, for death. She was weak, physically and mentally, after the long strain.

Courage and endurance had alike given way at last. She had no strength with which to face what lay before her.

So far as outward circ.u.mstances went, she was in good hands. Curtis watched over her with a care that never flagged, and the innkeeper's wife from Wallarroo, large and slow and patient, was her constant attendant. But neither of them could touch or in any way soothe the perpetual pain that throbbed night and day in the girl's heart, giving her no rest.

She left her bed at length after many days, but it was only to wander aimlessly about the house, lacking the energy to employ herself. Her nerves were quieter, but she still started at any sudden sound, and would sit as one listening yet dreading to hear. Her husband's name never pa.s.sed her lips, and Curtis never made the vaguest reference to him. He knew that sooner or later a change would come, that the long suffering that lined her face must draw at last to a climax; but he would do nothing to hasten it. He believed that Nature would eventually find her own remedy.

But Nature is ever slow, and sometimes the wheel of life moves too quickly for her methods to take effect.

Sybil was sitting one day by an open window when Beelzebub dashed suddenly into view. He was on horseback, riding barebacked, and was evidently in a ferment of excitement. He bawled some incoherent words as he pa.s.sed the window, words which Sybil could not distinguish, but which nevertheless sent a sharp sense of foreboding through her heart. Had he--or had he not--yelled something to her about "Boss"? She could not possibly have said, but the suspicion was sufficiently strong to rouse her to lean out of the window and try to catch something of what the boy was saying.

He had reached the yard, and had flung himself off the sweating animal.

As she peered forth she caught sight of Curtis coming out of the stable.

Beelzebub saw him too, and broke out afresh with his wild cry. This time, straining her ears to listen, she caught the words, all jumbled together though they were.

"Boss got smallpox!"

She saw Curtis stop dead, and she wondered if his heart, like hers, had ceased to beat. The next instant he moved forward, and for the first time she saw him deliberately punch the gesticulating negro's woolly head. Beelzebub cried out like a whipped dog and slunk back. Then, very calmly, Curtis took him by the scruff of his neck, and began to question him.

Sybil stood, gripping the curtain, and watched it all as one watches a scene on the stage. Somehow, though she knew herself to be vitally concerned, she felt no agitation. It was as if the blood had ceased to run in her veins.

At length she saw Curtis release the palpitating Beelzebub, and turn towards the house. Quite calmly she also turned.

They met in the pa.s.sage.

"You needn't trouble to keep it from me," she said. "I know."

He gave her a keen look.

"I am going to him at once," was all he said.

She stood quite still, facing him; and suddenly she was conscious of a great glow pulsing through her, as though some arrested force had been set free. She knew that her heart was beating again, strongly, steadily, fearlessly.

"I shall come with you," she said.

She saw his face change.

"I am sorry," he said, "but that is out of the question. You must know it."

She answered him instantly, unhesitatingly, with some of the old, quick spirit that had won Brett Mercer's heart.

"There you are wrong. I know it to be the only thing possible for me to do."

Curtis looked at her for a second as if he scarcely knew her, and then abruptly abandoned the argument.

"I will not be responsible," he said, turning aside.

And she answered him unfalteringly:

"I will take the responsibility."

XVIII

Slowly Brett Mercer raised himself and tried to peer through his swollen eyelids at the door.

"Don't bring any woman here!" he mumbled.

The effort to see was fruitless. He sank back, blind and tortured, upon the pillow. He had been taken ill at one of his own outlying farms, and here he had lain for days--a giant bereft of his strength, waiting for death.