The Top of the World Part 48

"No--no!" Sylvia said. "I am going to get the tea."

Yet she paused beside Burke, as if compelled. "What else did he do?" she said. "You haven't told us all."

"Not quite all," said Burke, and still his eyes searched hers with a probing intentness.

"Don't you want to tell me?" she said.

"Yes, I will tell you," he answered, "if you especially want to hear. He saved my life."

"Hooray!" yelled Kelly, in the voice of one holloaing to hounds.

Sylvia said nothing for a moment. She had turned very pale. When she spoke it was with an effort. "How?"

He answered as if speaking to her alone. "One of Vreiboom's tumble-down old sheds fired while we were trying to clear it. The place collapsed and I got pinned inside. Piet Vreiboom didn't trouble himself, or Kieff, either. He wouldn't--naturally. Guy got me out."

"Ah!" she said. It was scarcely more than an intake of the breath.

She could not utter another word, for that imprisoned thing within her seemed to be clawing at her heart, choking her. If Burke had died--if Burke had died! She turned herself quickly from the searching of his eyes, lest he should see--and understand. She could not--dared not--show him her soul just then. The memory of his kiss--that single, fiery kiss that had opened her own eyes--held her back. She went from him in silence. If Burke had died!

CHAPTER VII

THE NET

It was not often that Sylvia lay awake, but that night her brain was in a turmoil, and for long she courted sleep in vain. For some time after she retired, the murmur of Burke's and Kelly's voices in the adjoining room kept her on the alert, but it was mainly the thoughts that crowded in upon her that would not let her rest. The thought of Guy troubled her most, this and the knowledge that Kieff was in the neighbourhood. She had an almost uncanny dread of this man. He seemed to stand in the path as a menace, an evil influence that she could neither avert nor withstand. Burke had barely mentioned him, yet his words had expressed the thought that had sprung instantly to her mind. He was an enemy to them all, most of all to Guy, and she feared him. She had a feeling that she would sooner or later have to fight him for Guy's soul, and she was sick with apprehension. For the only weapon at her disposal was that weapon she dare not wield.

The long night dragged away. She thought it would never end. When sleep came to her at last it was only to bring dreadful dreams in its train. Burke in danger! Burke imprisoned in a burning hut!

Burke at the mercy of Kieff, the merciless!

She wrenched herself free from these nightmares in the very early morning while the stars were still in the sky, and went out on to the _stoep_ to banish the evil illusions from her brain. It was still and cold and desolate. The guest-hut in which Kelly was sleeping was closed. There was no sign of life anywhere. A great longing to go out alone on to the _veldt_ came to her. She felt as if the great solitude must soothe her spirit. And it would be good to realize her wish and to see the day break from that favourite _kopje_ of hers.

She turned to re-enter her room for an extra wrap, and then started at sight of another figure standing at the corner of the bungalow.

She thought it was Burke, and her heart gave a wild leap within her, but the next moment as it began to move noiselessly towards her, she recognized Guy.

He came to her on stealthy feet. "Hullo!" he whispered. "Can't you sleep?"

She held out her hand to him. "Guy! You ought to be in bed!"

He made an odd grimace, and bending, carried her hand to his lips.

"I couldn't sleep either. I've been tormented with a fiery thirst all night long. What has been keeping you awake? Honestly now!"

He laughed into her eyes, and she was aware that he was trying to draw her nearer to him. There was about him at, that moment a subtle allurement that was hard to resist. Old memories thrilled through her at his touch. For five years she had held herself as belonging to him. Could the spell be broken in as many months?

Yet she did resist him, turning her face away. "I can't tell you,"

she said, a quiver in her voice. "I had a good deal to think about. Guy, what is--Kieff doing at Piet Vreiboom's?"

Guy frowned. "Heaven knows. He is there for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, not mine."

"You didn't know he was there?" she said, looking at him again.

His frown deepened. "Yes, I knew. Of course I knew. Why?"

Her heart sank. "I don't like him," she said. "I know he is clever. I know he saved your life. But I never did like him.

I--am afraid of him."

"Perhaps you would have rather he hadn't saved my life?" suggested Guy, with a twist of the lips. "It would have simplified matters considerably, wouldn't it?"

"Don't!" she said, and withdrew her hand. "You know how it hurts me--to hear you talk like that."

"Why should it hurt you?" said Guy.

She was silent, and he did not press for an answer. Instead, very softly he whistled the air of a song that he had been wont to sing to her half in jest in the old days.

Love that hath us in the net Can he pa.s.s and we forget?

She made a little movement of flinching, but the next moment she turned back to him with absolute steadfastness. "Guy, you and I are friends, aren't we? We never could be anything else."

"Oh, couldn't we?" said Guy.

"No," she maintained resolutely. "Please let us remember that!

Please let us build on that!"

He looked at her whimsically. "It's a shaky foundation," he said.

"But we'll try. That is, we'll pretend if you like. Who knows?

We may succeed."

"Don't put it like that!" she said. "Be a man, Guy! I know you can be. Only yesterday----"

"Yesterday? What happened yesterday?" said Guy. "I never remember the yesterdays."

"I think you do," she said. "You did a big thing yesterday. You saved Burke."

"Oh, that!" He uttered a low laugh. "My dear girl, don't canonize me on that account! I only did it because those swine wanted to see him burn."

She shuddered. "That is not true. You know it is not true. It pleases you to pretend you are callous. But you are not at heart.

Burke knows that as well as I do,"

"Oh, d.a.m.n Burke!" he said airly. "He's no great oracle. I wonder what you'd have said if I had come back without him."

She clenched her hands hard to keep back another shudder. "I can't talk of that--can't think of it even. You don't know--you will never realize--all that Burke has done for me."

"Yes, I do know," Guy said. "But most men would have jumped at the chance to do the same. You take it all too seriously. It was no sacrifice to him. You don't owe him anything. He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't taken a fancy to you. And he didn't do it for nothing either. He's not such a philanthropist as that."

Somehow that hurt her intolerably. She looked at him with a quick flash of anger in her eyes. "Do you want to make me hate you?" she said.

He turned instantly and with a most winning gesture. "No, darling.

You couldn't if you tried," he said.