Rosa Mundi and Other Stories Part 43

She left no word to explain her absence. There seemed no time for any written message, nor was she in a state of mind to frame one. She was driven by a consuming fever that urged her to perpetual movement. It did not seem to matter how the tidings of her going came to Mercer.

Not till she was in the saddle and riding, riding hard, did she know a moment's relief. The physical exertion eased the inward tumult, but she would not slacken for an instant. She felt that to do so would be to lose her reason. Beelzebub, galloping after her, thought her demented already.

Through the long, long pastures she travelled, never drawing rein, looking neither to right nor left. The animal she rode knew the way to Wallarroo, and followed it undeviatingly. The sun was beginning to slant, and the shadows to lengthen.

Mile after mile of rolling gra.s.sland they left behind them, and still they pressed forward. At last came the twilight, brief as the soft sinking of a curtain, and then the dark. But the night was ablaze with stars, and the road was clear.

Sybil rode as one in a nightmare, straining forward eternally. She did not urge her horse, but he bore her so gallantly that she did not need to do so. Beelzebub had increasing difficulty in keeping up with her.

At last, after what seemed like the pa.s.sage of many hours, they sighted from afar the lights of Wallarroo. Sybil drew rein, and waited for Beelzebub.

"Which way?" she said.

He pointed to a group of trees upon a knoll some distance from the road, and thither she turned her horse's head. Beelzebub rode up beside her.

They left the knoll on one side, and, skirting it, came to a dip in the hill-side. And here they came at length to the end of their journey--a journey that to Sybil had seemed endless--and halted before a wooden shed that had been built for cattle. A flap of canvas had been nailed above the entrance, behind which a dim light burned. Sybil dismounted and drew near.

At first she heard no sound; then, as she stood hesitating and uncertain, there came a man's voice that uttered low, disjointed words.

She thought for a second that someone was praying, and then, with a thrill of horror, she knew otherwise. The voice was uttering the most fearful curses she had ever heard.

Scarcely knowing what she did, but unable to stand there pa.s.sively listening, she drew aside the canvas flap and looked in.

In an instant the voice ceased. There fell a silence, followed by a wild, half-strangled cry. She had a glimpse of a p.r.o.ne figure in a corner struggling upwards, and then Curtis was before her--Curtis haggard and agitated as she had never seen him--pus.h.i.+ng her back out of the dim place into the clean starlight without.

"Mrs. Mercer! Are you mad?" she heard him say.

She resisted his compelling hands; she was strangely composed and undismayed.

"I am coming in," she said. "Nothing on earth will keep me back. That man--Robin Wentworth--is a friend of mine. I am going to see him and speak to him."

"Impossible!" Curtis said.

But she withstood him unfalteringly.

"It is not impossible. You must let me pa.s.s. I mean to go to him, and you cannot prevent it."

He saw the hopelessness of opposing her. Her eyes told him that it was no whim but steadfast purpose that had brought her there. He looked beyond her to Beelzebub, but gathered no inspiration in that quarter.

"Let me pa.s.s, Mr. Curtis!" said Sybil gently. "I shall take no harm. I must see him before he dies."

And Curtis yielded. He was worn out by long and fruitless watching, and he could not cope with this fresh emergency. He yielded to her insistence, and suffered her to pa.s.s him.

"He is very far gone," he said.

XIV

As Sybil entered she heard again that strange, choked cry. The sick man was struggling to rise, but could not.

She went straight to the narrow pallet on which he lay and bent over him.

"Robin!" she said.

He gave a great start, and became intensely still, lying face downwards, his body twisted, his head on his arm.

She stooped lower. She touched him. A superhuman strength was hers.

"Robin," she said, "do you know me?"

He turned his face a little, and she saw the malignant horror of the disease that gripped him. It was a sight that would have turned her sick at any other time. But to-night she knew no weakness.

"Who are you?" he said, in a gasping whisper.

"I am Sybil," she answered steadfastly. "Don't you remember me?"

He lay motionless for a little, his breathing sharp and short. At length:

"You had better get away from this pestilent hole," he panted out. "It's no place for a woman."

"I have come to nurse you," she said.

"You!" He seemed to collect himself with an effort. He turned his face fully towards her. "Didn't you marry that devil Mercer, after all?" he gasped, gazing up at her with gla.s.sy eyes.

Only by his eyes would she have known him--this man whom once long ago she had fancied that she loved--and even they were strained and unfamiliar. She bent her head in answer. "Yes, Robin, I married him."

He began to curse inarticulately, spasmodically; but that she would not have. She knelt down suddenly by his side, and took his hand in hers.

The terrible, disfigured countenance did not appal her, though the memory of it would haunt her all her life.

"Robin, listen!" she said earnestly. "We may not have very long together. Let us make the most of what time we have! Don't waste your strength! Try to tell me quietly what happened, how it was you gave me up! I want to understand it all. I have never yet heard the truth."

Her quiet words, the steady pressure of her hand, calmed him. He lay still for a s.p.a.ce, gazing at her.

"You're not afraid?" he muttered at last.

"No," she said.

He continued to stare at her.

"Is he--good to you?" he said.

The words came with difficulty. She saw his throat working with the convulsive effort to produce sound.

Curtis touched her arm. "Give him this!"

She took a cup from his hand, and held it to the swollen lips. But he could not swallow. The liquid trickled down into his beard.