The Top of the World Part 34

His look changed a little. His eyes shone through the veil of smoke she threw between them, "I can buy ready-made socks. I'm not going to let you make them--or mend them."

Sylvia's red lips expressed scorn. "Ready-made rubbish! No, sir.

With your permission I prefer to make. Then perhaps I shall have less mending to do."

He was drawing her to him and she did not actively resist, though there was no surrender in her att.i.tude.

"And why won't you have any money?" he said. "We are partners."

She laughed lightly. "And you give me board and lodging. I am not worth more."

He looked her in the eyes. "Are you afraid to take too much--lest I should want too much in return?"

She did not answer. She was trembling a little in his hold, but her eyes met his fearlessly.

He put up a hand and took the cigarette very gently from her lips.

"Sylvia, I'm going to tell you something--if you'll listen."

He paused a moment. She was suddenly throbbing from head to foot.

"What is it?" she whispered.

He snuffed out the cigarette with his fingers and put it in his pocket. Then he bent to her, his hand upon her shoulder.

His lips were open to speak, and her silence waited for the words, when like the sudden rending of the heavens there came an awful sound close to them, so close that is shook the windows in their frames and even seemed to shake the earth under their feet.

Sylvia started back with a cry, her hands over her face. "Oh, what--what--what is that?"

Burke was at the window in a second. He wrenched it open, and as he did so there came the shock of a thudding fall. A man's figure, huddled up like an empty sack lay across the threshold. It sank inwards with the opening of the window, and Guy's face white as death, with staring, senseless eyes, lay upturned to the lamplight.

Something jingled on the floor as his inert form collapsed, and a smoking revolver dropped at Burke's feet.

He picked it up sharply, unc.o.c.ked it and laid it on the table.

Then he stooped over the prostrate body. The limbs were twitching spasmodically, but the movement was wholly involuntary. The deathlike face testified to that. And through the grey flannel shirt above the heart a dark stain spread and spread.

"He is dead!" gasped Sylvia at Burke's shoulder.

"No," Burke said.

He opened the shirt with the words and exposed the wound beneath.

Sylvia shrank at the sight of the welling blood, but Burke's voice steadied her.

"Get some handkerchiefs and towels," he said, "and make a wad! We must stop this somehow."

His quietness gave her strength. Swiftly she moved to do his bidding.

Returning, she found that he had stretched the silent figure full length upon the floor. The convulsive movements had wholly ceased.

Guy lay like a dead man.

She knelt beside Burke. "Tell me what to do and I'll do it! I'll do--anything!"

"All right," he said. "Get some cold water!"

She brought it, and he soaked some handkerchiefs and covered the wound.

"I think we shall stop it," he said. "Help me to get this thing under his shoulders! I shall have to tie him up tight. I'll lift him while you get it underneath."

She was perfectly steady as she followed his instructions, and even though in the process her hands were stained with Guy's blood, she did not shrink again. It was no easy task, but Burke's skill and strength of muscle accomplished it at last. Across Guy's body he looked at her with a certain grim triumph.

"Well played, partner! That's the first move. Are you all right?"

She saw by his eyes that her face betrayed the horror at her heart.

She tried to smile at him, but her lips felt stiff and cold. Her look went back to the ashen face on the floor.

"What--what must be done next?" she said.

"He will have to stay as he is till we can get a doctor," Burke answered. "The bleeding has stopped for the present, but--" He broke off.

"Child, how sick you look!" he said. "Here, come and wash!

There's nothing more to be done now."

She got up, feeling her knees bend beneath her but controlling them with rigid effort. "I--am all right," she said. "You--you think he isn't dead?"

Burke's hand closed upon her elbow. "He's not dead,--no! He may die of course, but I don't fancy he will at present,--not while he lies like that."

He was drawing her out of the room, but she resisted him suddenly.

"I can't go. I can't leave him--while he lives. Burke, don't, please, bother about me! Are you--are you going to fetch a doctor?"

"Yes," said Burke.

She looked at him, her eyes wide and piteous. "Then please go now--go quickly! I--will stay with him till you come back."

"I shall have to leave you for some hours," he said.

"Oh, never mind that!" she answered, "Just be as quick as you can, that's all! I will be with him. I--shan't be afraid."

She was urging him to the door, but he turned back. He went to the table, picked up the revolver he had laid there, and put it away in a cupboard which he locked.

She marked the action, and as he came to her again, laid a trembling hand upon his arm. "Burke! Could it--could it have been an accident?"

"No. It couldn't," said Burke. He paused a moment, looking at her in a way she did not understand. She wondered afterwards what had been pa.s.sing in his mind. But he said no further word except a brief, "Good-bye!"

Ten minutes later, she heard the quick thud of his horse's hoofs as he rode into the night.

CHAPTER IX

THE ABYSS