The Top of the World Part 57

Her breath came quickly; her fingers were straining against each other. "I--don't quite know--how to say it," she said.

Burke stood quite motionless, looking down at her. "Must it be said?" he asked.

"Yes." She sat for a moment or two, mustering her strength. Then, with an abrupt effort, she got up and faced him. "Burke, I think I have a right to your trust," she said.

He looked straight back at her with piercing, relentless eyes. "If we are going to talk of rights," he said, "I might claim a right to your confidence."

She drew back a little, involuntarily, but the next moment, quickly, she went to him and clasped his arm between her hands.

"Please be generous, partner!" she said. "We won't talk of rights, either of us. You--are not--angry with me now, are you?"

He stiffened somewhat at her touch, but he did not repulse her.

"I'm afraid you won't find me in a very yielding mood," he said.

She held his arm a little more tightly, albeit her hands were trembling. "Won't you listen to me?" she said, in a voice that quivered. "Is there--no possibility of--of--coming to an understanding?"

He drew a slow hard breath. "We have a very long way to go first,"

he said.

"I know," she answered, and her voice was quick with pain. "I know. But--we can't go on--like this. It--just isn't bearable.

If--even if you can't understand me--Burke, won't you--won't you try at least to give me--the benefit of the doubt?"

It was very winningly spoken, but as she spoke she leaned her head suddenly against the arm she held and stifled a sob. "For both our sakes!" she whispered.

But Burke stood, rigid as rock, staring straight before him into the glaring sunlight. She did not know what was pa.s.sing in his mind; that was the trouble of it. But she felt his grim resistance like a wall of granite, blocking her way. And the brave heart of her sank in spite of all her courage.

He moved at last, but it was a movement of constraint. He laid his free hand on her shoulder. "Crying won't help," he said. "I think we had better be getting back."

And then, for the sake of the old love, she made her supreme effort. She lifted her face; it was white to the lips, but it bore no sign of tears. "I can't go," she said, "till--I have seen Guy."

He made a sharp gesture. "Ah!" he said. "I thought that was coming."

"Yes, you knew it! You knew it!" Pa.s.sionately she uttered the words. "It's the one thing that's got to be settled between us--the only thing left that counts. Yes, you mean to refuse. I know that. But--before you refuse--wait, please wait! I am asking it quite as much for your sake as for mine."

"And for his," said Burke, with a twist of the lips more bitter than the words.

But she caught them up unflinching. "Yes, and for his. We've set out to save him, you and I. And--we are not going to turn back.

Burke, I ask you to help me--I implore you to help me--in this thing. You didn't refuse before."

"I wish to Heaven I had!" he said, "I might have known how it would end!"

"No--no! And you owe him your life too. Don't forget that! He saved you. Are you going to let him sink--after that?" She reached up and held him by the shoulders, imploring him with all her soul.

"You can't do it! Oh, you can't do it!" she said. "It isn't--you."

He looked at her with a certain doggedness. "Not your conception of me perhaps," he said, and suddenly his arms closed about her quivering form. "But--am I--the sort of man you have always taken me to be? Tell me! Am I?"

She turned her face aside, hiding it against his shoulder. "I know--what you can be," she said faintly.

"Yes." Grimly he answered her. "You've seen the ugly side of me at last, and it's that that you are up against now." He paused a moment, then very sombrely he ended. "I might force you to tell me the whole truth of this business, but I shall not--simply because I don't want to hear it now. I know very well he's been making love to you, tempting you. But I am going to put the infernal matter away, and forget it--as far as possible. We may never reach the top of the world now, but we'll get out of this vile slough at any cost. You won't find me hard to live with if you only play the game,--and put that d.a.m.ned scoundrel out of your mind for good."

"And do you think I shall ever be able to forgive you?" She lifted her head with an unexpectedness that was almost startling. Her eyes were alight, burning with a ruddy fire out of the whiteness of her face. She spoke as she had never spoken before. It was as if some strange force had entered into and possessed her. "Do you think I shall ever forget--even if you do? Perhaps I am not enough to you now to count in that way. You think--perhaps--that a slave is all you want, and that partnership, comradeship, friendship, doesn't count. You are willing to sacrifice all that now, and to sacrifice him with it. But how will it be--afterwards? Will a slave be any comfort to you when things go wrong--as they surely will? Will it satisfy you to feel that my body is yours when my soul is so utterly out of sympathy, out of touch, that I shall be in spirit a complete stranger to you? Ah yes," her voice rang on a deep note of conviction that could not be restrained--"you think you won't care. But you will--you will. A time will come when you will feel you would gladly give everything you possess to undo what you are doing to-day. You will be sick at heart, lonely, disillusioned, suspicious of me and of everybody. You will see the horrible emptiness of it all, and you will yearn for better things.

But it will be too late then. What once we fling away never comes again to us. We shall be too far apart by that time, too hopelessly estranged, ever to be more to each other than what we are at this moment--master and slave. Through all our lives we shall never be more than that."

She ceased to speak, and the fire went out of her eyes. She drooped in his hold as if all her strength had gone from her.

He turned and put her steadily down into the chair again. He had heard her out without a sign of emotion, and he betrayed none then.

He did not speak a word. But his silence said more to her than speech. It was as the beginning of a silence which was to last between them for as long as they lived.

She sank back exhausted with closed eyes. The struggle--that long, fierce battle for Guy's soul--was over. And she had failed. Her prayers had been in vain. All her desperate effort had been fruitless, and nothing seemed to matter any more. She told herself that she would never be able to pray again. Her faith had died in the mortal combat. And there was nothing left to pray for. She was tired to the very soul of her, tired unto death; but she knew she would not die. For death was rest, and there could be no rest for her until the days of her slavery were accomplished. The sand of the desert would henceforth be her portion. The taste of it was in her mouth. The desolation of it encompa.s.sed her spirit.

Two scalding tears forced their way through her closed lids and ran down her white cheeks. She did not stir to wipe them away. She hoped he did not see them. They were the only tears she shed.

CHAPTER II

THE SKELETON TREE

"Ah, Mrs. Burke, and is it yourself that I see again? Sure, and it's a very great pleasure!" Kelly, his face crimson with embarra.s.sment and good-will, took the hand Sylvia offered and held it hard. "A very great pleasure!" he reiterated impressively, before he let it go.

She smiled at him as one smiles at a shy child. "Thank you, Mr.

Kelly," she said.

"Ah, but you'll call me Donovan," he said persuasively, "the same as everyone else! So you've come to Brennerstadt after all! And is it the diamond ye're after?"

She shook her head. They were standing on a balcony that led out of the public smoking-room, an awning over their heads and the open street at their feet. It was from the street that he had spied her, and the sight of her piteous, white face with its deeply shadowed eyes had gone straight to his impulsive Irish heart.

"No," she said. "We are not bothering about the diamond. I think we shall probably start back to Ritzen to-night."

"Ah now, ye might stay one day longer and try your luck," wheedled the Irishman. "The Fates would be sure to favour ye. Where's himself?"

"I don't know." She spoke very wearily. "He left me here to rest.

But it's so dusty--and airless--and noisy."

Kelly gave her a swift, keen look. "Come for a ride!" he said.

"A ride!" She raised her heavy eyes with a momentary eagerness, but it was gone instantly. "He--might not like me to go," she said.

"Besides, I haven't a horse."

"That's soon remedied," said Kelly. "I've got a lamb of a horse to carry ye. And he wouldn't care what ye did in my company. He knows me. Leave him a note and come along! He'll understand.

It's a good gallop that ye're wanting. Come along and get it!"

Kelly could be quite irresistible when he chose, and he had evidently made up his mind to comfort the girl's forlornness so far as in him lay. She yielded to him with the air of being too indifferent to do otherwise. But Kelly had seen that moment's eagerness, and he built on that.

A quarter of an hour later they met again in the sweltering street, and he complimented her in true Irish fashion upon the rose-flush in her cheeks. He saw that she looked about uneasily as she mounted, but with unusual tact he omitted to comment upon the fact.

The sun was slanting towards the west as they rode away. The streets were crowded, but Kelly knew all the short cuts, and guided her unerringly till they reached the edge of the open _veldt_.

Then, "Come along!" he cried. "Let's gallop!"