The Top of the World Part 69

He was seated on the edge of the bed adjusting the strap of one of his gaiters. Burke stood and watched him un.o.bserved till he lifted his head. Then with a curt, "Now!" he turned and bolted the door behind him.

"Hullo!" said Guy, and got to his feet.

They stood face to face, alike yet unlike, men of the same breed, bearing the same ineradicable stamp, yet poles asunder.

The silence between them was as the appalling pause between the lightning and the thunder-clap. All the savagery of which the human heart is capable was pent within its brief bounds. Then Burke spoke through lips that were white and strangely twisted:

"Have you anything at all to say for yourself?"

Guy threw a single glance around. "Not here," he said. "And not now. I'll meet you. Where shall I meet you?"

"Why not here--and now?" Burke's hands were at his sides, hard clenched, as if it took all his strength to keep them there. His eyes never stirred from Guy's face. They had the fixed and cruel look of a hawk about to pounce upon its prey and rend it to atoms.

But there was no fear about Guy, neither fear nor shame. Whatever his sins had been, he had never flinched from the consequences.

He answered without an instant's faltering: "Because we shall be interrupted. We don't want a pack of women howling round. Also, there are no weapons. You haven't even a _sjambok_." His eyes gleamed suddenly. "And there isn't s.p.a.ce enough to use it if you had."

"I don't need even a _sjambok_," Burke said, "to kill a rat like you."

"No. And I shan't die so hard as a rat either. All the same," Guy spoke with quiet determination, "you can't do it here. d.a.m.n it, man! Are you afraid I shall run away?"

"No!" The answer came like a blow. "But I can't wait, you accursed blackguard! I've waited too long already."

"No, you haven't!" Guy straightened himself sharply, braced for violence, for Burke was close to him and there was something of the quality of a coiled spring in his att.i.tude, a spring that a touch would release. "Wait a minute, Burke! Do you hear? Wait a minute? I'm everything you choose to call me. I'm a traitor, a thief, and a blackguard. But I'm another thing as well." His voice broke oddly and he continued in a lower key, rapidly, as if he feared his strength might not last. "I'm a failure. I haven't done this thing I tried to do. I never shall do it now.

Because--your wife--is incorruptible. Her loyalty is greater than my--treachery."

Again there sounded that curious catch in his voice as if a remorseless hand were tightening upon his throat. But he fought against it with a fierce persistence. He faced Burke with livid, twitching lips.

"G.o.d knows," he said in a pa.s.sionate whisper, "whether she loves you. But she will be true to you--as long as you live!"

His words went into silence--a silence so tense that it seemed as if it must end in furious action--as if a hurtling blow and a crashing, headlong fall could be the only outcome.

But neither came. After several rigid seconds Burke spoke, his voice dead level, without a hint of emotion.

"You expect me to believe that, do you?"

Guy made a sharp movement that had in it more of surprise than protest. His throat worked spasmodically for a moment or two ere he forced it to utterance.

"Don't you think," he said then, in a half-strangled undertone, "that it would be a million times easier for me to let you believe--otherwise?"

"Why?" said Burke briefly.

"Because--" savagely Guy flung back the answer--"I would rather be murdered for what I've done than despised for what I've failed to do."

"I see," Burke said. "Then why not let me believe the obvious without further argument?"

There was contempt in his voice, but it was a bitter self-contempt in which the man before him had no share. He had entered that room with murder in his heart. The l.u.s.t was still there, but he knew now that it would go unsatisfied. He had been stopped, by what means he scarcely realized.

But Guy knew; and though it would have been infinitely easier, as he had said, to have endured that first mad fury than to have stayed it with a confession of failure, for some reason he forced himself to follow the path of humiliation that he had chosen.

"Because what you call the obvious chances also to be the impossible," he said. "I'm not such a devil as to want to ruin her for the fun of the thing. I tell you she's straight--as straight as I am crooked. And you've got to believe in her--whether you want to or not. That--if you like--is the obvious." He broke off, breathing hard, yet in a fashion oddly triumphant, as if in vindicating the girl he had somehow vindicated himself also.

Burke looked at him fixedly for a few seconds longer. Then, abruptly, as if the words were hard to utter, he spoke; "I believe you."

Guy relaxed with what was almost a movement of exhaustion, but in a moment he braced himself again. "You shall have your satisfaction all the same," he said. "I owe you that. Where shall I meet you?"

Burke made a curt gesture as if dismissing a matter of but minor importance, and turned to go.

But in an instant, as if stung into action, Guy was before him. He gripped him by the shoulder. "Man! Don't give me any of your d.a.m.ned generosity!" He ground out the words between his teeth.

"Name a place! Do you hear? Name a place and time!"

Burke stopped dead. His face was enigmatical as he looked at Guy.

There was a remote gleam in his stern eyes that was neither of anger nor scorn. He stood for several seconds in silence, till the hand that clutched his shoulder gripped and feverishly shook it.

Then deliberately and with authority bespoke: "I'll meet you in my own time. You can go back to your old quarters and--wait for me there."

Guy's hand fell from him. He stood for a moment as if irresolute, then he moved aside. "All right. I shall go there to-day," he said.

And in silence Burke unbolted the door and went out.

CHAPTER X

THE TRUTH

When Burke presented himself at the door of the main bungalow he found it half-open. The whirr of a sewing-machine came forth to him, but it paused in answer to his knock, and Mrs. Merston's voice bade him enter.

He went in to find her seated at a plain wooden table with grey flannel spread around her, her hand poised on the wheel of her machine, which she drove round vigorously as he entered. Her light eyes surveyed him in momentary surprise, and then fell straight upon her work. A slightly deeper colour suffused her face.

"You've come early," she said.

"Good morning!" said Burke.

She nodded without speaking, absorbed in her work.

He came to a stand on the opposite side of the table, watching her.

He was quite well aware that Matilda Merston did not like him. She had never scrupled to let him know it. The whirr of the machine rose between them. She was working fast and furiously.

He waited with absolute patience till she flung him a word. "Sit down!"

He seated himself facing her.

Faster and faster spun the wheel. Matilda's thin lips were compressed. Tiny beads appeared on her forehead. She was breathing quickly. Suddenly there was a check, a sharp snap. She uttered an impatient sound and stopped, looking across at her visitor with undisguised hostility in her eyes.

"I didn't do it," said Burke.

She got up, not deigning a reply. "I suppose you'd like a drink,"