The Top of the World Part 8

He put his free hand on her shoulder with an abrupt movement that made him for the moment oddly familiar. "It's a d.a.m.ned shame," he said, and though his voice was low he spoke with feeling. "Look here, child! This is no fault of mine. I never thought you could make this mistake, never dreamed of such a possibility. I'm not Guy at all. I am Burke Ranger--his cousin. And let me tell you at once, we are not much alike now--whatever we have been in the past.

Here, don't faint! Sit down!"

He shifted his hand from her shoulder to her elbow, and supported her to a chair. But she remained upon her feet, her white face upraised, gazing at him--gazing at him.

"Not Guy! Not Guy!" She said it over and over as if to convince herself. Then: "But where is Guy?" She clutched at his arm desperately, for all her world was shaking. "Are you going to tell me he is--dead?"

"No." Burke Ranger spoke with steady eyes looking straight into hers. "He is not."

"Then why--then why--" She could get no further. She stopped, gasping. His face swam blurred before her quivering vision,--Guy's face, yet with an inexplicable something in it that was not Guy.

"Sit down!" he said again, and put her with quiet insistence into the chair. "Wait till you have had something to eat! Then we'll have a talk and decide what had better be done."

She was shivering from head to foot, but she faced him still. "I can't eat," she said through white lips. "I can't do anything till--till I know--all there is to know."

He stood looking down at her. The fingers of his right hand were working a little, but his face was perfectly calm, even grim.

As he did not speak immediately, she went on with piteous effort.

"You must forgive me for making that stupid mistake. I see now--you are not Guy, though there is a strong likeness. You see, I have not seen Guy for five years, and I--I was allowing for certain changes."

"He is changed," said Burke Ranger.

That nameless terror crept closer about her heart. Her eyes met his imploringly.

"Really I am quite strong," she said. "Won't you tell me what is wrong? He--cabled to me to come to him. It was in answer to my cable."

"Yes, I know," said Ranger.

He turned from her abruptly and walked to the window. The darkness had drawn close. It hung like a black curtain beyond the pane.

The only light in the room was a lamp that burned on a side table.

It illumined him but dimly, and again it seemed to the girl who watched him that this could be no other than the Guy of her dreams--the Guy she had loved so faithfully, for whose sake she had waited so patiently for so many weary years. Surely it was he who had made the mistake! Surely even yet he would turn and gather her to his heart, and laugh at her folly for being so easily deluded!

Ah! He had turned. He stood looking at her across the dimly-lighted s.p.a.ce. Her very heart stood still to hear his voice.

He spoke. "The best thing you can do is to go back to the place you came from--and marry someone else."

The words went through her. They seemed to tear and lacerate her.

As in a nightmare vision she saw the bitterness that lay behind her, the utter emptiness before. She still stared full at him, but she saw him not. Her terror had taken awful shape before her, and all her courage was gone. She cowered before it.

"I can't--I can't!" she said, and even to herself her voice sounded weak and broken, like the cry of a lost child. "I can't go back!"

He came across the room to her, moving quickly, as if something urged him. She did not know that she had flung out her hands in wild despair until she felt him gather them together in his own.

He bent over her, and she saw very clearly in his countenance that which had made her realize that he was not Guy. "Look here!" he said. "Have a meal and go to bed! We will talk it out in the morning. You are worn out now."

His voice held insistence. There was no softness in it. Had he displayed kindness in that moment she would have burst into tears.

But he put her hands down again with a brief, repressive gesture, and the impulse pa.s.sed. She yielded him obedience, scarcely knowing what she did.

He brought her food and wine, and she ate and drank mechanically while he watched her with his grey, piercing eyes, not speaking at all.

Finally she summoned strength to look up at him with a quivering smile. "You are very kind. I am sorry to have given you so much trouble."

He made an abrupt movement that she fancied denoted impatience.

"Can't you eat any more?" he said.

She shook her head, still bravely smiling. "I can't--really. I think--I think perhaps you are right. I had better go to bed, and you will tell me everything in the morning."

"Finish the drink anyhow!" he said.

She hesitated momentarily, but he pushed the gla.s.s firmly towards her and she obeyed.

She stood up then and faced him. "Will you please tell me one thing--to--to set my mind at rest? Guy--Guy isn't ill?"

He looked her straight in the face. "No."

"You are sure?" she said.

"Yes." He spoke with curt decision, yet oddly she wondered for a fleeting second if he had told her the truth.

His look seemed to challenge the doubt, to beat it down. Half shyly, she held out her hand.

"Good night," she said.

His fingers grasped and released it. He turned with her to the door. "I will show you your room" he said.

CHAPTER VII

THE WRONG TURNING

Sylvia slept that night the heavy, unstirring sleep of utter weariness though when she lay down she scarcely expected to sleep at all. The shock, the bewilderment, the crushing dread, that had attended her arrival after the long, long journey had completely exhausted her mentally, and physically. She slept as a child sleeps at the end of a strenuous day.

When she awoke, the night was gone and all the world was awake and moving. The clouds had all pa.s.sed, and a brilliant morning sun shone down upon the wide street below her window. She felt refreshed though the heat was still great. The burden that had overwhelmed her the night before did not seem so intolerable by morning light. Her courage had come back to her.

She dressed with a firm determination to carry a brave face whatever lay before her. Things could not be quite so bad as they had seemed the previous night. Guy could not really have changed so fundamentally. Perhaps he only feared that she could not endure poverty with him. If that were all, she would soon teach him otherwise. All she wanted in life now was his love.

She had almost convinced herself that this was practically all she had to contend with, and the ogre of her fears was well in the background, when she finally left her room and went with some uncertainty through the unfamiliar pa.s.sages.

She found the entrance, but a crowd of curious Boers collected about the door daunted her somewhat, and she was turning back from their staring eyes when Burke Ranger suddenly strode through the group and joined her.

She gave him a quick, half-startled glance as they met, and the first thing that struck her about him was the obvious fact that he had shaved. His eyes intercepted hers, and she saw the flicker of a smile pa.s.s across them and knew he had read her thought.

She flushed as she held out her hand to him. "Good morning," she said with a touch of shyness. "I hope you haven't been wasting your time waiting for me."

He took her hand and turned her towards the small room in which they had talked together the previous night. "No, I haven't wasted my time," he said. "I hope you have had a good rest?"

"Oh, quite, thank you," she answered. "I slept like the dead. I feel--fit for anything."