Rosa Mundi - Ethel May Dell (best ebook pdf reader android txt) 📗

whipped dog and slunk back. Then, very calmly, Curtis took him by the scruff of his neck, and began to question him.
Sybil stood, gripping the curtain, and watched it all as one watches a scene on the stage. Somehow, though she knew herself to be vitally concerned, she felt no agitation. It was as if the blood had ceased to run in her veins.
At length she saw Curtis release the palpitating Beelzebub, and turn towards the house. Quite calmly she also turned.
They met in the passage.
"You needn't trouble to keep it from me," she said. "I know."
He gave her a keen look.
"I am going to him at once," was all he said.
She stood quite still, facing him; and suddenly she was conscious of a great glow pulsing through her, as though some arrested force had been set free. She knew that her heart was beating again, strongly, steadily, fearlessly.
"I shall come with you," she said.
She saw his face change.
"I am sorry," he said, "but that is out of the question. You must know it."
She answered him instantly, unhesitatingly, with some of the old, quick spirit that had won Brett Mercer's heart.
"There you are wrong. I know it to be the only thing possible for me to do."
Curtis looked at her for a second as if he scarcely knew her, and then abruptly abandoned the argument.
"I will not be responsible," he said, turning aside.
And she answered him unfalteringly:
"I will take the responsibility."


XVIII

Slowly Brett Mercer raised himself and tried to peer through his swollen eyelids at the door.
"Don't bring any woman here!" he mumbled.
The effort to see was fruitless. He sank back, blind and tortured, upon the pillow. He had been taken ill at one of his own outlying farms, and here he had lain for days--a giant bereft of his strength, waiting for death.
His only attendant was a farm-hand who had had the disease, but knew nothing of its treatment, who was, moreover, afraid to go near him.
Curtis took in the whole situation at a glance as he bent over him.
"Why didn't you send for me?" he said.
"That you?" gasped Mercer. "Man, I'm in hell! Can't you give me something to put me out of my misery?"
Curtis was already at work over him.
"No," he said briefly. "I'm going to pull you through. You're wanted."
"You lie!" gasped back Mercer, and said no more.
Some hours after, starting suddenly from fevered sleep, he asked an abrupt question:
"Does my wife know?"
"Yes, she knows," Curtis answered.
He flung his arms wide with a bitter gesture. "She'll soon be free," he said.
"Not if I know it," said Curtis, in his quiet, unemotional style.
"You can't make me live against my will," muttered Mercer.
"Don't talk like a fool!" responded Curtis.
Late that night a hand that was not Curtis's smoothed the sick man's pillow, and presently gave him nourishment. He noticed the difference instantly, though he could not open his eyes; but he said nothing at the time, and she fancied he did not know her.
But presently, when she thought him sleeping, he spoke.
"When did you come?"
Even then she was not sure that he was in his right mind. His face was so swollen and disfigured that it told her nothing. She answered him very softly:
"I came with Mr. Curtis."
"Why?" That one word told her that he was in full possession of his senses. He moved his head to and fro on the pillow as one vainly seeking rest. "Did you want to see me in hell?" he questioned harshly.
She leaned towards him. She was sitting by his bed.
"No," she said, speaking under her breath. "I came because--because it was the only way out--for us both."
"What?" he said, and the old impatient frown drew his forehead. "You came to see me die, then?"
"I came," she answered, "to try and make you live."
He drew a breath that was a groan.
"You won't succeed," he said.
"Why not?" she asked.
Again feverishly he moved his head, and she smoothed his pillow afresh with hands that trembled.
"Don't touch me!" he said sharply. "What was Curtis dreaming of to bring you here?"
"Mr. Curtis couldn't help it," she answered, with more assurance. "I came." And then after a moment, "Are you--sorry--I came?"
"Yes," he muttered.
"Oh, why?" she said.
"I would sooner die--without you looking on," he said, forcing out his words through set teeth.
"Oh, why?" she said again. "Don't you believe--can't you believe--that I want you to live?"
"No," he groaned.
"Not if I swear it?" she asked, her voice sunk very low.
"No!" He flung the word with something of his ancient ferocity. She was torturing him past endurance. He even madly hoped that he could scare her away.
But Sybil made no move to go. She sat quite still for a few seconds. Then slowly she went down upon her knees beside his pillow.
"Brett," she said, and he felt her breath quick and tremulous upon his face as she spoke, "you may refuse to believe what I say. But--I can convince you without words."
And before he knew her meaning, she had pressed her quivering lips to his.
He recoiled, with an anguished sound that was half of protest and half of unutterable pain.
"Do you want to die too?" he said. "Or don't you know the risk?"
"Yes, I know it," she answered. "I know it," and in her voice was such a thrill of passion as he had never heard or thought to hear from her. "But I know this, too, and I mean that you shall know it. My life is nothing to me--do you understand?--nothing, unless you share it. Now--will you believe me?"
Yes, he believed her then. He had no choice. The knowledge was as a sword cutting its way straight to his heart. He tried to answer her, tried desperately hard, because he knew that she was waiting for him to speak, that his silence would hurt her who from that day forward he would never hurt again.
But no words would come. He could not force his utterance. The power of speech was gone from him. He turned his face away from her in choking tears.
And Sybil knew that the victory was hers. Those tears were more to her than words. She knew that he would live--if he could--for her sake.


XIX

It was more than six weeks later that Brett Mercer and his wife turned in at the Home Farm, as they had turned in on that memorable night that he had brought his bride from Wallarroo.
Now, as then, Curtis was ready for them in the open doorway, and Beelzebub advanced grinning to take the horses. But there the resemblance ceased. The woman who entered with her husband leaning on her shoulder was no nervous, shrinking stranger, but a wife entering her home with gladness, bearing her burden with rejoicing. The woman from Wallarroo looked at her with a doubtful sort of sympathy. She also looked at the gaunt, bowed man who accompanied her, and questioned with herself if this were indeed Brett Mercer.
Brett Mercer it undoubtedly was, nor could she have said, save for his slow, stooping gait, wherein lay the change that so amazed her.
Perhaps it was more apparent in Sybil than in the man himself as she raised her face on entering, and murmured:
"So good to get home again, isn't it, dear?"
He did not speak in answer. He scarcely spoke at all that night. But his silence satisfied her.
It was not till the following morning that he stretched out a great, bony hand to her as she waited on him, and drew her down to his side.
"There has been enough of this," he said, with a touch of his old imperiousness. "You have worked too hard already, harder than I ever meant you to work. You are to take a rest, and get strong."
She uttered her gay little laugh.
"My dearest Brett, I am strong."
He lay staring at her in his most direct, disconcerting fashion. She endured his look for a moment, and then averted her eyes. She would have risen, but he prevented her.
"Sybil!" he said abruptly.
"Yes?" she answered, with her head bent.
"Are you afraid of me?" he said.
She shook her head instantly.
"Don't be absurd!"
"Then look at me!" he said.
She raised her eyes slowly, not very willingly. But, having raised them, she kept them so, for there was that in his look which no longer made her shy.
He made a slight gesture towards her that was rather of invitation than insistence.
"Don't you think I'm nearly well enough to be let into the secret?" he said.
His action, his tone, above all his look, broke down the last of the barrier between them. She went into his arms with a shaky little laugh, and hid her face against him.
"I would have told you long ago," she whispered, "only somehow--I couldn't. Besides, I was so sure that you knew."
"Oh, yes, I knew," said Mercer. "Curtis saw to that; literally flayed me with it till I took his advice and cleared out. You know, I've often wondered since if it was that that made you want me, after all."
She shook her head, still with her face against his breast.
"No, dear, it wasn't. It--it made things worse at first. It was only when I heard you were ill that--that I found--quite suddenly--that I couldn't possibly go on without you. It was as if--as if something bound round my heart had suddenly given way, and I could breathe again. When I saw you I knew how terribly I wanted you."
"And that was how you came to kiss me with that loathsome disease upon me?" he whispered. "That was what made you follow me down to hell to bring me back?"
She turned her face upwards. Her eyes were shining.
"My dear," she said, and in her voice was a thrill like the first sweet notes of a bird in the dawning, "you don't need to ask me why did these things. For you know--you know. It was simply and only because I loved you."
"Heaven knows why," he said, as he bent to kiss her.
"Heavens knows," she answered, and softly laughed as she surrendered her lips to his.


The Secret Service Man

I
A TIGHT PLACE

"Shoulder to shoulder, boys! Give it 'em straight! There's no going back this journey." And the speaker slapped his thigh and laughed.
He was penned in a hot corner with a handful of grinning little Goorkhas, as ready and exultant as himself. He had no earthly business in that particular spot. But he had won his way there in a hand-to-hand combat, which had rendered that bit of ground the most desirable abiding-place on the face of the earth. And being there he meant to stay.
He was established with the inimitable effrontery of British insolence. He had pushed on through the dark, fired by the enthusiasm which is born of hard resistence. It had been no slight matter, but neither he nor his men were to be easily dismayed. Moreover, their patience had been severely tried for many tedious hours, and the removal of the curb had gone to their heads like wine.
Young Derrick Rose, war correspondent, was hot of head and ready of hand. He had a knack also of getting into tight places and extricating himself therefrom with amazing agility; which knack served to procure for him the admiration of his friends and the respect of his enemies. It was his first Frontier campaign, but it was not apparently destined to be