The Top of the World - Ethel May Dell (read novels website txt) 📗

had never come across the world to him thus, making all return impossible. For there could be be no going back for her. She had taken a definite and irrevocable step. There could be no turning back upon this road that she had chosen.
It might not be an easy road. She was prepared for obstacles. But with Guy she was ready to face anything. The adversity through which she had come had made the thought of physical hardship of very small account. And deep in her innermost soul she had a strong, belief in her own ultimate welfare. She was sure that she had done the right thing in thus striking out for herself, and she was equally sure that, whatever it might entail, she would not regret it in the end.
The lights were growing nearer. She discerned the brick building of the station. Over the wide stretch of land that yet intervened there came to her the smell of smoke and human habitation. A warm thrill went through her. In two minutes now--in less--the long five years' separation would be over, and she would be clasping Guy's hand again.
She leaned from the window, scanning the few outstanding houses of the town as the train ran past. Then they were in the station, and a glare of light received them.
A crowd of unfamiliar faces swam before her eyes, and then--she saw him. He stood on the platform awaiting her, distinct from all the rest to her eager gaze--a man of medium height, broader than she remembered, with a keen, bronzed face and eagle eyes that caught and held her own.
She sprang form the train almost before it shopped. She held out both her hands to him.
"Guy! Guy!"
Her voice came sobbingly. He gripped the hands hard and close.
"So you've got here!" he said.
She was staring at him, her face upraised. What was there about him that did not somehow tally with the Guy of her memory and her dreams? He was older, of course; he was more mature, bigger in every way. But she missed something. There was no kindling of pleasure in his eyes. They looked upon her kindly. Ah, yes; but the rapture--where was the rapture of greeting?
A sense of coldness went through her. Her hands fell from his. He had changed--he had changed indeed! His eyes were too keen. She thought they held a calculating expression. And the South African sun had tanned him almost bronze. His chin had a stubbly look. The Guy she had known had been perfectly smooth of skin.
She looked at him with a rather piteous attempt to laugh. "I wonder I knew you at all," she said, "with that hideous embryo beard. I'm sure you haven't shaved to-day."
He put up a hand and felt his chin. "No, I shaved yesterday," he said, and laughed. "I've been too busy to-day."
That reassured her. The laugh at least was like Guy, brief though it was. "Horrid boy!" she said. "Well, help me collect my things. We'll talk afterwards."
He helped her. He went into the carriage she had just left and pulled out all her belongings. These he dumped on the platform and told her to wait while he collected the rest.
She stood obediently in the turmoil of Britons, Boers, and Kaffirs, that surged around. She felt bewildered, strung up, unlike herself. It was a land of strangers, indeed, and she felt forlorn and rather frightened. Why had Guy looked at her so oddly? Why had his welcome been so cold? Could it be--could it be--that he was not pleased to see her, that--that--possibly he did not want her? The dreadful chill went through her again like a sword thrusting at her heart, and with it went old Jeffcott's warning words: "Do you ever ask yourself what sort of man he may be after five years? I'll warrant he's lived every minute of it. He's the sort that would."
She had felt no doubt then, nor ever since, until this moment. And now--now it came upon her and overwhelmed her. She glanced about her, almost as one seeking escape.
"I've fixed everything up. Come along to the railway hotel! You must be pretty tired." He had returned to her, and he stood looking at her with those strangely keen eyes, almost as if he had never seen her before, she thought to herself desolately.
She looked bade at him with unconscious appeal in her own. "I am tired," she said, and was aware of a sudden difficulty in speaking. "Is it far?"
"No," he said; "only a step."
He gathered up her hand-baggage and led the way, making a path for her through the throng.
She scarcely noticed where she went, so completely did he fill her mind. He had changed enormously, developed in a fashion that she had never deemed possible. He walked with a free swing, and carried himself as one who counted. He had the look of one accustomed to command. She seemed to read prosperity in every line. But was he prosperous? If so, why had he not sent for her long ago?
They reached the hotel. He led the way without pause straight to a small private room where a table had been prepared for a meal.
"Sit down!" he said. "Take off your things! You must be starved."
He rang the bell and gave an order while she mutely obeyed. All her confidence was gone. She had begun to tremble. The wonder crossed her mind if perhaps she, too, had altered, grown beyond all his previous conception of her. Possibly she was as much a stranger to him as he to her. Was that why he had looked at her with that oddly critical expression? Was that why he did not now take her in his arms?
Impulsively she took off her hat and turned round to him.
He was looking at her still, and again that awful sense of doubt mastered and possessed her. A great barrier seemed to have sprung up between them. He was formidable, actually formidable. The Guy of old days, impetuous, hot-tempered even, had never been that.
She stood before him, controlling her rising agitation with a great effort. "Why do you look at me like that?" she said. "I feel--you make me feel--as if--you are a total stranger!"
His face changed a little, but still she could not read his look. "Sit down!" he said. "We must have a talk."
She put out her hand to him. The aloofness of his speech cut her with an anguish intolerable. "What has happened?" she said. "Quick! Tell me! Don't you want to--marry me?"
He took her hand. She saw that in some fashion he was moved, though still she could not understand. "I'm trying to tell you," he said; "but--to be honest--you've hit me in the wind, and I don't know how. I think you have forgotten in all these years what Guy was like."
She gazed at him blankly. Again Jeffcott's words were running in her mind. And something--something hidden behind them--arose up like a menace and terrified her.
"I haven't forgotten," she whispered voicelessly. "I couldn't forget. But go on! Don't--don't mind telling me!"
She was white to the lips. All the blood in her body seemed concentrated at her heart. It was beating in heavy, sickening throbs like the labouring of some clogged machinery.
He put his free hand on her shoulder with an abrupt movement that made him for the moment oddly familiar. "It's a damned 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 space. 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