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

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 passed. 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 glass 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 passed, 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 passages.
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 pass 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."
"That's right," he said briefly. "We will have some breakfast before we start business."
"Oh, you have been waiting!" she exclaimed with compunction. "I'm so sorry. I'm not generally so lazy."
"Don't apologize!" he said. "You've done exactly what I hoped you'd do. Sit down, won't you? Take the end of the table!"
His manner was friendly though curt. Her embarrassment fell from her as she complied. They sat, facing one another, and, the light being upon him, she gave him a steady look. He was not nearly so much like Guy as she had thought the previous night, though undoubtedly there was a strong resemblance. On a closer inspection she did not think him handsome, but the keen alertness of him attracted her. He looked as if physical endurance were a quality he had brought very near to perfection. He had the stamp of the gladiator upon him. He had wrestled against odds.
After a moment or two he turned his eyes unexpectedly to hers. It was a somewhat disconcerting habit of his.
"A satisfactory result, I hope?" he said.
She did not look away. "I don't consider myself a good character reader," she said. "But you are certainly not so much like Guy as I thought at first sight."
"Thank you," he said. "I must confess I prefer to be like myself."
She laughed a little. "It was absurd of me to make such a mistake. But yours was the only face that looked in the least familiar in all that crowd. I was so glad to see it."
"You have never been in this country before?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Never. I feel a dreadful outsider at present. But I shall soon learn.'
"Do you ride?" he said.
Her eyes kindled. "Yes. I was keen on hunting in England. That will be a help, won't it?"
"It would be," he said, "if you stayed."
"I have come to stay," she said with assurance.
"Wait a bit!" said Burke Ranger.
His manner rather than his words checked her. She felt again that cold dread pressing against her heart. She turned from the subject as one seeking escape.
She ate a good breakfast almost in spite of herself. Ranger insisted upon it, and since he was evidently hungry himself it seemed churlish not to keep him company. He told her a little about the country, while they ate, but he strenuously avoided all things personal, and she felt compelled to follow his lead. He imposed a certain restraint upon her, and even when he rose from the table at length with the air of a man about to face the inevitable, she did not feel it to be wholly removed.
She got up also and watched him fill his pipe with something of her former embarrassment. She expected him to light it when he had finished, but he did not. He put it in his pocket, and somewhat abruptedly turned to her.
"Now!" he said.
She met his look with a brave face. She even smiled--a gallant, little smile to which he made no response. "Well, now," she said, "I want you to tell me the quickest way to get to Guy."
He faced her squarely. "I've got to tell you something about him first," he said.
"Yes?" Her heart was beating very quickly, but she had herself well in hand. "What is it?"
But he stood mutely considering her. It was as if the power of speech had suddenly gone from him.
"What is it?" she said again. "Won't you tell me?"
He made a curious gesture. It was almost a movement of flinching. "You're so young," he said.
"Oh, but I'm not--I'm not!" she assured him. "It's only my face. I'm quite old really. I've been through a lot."
"You've never seen life yet," he said.
"I have!" she declared with an odd vehemence. "I've learnt lots of things. Why--do you look like that? I'm not a child."
Her voice quivered a little in spite of her. Why did he look like that? The compassion in his eyes smote her with a strange pain. Why--why was he sorry for her?
He saw her rising agitation, and spoke, slowly, choosing his words. "The fact is, Guy isn't what you take him for--isn't the right man for you. Nothing on this earth can make him so now, whatever he may have been once. He's taken the wrong turning, and there's no getting back."
She gazed at him with wide eyes. Her lips felt stiff and cold. "What--what--do you mean, please?" she said.
She saw his hands clench. "I don't want to tell you what I mean," he said. "Haven't I said enough?"
She shook her head slowly, with drawn brows. "No--no! I've got to understand. Do you mean Guy doesn't want me after all? Didn't he really mean me to come? He--sent a message."
"I know. That's the infernal part of it." Burke Ranger spoke with suppressed force. "He was blind drunk when he sent it."
"Oh!" She put up her hands to her face for a moment as if to shield herself from a blow. "He--drinks, does he?"
"He does everything he ought not to do, except steal," said Ranger bluntly. "I've tried to keep him straight--tried every way. I can't. It isn't to be done."
Sylvia's hands fell again. "Perhaps," she said slowly, "perhaps I could."
The man started as if he had been shot. "You!" he said.
She met his look with her wide eyes. "But why not?" she said. "We love each other."
He turned from her, grinding the floor with his heel. "God help me to make myself intelligible!" he said.
It was the most forcible prayer she had ever heard. It struck through to her very soul. She stood motionless, but she felt crushed and numb.
Ranger walked to the end of the room and then came straight back to her.
"Look here!" he said. "This is the most damnable thing I've ever had to do. Let's get it over! He's a rotter and a blackguard. Can you grasp that? He hasn't lived a clean life all these years he's been away from you. He went wrong almost at the outset. He's the sort that always does go wrong. I've done my best for him. Anyhow, I've kept him going. But I can't make a decent man of him. No one can. He has lucid intervals, but they get shorter and shorter. Just at present--" he paused momentarily, then plunged on--"I told you last night he wasn't ill. That was a lie. He is down with delirium tremens, and it