_ PART II CHAPTER III. THE BARGAIN
THE visitors did not leave until the sun was well down in the west. To Sylvia it had been an inexplicably tiring day, and when they departed at length she breathed a wholly unconscious sigh of relief.
"Come for a ride!" said Burke.
She shook her head. "No, thank you. I think I will have a rest."
"All right. I'll smoke a pipe on the _stoep_," he said.
He had been riding round his land with Merston during the greater part of the afternoon, and it did not surprise her that he seemed to think that he also had earned a quiet evening. But curiously his decision provoked in her an urgent desire to ride alone. A pressing need for solitude was upon her. She yearned to get right away by herself.
She went to her room, however, and lay down for a while, trying to take the rest she needed; but when presently she heard the voice of Hans Schafen, his Dutch foreman, talking on the verandah, she arose with a feeling of thankfulness, donned her sun-hat, and slipped out of the bungalow. It was hot for walking, but it was a relief to get away from the house. She knew it was quite possible that Burke would see her go, but she believed he would be too engrossed with business for some time to follow her. It was quite possible he would not wish to do so, but she had a feeling that this was not probable. He generally sought her out in his leisure hours.
Almost instinctively she turned her steps in the direction of the kopje which she had so often desired to climb. It rose steep from the _veldt_ like some lonely tower in the wilderness. Curious-shaped rocks cropped out unexpectedly on its scarred sides and a few prickly pear bushes stood up here and there like weird guardians of the rugged stronghold. Sylvia had an odd feeling that they watched her with unfriendly attention as she approached. Though solitude girt her round, she did not feel herself to be really alone.
It took her some time to reach it, for the ground was rough and sandy under her feet, and it was farther away than it looked. She realized as she drew nearer that to climb to the round summit would be no easy task, but that fact did not daunt her. She felt the need for strenuous exercise just then.
The shadows were lengthening, and the full glare of the sun no longer smote upon her. She began to climb with some energy. But she soon found that she had undertaken a greater task than she had anticipated. The way was steep, and here and there the boulders seemed to block further progress completely. She pressed on with diminishing speed, taking a slanting upward course that presently brought her into the sun again and in view of the little cabin above the stony watercourse that had sheltered Guy for so long.
The sight of it seemed to take all the strength out of her. She sat down on a rock to rest. All day long she had been forcing the picture that Mrs. Merston had painted for her into the background of her thoughts. All day long it had been pressing forward in spite of her. It seemed to be burning her brain, and now she could not ignore it any longer. Sitting there exhausted in mind and body, she had to face it in all its crudeness. She had to meet and somehow to conquer the sickening sensation of revolt that had come upon her.
She sat there for a long time, till the sun sank low in the sky and a wondrous purple glow spread across the _veldt_. She knew that it was growing late, that Burke would be expecting her for the evening meal, but she could not summon the strength she needed to end her solitary vigil on the _kopje_. She had a feeling as of waiting for something. Though she was too tired to pray, yet it seemed to her that a message was on its way. She watched the glory in the west with an aching intensity that possessed her to the exclusion of aught beside. Somehow, even in the midst of her weariness and depression, she felt sure that help would come.
The glory began to wane, and a freshness blew across the _veldt_. Somewhere on the very top of the _kopje_ a bird uttered a twittering note. She turned her face, listening for the answer, and found Burke seated on another boulder not six yards away.
So unexpected was the sight that she caught her breath in astonishment and a sharp instinctive sense of dismay. He was not looking at her, but gazing forth to the distant hills like an eagle from its eyrie. His eyes had the look of seeing many things that were wholly beyond her vision.
She sat in silence, a curious feeling of embarrassment upon her, as if she looked upon something which she was not meant to see and yet could not turn from. His brown face was so intent, almost terribly keen. The lines about the mouth were drawn with ruthless distinctness. It was the face of a hunter, and the iron resolution of it sent an odd quiver that was almost of foreboding through her heart.
And then suddenly he turned his head slightly, as if he felt her look upon him, and like a knife-thrust his eyes came down to hers. She felt the hot colour rush over her face as if she had been caught in some act of trespass. Her confusion consumed her, she could not have said wherefore. She looked swiftly away.
Quietly he left his rock and came to her.
She shrank at his coming. The pulse in her throat was throbbing as if it would choke her. She wanted to spring up and flee down the hill. But he was too near. She sat very still, her fingers gripping each other about her knees, saying no word.
He reached her and stood looking down at her. "I followed you," he said, "because I knew you would never get to the top alone."
She lifted her face, striving against her strange agitation. "I wasn't thinking of going any further," she said, struggling to speak indifferently. "It--is steeper than I thought."
"It aways is," said Burke.
He sat down beside her, close to her. She made a small, instinctive movement away from him, but he did not seem to notice. He took off his hat and laid it down.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Merston had to be inflicted on you for so long," he said. "I'm afraid she is not exactly cheery company."
"I didn't mind," said Sylvia.
He gave her a faintly whimsical look. "Not utterly fed up with Africa and all her beastly ways?" he questioned.
She shook her head. "I don't think I am so easily swayed as all that."
"You would rather stay here with me than go back home to England?" he said.
Her eyes went down to the lonely hut on the sand. "Why do you ask me that?" she said, in a low voice.
"Because I want to know," said Burke.
Sylvia was silent.
He went on after a moment. "I've a sort of notion that Mrs. Merston is not a person to spread contentment around her under any circumstances. If she lived in a palace at the top of the world she wouldn't be any happier."
Sylvia smiled faintly at the allusion. "I don't think she has very much to make her happy," she said. It's a little hard to judge her under present conditions."
"She's got one of the best for a husband anyway," he maintained.
"Do you think that's everything?" said Sylvia.
"No, I don't," said Burke unexpectedly. "I think he spoils her, which is bad for any woman. It turns her head in the beginning and sours her afterwards."
Sylvia turned at that and regarded him, a faint light of mockery in her eyes. "What a lot you know about women!" she remarked.
He laughed in a way she did not understand. "If I had a wife," he said, "I'd make her happy, but not on those lines."
"I thought you had one," said Sylvia.
He met her eyes with a sudden mastery which made her flinch in spite of herself. "No," he said, "I've only a make-believe at present. Not very satisfying of course; but better than nothing. There is always the hope that she may some day turn into the real thing to comfort me."
His words went into silence. Sylvia's head was bent.
After a moment he leaned a little towards her, and spoke almost in a whisper. "I feel as if I have caught a very rare, shy bird," he said. "I'm trying to teach it to trust me, but it takes a mighty lot of time and patience. Do you think I shall ever succeed, Sylvia? Do you think it will ever come and nestle against my heart?"
Again his words went into silence. The girl's eyes were fixed upon the stretch of sandy _veldt_ below her and that which it held.
Silently the man watched her, his keen eyes very steady, very determined.
She lifted her own at last, and met them with brave directness. "You know, partner," she said, "it isn't very fair of you to ask me such a thing as that. You can't have--everything."
"All right," said Burke, and felt in his pocket for his pipe. "Consider it unsaid!"
His abrupt acceptance of her remonstrance was curiously disconcerting. The mastery of his look had led her to expect something different. She watched him dumbly as he filled his pipe with quiet precision.
Finally, as he looked at her again, she spoke. "I don't want to seem over-critical--ungrateful, but--" her breath came quickly--"though you have been so awfully good to me, I can't help feeling--that you might have done more for Guy, if--if you had been kinder when he went wrong. And--" her eyes filled with sudden tears--"that thought spoils--just everything."
"I see," said Burke, and though his lips were grim his voice was wholly free from harshness. "Mrs. Merston told you all about it, did she?"
Sylvia's colour rose again. She turned slightly from him. "She didn't say much," she said.
There was a pause. Then unexpectedly Burke's hand closed over her two clasped ones. "So I've got to be punished, have I?" he said.
She shook her head, shrinking a little though she suffered his touch. "No. Only--I can't forget it,--that's all."
"Or forgive?" said Burke.
She swallowed her tears with an effort. "No, not that. I'm not vindictive. But--oh, Burke--" she turned to him impulsively,--"I wish--I wish--we could find Guy!"
He stiffened almost as if at a blow. "Why?" he demanded sternly.
For a moment his look awed her, but only for a moment; the longing in her heart was so great as to overwhelm all misgiving. She grasped his arm tightly between her hands.
"If we could only find him--and save him--save him somehow from the horrible pit he seems to have fallen into! We could do it between us--I feel sure we could do it---if only--if only--we could find him!"
Breathlessly her words rushed out. It seemed as if she had stumbled almost inadvertently upon the solution of the problem that had so tormented her. She marvelled now that she had ever been able to endure inaction with regard to Guy. She was amazed at herself for having been so easily content. It was almost as if in that moment she heard Guy's voice very far away, calling to her for help.
And then, swift as a lightning-flash, striking dismay to her soul, came the consciousness of Burke gazing straight at her with that in his eyes which she could not--dare not--meet.
She gripped his arm a little tighter. She was quivering from head to foot. "We could do it between us," she breathed again. "Wouldn't it be worth it? Oh, wouldn't it be worth it?"
But Burke spoke no word. He sat rigid, looking at her.
A feeling of coldness ran through her--such a feeling as she had experienced on her wedding-day under the skeleton-tree, the chill that comes from the heart of a storm. Slowly she relaxed her hold upon him. Her tears were gone, but she felt choked, unlike herself, curiously impotent.
"Shall we go back?" she said.
She made as if she would rise, but he stayed her with a gesture, and her weakness held her passive.
"So you have forgiven him!" he said.
His tone was curt. He almost flung the words.
She braced herself, instinctively aware of coming strain. But she answered him gently. "You can't be angry with a person when you are desperately sorry for him."
"I see. And you hold me in a great measure responsible for his fall? I am to make good, am I?"
He did not raise his voice, but there was something in it that made her quail. She looked up at him in swift distress.
"No, no! Of course not--of course not! Partner, please don't glare at me like that! What have I done?"
He dropped his eyes abruptly from her startled face, and there followed a silence so intense that she thought he did not even breathe.
Then, in a very low voice: "You've raised Cain," he said.
She shivered. There was something terrible in the atmosphere. Dumbly she waited, feeling that protest would but make matters worse.
He turned himself from her at length, and sat with his chin on his hands, staring out to the fading sunset.
When he spoke finally, the hard note had gone out of his voice. "Do you think it's going to make life any easier to bring that young scoundrel back?"
"I wasn't thinking of that," she said, "It was only--" she hesitated.
"Only?" said Burke, without turning.
With difficulty she answered him. "Only that probably you and I are the only people in the world who could do anything to help him. And so--somehow it seems our job."
Burke digested this in silence. Then: "And what are you going to do with him when you've got him?" he enquired.
Again she hesitated, but only momentarily. "I shall want you to help me, partner," she said appealingly.
He made a slight movement that passed unexplained. "You may find me--rather in the way--before you've done," he said.
"Then you won't help me?" she said, swift disappointment in her voice.
He turned round to her. His face was grim, but it held no anger. "You've asked a pretty hard thing of me," he said. "But--yes, I'll help you."
"You will?" She held out her hand to him. "Oh, partner, thank you--awfully!"
He gripped her hand hard. "On one condition," he said.
"Oh, what?" She started a little and her face whitened.
He squeezed her fingers with merciless force. "Just that you will play a straight game with me," he said briefly.
The colour came back to her face with a rush. "That!" she said. "But of course--of course! I always play a straight game."
"Then it's a bargain?" he said.
Her clear eyes met his. "Yes, a bargain. But how shall we ever find him?"
He was silent for a moment, and she felt as if those steel-grey eyes of his were probing for her soul. "That," he said slowly, "will not be a very difficult business."
"You know where he is?" she questioned eagerly.
"Yes. Merston told me to-day."
"Oh, Burke!" The eager kindling of her look made her radiant. "Where is he? What is he doing?"
He still looked at her keenly, but all emotion had gone from his face. "He is tending a bar in a miners' saloon at Brennerstadt."
"Ah!"' She stood up quickly to hide the sudden pain his words had given. "But we can soon get him out. You--you will get him out, partner?"
He got to his feet also. The sun had passed, and only a violet glow remained. He seemed to be watching it as he answered her.
"I will do my best."
"You are good," she said very earnestly. "I wonder if you have the least idea how grateful I feel."
"I can guess," he said in a tone of constraint.
She was standing slightly above him. She placed her hand shyly on his shoulder. "And you won't hate it so very badly?" she urged softly. "It is in a good cause, isn't it?"
"I hope so," he said.
He seemed unaware of her hand upon him. She pressed a little. "Burke!"
"Yes?" He still stood without looking at her.
She spoke nervously. "I--I shan't forget--ever--that I am married. You--you needn't be afraid of--of anything like that."
He turned with an odd gesture. "I thought you were going to forget it--that you had forgotten it--for good."
His voice had a strained, repressed sound. He spoke almost as if he were in pain.
She tried to smile though her heart was beating fast and hard. "Well, I haven't. And--I never shall now. So that's all right, isn't it? Say it's all right!"
There was more of pleading in her voice than she knew. A great tremor went through Burke. He clenched his hands to subdue it.
"Yes; all right, little pal, all right," he said.
His voice sounded strangled; it pierced her oddly. With a sudden impetuous gesture she slid her arm about his neck, and for one lightning moment her lips touched his cheek. The next instant she had sprung free and was leaping downwards from rock to rock like a startled gazelle.
At the foot of the _kopje_ only did she stop and wait. He was close behind her, moving with lithe, elastic strides where she had bounded.
She turned round to him boyishly. "We'll climb to the top one of these days, partner; but I'm not in training yet. Besides,--we're late for supper."
"I can wait," said Burke.
She linked her little finger in his, swinging it carelessly. There was absolute confidence in her action; only her eyes avoided his.
"You're jolly decent to me," she said. "I often wonder why."
"You'll know one day," said Burke very quietly. _