The Top of the World by Ethel May Dell (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📕

suffering could rend or destroy.
Burke suddenly abandoned his attitude of gaoler and took him by the shoulder. "Don't be a fool!" he said again, but he said it gently. "I mean what I say. It's a way I've got. This isn't the time for explanations, but I'm out to help you. Even you will admit that you're pretty badly in need of help."
"Oh, damn that!" Recklessly Guy made answer, chafing visibly under the restraining hold; yet not actually flinging it off. "I know what I'm doing all right. I shall pull up again presently--before the final plunge. I'm not going to attempt it before I'm ready. I've found it doesn't answer."
"You've got to this time," Burke said.
His eyes, grey and indomitable, looked straight into Guy's, and they held him in spite of himself. Guy quivered and stood still.
"You've got to," he reiterated. "Don't tell me you're enjoying yourself barkeeping at Hoffstein's! I've known you too long to swallow it. It just won't go down."
"It's preferable to doing the white nigger on your blasted farm!" flashed back Guy. "Starvation's better than that!"
"Thank you," said Burke. He did not flinch at the straight hit, but his mouth hardened. "I see your point of view of course. Perhaps it's beside the mark to remind you that you might have been a partner if you'd only played a decent game. I wanted a partner badly enough."
An odd spasm crossed Guy's face. "Yes. You didn't let me into that secret, did you, till I'd been weighed in the balances and found wanting? You were too damned cautious to commit yourself. And you've congratulated yourself on your marvellous discretion ever since, I'll lay a wager. You hide-bound, self-righteous prigs always do. Nothing would ever make you see that it's just your beastly discretion that does the mischief,--your infernal, complacent virtue that breeds the vice you so deplore!" He broke into a harsh laugh that ended in a sharp catch of the breath that bent him suddenly double.
Burke's hand went swiftly from his shoulder to his elbow. He led him to a chair. "Sit down!" he said. "You've got beyond yourself. I'm going to get you a drink, and then you'll go to bed."
Guy sat crumpled down in the chair like an empty sack. His head was on his clenched hands. He swayed as if in pain.
Burke stood looking down at him for a moment or two. Then he turned and went away, leaving the door ajar behind him.
When he came back, Guy was on his feet again, prowling uneasily up and down, but he had not crossed the threshold. He gave him that furtive, hunted look again as he entered.
"What dope is that? Not the genuine article I'll wager my soul!"
"It is the genuine article," Burke said. "Drink it, and go to bed!"
But Guy stood before him with his hands at his sides. The smouldering fire in his eyes was leaping higher and higher. "What's the game?" he said. "Is it a damned ruse to get me into your power?"
Burke set down the glass he carried, and turned full upon him. There was that about him that compelled the younger man to meet his look. They stood face to face.
"You are in my power," he said with stern insistence. "I've borne with you because I didn't want to use force. But--I can use force. Don't forget that!"
Guy made a sharp movement--the movement of the trapped creature. Beneath Burke's unsparing regard his eyes fell. In a moment he turned aside, and muttering below his breath he took up the glass on the table. For a second or two he stood staring at it, then lifted it as if to drink, but in an instant changed his purpose and with a snarling laugh swung back and flung glass and contents straight at Burke's grim face.
What followed was of so swift and so deadly a nature as to possess something of the quality of a whirlwind. Almost before the glass lay in shivered fragments on the floor, Guy was on his knees and being forced backwards till his head and shoulders touched the boards. And above him, terrible with awful intention, was Burke's face, gashed open across the chin and dripping blood upon his own.
The fight went out of Guy then like an extinguished flame. With gasping incoherence he begged for mercy.
"You're hurting me infernally! Man, let me up! I've been--I've been--a damn' fool! Didn't know--didn't realize! Burke--for heaven's sake--don't torture me!"
"Be still!" Burke said. "Or I'll murder you!"
His voice was low and furious, his hold without mercy. Yet, after a few seconds he mastered his own violence, realizing that all resistance in the man under him was broken. In a silence that was more appalling than speech he got to his feet, releasing him.
Guy rolled over sideways and lay with his face on his arms, gasping painfully. After a pause, Burke turned from him and went to the washing-stand.
The blood continued to now from the wound while he bathed it. The cut was deep. He managed, however, to staunch it somewhat at length, and then very steadily he turned back.
"Get up!" he said.
Guy made a convulsive movement in response, but he only half-raised himself, sinking back immediately with a hard-drawn groan.
Burke bent over him. "Get up!" he said again. "I'll help you."
He took him under the arms and hoisted him slowly up. Guy blundered to his feet with shuddering effort.
"Now--fire me out!" he said.
But Burke only guided him to the bed. "Sit down!" he said.
Numbly he obeyed. He seemed incapable of doing otherwise. But when, still with that unwavering steadiness of purpose, Burke stooped and began to unfasten the straps of his gaiters, he suddenly cried out as if he had been struck unawares in a vital place.
"No--no--no! I'm damned--I'm damned if you shall! Burke--stop, do you hear? Burke!"
"Be quiet!" Burke said.
But Guy flung himself forward, preventing him. They looked into one another's eyes for a tense interval, then, as the blood began to trickle down his chin again, Burke released himself.
In the same moment, Guy covered his face and burst into agonized sobbing most terrible to hear.
Burke stood up again. Somehow all the hardness had gone out of him though the resolution remained. He put a hand on Guy's shoulder, and gently shook him.
"Don't do it, boy! Don't do it! Pull yourself together for heaven's sake! Drink--do anything--but this! You'll want to shoot yourself afterwards."
But Guy was utterly broken, his self-control beyond recovery. The only response he made was to feel for and blindly grip the hand that held him.
So for a space they remained, while the anguish possessed him and slowly passed. Then, with the quiescence of complete exhaustion, he suffered Burke's ministrations in utter silence.
Half-an hour later he lay in a dead sleep, motionless as a stone image, while the man who dragged him from his hell rested upon two chairs and grimly reviewed the problem which he had created for himself. There was no denying the fact that young Guy had been a thorn in his side almost ever since his arrival in the country. The pity of it was that he possessed such qualities as should have lifted him far above the crowd. He had courage, he had resource. Upon occasion he was even brilliant. But ever the fatal handicap existed that had pulled him down. He lacked moral strength, the power to resist temptation. As long as he lived, this infirmity of character would dog his steps, would ruin his every enterprise. And Burke, whose stubborn force made him instinctively impatient of such weakness, lay and contemplated the future with bitter foreboding.
There had been a time when he had thought to rectify the evil, to save Guy from himself, to implant in him something of that moral fibre which he so grievously lacked. But he had been forced long since to recognize his own limitations in this respect. Guy was fundamentally wanting in that strength which was so essentially a part of his own character, and he had been compelled at last to admit that no outside influence could supply the want. He had come very reluctantly to realize that no faith could be reposed in him, and when that conviction had taken final hold upon him, Burke had relinquished the struggle in disgust.
Yet, curiously, behind all his disappointment, even contempt, there yet lurked in his soul an odd liking for the young man. Guy was most strangely likable, however deep he sank. Unstable, unreliable, wholly outside the pale as he was, yet there ever hung about him a nameless, indescribable fascination which redeemed him from utter degradation, a charm which very curiously kept him from being classed with the swine. There was a natural gameness about him that men found good. Even at his worst, he was never revolting.
He seemed to Burke a mass of irresponsible inconsistency. He was full of splendid possibilities that invariably withered ere they approached fruition. He had come to regard him as a born failure, and though for Sylvia's sake he had made this final effort, he had small faith in its success. Only she was so hard to resist, that frank-eyed, earnest young partner of his. She was so unutterably dear in all her ways. How could he hear the tremor of her pleading voice and refuse her?
The memory of her came over him like a warm soft wave. He felt again the quick pressure of her arm about his neck, the fleeting sweetness of her kiss. How had he kept himself from catching her to his heart in that moment, and holding her there while he drank his fill of the cup she had so shyly proffered? How had he ever suffered her to flit from him down the rough _kopje_ and turn at the bottom with the old intangible shield uplifted between them?
The blood raced in his veins. He clenched his hands in impotent self-contempt. And yet at the back of his man's soul he knew that by that very forbearance his every natural impulse condemned, he had strengthened his position, he had laid the foundation-stone of a fabric that would endure against storm and tempest. The house that he would build would be an abiding-place--no swiftly raised tent upon the sand. It would take time to build it, infinite care, possibly untold sacrifice. But when built, it would be absolutely solid, proof for all time against every wind that blew. For every stone would be laid with care and made fast with the cement that is indestructible. And it would be founded upon a rock.
So, as at last he drifted into sleep, Guy lying in a deathlike immobility by his side, there came to him the conviction that what he had done had been well done, done in a good cause, and acceptable to the Master Builder at Whose Behest he was vaguely conscious that all great things are achieved.


CHAPTER VI
THE RETURN

When the morning broke upon Blue Hill Farm the sand-storm had blown itself out. With brazen splendour the sun arose to burn the parched earth anew, but Sylvia was before it. With the