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

there was something of the quality of a coiled spring in his attitude, a spring that a touch would release. "Wait a minute, Burke! Do you hear? Wait a minute? I'm everything you choose to call me. I'm a traitor, a thief, and a blackguard. But I'm another thing as well." His voice broke oddly and he continued in a lower key, rapidly, as if he feared his strength might not last. "I'm a failure. I haven't done this thing I tried to do. I never shall do it now. Because--your wife--is incorruptible. Her loyalty is greater than my--treachery."
Again there sounded that curious catch in his voice as if a remorseless hand were tightening upon his throat. But he fought against it with a fierce persistence. He faced Burke with livid, twitching lips.
"God knows," he said in a passionate whisper, "whether she loves you. But she will be true to you--as long as you live!"
His words went into silence--a silence so tense that it seemed as if it must end in furious action--as if a hurtling blow and a crashing, headlong fall could be the only outcome.
But neither came. After several rigid seconds Burke spoke, his voice dead level, without a hint of emotion.
"You expect me to believe that, do you?"
Guy made a sharp movement that had in it more of surprise than protest. His throat worked spasmodically for a moment or two ere he forced it to utterance.
"Don't you think," he said then, in a half-strangled undertone, "that it would be a million times easier for me to let you believe--otherwise?"
"Why?" said Burke briefly.
"Because--" savagely Guy flung back the answer--"I would rather be murdered for what I've done than despised for what I've failed to do."
"I see," Burke said. "Then why not let me believe the obvious without further argument?"
There was contempt in his voice, but it was a bitter self-contempt in which the man before him had no share. He had entered that room with murder in his heart. The lust was still there, but he knew now that it would go unsatisfied. He had been stopped, by what means he scarcely realized.
But Guy knew; and though it would have been infinitely easier, as he had said, to have endured that first mad fury than to have stayed it with a confession of failure, for some reason he forced himself to follow the path of humiliation that he had chosen.
"Because what you call the obvious chances also to be the impossible," he said. "I'm not such a devil as to want to ruin her for the fun of the thing. I tell you she's straight--as straight as I am crooked. And you've got to believe in her--whether you want to or not. That--if you like--is the obvious." He broke off, breathing hard, yet in a fashion oddly triumphant, as if in vindicating the girl he had somehow vindicated himself also.
Burke looked at him fixedly for a few seconds longer. Then, abruptly, as if the words were hard to utter, he spoke; "I believe you."
Guy relaxed with what was almost a movement of exhaustion, but in a moment he braced himself again. "You shall have your satisfaction all the same," he said. "I owe you that. Where shall I meet you?"
Burke made a curt gesture as if dismissing a matter of but minor importance, and turned to go.
But in an instant, as if stung into action, Guy was before him. He gripped him by the shoulder. "Man! Don't give me any of your damned generosity!" He ground out the words between his teeth. "Name a place! Do you hear? Name a place and time!"
Burke stopped dead. His face was enigmatical as he looked at Guy. There was a remote gleam in his stern eyes that was neither of anger nor scorn. He stood for several seconds in silence, till the hand that clutched his shoulder gripped and feverishly shook it.
Then deliberately and with authority bespoke: "I'll meet you in my own time. You can go back to your old quarters and--wait for me there."
Guy's hand fell from him. He stood for a moment as if irresolute, then he moved aside. "All right. I shall go there to-day," he said.
And in silence Burke unbolted the door and went out.


CHAPTER X
THE TRUTH

When Burke presented himself at the door of the main bungalow he found it half-open. The whirr of a sewing-machine came forth to him, but it paused in answer to his knock, and Mrs. Merston's voice bade him enter.
He went in to find her seated at a plain wooden table with grey flannel spread around her, her hand poised on the wheel of her machine, which she drove round vigorously as he entered. Her light eyes surveyed him in momentary surprise, and then fell straight upon her work. A slightly deeper colour suffused her face.
"You've come early," she said.
"Good morning!" said Burke.
She nodded without speaking, absorbed in her work.
He came to a stand on the opposite side of the table, watching her. He was quite well aware that Matilda Merston did not like him. She had never scrupled to let him know it. The whirr of the machine rose between them. She was working fast and furiously.
He waited with absolute patience till she flung him a word. "Sit down!"
He seated himself facing her.
Faster and faster spun the wheel. Matilda's thin lips were compressed. Tiny beads appeared on her forehead. She was breathing quickly. Suddenly there was a check, a sharp snap. She uttered an impatient sound and stopped, looking across at her visitor with undisguised hostility in her eyes.
"I didn't do it," said Burke.
She got up, not deigning a reply. "I suppose you'd like a drink," she said. "Bill is out on the lands."
His eyes comprehended her with a species of grim amusement. "No. I won't have anything, thanks. I have come for my wife. Can you tell me where she is ?"
"You're very early," Matilda remarked again.
He leaned his arms upon the table, looking up at her. "Yes. I know. Isn't she up?"
She returned his look with obvious disfavour. And yet Burke Ranger was no despicable figure of manhood sitting there. He was broad, well-knit, well-developed, clean of feature, with eyes of piercing keenness.
He met her frown with a faint smile. "Well?" he said.
"Yes. Of course she is up." Grudgingly Matilda made answer. Somehow she resented the clean-limbed health of these men who made their living in the wilderness. There was something almost aggressive about it. Abruptly she braced herself to give utterance to her thoughts. "Why can't you leave her here a little longer? She doesn't want to go back."
"I think she must tell me that herself," Burke said.
He betrayed no discomfiture. She had never seen him discomfited. That was part of her grievance against him.
"She won't do that," she said curtly. "She has old-fashioned ideas about duty. But it doesn't make her like it any the better."
"It wouldn't," said Burke. A gleam that was in no way connected with his smile shone for a moment in his steady eyes, but it passed immediately. He continued to contemplate the faded woman before him very gravely, without animosity. "You have got rather fond of Sylvia, haven't you?" he said.
Matilda made an odd gesture that had in it something of vehemence. "I am very sorry for her," she said bluntly.
"Yes?" said Burke.
"Yes." She repeated the word uncompromisingly, and closed her lips.
"You're not going to tell me why?" he suggested.
Her pale eyes grew suddenly hard and intensely bright. "Yes. I should like to tell you," she said.
He got up with a quiet movement. "Well, why?" he said.
Her eyes flashed fire. "Because," she spoke very quickly, scarcely pausing for breath, "you have turned her from a happy girl into a miserable woman. I knew it would come. I saw it coming, I knew--long before she did--that she had married the wrong man. And I knew what she would suffer when she found out. She tried hard not to find out; she did her best to blind herself. But she had to face it at last. You forced her to open her eyes. And now--she knows the truth. She will do her duty, because you are her husband and there is no escape. But it will be bondage to her as long as she lives. You have taken all the youth and the joy out of her life."
There was a fierce ring of passion in the words. For once Matilda Merston glowed with life. There was even something superb in her reckless denunciation of the man before her.
He heard it without stirring a muscle, his eyes fixed unwaveringly upon her, grim and cold as steel. When she ceased to speak, he still stood motionless, almost as if he were waiting for something.
She also waited, girt for battle, eager for the fray. But he showed no sign of anger, and gradually her enthusiasm began to wane. She bent, panting a little and began to smooth out a piece of the grey flannel with nervous exactitude.
Then Burke spoke. "So you think I am not the right man for her."
"I am quite sure of that," said Matilda without looking up.
"That means," Burke spoke slowly, with deliberate insistence, "that you know she loves another man better."
Matilda was silent.
He bent forward a little, looking straight into her downcast face. "Mrs. Merston," he said, "you are a woman; you ought to know. Do you believe--honestly--that she would have been any happier married to that other man?"
She looked at him then in answer to his unspoken desire. He had refused to do battle with her. That was her first thought, and she was conscious of a momentary sense of triumph. Then--for she was a woman--her heart stirred oddly within her, and her triumph was gone. She met his quiet eyes with a sudden sharp misgiving. What had she done?
"Please answer me!" Burke said.
And, in a low voice, reluctantly, she made answer. "I am afraid I do."
"You know the man?" he said.
She nodded. "I believe--in time--she might have been his salvation. Everybody thought he was beyond redemption. I know that. But she--had faith. And they loved each other. That makes all the difference."
"Ah!" he said.
For the first time he looked away from her, looked out through the open door over the _veldt_ to that far-distant line of hills that bounded their world. His brown face was set in stern, unwavering lines.
Furtively Matilda watched him, still with that uneasy feeling at her heart. There was something enigmatical to her about this man's hard endurance, but she did not resent it any longer. It awed her.
Several seconds passed ere abruptly he turned and spoke. "I am going back. Will you tell Sylvia? Say I can manage all right without her if she is--happier here!" The barely perceptible pause before the word made Matilda avert her eyes instinctively though his face never varied. "I wish