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“Let me pass, Mr. Curtis!” said Sybil gently. “I shall take no harm. I must see him before he dies.”

And Curtis yielded. He was worn out by long and fruitless watching, and he could not cope with this fresh emergency. He yielded to her insistence, and suffered her to pass him.

“He is very far gone,” he said.

XIV

As Sybil entered she heard again that strange, choked cry. The sick man was struggling to rise, but could not.

She went straight to the narrow pallet on which he lay and bent over him.

“Robin!” she said.

He gave a great start, and became intensely still, lying face downwards, his body twisted, his head on his arm.

She stooped lower. She touched him. A superhuman strength was hers.

“Robin,” she said, “do you know me?”

He turned his face a little, and she saw the malignant horror of the disease that gripped him. It was a sight that would have turned her sick at any other time. But to-night she knew no weakness.

“Who are you?” he said, in a gasping whisper.

“I am Sybil,” she answered steadfastly. “Don’t you remember me?”

He lay motionless for a little, his breathing sharp and short. At length:

“You had better get away from this pestilent hole,” he panted out. “It’s no place for a woman.”

“I have come to nurse you,” she said.

“You!” He seemed to collect himself with an effort. He turned his face fully towards her. “Didn’t you marry that devil Mercer, after all?” he gasped, gazing up at her with glassy eyes.

Only by his eyes would she have known him–this man whom once long ago she had fancied that she loved–and even they were strained and unfamiliar. She bent her head in answer. “Yes, Robin, I married him.”

He began to curse inarticulately, spasmodically; but that she would not have. She knelt down suddenly by his side, and took his hand in hers. The terrible, disfigured countenance did not appal her, though the memory of it would haunt her all her life.

“Robin, listen!” she said earnestly. “We may not have very long together. Let us make the most of what time we have! Don’t waste your strength! Try to tell me quietly what happened, how it was you gave me up! I want to understand it all. I have never yet heard the truth.”

Her quiet words, the steady pressure of her hand, calmed him. He lay still for a space, gazing at her.

“You’re not afraid?” he muttered at last.

“No,” she said.

He continued to stare at her.

“Is he–good to you?” he said.

The words came with difficulty. She saw his throat working with the convulsive effort to produce sound.

Curtis touched her arm. “Give him this!”

She took a cup from his hand, and held it to the swollen lips. But he could not swallow. The liquid trickled down into his beard.

“He’s past it,” murmured Curtis.

“Sybil!” The words came with a hard, rending sound. “Is he–good to you?”

She was wiping away the spilt drops with infinite, unfaltering tenderness.

“Yes, dear,” she answered. “He is very good to me.”

He uttered a great gasping sigh.

“That’s–all–that matters,” he said, and fell silent, still gazing at her with eyes that seemed too fixed to take her in.

In the long, long silence that followed no one moved. But for those wild eyes Sybil would have thought him sleeping.

Minutes passed, and at last Curtis spoke under his breath.

“You had better go. You can’t do any more.”

But she would not stir. She had a feeling that Robin still wanted her.

Suddenly through the night silence there came a sound–the hoof-beats of a galloping horse.

She turned her head and listened. “What is that?”

As if in answer, Beelzebub’s black face appeared in the entrance. His eyes were distended with fright.

“Missis!” he hissed in a guttural whisper.

“Here’s Boss comin’!” and disappeared again like a monstrous goblin.

Sybil glanced up at Curtis. “Don’t let him come here!” she said.

But for once he seemed to be at a loss. He made no response to her appeal. While they waited, the hoofs drew steadily nearer, thudding over the grass.