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At length she saw Curtis release the palpitating Beelzebub, and turn towards the house. Quite calmly she also turned.

They met in the passage.

“You needn’t trouble to keep it from me,” she said. “I know.”

He gave her a keen look.

“I am going to him at once,” was all he said.

She stood quite still, facing him; and suddenly she was conscious of a great glow pulsing through her, as though some arrested force had been set free. She knew that her heart was beating again, strongly, steadily, fearlessly.

“I shall come with you,” she said.

She saw his face change.

“I am sorry,” he said, “but that is out of the question. You must know it.”

She answered him instantly, unhesitatingly, with some of the old, quick spirit that had won Brett Mercer’s heart.

“There you are wrong. I know it to be the only thing possible for me to do.”

Curtis looked at her for a second as if he scarcely knew her, and then abruptly abandoned the argument.

“I will not be responsible,” he said, turning aside.

And she answered him unfalteringly:

“I will take the responsibility.”

XVIII

Slowly Brett Mercer raised himself and tried to peer through his swollen eyelids at the door.

“Don’t bring any woman here!” he mumbled.

The effort to see was fruitless. He sank back, blind and tortured, upon the pillow. He had been taken ill at one of his own outlying farms, and here he had lain for days–a giant bereft of his strength, waiting for death.

His only attendant was a farm-hand who had had the disease, but knew nothing of its treatment, who was, moreover, afraid to go near him.

Curtis took in the whole situation at a glance as he bent over him.

“Why didn’t you send for me?” he said.

“That you?” gasped Mercer. “Man, I’m in hell! Can’t you give me something to put me out of my misery?”

Curtis was already at work over him.

“No,” he said briefly. “I’m going to pull you through. You’re wanted.”

“You lie!” gasped back Mercer, and said no more.

Some hours after, starting suddenly from fevered sleep, he asked an abrupt question:

“Does my wife know?”

“Yes, she knows,” Curtis answered.

He flung his arms wide with a bitter gesture. “She’ll soon be free,” he said.

“Not if I know it,” said Curtis, in his quiet, unemotional style.

“You can’t make me live against my will,” muttered Mercer.

“Don’t talk like a fool!” responded Curtis.

Late that night a hand that was not Curtis’s smoothed the sick man’s pillow, and presently gave him nourishment. He noticed the difference instantly, though he could not open his eyes; but he said nothing at the time, and she fancied he did not know her.

But presently, when she thought him sleeping, he spoke.

“When did you come?”

Even then she was not sure that he was in his right mind. His face was so swollen and disfigured that it told her nothing. She answered him very softly:

“I came with Mr. Curtis.”

“Why?” That one word told her that he was in full possession of his senses. He moved his head to and fro on the pillow as one vainly seeking rest. “Did you want to see me in hell?” he questioned harshly.

She leaned towards him. She was sitting by his bed.

“No,” she said, speaking under her breath. “I came because–because it was the only way out–for us both.”

“What?” he said, and the old impatient frown drew his forehead. “You came to see me die, then?”

“I came,” she answered, “to try and make you live.”

He drew a breath that was a groan.

“You won’t succeed,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked.

Again feverishly he moved his head, and she smoothed his pillow afresh with hands that trembled.

“Don’t touch me!” he said sharply. “What was Curtis dreaming of to bring you here?”

“Mr. Curtis couldn’t help it,” she answered, with more assurance. “I came.” And then after a moment, “Are you–sorry–I came?”

“Yes,” he muttered.

“Oh, why?” she said.

“I would sooner die–without you looking on,” he said, forcing out his words through set teeth.