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“Oh, why?” she said again. “Don’t you believe–can’t you believe–that I want you to live?”

“No,” he groaned.

“Not if I swear it?” she asked, her voice sunk very low.

“No!” He flung the word with something of his ancient ferocity. She was torturing him past endurance. He even madly hoped that he could scare her away.

But Sybil made no move to go. She sat quite still for a few seconds. Then slowly she went down upon her knees beside his pillow.

“Brett,” she said, and he felt her breath quick and tremulous upon his face as she spoke, “you may refuse to believe what I say. But–I can convince you without words.”

And before he knew her meaning, she had pressed her quivering lips to his.

He recoiled, with an anguished sound that was half of protest and half of unutterable pain.

“Do you want to die too?” he said. “Or don’t you know the risk?”

“Yes, I know it,” she answered. “I know it,” and in her voice was such a thrill of passion as he had never heard or thought to hear from her. “But I know this, too, and I mean that you shall know it. My life is nothing to me–do you understand?–nothing, unless you share it. Now–will you believe me?”

Yes, he believed her then. He had no choice. The knowledge was as a sword cutting its way straight to his heart. He tried to answer her, tried desperately hard, because he knew that she was waiting for him to speak, that his silence would hurt her who from that day forward he would never hurt again.

But no words would come. He could not force his utterance. The power of speech was gone from him. He turned his face away from her in choking tears.

And Sybil knew that the victory was hers. Those tears were more to her than words. She knew that he would live–if he could–for her sake.

XIX

It was more than six weeks later that Brett Mercer and his wife turned in at the Home Farm, as they had turned in on that memorable night that he had brought his bride from Wallarroo.

Now, as then, Curtis was ready for them in the open doorway, and Beelzebub advanced grinning to take the horses. But there the resemblance ceased. The woman who entered with her husband leaning on her shoulder was no nervous, shrinking stranger, but a wife entering her home with gladness, bearing her burden with rejoicing. The woman from Wallarroo looked at her with a doubtful sort of sympathy. She also looked at the gaunt, bowed man who accompanied her, and questioned with herself if this were indeed Brett Mercer.

Brett Mercer it undoubtedly was, nor could she have said, save for his slow, stooping gait, wherein lay the change that so amazed her.

Perhaps it was more apparent in Sybil than in the man himself as she raised her face on entering, and murmured:

“So good to get home again, isn’t it, dear?”

He did not speak in answer. He scarcely spoke at all that night. But his silence satisfied her.

It was not till the following morning that he stretched out a great, bony hand to her as she waited on him, and drew her down to his side.

“There has been enough of this,” he said, with a touch of his old imperiousness. “You have worked too hard already, harder than I ever meant you to work. You are to take a rest, and get strong.”

She uttered her gay little laugh.

“My dearest Brett, I am strong.”

He lay staring at her in his most direct, disconcerting fashion. She endured his look for a moment, and then averted her eyes. She would have risen, but he prevented her.

“Sybil!” he said abruptly.

“Yes?” she answered, with her head bent.

“Are you afraid of me?” he said.

She shook her head instantly.

“Don’t be absurd!”

“Then look at me!” he said.

She raised her eyes slowly, not very willingly. But, having raised them, she kept them so, for there was that in his look which no longer made her shy.

He made a slight gesture towards her that was rather of invitation than insistence.

“Don’t you think I’m nearly well enough to be let into the secret?” he said.

His action, his tone, above all his look, broke down the last of the barrier between them. She went into his arms with a shaky little laugh, and hid her face against him.

“I would have told you long ago,” she whispered, “only somehow–I couldn’t. Besides, I was so sure that you knew.”

“Oh, yes, I knew,” said Mercer. “Curtis saw to that; literally flayed me with it till I took his advice and cleared out. You know, I’ve often wondered since if it was that that made you want me, after all.”

She shook her head, still with her face against his breast.

“No, dear, it wasn’t. It–it made things worse at first. It was only when I heard you were ill that–that I found–quite suddenly–that I couldn’t possibly go on without you. It was as if–as if something bound round my heart had suddenly given way, and I could breathe again. When I saw you I knew how terribly I wanted you.”

“And that was how you came to kiss me with that loathsome disease upon me?” he whispered. “That was what made you follow me down to hell to bring me back?”

She turned her face upwards. Her eyes were shining.

“My dear,” she said, and in her voice was a thrill like the first sweet notes of a bird in the dawning, “you don’t need to ask me why did these things. For you know–you know. It was simply and only because I loved you.”

“Heaven knows why,” he said, as he bent to kiss her.

“Heavens knows,” she answered, and softly laughed as she surrendered her lips to his.