Chapter 10

"Oh, I know I'm horrid to laugh. But it's not that I am ungrateful. There is nothing really the matter. I--I'm feeling rather like a stray cat this morning, that's all."

The smile still lingered about her lips as she said it. Somehow, telling this taciturn individual of her trouble deprived it of much of its bitterness.

Mercer displayed no sympathy. He did not even continue to look at her. But she did not feel that his impassivity arose from lack of interest.

Suddenly:

"Is it true that you are going to be married as soon as you land?" he asked.

Sybil was sitting forward with her chin in her hands.

"Quite true," she said; adding, half to herself, "so far as I know."

"What do you mean by that?" He turned squarely and looked down at her.

She hesitated a little, but eventually she told him.

"I thought there would have been a letter for me from Robin at Aden, but there wasn't. It has worried me rather."

"Robin?" he said interrogatively.

"Robin Wentworth, the man I am going to marry," she explained. "He has a farm at Bowker Creek, near Rollandstown. But he will meet me at the docks. He has promised to do that. Still, I thought I should have heard from him again."

"But you will hear at Colombo," said Mercer.

She raised her eyes--- those soft, dark eyes that were her only beauty.

"I may," she said.

"And if you don't?"

She smiled faintly.

"I suppose I shall worry some more."

"Are you sure the fellow is worth it?" asked Mercer unexpectedly.

"We have been engaged for three years," she said, "though we have been separated."

He frowned.

"A man can alter a good deal in three years."

She did not attempt to dispute the point. It was one of the many doubts that tormented her in moments of depression.

"And what will you do if he doesn't turn up?" proceeded Mercer.

She gave a sharp shiver.

"Don't--don't frighten me!" she said.

Mercer was silent. He thrust one hand into his pocket, and absently jingled some coins. He began to whistle under his breath, and then, awaking to the fact, abruptly stopped himself.

"If I were in your place," he said at length, "I should get off at Colombo and sail home again on the next boat."

Sybil shook her head slowly but emphatically.

"I am quite sure you wouldn't. For one thing you would be too poor, and for another you would be too proud."

"Are you very poor?" he asked her point blank.

She nodded.

"And very proud."

"And your people?"

"Only my father is living, and I have quarrelled with him."

"Can't you make it up?"

"No," she said sharply and emphatically. "I could never return to my father. There is no room for me now that he has married again. I would sooner sell matches at a street corner than go back to what I have left."

"So that's it, is it?" said Mercer. He was looking at her very attentively with his brows drawn down. "You are not happy at home, so you are plunging into matrimony to get away from it all."

"We have been engaged for three years," she protested, flushing.

"You said that before," he remarked. "It seems to be your only argument, and a confoundedly shaky one at that."

She laughed rather unsteadily.

"You are not very encouraging."

"No," said Mercer.

He was still looking at her somewhat sternly. Involuntarily almost she avoided his eyes.

"Perhaps," she said, with a touch of wistfulness, "when you see my _fiancé_ you will change your mind."

He turned from her with obvious impatience.

"Perhaps you will change yours," he said.

And with that surly rejoinder of his the conversation ended. The next moment he moved abruptly away, leaving her in possession.

III

It was early morning when they came at last into port. When Sybil appeared on deck she found it crowded with excited men, and the hubbub was deafening. A multitude of small boats buzzed to and fro on the tumbling waters below them, and she expected every instant to see one swamped as the great ship floated majestically through the throng.

She had anticipated a crowd of people on the wharf to witness their arrival, but the knot of men gathered there scarcely numbered a score. She scanned them eagerly, but it took only a very few seconds to convince her that Robin Wentworth was not among them. And there had been no letter from him at Colombo.

"They don't allow many people on the wharf," said Mercer's voice behind her. "There will be more on the other side of the Customs house."

She looked up at him, bravely smiling, though her heart was throbbing almost to suffocation and she could not speak a word.

He passed on into the crowd and she lost sight of him.

There followed a delay of nearly half-an-hour, during which she stood where she was in the glaring sunshine, dumbly watching. The town, with its many buildings, its roar of traffic; the harbour, with its ships and its hooting sirens; the hot sky, the water that shone like molten brass; all were stamped upon her aching brain with nightmare distinctness. She felt as one caught in some pitiless machine that would crush her to atoms before she could escape.

The gangways were fixed at last, and there was a general movement. She went with the crowd, Mercer's last words still running through her brain with a reiteration that made them almost meaningless. On the other side of the Customs house! Of course, of course she would find Robin there, waiting for her!

She said it to herself over and over as she stepped ashore, and she began to picture their meeting. And then, suddenly, an awful doubt assailed her. She could not recall his features. His image would not rise before her. The memory of his face had passed completely from her mind. It had never done so before, and she was scared. But she strove to reassure herself with the thought that she must surely recognize him the moment her eyes beheld him. It was but a passing weakness this, born of her agitation. Of course, she would know him, and he would know her, too, mightily though she felt she had changed during those three years that they had not met.

She moved on as one in a dream, still with that nightmare of oppression at her heart. The crowd of hurrying strangers bewildered her. Her loneliness appalled her. She had an insane longing to rush back to her cabin and hide herself. But she pressed on, on into the Customs house, following her little pile of luggage that looked so ludicrously insignificant among all the rest.

The babel here was incessant. She felt as if her senses would leave her. Piteously, like a lost child, she searched every face within her scope of vision; but she searched in vain for the face of a friend.

Later, she found herself following an official out into an open space like a great courtyard, that was crammed with vehicles. He was wheeling her luggage on a trolley. Suddenly he faced round and asked her whither she wanted to go.

She looked at him helplessly. "I am expecting someone to meet me," she said.

He stared at her in some perplexity, and finally suggested that he should set down her luggage and leave her to wait where she was.

To this she agreed, and when he had gone she seated herself on her cabin trunk and faced the situation. She was utterly alone, with scarcely any money in her possession, and no knowledge whatever of the place in which she found herself. Robin would, of course, come sooner or later, but till he came she was helpless.

What should she do, she wondered desperately? What could she do? All about her, people were coming and going. She watched them dizzily. There was not one of them who seemed to be alone. The heat and glare was intense. The clatter of wheels sounded in her ears like the roar of great waters. She felt as if she were sinking down, down through endless turmoil into a void unspeakable.

How long she had sat there she could not have said. It seemed to her hours when someone came up to her with a firm and purposeful stride, and stooping, touched her shoulder. She looked up dazedly, and saw Brett Mercer.

He said something to her, but it was as if he spoke in an unknown language. She had not the faintest idea what he meant. His face swam before her eyes. She shook her head at him vaguely, with quivering lips.

He stooped lower. She felt his arm encircle her, felt him draw her to her feet. Again he seemed to be speaking, but his words eluded her. The roar of the great waters filled her brain. Like a lost child she turned and clung to the supporting arm.

IV

Later, it seemed to her that her senses must have deserted her for a time, for she never remembered what happened to her next. A multitude of impressions crowded upon her, but she knew nothing with distinctness till she woke to find herself lying in a room with green blinds half-drawn, with Mercer stooping over her, compelling her to drink a nauseating mixture in a wine-glass.

As soon as full consciousness returned to her she refused to take another drop.

"What is it? It--it's horrible."

"It's the best stuff you ever tasted," he told her bluntly. "You needn't get up. You are all right as you are."

But she sat up, nevertheless, and looked at him confusedly. "Where am I?" she said.

He seated himself on the corner of a table that creaked loudly beneath his weight. It seemed to her that he looked even more massive than usual--a bed-rock of strength. His eyes met hers with a certain mastery.

"You are in a private room in a private hotel," he said. "I brought you here."

"In a hotel!" She stared at him for a moment, stricken silent by the information; then quickly she rose to her feet. "Oh, but I--I can't stay!" she said. "I have no money."

"I know," said Mercer. He remained seated on the table edge, his hands in his pockets, his eyes unwaveringly upon her. "That's where I come in," he told her, with a touch of aggressiveness, as though he sighted difficulties ahead. "I have money--plenty of it. And you are to make use of it."

She stood motionless, gazing at him. His eyes never left her. She could not quite fathom his look, but it was undoubtedly stern.

"Mr. Mercer," she said at last, rather piteously, "I--indeed I am grateful to you, much more than grateful. But--I can't!"

"Rubbish!" said Mercer curtly. "If you weren't a girl, I should tell you not to be a fool!"

She was clasping and unclasping her hands. It was to be a battle of wills. His rough speech revealed this to her. And she was ill-equipped for the conflict. His dominant personality seemed to deprive her of even the desire to fight. She remembered, with a sudden, burning flush, that she had clung to him only a little while before in her extremity of loneliness. Doubtless he remembered it too.

Yet she braced herself for the struggle. He could not, after all, compel her to accept his generosity.

"I am sorry," she said; "I am very sorry. But, you know, there is another way in which you can help me."

"What is that?" said Mercer.

"If you could tell me of some respectable lodging," she said. "I have enough for one night if the charges are moderate. And even after that--if Robin doesn't come--I have one or two little things I might sell. He is sure to come soon."

"And if he doesn't?" said Mercer.

Her fingers gripped each other.

"I am sure he will," she said.

"And if he doesn't?" said Mercer again.

His persistence became suddenly intolerable. She turned on him with something like anger--the anger of desperation.

"Why will you persist in trying to frighten me? I know he will come. I know he will!"

"You don't know," said Mercer. "I am not frightening you. You were afraid before you ever spoke to me."

He spoke harshly, without pity, and still his eyes dwelt resolutely upon her. He seemed to be watching her narrowly.

She did not attempt to deny his last words. She passed them by.

"I shall write to Bowker Creek. He may have mistaken the date."

"He may," said Mercer, in a tone she did not understand. "But, in the meantime, why should you turn your back upon the only friend you have at hand? It seems to me that you are making a fuss over nothing. You have been brought up to it, I daresay; but it isn't the fashion here. We are taught to take things as they come, and make the best of 'em. That's what you have got to do. It'll come easier after a bit."

"It will never come easily to me to--to live on charity," she protested, rather incoherently.

"But you can pay me back," said Brett Mercer.

She shook her head.

"Not if--if Robin----"

"I tell you, you can!" he insisted stubbornly.

"How?" She turned suddenly and faced him. There was a hint of defiance, or, rather, daring, in her manner. She met his look with unswerving resolution. "If there is a good chance of my being able to do that," she said, "even if--even if Robin fails me, I will accept your help."

"You will be able to do it," said Mercer.

"How?" she asked again.

"I will tell you," he said, "when you are quite sure that Robin has failed you."

"Tell me now!" she pleaded. "If it is some work that you can find for me to do--and I will do anything in the world that I can--it would be such a help to me to know of it. Won't you tell me what you mean? Please do!"

"No," said Mercer. "It is only a chance, and you may refuse it. I can't say. You may feel it too much for you to attempt. If you do, you will have to endure the obligation. But you shall have the chance of paying me back if you really want it."

"And you won't tell me what it is?" she said.

"No." He got to his feet, and stood looking down at her. "I can't tell you now. I am not in a position to do so. I am going away for a few days. You will wait here till I come back?"

"Unless Robin comes," she said. "And then, of course, I would leave you a message."

He nodded.

"Otherwise you will stay here?"

"If you are sure you wish it," she said.

"I do. And I am going to leave you this." He laid a packet upon the table. "It is better for you to be independent, for the sake of appearances." His iron mouth twitched a little. "Now, good-bye! You won't be more miserable than you can help?"

She smiled up at him bravely.

"No; I won't be miserable. How long shall you be gone?"

"Possibly a week, possibly a little more."

"But you will come back?" she said quickly, almost beseechingly.

"I shall certainly come back," he said.

With the words his great hand closed firmly upon hers, and she had a curious, vagrant feeling of insecurity that she could not attempt to analyse. Then abruptly he let her go. An instant his eyes still held her, and then, before she could begin to thank him, he turned to the door and was gone.

V

For ten days, that seemed to her like as many years, Sybil Denham waited in the shelter into which she had been so relentlessly thrust for an answer to her letter to Bowker Creek, and during the whole of that time she lived apart, exchanging scarcely a word with any one. Every day, generally twice a day, she went down to the wharf; but, she could not bring herself to linger. The loneliness that perpetually dogged her footsteps was almost poignant there, and sometimes she came away with panic at her heart. Suppose Mercer also should forsake her! She had not the faintest idea what she would do if he did. And yet, whenever she contemplated his return, she was afraid. There was something about the man that she had never fathomed--something ungovernable, something brutal--from which instinctively she shrank.

On the evening of the tenth day she received her answer--a letter from Rollandstown by post. The handwriting she knew so well sprawled over the envelope which her trembling fingers could scarcely open. Relief was her first sensation, and after it came a nameless anxiety. Why had he written? How was it--how was it that he had not come to her?

Trembling all over, she unfolded the letter, and read:

"Dear Sybil,--I am infernally sorry to have brought you out for nothing, for I find that I cannot marry you after all. Things have gone wrong with me of late, and it would be downright folly for me to think of matrimony under existing circumstances. I am leaving this place almost at once, so there is no chance of hearing from you again. I hope you will get on all right. Anyhow, you are well rid of me.--Yours,

"ROBIN."

Beneath the signature, scribbled very faintly, were the words, "I'm sorry, old girl; I'm sorry."

She read the letter once, and once only; but every word stamped itself indelibly upon her memory, every word bit its way into her consciousness as though it had been scored upon her quivering flesh. Robin had failed her. That ghastly presentiment of hers had come true. She was alone--alone, and sinking in that awful whirlpool of desolation into which for so long she had felt herself being drawn. The great waters swirled around her, rising higher, ever higher. And she was alone.

Hours passed. She sat in a sort of trance of horror, Robin's letter spread out beneath her nerveless fingers. She did not ask herself what she should do. The blow had stunned all her faculties. She could only sit there face to face with despair, staring blind-eyed before her, motionless, cold as marble to the very heart of her. She fancied--she even numbly hoped--that she was going to die.

She never heard repeated knocking at her door, or remembered that it was locked, till a man's shoulder burst it open. Then, indeed, she turned stiffly and looked at the intruder.

"You!" she said.

She had forgotten Brett Mercer.

He came forward quickly, stooped and looked at her; then went down on his knee and thrust his arm about her.

She sat upright in his hold, not yielding an inch, not looking at him. Her eyes were glassy.

For a little he held her; then gently but insistently he drew her to him, pillowed her head against him, and began to rub her icy cheek.

"I've left you alone too long," he said.

She suffered him dumbly, scarcely knowing what she did. But presently the blood that seemed to have frozen in her veins began to circulate again, and the stiffness passed from her limbs. She stirred in his hold like a frightened bird.

"I'm sorry!" she faltered.

He let her draw away from him, but he kept his arm about her. She looked at him, and found him intently watching her. Her eyes fell, and rested upon the letter which lay crumpled under her hands.

"A dreadful thing has happened to me," she said. "Robin has written to say--to say--that he cannot marry me!"

"What is there dreadful in that?" said Mercer.

She did not look up, though his words startled her a little.

"It--has made me feel like--like a stray cat again," she said, with the ghost of a smile about her lips. "Of course, I know I'm foolish. There must be plenty of ways in which a woman can earn her living here. You yourself were thinking of something that I might do, weren't you?"

"I was," said Mercer. He laid his great hand upon hers, paused a moment, then deliberately drew her letter from beneath them and crushed it into a ball. "But I want you to tell me something before we go into that. The truth, mind! It must be the truth!"

"Yes?" she questioned, with her head bent.

"You must look at me," he said, "or I shan't believe you."

There was something Napoleonic about his words which placed them wholly beyond the sphere of offensiveness. Slowly she turned her head and looked him in the eyes.

He took his arm abruptly away from her.

"Heavens!" he said. "How miserable you look! Are you very miserable?"

"I'm not very happy," she said.

"But you always smile," he said, "even when you're crying. Ah, that's better! I scarcely knew you before. Now, tell me! Were you in love with the fellow?"

She shrank a little at the direct question. He put his hand on her shoulder. His touch was imperious.

"Just a straight answer!" he said. "Were you?"

She hesitated, longing yet fearing to lower her eyes.

"I--I don't quite know," she said at length. "I used to think so."

"You haven't thought so of late?" His eyes searched hers unsparingly, with stern insistence.

"I haven't been sure," she admitted.

He released her and rose.

"You won't regret him for long," he said. "In fact, you'll live to be glad that you didn't have him!"

She did not contradict him. He was too positive for that. She watched him cross the room with a certain arrogance, and close the half-open door. As he returned she stood up.

"Can we get to business now?" she said.

"Business?" said Mercer.

With a steadiness that she found somewhat difficult of accomplishment she made reply:

"You thought you could find me employment--some means by which I could pay you back."

"You still want to pay me back?" he said.

She glanced up half nervously.

"I know that I can never repay your kindness to me," she said. "So far as that goes, I am in your debt for always. But--the money part I must and will, somehow, return."

"Being the most important part?" he suggested, halting in front of her.

"I didn't mean to imply that," she answered. "I think you know which I put first. But I can only do what I can, and money is repayable."

"So is kindness," said Mercer.

Again shyly she glanced at him.

"I am afraid I don't quite understand."

He sat down once more upon the table edge to bring his eyes on a level with hers.

"There's nothing to be scared about," he said.

She smiled a little.

"Oh, no; I am not scared. I believe you think me even more foolish than I actually am."

"No, I don't," said Mercer. "If I did, I shouldn't say what I am going to say. As it is, you are not to answer till you have counted up to fifty. Is that a bargain?"

"Yes," she said, beginning to feel more curious than afraid.

"Here goes then," said Brett Mercer. "I want a wife, and I want you. Will you marry me? Now, shut your eyes and count!"

But Sybil disobeyed him. She opened her eyes wide, and stared at him in breathless amazement.

Mercer stared back with absolute composure.

"I'm in dead earnest," he told her. "Never made a joke in my life. Of course, you'll refuse me. I know that. But I shan't give you up if you do. If you don't marry me, you won't marry any one else, for I'll lick any other man off the ground. I come first with you now, and I mean to stay first."

He stopped, for amazement had given place to something else on her face. She looked at him queerly, as if irresolute for a few seconds; but she no longer shrank from meeting his eyes. And then quite suddenly she broke into her funny little laugh.

"Amusing, is it?" he said.

She turned sharply away, with one hand pressed to her mouth, obviously struggling with herself.

At last:

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to laugh really--really. Only you--you're such a monster, and I'm such a shrimp! Please don't be vexed with me!"

She put out her hand to him, without turning.

He did not take it at once. When he did, he drew her round to face him. There was an odd restraint about the action, determined though it was.

"Well?" he said gruffly. "Which is it to be? Am I to go to the devil, or stay with you?"

She looked down at the great hand that held her. She was still half laughing, though her lips quivered.

"I couldn't possibly marry you yet," she said.

"No. To-morrow!" said Mercer.

She shook her head.

"Not even then."

"Listen!" he said. "If you won't marry me at once you will have to come with me without. For I am going up-country to see my farms, and I don't mean to leave you here."

"Can't I wait till you come back?" she said.

"What for?"

He leaned forward a little, trying to peer under her drooping lids. She was trembling slightly.

"I think you forget," she said, "that--that we hardly know each other."

"How are we to get any nearer if I'm up-country and you're here?" he said.

She looked at him unwillingly.

"You may change your mind when you have had time to think it over," she said, colouring deeply.

"I'll take the risk," said Mercer. "Besides"--she saw his grim smile for an instant--"I've been thinking of nothing else since I met you."

She started a little.

"I--I had no idea."