He stood looking at her in silence as she came forward. She did not stop
to ascertain if he were angry or not. Somehow it did not seem to matter.
She only dealt with the urgent necessity for averting his suspicion.
"I just ran across with some soup for Beelzebub," she said, her pale
face raised unflinchingly. "I am glad to say he has taken it. Please
don't go up! I want him to get to sleep."
She spoke, with a wholly unconscious authority. The supreme effort she
was making seemed to place her upon a different footing. She laid a
quiet hand upon his arm and drew him out of the stable.
He went with her as one surprised into submission. One of the farm men
who had taken his horse stared after them in amazement.
As they crossed the yard together Mercer found his voice.
"I told Curtis you weren't to go near Beelzebub."
"I know," she answered. "Mr. Curtis told me."
He cracked his whip savagely.
"Where is Curtis?"
"I don't know," she answered. "But, Brett, if you are angry because I
went you must deal with me, not with Mr. Curtis. He had nothing whatever
to do with it."
Mercer was silent, and she divined with no sense of elation that he
would not turn his anger against her.
They entered the house together, and he strode through the passage,
calling for Curtis. But when the latter appeared in answer to the
summons, to her surprise Mercer began to speak upon a totally different
subject.
"I have just seen Stevens from Wallarroo. They are all in a mortal funk
there. He was on his way over here to ask you to go and look at a man
who is very bad with something that looks like smallpox. You can please
yourself about going; though, if you take my advice, you'll stay away."
Curtis did not at once reply. He gravely took the empty bowl from
Sybil's hand, and it was upon her that his eyes rested as he finally
said, "Do you think you could manage without me?"
She looked up with perfect steadiness.
"Certainly I could. Please do as you think right!"
"What about Beelzebub?" he said.
Mercer made a restless movement.
"He will be on his legs again in a day or two. One of the men must look
after him."
"I shall look after him," Sybil said, with a calmness of resolution that
astounded both her hearers.
Mercer put his hand on her shoulder, but said nothing. It was Curtis who
spoke with the voice of authority.
"You will have to take care of her," he said bluntly. "Bear in mind what
I said to you last night! I will show you how to treat the arm. And then
I think I had better go. It may prevent an epidemic."
Thereafter he assumed so businesslike an air that he seemed to Sybil to
be completely transformed. There never had been much deference in his
attitude towards Mercer, but he treated him now without the smallest
ceremony. He was as a man suddenly awakened from a long lethargy. From
that moment to the moment of his departure his activity was unceasing.
Sybil and Mercer watched him finally ride away, and it was not till he
was actually gone that the fact that she was left absolutely alone with
her husband came home to her.
With a sense of shock she realized it, and those words of
Beelzebub's--the words that she had been so resolutely forcing into the
back of her mind--came crowding back upon her with a vividness and
persistence that were wholly beyond her control.
What was she going to do, she wondered? What could she do with this
awful, this unspeakable doubt pressing ever upon her? It might all be a
mistake, a hideous mistake on Beelzebub's part. She had no great faith
in his intelligence. It might be that by some evil chance his muddled
brain had registered the name of Bowker Creek in connection with the
fight which she did not for a moment doubt had at some time taken
place. Beelzebub was never reliable in the matter of details, and he
had not been able to answer her question regarding the place.
Over and over again she tried to convince herself that her fear was
groundless, and over and over again the words came back to her, refusing
to be forgotten or ignored--"the white man from Bowker Creek." Who was
this white man whom Mercer had fought, this man who had tried to shoot
him? She shuddered whenever she pictured the conflict. She was horribly
afraid.
Yet she played her part unfalteringly, and Mercer never suspected the
seething anguish of suspense and uncertainty that underlay her steadfast
composure. He thought her quieter than usual, deemed her shy; and he
treated her in consequence with a tenderness of which she had not
believed him capable--a tenderness that wrung her heart.
She was thankful when the morning came, and he left her, for the strain
was almost more than she could endure.
But in the interval of solitude that ensued she began to build up her
strength anew. Alone with her doubts, she faced the fact that she would
probably never know the truth. She could not rely upon Beelzebub for
accuracy, and she could not refer to her husband. The only course open
to her was to bury the evil thing as deeply as might be, to turn her
face resolutely away from it, to forget--oh, Heaven, if she could but
forget!
All through that day Beelzebub slept, curled up in the straw. She
visited him several times, but he needed nothing. Nature had provided
her own medicine for his tortured body. In the evening a man came with a
note from Curtis. The case was undoubtedly one of smallpox, he wrote,
and he did not think his patient would recover. There was a good deal of
panic at Wallarroo, and he had removed the man to a cattle-shed at some
distance from the township where they were isolated. There were one or
two things he needed which he desired Mercer to send on the following
day to a place he described, whence he himself would fetch them.
"Beelzebub can go," said Mercer.
"If he is well enough!" said Sybil.
He frowned.
"You don't seem to realize what these niggers are made of. Of course, he
will be well enough."
She said no more, for she saw that the topic was unwelcome; but she
determined to make a stand on Beelzebub's behalf the next day, unless
his condition were very materially improved.