She never knew afterwards how long a time elapsed between the
confirmation of her doubts and the sudden starting to life of a new
resolution within her. It came upon her unexpectedly, striking through
the numbness of her despair, nerving her to action--the memory of her
dream and whence that dream had sprung. Robin Wentworth still lived. It
might be he would know her. It might even be that he was wanting her.
She would go to him.
It was the only thing left for her to do. Of the risk to herself she did
not think, nor would it have deterred her had it presented itself to her
mind. She felt as though he had called to her, and she had not
answered.
To Beelzebub's abject entreaties she paid no heed. There were two fresh
horses in the stable, and she ordered him to saddle them both. He did
not dare to disobey her in the matter, but she knew that no power on
earth would have induced him to remain alone at the farm till Mercer's
coming.
She left no word to explain her absence. There seemed no time for any
written message, nor was she in a state of mind to frame one. She was
driven by a consuming fever that urged her to perpetual movement. It did
not seem to matter how the tidings of her going came to Mercer.
Not till she was in the saddle and riding, riding hard, did she know a
moment's relief. The physical exertion eased the inward tumult, but she
would not slacken for an instant. She felt that to do so would be to
lose her reason. Beelzebub, galloping after her, thought her demented
already.
Through the long, long pastures she travelled, never drawing rein,
looking neither to right nor left. The animal she rode knew the way to
Wallarroo, and followed it undeviatingly. The sun was beginning to
slant, and the shadows to lengthen.
Mile after mile of rolling grassland they left behind them, and still
they pressed forward. At last came the twilight, brief as the soft
sinking of a curtain, and then the dark. But the night was ablaze with
stars, and the road was clear.
Sybil rode as one in a nightmare, straining forward eternally. She did
not urge her horse, but he bore her so gallantly that she did not need
to do so. Beelzebub had increasing difficulty in keeping up with her.
At last, after what seemed like the passage of many hours, they sighted
from afar the lights of Wallarroo. Sybil drew rein, and waited for
Beelzebub.
"Which way?" she said.
He pointed to a group of trees upon a knoll some distance from the road,
and thither she turned her horse's head. Beelzebub rode up beside her.
They left the knoll on one side, and, skirting it, came to a dip in the
hill-side. And here they came at length to the end of their journey--a
journey that to Sybil had seemed endless--and halted before a wooden
shed that had been built for cattle. A flap of canvas had been nailed
above the entrance, behind which a dim light burned. Sybil dismounted
and drew near.
At first she heard no sound; then, as she stood hesitating and
uncertain, there came a man's voice that uttered low, disjointed words.
She thought for a second that someone was praying, and then, with a
thrill of horror, she knew otherwise. The voice was uttering the most
fearful curses she had ever heard.
Scarcely knowing what she did, but unable to stand there passively
listening, she drew aside the canvas flap and looked in.
In an instant the voice ceased. There fell a silence, followed by a
wild, half-strangled cry. She had a glimpse of a prone figure in a
corner struggling upwards, and then Curtis was before her--Curtis
haggard and agitated as she had never seen him--pushing her back out of
the dim place into the clean starlight without.
"Mrs. Mercer! Are you mad?" she heard him say.
She resisted his compelling hands; she was strangely composed and
undismayed.
"I am coming in," she said. "Nothing on earth will keep me back. That
man--Robin Wentworth--is a friend of mine. I am going to see him and
speak to him."
"Impossible!" Curtis said.
But she withstood him unfalteringly.
"It is not impossible. You must let me pass. I mean to go to him, and
you cannot prevent it."
He saw the hopelessness of opposing her. Her eyes told him that it was
no whim but steadfast purpose that had brought her there. He looked
beyond her to Beelzebub, but gathered no inspiration in that quarter.
"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.