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.