The Top of the World by Ethel M. Dell

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"Ah! But how to get him away from Kieff!" said Kelly. "The
fellow's such a damn' blackguard. Once he takes hold, he never
lets go till he's got his victim sucked dry."

Sylvia shuddered. "Can't you do anything?" she said.

Kelly looked at her with his honest kindly eyes, "If it were me,
Mrs. Ranger," he said, "I should tell me husband the whole
truth--and--let him deal with it."

She shook her head instantly. "It would be the end of everything
for Guy. Even if Burke let him off, he could never come back to
us. It would be as bad as sending him to prison--or even worse."

"Not it!" said Kelly. "You don't trust Burke. It's a pity. He's
such a fine chap. But look here, I'll do me best, I'll get hold of
young Guy and make him disgorge. How much did the young ruffian
take?"

"I don't know. That's the hopeless part of it. That is why I must
see him myself."

Kelly pursed his lips for a moment, but the next he smiled upon
her, "All right. I'll manage somehow. But you mustn't go
to-night. You tell Burke you're too tired. He'll understand."

"Do you know where Guy is?" she said.

"Oh yes, I can put me hand on the young divil if I want him. You
leave that to me! I'll do me best all round. Now--suppose we have
another trot, and then go back!"

Sylvia turned her horse's head. "I'm--deeply grateful to you, Mr.
Kelly," she said.

"Donovan!" insinuated Kelly.

She smiled a little. She seemed almost more piteous to him when
she smiled. "Donovan," she said.

"Ah, that's better!" he declared. "That does me good. To be a
friend of both of ye is what I want. Burke and you together!
Ye're such a fine pair, and just made for each other, faith, made
for each other. When I saw you, Mrs. Burke, I didn't wonder that
he'd fallen in love at last. I give ye me word, I didn't. And
I'll never forget the look on his face when he thought he'd lost
ye; never as long as I live. It--it was as if he'd been stabbed to
the heart."

Tactless, clumsy, sentimental, he sought to pour balm upon the
wounded spirit of this girl with her tragic eyes that should have
held only the glad sunshine of youth. It hurt him to see her thus,
hurt him unspeakably, and he knew himself powerless to comfort.
Yet with that odd womanly tenderness of his, he did his best.

He wondered what she was thinking of as she sat her horse, gazing
out over the wide spaces, so wearily and yet so intently. She did
not seem to have heard his last remarks, or was that merely the
impression she desired to convey? A vague uneasiness took
possession of him. He did not like her to look like that.

"Shall we move on?" he said gently.

She pointed suddenly across the _veldt_. "I want to ride as far as
that skeleton tree," she said. "Don't come with me! I shall catch
you up if you ride slowly."

"Right!" said Kelly, and watched her lift her bridle and ride away.

He would have done anything to oblige her just then; but his
curiosity was whetted to a keen edge. For she rode swiftly, as one
who had a definite aim in view. Straight as an arrow across the
_veldt_ she went to the skeleton tree with its stripped trunk and
stark, outflung arms that seemed the very incarnation of the
barrenness around.

Here she checked her animal, and sat for a moment with closed eyes,
the evening sunlight pouring over her. Very strangely she was
trembling from head to foot, as if in the presence of a vision upon
which she dared not look. She had returned as she had always meant
to return--but ah, the dreary desert spaces and the cruel roughness
of the road! Her husband's words uttered only a few hours before
came back upon her as she stood there. "We may never reach the top
of the world now," No, they would never reach it. Had anyone ever
done so, she wondered drearily? But yet they had been near it
once--nearer than many. Did that count for nothing?

It seemed to her that aeons had passed over her since last she had
stood beneath that tree. She had been a girl then, ardent and full
of courage. Now she was a woman, old and very tired, and there was
nothing left in life. It was almost as if she had ceased to live.

But yet she had come back to the starting-point, and here, as if
standing beside a grave and reading the inscription to one long
dead, she opened her eyes in the last glow of the sunshine to read
the words which Burke had cut into the bare wood on the evening of
his wedding-day. She remembered how she had waited for him, the
tumult of doubt, of misgiving, in her soul, how she had wished he
would not linger in that desolate place. Now, out of the midst of
a desolation to which this sandy waste was as nothing, she searched
with almost a feeling of awe as one about to read a message from
the dead.

The bare, bleached trunk of the tree shone strangely in the sinking
sun, faintly tinted with rose. The world all around her was
changing; slowly, imperceptibly, changing. A tender lilac glow was
creeping over the _veldt_. A curious sensation came upon Sylvia,
as if she were moving in a dream, as if she were stepping into a
new world and the old had fallen from her. The bitterness had
lifted from her spirit. Her heart beat faster. She was a
treasure-seeker on the verge of a great discovery. Trembling, she
lifted her eyes. . . .

There on the smooth wood, like a scroll upon a marble pillar, were
words, rough-hewn but unmistakable--_Fide et Amore_. . . .

It was as if a voice had spoken in her soul, a dear, insistent
voice, bidding her begone. She obeyed, scarcely knowing what she
did. Back across the dusty _veldt_ she rode, moving as one in a
trance. She joined the Irishman waiting for her, but she looked at
him with eyes that saw not.

"Well?" he said, frankly curious. "Did you find anything?"

She started a little, and came out of her dream. "I found what I
was looking for," she said.

"What was it?" Kelly was keenly interested; there was no checking
him now, he was like a hound on the scent.

She did not resent his questions. That was Kelly's privilege. But
neither did she answer him as fully as he could have wished. "I
found out," she said slowly, after a moment, "how to get to the top
of the world."

"Ah, really now!" said Kelly, opening his eyes to their widest
extent. "And are ye going to pack your bag and go?"

She smiled very faintly, looking, straight before her. "No. It's
too late now," she said. "I've missed the way. So has Burke."

"But ye'll try again--ye'll try again!" urged Kelly, eager as a
child for the happy ending of a fairy-tale.

She shook her head. Her lips were quivering, but still she made
them smile. "Not that way. I am afraid it's barred," she said,
and with the words she touched her horse with her heel and rode
quickly forward towards the town.

Donovan followed her with a rueful countenance. There were times
when even he felt discouraged with the world.

CHAPTER III

THE PUNISHMENT

"Good evening, Mrs. Ranger!"

Sylvia started at the sound of a cool, detached voice as she
re-entered the hotel. Two eyes, black as onyx and as
expressionless, looked coldly into hers. A chill shudder ran
through her. She glanced instinctively back at Kelly, who came
forward instantly in his bulky, protective fashion.

"Hullo, Kieff! What are you doing here? Gambling for the diamond?"

"I?" said Kieff, with a stretching of his thin, colourless lips
that was scarcely a smile. "I don't gamble for diamonds, my good
Kelly. Well, Mrs. Ranger, I hope you had a pleasant journey here."

"He gambles for souls," was the thought in Sylvia's mind, as with a
quick effort she controlled herself and passed on in icy silence.
She would never voluntarily speak to Kieff again. He was an open
enemy; and she turned from him with the same loathing that she
would have shown for a reptile in her path.

His laugh--that horrible, slippery sound--followed her. He said
something in Dutch to the man who lounged beside him, and at once
another laugh--Piet Vreiboom's--bellowed forth like the blare of a
bull. She flinched in spite of herself. Every nerve shrank. Yet
the next moment, superbly, she wheeled and faced them. There was
something intolerable in that laughter, something that stung her
beyond endurance.

"Tell me," she commanded Kelly, "tell me what
these--gentlemen--find about me to laugh at!"

Her face was white as death, but her eyes shone red as leaping
flame. She was terrible in that moment--terrible as a lioness at
bay--and the laughter died. Piet Vreiboom slunk a little back, his
low brows working uneasily.

Kelly swallowed an oath in his throat; his hands were clenched.
But Kieff, in a voice smooth as oil, made ready, mocking answer.

"Oh, not at you, madam! Heaven forbid! What could any man find to
smile at in such a model of virtuous propriety as yourself?"

He was baiting her openly, and she knew it. An awful wave of anger
surged through her brain, such anger as had never before possessed
her. For the moment she felt sick, as if she had drunk of some
overpowering drug. He meant to humiliate her publicly. She
realized it in a flash. And she was powerless to prevent it.
Whether she went or whether she stayed, he would accomplish his
end. Among all the strange faces that stared at her, only Kelly's,
worried and perplexed, betrayed the smallest concern upon her
account. And he, since her unexpected action, had been obviously
at a loss as to how to deal with the situation or with her.
Single-handed, he would have faced the pack; but with her at his
side he was hopelessly hampered, afraid of blundering and making
matters worse.

"Ah, come away!" he muttered to her. "It's not the place for ye at
all. They're hogs and swine, the lot of 'em. Don't ye be drawn by
the likes of them!"

But she stood her ground, for there was hot blood in Sylvia and a
fierce pride that would not tamely suffer outrage. Moreover, she
had been wounded cruelly, and the desire for vengeance welled up
furiously within her. Now that she stood in the presence of her
enemy, the impulse to strike back, however futile the blow, urged
her and would not be denied.

She confronted Saul Kieff with tense determination. "You will
either repeat--and explain--what you said to your friend regarding
me just now," she said, in tones that rang fearlessly, echoing
through the crowded place, "or you will admit yourself a
contemptible coward for vilely slandering a woman whom you know to
be defenceless!"

It was regally spoken. She stood splendidly erect, facing him,
withering him from head to foot with the scorching fire of her
scorn. A murmur of sympathy went through the rough crowd of men
gathered before her. One or two cursed Kieff in a growling
undertone. But Kieff himself remained absolutely unmoved. He was
smoking a cigarette and he inhaled several deep breaths before he
replied to her challenge. Then, with his basilisk eyes fixed
immovably upon her, as it were clinging to her, he made his deadly
answer: "I will certainly tell you what I said, madam, since you
desire it. But the explanation is one which surely only you can
give. I said to my friend, 'There goes the wife of the Rangers.'
Did I make a mistake?"

"Yes, you damned hound, you did!" The voice that uttered the words
came from the door that led into the office. Burke Ranger swung
suddenly out upon them, moving with a kind of massive force that
carried purpose in every line. Men drew themselves together as he
passed them with the instinctive impulse to leave his progress
unimpeded; for this man would have forced his way past every
obstacle at that moment. He went straight for his objective
without a glance to right or left.

Sylvia started back at his coming. That which her enemy could not
do was accomplished by her husband by neither word nor look. The
regal poise went out of her bearing. She shrank against Kelly as
if seeking refuge. For she had seen Burke's eyes, as she had seen
them the night before; and they were glittering with the lust for
blood. They were the eyes of a murderer.

Straight to Kieff he came, and Kieff waited for him, quite
motionless, with thin lips drawn back, showing a snarling gleam of
teeth. But just as Burke reached him he moved. His right arm shot
forth with a serpentine ferocity, and in a flash the muzzle of a
revolver gleamed between them.

"Hands up, if you please, Mr. Ranger!" he said smoothly. "We shall
talk better that way."

But for once in his life he had made a miscalculation, and the next
instant he realized it. He had reckoned without the blunderer
Kelly. For a fierce oath broke from the Irishman at sight of the
weapon, and in the same second he beat it down with the stock of
his riding-whip with a force that struck it out of Kieff's grasp.
It spun along the floor to Sylvia's feet, and she stooped and
snatched it up.

Burke did not so much as glance round. He had Kieff by the collar
of his coat, and the fate of the revolver was obviously a matter of
no importance to him. "Give me that horse-whip of yours, Donovan!"
he said,

Kelly complied with the childlike obedience he invariably yielded
to Burke. Then he fell back to Sylvia, and very gently took the
revolver out of her clenched hand.

She looked at him, her eyes wide, terror-stricken. "He will kill
him!" she said, in a voiceless whisper.

"Not a bit of it," said Kelly, and put his arm around her. "These
poisonous vermin don't die so easy. Pity they don't."

And then began the most terrible scene that Sylvia had ever looked
upon. No one intervened between Burke and his victim. There was
even a look of brutal satisfaction upon some of the faces around.
Piet Vreiboom openly gloated, as if he were gazing upon a spectacle
of rare delight.

And Burke thrashed Kieff, thrashed him with all the weight of his
manhood's strength, forced him staggering up and down the open
space that had been cleared for that awful reckoning, making a
public show of him, displaying him to every man present as a
crawling, contemptible thing that not one of them would have owned
as friend. It was a ghastly chastisement, made deadly by the
hatred that backed it. Kieff writhed this way and that, but he
never escaped the swinging blows. They followed him
mercilessly,--all the more mercilessly for his struggles. His coat
tore out at the seams and was ripped to rags. And still Burke
thrashed him, his face grim and terrible and his eyes shot red and
gleaming--as the eyes of a murderer.

In the end Kieff stumbled and pitched forward upon his knees, his
arms sprawling helplessly out before him. It was characteristic of
the man that he had not uttered a sound; only as Burke stayed his
hand his breathing came with a whistling noise through the tense
silence, as of a wounded animal brought to earth. His face was
grey.

Burke held him so for a few seconds, then deliberately dropped the
horse-whip and grasped him with both hands, lifting him. Kieff's
head was sunk forward. He looked as if he would faint. But
inexorably Burke dragged him to his feet and turned him till he
stood before Sylvia.

She was leaning against Kelly with her hands over her face.
Relentlessly Burke's voice broke the silence.

"Now," he said briefly, "you will apologize to my wife for
insulting her."

She uncovered her face and raised it. There was shrinking horror
in her look. "Oh, Burke!" she said. "Let him go!"

"You will--apologize," Burke said again very insistently, with
pitiless distinctness.

There was a dreadful pause. Kieff's breathing was less laboured,
but it was painfully uneven and broken. His lips twitched
convulsively. They seemed to be trying to form words, but no words
came.

Burke waited, and several seconds dragged away. Then suddenly from
the door of the office the girl who had received Sylvia the
previous evening emerged.

She carried a glass. "Here you are!" she said curtly. "Give him
this!"

There was neither pity nor horror in her look. Her eyes dwelt upon
Burke with undisguised admiration.

"You've given him a good dose this time," she remarked. "Serve him
right--the dirty hound! Hope it'll be a lesson to the rest of
'em," and she shot a glance at Piet Vreiboom which was more
eloquent than words.

She held the glass to Kieff's lips with a contemptuous air, and
when he had drunk she emptied the dregs upon the floor and marched
back into the office.

"Now," Burke said again, "you will apologize."

And so at last in a voice so low as to be barely audible, Saul
Kieff, from whose sneer all women shrank as from the sting of a
scorpion, made unreserved apology to the girl he had plotted to
ruin. At Burke's behest he withdrew the vile calumny he had
launched against her, and he expressed his formal regret for the
malice that had prompted it.

When Burke let him go, no one attempted to offer him help. There
was probably not a man present from whom he would have accepted it.
He slunk away like a wounded beast, staggering, but obviously
intent upon escape, and the gathering shadows of the coming night
received him.

A murmur as of relief ran round the circle of spectators he left
behind, and in a moment, as it were automatically, the general
attention was turned upon Sylvia. She was still leaning against
Kelly, her death-white face fixed and rigid. Her eyes were closed.

Burke went to her. "Come!" he said. "We will go up."

Her eyes opened. She looked straight at him, seeing none beside.
"Was that how you treated Guy?" she said.

He laid an imperative hand upon her. "Come!" he said again.

She made a movement as though to evade him, and then suddenly she
faltered. Her eyes grew wide and dark. She threw out her hands
with a groping gesture as if stricken blind, and fell straight
forward.

Burke caught her, held her for a moment; then as she sank in his
arms he lifted her, and bore her away.

CHAPTER IV

THE EVIL THING

When Sylvia opened her eyes again she was lying in the chair by the
open window where she had waited so long the previous evening. Her
first impression was that she was alone, and then with a sudden
stabbing sense of fear she realized Burke's presence.

He was standing slightly behind her, so that the air might reach
her, but leaning forward, watching her intently. With a gasp she
looked up into his eyes.

He put his hand instantly upon her, reassuring her. "All right.
It's all right," he said.

Both tone and touch were absolutely gentle, but she shrank from
him, shrank and quivered with a nervous repugnance that she was
powerless to control. He took his hand away and turned aside.

She spoke then, her voice quick and agitated. "Don't go! Please
don't go!"

He came and stood in front of her, and she saw that his face was
grim. "What is the matter?" he said. "Surely you don't object to
a serpent like that getting his deserts for once!"

She met his look with an effort. "Oh, it's not that--not that!"
she said.

"What then? You object to me being the executioner?" He spoke
curtly, through lips that had a faintly cynical twist.

She could not answer him; only after a moment she sat up, holding
to the arms of the chair. "Forgive me for being foolish!" she
said. "I--you gave me--rather a fright, you know. I've never seen
you--like that before. I felt--it was a horrible feeling--as if
you were a stranger. But--of course--you are you--just the same.
You are--really--you."

She faltered over the words, his look was so stern, so forbidding.
She seemed to be trying to convince herself against her own
judgment.

His eyes met hers relentlessly. "Yes, I am myself--and no one
else," he said. "I fancy you have never quite realized me before.
Possibly you have deliberately blinded yourself. But you know me
now, and it is as well that you should. It is the only way to an
ultimate understanding."

She blenched a little in spite of herself. "And you--and
you--once--thrashed--Guy," she said, her voice very low, sunk
almost to a whisper. "Was it--was it--was it like--that?"

He turned sharply away as if there were something intolerable in
the question. He went to the window and stood there in silence.
And very oddly at that moment the memory of Kelly's assurance went
through her that he had been fond of Guy. She did not believe it,
yet just for the moment it influenced her. It gave her strength.
She got up, and went to his side.

"Burke," she said tremulously, "promise me--please promise me--that
you will never do that again!"

He gave her a brief, piercing glance. "If he keeps out of my way,
I shan't run after him," he said.

"No--no! But even if he doesn't--" she clasped her hands hard
together--"Burke, even if he doesn't--and even though he has
disappointed you--wronged you--oh, have you no pity? Can't
you--possibly--forgive?"

He turned abruptly and faced her. "Forgive him for making love to
you?" he said. "Is that what you are asking?"

She shivered at the question. "At least you won't--punish him like
that--whatever he has done," she said.

He was looking full at her. "You want my promise on that?" he said.

"Yes, oh yes." Very earnestly she made reply though his eyes were
as points of steel, keeping her back. "I know you will keep a
promise. Please--promise me that!"

"Yes," he said drily. "I keep my promises. He can testify to
that. So can you. But if I promise you this, you must make me a
promise too."

"What is it?" she said.

"Simply that you will never have anything more to do with him
without my knowledge--and consent." He uttered the words with the
same pitiless distinctness as had characterized his speech when
dictating to Kieff.

She drew sharply. "Oh, but why--why ask such a promise of me when
you have only just proved your own belief in me?"

"How have I done that?" he said.

"By taking my part before all those horrible men downstairs." She
suppressed a hard shudder. "By--defending my honour."

Burke's face remained immovable. "I was defending my own," he
said. "I should have done that--in any case."

She made a little hopeless movement with her hands and dropped them
to her sides. "Oh, how hard you are!" she said, "How hard--and how
cruel!"

He lifted his shoulders slightly, and turned away in silence.
Perhaps there was more of forbearance in that silence than she
realized.

He did not ask her where she had been with Kelly or comment upon
the fact that she had been out at all. Only after a brief pause he
told her that they would not leave till the following day as he had
some business to attend to. Then to her relief he left her. At
least he had promised that he would not go in search of Guy!

Later in the evening, a small packet was brought to her which she
found to contain some money in notes wrapped in a slip of paper on
which was scrawled a few words.

"I have done my best with young G., but he is rather out of hand
for the present. I enclose the 'loan.' Just put it back, and
don't worry any more. Yours, D. K."

She put the packet away with a great relief at her heart. That
danger then, had been averted. There yet remained a chance for
Guy. He was not--still he was not--quite beyond redemption. If
only--ah, if only--she could have gone to Burke with the whole
story! But Burke had become a stranger to her. She had begun to
wonder if she had ever really known him. His implacability
frightened her almost more than his terrible vindictiveness. She
felt that she could never again turn to him with confidence.

That silence that lay between them was like an ever-widening gulf
severing them ever more and more completely. She believed that
they would remain strangers for the rest of their lives. Very
curiously, those three words which she had read upon the tree
served to strengthen this conviction. They were, indeed, to her as
a message from the dead. The man who had written them had ceased
to exist. Guy might have written them in the old days, but his
likeness to Guy was no more. She saw them both now with a
distinctness that was almost cruel--the utter weakness of the one,
the merciless strength of the other. And in the bitterness of her
soul she marvelled that either of them had ever managed to reach
her heart.

That could never be so again, so she told herself. The power to
love had been wrested from her. The object of her love had turned
into a monstrous demon of jealousy from which now she shrank more
and more--though she might never escape. Yes, she had loved them
both, and still her compassion lingered pitifully around the
thought of Guy. But for Burke she had only a shrinking that almost
amounted to aversion. He had slain her love. She even believed
she was beginning to hate him.

She dreaded the prospect of another long day spent at Brennerstadt.
It was the day of the diamond draw, too. The place would be a
seething tumult. She was so unutterably tired. She thought with a
weary longing of Blue Hill Farm. At least she would find a measure
of peace there, though healing were denied her. This place had
become hateful to her, an inferno of vice and destruction. She
yearned to leave it.

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