Part 26 (1/2)
Constance looked once more at her friend; looked long and earnestly then.
”Sybil,” she cried, with swift resolution. ”Do you know what you are bringing upon yourself? Do you want to go mad, and so be at the mercy of John Burrill? It is what will come upon you if you don't throw off this torpor. Your eyes are as dry as if tears were not meant to relieve the overburdened heart. Let your tears flow; shake off this lethargy; battle royally for your life; it is worth more than his; do not let him put your reason to flight, and so conquer. Sybil! Sybil!”
The words ended in a sobbing cry, but Sybil only gazed dumbly, and then looked helplessly about her.
”There, there, Conny,” she said at last, as if soothing a hurt child; ”don't mind me. It's true my life is worth more than his, but--I can't cry, I don't _feel_ like crying.”
”Then laugh,” cried Constance desperately; ”laugh and defy your tormentor; harden your heart if you must, but don't let it break.”
”I won't,” said Sybil, with quiet emphasis. ”Now come and see my diamonds, Con.”
She crossed the room as she spoke, bent over a dressing case, and came back with a tray of sparkling newly set jewels.
”Bah!” she said, as she dropped the glittering things one by one into her friend's lap. ”How I loved their glitter once, and how I envied you your treasure of jewels; now you have lost your treasure, and I have no more love for mine.”
Constance laughed oddly, as she bent to recover her hat from the floor, where it had lain during their interview.
”Secret for secret, Sybil,” she said, with forced gaiety. ”I have one little secret of mine own, and I am inclined to tell it you, because I know you can appreciate it, and can keep it; and I choose to have it kept. Bend down your head, dear, walls may have ears. Listen.”
Sybil bent her dark head, and Constance whispered a few short sentences that caused her to spring up erect and excited.
”Constance! you are not jesting?”
”Honestly no. I have told you the truth, plain and unvarnished.”
Sybil stood as if transfixed with surprise, or some sudden inspiration.
”Why, how amazed you look, dear; after all it's an old, old trick, and easily played. Come, don't stare at me any longer; put away your diamonds and come below with me, my ponies must be dying with impatience, and I am anxious to avoid our mutual foe, for I make common cause with you, dear, and I have told you my secret, that we may be in very truth, fellow conspirators. Make my adieus to the family, and be sure and come to me just as you used; if your ogre insists upon coming, trust me to freeze him into an earnest desire to be in a warmer and more congenial place. Courage, _mon ami_, somehow we must win the battle.”
Sybil took the diamonds from her hands and put them away, with far more care than she had displayed in bringing them forth; then she followed her friend from the room, closing and carefully locking the door behind her.
Constance observed the unusual caution, but made no comment. Only when many days after she remembered that day she wondered how she could have been so stupidly blind.
She effected her departure without being seen by Frank or Burrill, and drove homeward, revolving in her mind various plots for the confusion of the latter, and plans for awakening Sybil from the dangerous melancholy that would surely unseat her reason.
”If I could only move her to tears,” she murmured, ”only break that frozen calm once. How can I touch, move, melt her? It must be done.” And pondering this difficult task, she drove slowly on.
”I wonder if I blundered in telling her my secret,” she mused. ”I know she will keep it; and yet, somehow, I fear I was too hasty. One would think it had grown too big for me to keep. But, pshaw! it's not a life and death matter, and I wanted to give a new impulse to that poor child's thoughts. But I must try and cure myself of this impulsiveness, just as if it were not 'bred in the bone,' for it was an impulse that made me whisper my secret to Sybil; and once, it has got me into serious trouble.” And her brow darkened, as she thought of the feud thus raised between herself and Doctor Heath.
While she was thus pondering, Sybil Burrill had hurried back to her own room, locked herself in, and with hands clasped and working nervously, was pacing restlessly up and down, as Constance had done a little earlier.
”It's the only way,” she muttered between shut teeth, ”the only possible way.” And then she unlocked the dressing case, took out her jewels once more, handling them with greatest care. She spread them out before her, and resting her elbows on the dressing table, and her chin in the palm of one slender hand, gazed and thought with darkening brow and compressed lips; and with now and then a shudder, and a startled glance behind and about her.
”It's the only way,” she repeated. ”They have left me but one weapon, and it's _for my life_;” and the lips set themselves in hard lines, and the dark eyes looked steely and resolute. What wild purpose was taking shape in the tortured brain of Sybil Burrill? planted there by the impulsive revelation of Constance Wardour.
While the lurid light yet shone from her eyes, there came a tap upon the door, and then Mrs. Lamotte's voice called:
”Sybil, are you there?”
”Yes, mamma.”