Part 31 (1/2)

Once the veil partly lifted, and he saw, as through a mist, Mrs. Burke standing defiantly before a man who slunk away out of the room while she turned quickly and came to the couch where he was lying and bent over him. As in a dream he felt her cool hand touch his brow and her face come close to him.

”Oh, why? Why?” he heard her whisper. ”Why have you come into my life--now--to bring love to me? Better if I were dead; but I cannot let you go, I cannot! Oh, my love, why have you come so late to me?”

Her lips were pressed to his, her arms encircled his neck, and as he thrilled at her touch, at her voice, at her presence, he essayed to answer her. But he had no strength even to move his lips in response to her kiss, no power to raise a hand. It was as though his will no longer had control over his muscles, as though his consciousness were something apart from his body, something floating in s.p.a.ce, voiceless, nerveless, motionless, apart from himself, apart from all save the love she had for him, and the love he had for her.

And in the glamour of that love, the bare knowledge that he existed at all faded away, until he was as one enveloped in a mist through which neither sight nor sound could penetrate.

The sunlight was streaming around him when next he remembered. He was lying in a bed in an unfamiliar room. By his side the doctor was standing. His first memory was of the stifled cry which had come to him as he stepped on to the verandah.

”Ah, you're awake again, are you?” the doctor said cheerily. ”Well, how do you feel now?”

”Where am I?” Durham asked weakly.

”Oh, you're where you're all right, if you feel all right. Do you?”

”I'm--this isn't the hut.”

He glanced round the room which was at once strange and familiar to him.

”Don't you remember leaving there? You ought to. Don't you remember how we got you into the waggonette? When we put you on the blankets? Just think. You're at Waroona Downs. Mrs. Burke brought you.”

”But I--how did I get here?” Durham repeated, glancing again round the room. Then it was that the memory of the cry forced itself to the front.

”Who was it?” he asked. ”Who was it?”

Another figure joined the doctor, and Mrs. Burke looked down at him.

”Who was what?” the doctor asked.

”That cry--the cry I heard,” Durham replied.

”There was no cry,” the doctor said. ”You've been dreaming.”

Durham looked from one to the other. As his eyes rested on Mrs. Burke's, vaguely there came to him the visionary recollection of her kneeling beside him with her arms around him and her lips pressed to his.

”Dreaming?” he said slowly. ”Dreaming? Was it all dreaming?”

He was looking straight into her eyes, as he spoke, forgetful of the doctor's presence, watching for the return of the soft love-light which had filled her eyes in that memoried scene. But no love-light shone from them. They were unmoved, cold in their grey-blue depths almost to hardness.

”Listen to me, my lad,” the doctor said briskly. ”The drive in from Taloona shook you up a bit, they tell me. Made you delirious, so that they had to keep you on the sofa all night watching you. That's where I found you when I got here at dawn. But you'll be all right now, I fancy, if you keep quiet and don't think about things that never happened.

You're at Waroona Downs in bed, and Mrs. Burke and that old idiot of a doddering Irishman are looking after you. That's all you've got to remember.”

”Except to get well,” Mrs. Burke added.

”Yes, except to get well; and I reckon your nurse will see to that. I'll call in again to-morrow or the next day. But remember--no more dreams.”

CHAPTER XIII

REVENGE IS SWEET