He had reached the yard, and had flung himself off the sweating animal. As she peered forth she caught sight of Curtis coming out of the stable. Beelzebub saw him too, and broke out afresh with his wild cry. This time, straining her ears to listen, she caught the words, all jumbled together though they were.
She saw Curtis stop dead, and she wondered if his heart, like hers, had ceased to beat. The next instant he moved forward, and for the first time she saw him deliberately punch the gesticulating negro's woolly head. Beelzebub cried out like a whipped dog and slunk back. Then, very calmly, Curtis took him by the scruff of his neck, and began to question him.
Sybil stood, gripping the curtain, and watched it all as one watches a scene on the stage. Somehow, though she knew herself to be vitally concerned, she felt no agitation. It was as if the blood had ceased to run in her veins.
At length she saw Curtis release the palpitating Beelzebub, and turn towards the house. Quite calmly she also turned.
"You needn't trouble to keep it from me," she said. "I know."
"I am going to him at once," was all he said.
She stood quite still, facing him; and suddenly she was conscious of a great glow pulsing through her, as though some arrested force had been set free. She knew that her heart was beating again, strongly, steadily, fearlessly.
"I am sorry," he said, "but that is out of the question. You must know it."
She answered him instantly, unhesitatingly, with some of the old, quick spirit that had won Brett Mercer's heart.
"There you are wrong. I know it to be the only thing possible for me to do."
Curtis looked at her for a second as if he scarcely knew her, and then abruptly abandoned the argument.
"I will not be responsible," he said, turning aside.
Slowly Brett Mercer raised himself and tried to peer through his swollen eyelids at the door.
"Don't bring any woman here!" he mumbled.
The effort to see was fruitless. He sank back, blind and tortured, upon the pillow. He had been taken ill at one of his own outlying farms, and here he had lain for days--a giant bereft of his strength, waiting for death.
His only attendant was a farm-hand who had had the disease, but knew nothing of its treatment, who was, moreover, afraid to go near him.