“What are you going to do?” she cried, seeing him turn.  “Brett, don’t go in there!  Don’t!  Don’t!  You must not!  You shall not!”

In a frenzy of fear she threw herself upon him, struggling with all her puny strength to hold him back.

“I tell you he is dead!” she gasped.  “Why do you want to go in?”

“I am going to see for myself,” he said stubbornly, putting her away.

“No!” she cried.  “No!”

His eyes gleamed red with a savage fury as she clung to him afresh.  He caught her wrists, forcing her backwards.

“I don’t believe he is dead!” he snarled.

“He is!  He is!  Mr. Curtis told me so.”

“If he isn’t, I’ll murder him!” Brett Mercer vowed, and flung her fiercely from him.

She fell with violence and lay half-stunned, while he, blinded with rage, possessed by devils, strode forward into that silent place, leaving her prone.

She thought later that she must have fainted, for the next thing she knew—­and it must have been after the passage of several minutes—­was Mercer kneeling beside her and lifting her.  His touch was perfectly gentle, but she dared not look into his face.  She cowered in his arms in mortal fear.  He had crushed her at last.

“Have I hurt you?” he said.

She did not answer.  Her voice was gone.  She was as powerless as an infant.  He raised her and bore her steadily away.

When he paused finally, it was to speak to Beelzebub, who was holding the horses.  And then, without a word to her, he lifted her up on to a saddle, and mounted himself behind her.  She lay against his breast as one dazed, incapable of speech or action.  And so, with his arm about her, moving slowly through a world of shadows, they began the long, long journey back.

They travelled so for the greater part of the night, and during the whole of that time Mercer never uttered a word.  The horse he rode was jaded, and he did not press it.  Beelzebub, with the other two, rode far ahead.

It was still dark when at last they turned in to the Home Farm, and, still in that awful silence, Mercer dismounted and lifted his wife to the ground.

He set her on her feet, but her limbs trembled so much that she could scarcely stand.  He kept his arm around her, and led her into the house.

He took her to her room and left her there; but in a few minutes he returned with food on a tray which he set before her without raising his eyes, and again departed.  She did not see him again for many hours.

XVI

From sheer exhaustion she slept at last, but her sleep was broken and unrefreshing.  She turned and tossed, dozing and waking in utter weariness of mind and body till the day was far advanced.  Finally, too restless to lie any longer, she arose and dressed.

The sound of voices took her to her window before she left her room, and she saw her husband on horseback with Curtis standing by his side.  A sense of relief shot through her at sight of the latter.  She had come to rely upon him more than she knew.  While she watched, Mercer raised his bridle and rode slowly away without a backward glance.  And again she was conscious of relief.