But she would not stir.  She had a feeling that Robin still wanted her.

Suddenly through the night silence there came a sound—­the hoof-beats of a galloping horse.

She turned her head and listened.  “What is that?”

As if in answer, Beelzebub’s black face appeared in the entrance.  His eyes were distended with fright.

“Missis!” he hissed in a guttural whisper.

“Here’s Boss comin’!” and disappeared again like a monstrous goblin.

Sybil glanced up at Curtis.  “Don’t let him come here!” she said.

But for once he seemed to be at a loss.  He made no response to her appeal.  While they waited, the hoofs drew steadily nearer, thudding over the grass.

“Mr. Curtis!” she said urgently.

He made a sharp, despairing gesture.  “I can’t help it,” he said.  “You must go.  For Heaven’s sake, don’t let him touch you, and burn the clothes you have on as soon as possible!  I am going to set fire to this place immediately.”

“Going to—­set fire to it?” She stared at him in surprise, still scarcely understanding.

“The poor chap is dead,” he said.  “It’s the only thing to do.”

She turned back to the face upon the pillow with its staring, sightless eyes.  She raised a pitying hand to close them, but Curtis intervened.

He drew her to her feet.  “Go!” he said.  “Go!  Keep Mercer away, that’s all!”

She heard the jingling of a horse’s bit and knew that the rider was very near.  Mechanically almost, she turned from the place of death and went to meet him.

XV

He was off his horse and striding for the entrance when she encountered him.  The starlight on his face showed it livid and terrible.  At sight of her he stopped short.

“Are you mad?” he said.

They were the identical words that Curtis had used; but his voice, hoarse, unnatural, told her that he was in a dangerous mood.

She backed away from him.  “Don’t come near me!” she said quickly.  “He—­he is just dead.  And I have been with him.”

“He?” he flung at her furiously, and she knew by his tone that he suspected the truth.

She tried to answer him steadily, but her strength was beginning to fail her.  The long strain was telling upon her at last.  She was uncertain of herself.

“It—­was Robin Wentworth,” she said.

He took a swift stride towards her.  His face was convulsed with passion.  “You came here to see that soddened cur?” he said.

She shrank away from him.  The tempest of his anger overwhelmed her.  She could not stand against it.  For the first time she quailed.

“I have seen him,” she said.  “And he is dead.  Ah, don’t—­don’t touch me!”

He paid no attention to her cry.  He seized her by the shoulders and almost swung her from his path.

“It would have been better for you,” he said between his teeth, “if he had died before you got here.  You have begun to repent already, and you’ll go on repenting for the rest of your life.”