Hours passed before Ann could sleep, and then her slumber was broken, her rest harried by weird dreams, her half-waking periods crammed with disturbing fantasies. When broad daylight came, she rose and drew down the shades of her window and after she had listened to the birds, to the sounds of the awakening town, to the passing of a train, rest came and until nearly noon she slept heavily.
She came to herself possessed by a queer sense of unreality and it was moments before she could determine its source. Then the events of the evening and night swept back to her intelligence and she closed her eyes, feeling sick and worn.
Restlessness came upon her finally and she arose, dressed, went downstairs and forced herself to eat. Several others were in the dining room and two men sat with her at table. She was conscious that the talk, which had been loud, diminished when she entered and that those nearest her were evidently uncomfortable, embarrassed, glad to be through and gone.
When Nora, the waitress, took her order, Ann saw that the girl eyed her curiously, possibly sympathetically, and, while that quality could not help but rouse an appreciation in her, she shrank from the thought that this whole strange little town was eying her, wondering about her, dissecting her as she suffered in its midst and even through her loyalty to her husband crept a hope that her true identity might remain secret.
She left the table and started for the stairway, when the boy who had given her her room the night before came out of the office. He had not expected to see her. He stopped and flushed and stammered.
"You ... last night ... you said you might ... that is, do you want th' automobile, ma'am?"
"I shan't want to go out to-day," Ann answered him, forcing her voice to steadiness. "I have changed my mind."
Then, she went swiftly up the stairs.
She knew that the youth knew at least a part of her reason for altering her plans. She knew that within the hour all Yavapai would know that she was not going to the Sunset mine because Ned Lytton was drunk and hurt, and she felt like crying aloud to relieve the distress in her heart.
Her room was hot, its smallness was unbearable and, putting on her hat, she went down the stairs, out of the hotel and, looking up and down the main street, struck off to the left, for that direction seemed to offer the quickest exit from the town.
Ann walked swiftly along the hard highway, head down until she had left the last buildings behind. Then she lifted her chin and drew a deep breath of the fine mountain air and for the first time realized the immensity of the surrounding country. Sight of it brought a little gasp of wonder from her and she halted and turned slowly to look about.
The town was set in the northern edge of a huge valley which appeared to head in abruptly rising hills not so far to the westward. But to the south and eastward it swept on and out, astonishing in its apparent smoothness, its lavish colorings. Northward, its rise was more decided and not far from the town clumps of brush and scant low timber dotted the country, but out yonder there appeared to be no growth except the grass which, where it grew in rank patches, bowed before the breeze and flashed silver under the brilliant sun. The distances were blue and inviting. She felt as though she would like to start walking and walk and walk, alone under that high blue sky.
She strolled on after that and followed the wagon track an hour. Then, bodily weariness asserted itself and she rested in the shade of a low oak scrub, twining grass stalks with nervous fingers.
"I would have said that a country like this would have inspired anybody," she said aloud after a time. "But he's the same. He's small, he's small!"
Vindictiveness was about her and her tone was bitter.
"Still," she thought, "it may not be too late. That other man ... is as big as this...."
When she had rested and risen and gone a half mile back toward Yavapai, she repeated aloud:
"As big as this...."
A great contrast that had been! Bruce Bayard, big, strong, controlled, clean and thinking largely and clearly; Ned Lytton, little, weak, victim of his appetites, foul and selfish. She wondered rather vaguely about Bayard. Was he of that country? Was he the lover of some mountain girl? Was he, possibly, the husband? No, she recalled that he had said that he lived alone.... Well, so did she, for that matter!
Scraps of Bayard's talk the night before came back to her and she pondered over them, twisting their meanings, wondering if she had been justified in the relief his assurances gave her. There, alone in the daylight, they all seemed very incredible that she should have opened her heart, given her dearest confidences to that man. As she thought back through the hour, she became a trifle panicky, for she did not realize then that to have remained silent, to have bottled her emotions within herself longer would have been disastrous; she had reached Yavapai and the breaking point at the same hour, and, had not Bayard opportunely encountered her, she would have been forced to talk to the wheezing hotel proprietor or Nora, the waitress, or the first human being she met on the street ... someone, anyone! Then, abruptly changing her course of thought, she reminded herself of the strangeness of the truth that not once had it occurred to her to worry over the fact that her husband, in an unconscious condition, had been taken away, she knew not where, by this stranger. The faith she had felt in Bayard from the first prevailed. She faced the future with forebodings; about the present condition of Ned Lytton she did not dare think. A comforting factor was the conviction that everything was being done for him that she could do and more ... for she always had been helpless.
She breathed in nervous exasperation at the idea that everything she saw, talked about, thought or experienced came back to impress her further with the hopelessness of the situation, then told herself that fretting would not help; that she must do her all to make matters over, that she must make good her purpose in coming to this new place.
As she neared the town again, she saw the figure of a man approaching. He walked slowly, with head down, and his face was wholly shaded by the broad brim of his felt hat. His hands were behind his back and the aimlessness of his carriage gave evidence of deep thought.
When the woman was about to pass him, he turned back toward town without looking up and it was the scuffing of her shoe that attracted him. He faced about quickly at the sound and stared hard at Ann. The stare was not offensive. She saw first his eyes, black and large and wonderfully kind; his hair was white; his shaven lips gentle. Then she observed that he wore the clothing of a clergyman.
His hand went to his hat band, after his first gaze at her, and he smiled.
"How-do-you-do?" he said, with friendly confidence.
Ann murmured a greeting.
"I didn't know anyone was on the road. I was thinking rather fiercely, I guess."
He started to walk beside her and Ann was glad, for he was of that type whose first appearance attracts by its promise of friendship.
"I've been thinking, too," she answered. "Thinking, among other things what a wonderful country this is. I'm from the East, I suppose it is not necessary to say, and this is my first look at your valley."
"Manzanita is a great old sweep of country!" he exclaimed, looking out over it. "That valley is a good thing to look at when we think that human anxieties are mighty matters."
He smiled, and Ann looked into his face with a new interest and said:
"I should think that such an influence as this is would tend to lessen those anxieties; that it would tend to make the people who live near it big, as it is big."
He looked away and shook his head slowly.
"I hold that theory, too, sometimes ... in my most optimistic hours. But the more I see of the places in which men live, the closer I watch the way we humans react to our physical environments, the less faith I have in it. Some of the biggest, rarest souls I know have developed in the meanest localities and, on the other hand, some of the worst culls of the species I've ever seen have been products of countries so big that they would inspire most men. Perhaps, though, the big men of the small places would have been bigger in a country like this; possibly, those who are found wanting out here would fall even shorter of what we expect of them if they were in less wonderful surroundings."
He paused a moment and then continued: "It may be a myth, this tradition of the bigness of mountain men; or the impression may thrive because, out here, we are so few and so widely scattered that we are the only people who get a proper perspective on one another. That would be a comfortable thing to believe, wouldn't it? It would mean, possibly, that if we could only remove ourselves far enough from any community we would appreciate its virtues and be able to overlook its vices. I'd like to believe without qualification that a magnificent creation like this valley would lift us all to a higher level; but I can't. Some of your enthusiastic young men who come out from the East and write books about the West would have it that these specimens of humanity which thrive in the mountains and deserts are all supermen, with only enough rascals sprinkled about to serve the purposes of their plots. That, of course, is a fallacy and it may be due to the surprising point of view which we find ourselves able to adopt when we are removed far enough by distance or tradition from other people. We have some splendid men here, but the average man in the mountains won't measure up to where he will overshadow the average man of any other region ... I believe. We haven't so many opportunities, perhaps, to show our qualities of goodness and badness ... although some of us can be downright nasty on occasion!"
He ended with an inflection which caused Ann to believe that he was thinking of some specific case of misconduct; she felt herself flush quickly and became suddenly fearful that he might refer directly to Ned. Last night she had poured her misery into a stranger's ears; to-day she could not bear the thought of further discussing her husband's life or condition; she shrank, even, from the idea of being associated with him in the minds of other people and in desperation she veered the subject by asking,
"Is it populated much, the valley, I mean?"
"Not yet. Cattle and horse and some sheep ranches are scattered about. One outfit will use up a lot of that country for grazing purposes, you know. Someday there'll be water and more people ... and less bigness!"
He told her more of the valley, stopping now and then to indicate directions.
"I came from over there yesterday," he said, facing about and pointing into the westward. "Had a funeral beyond those hills. Stopped for dinner with a young friend of mine whose ranch is just beyond that swell yonder.... Fine boy; Bayard, Bruce Bayard."
Ann wanted to ask him more about the rancher, but somehow she could not trust herself; she felt that her voice would be uncertain, for one thing. Some unnamed shyness, too, held her from questioning him now.
They stopped before the hotel and the man said:
"My name is Weyl. I am the clergy of Yavapai. If you are to be here long, I'm sure Mrs. Weyl would like to see you. She is in Prescott for a week or two now."
He put out his hand, and, as she clasped it, Ann said, scarcely thinking:
"I am Ann Lytton. I arrived last night and may be here some time."
She saw a quick look of pain come into his readable eyes and felt his finger tighten on hers.
"Oh, yes!" he said, in a manner that made her catch her breath. "I know.... Your brother, isn't it, the young miner?"
At that the woman started and merely to escape further painful discussion, unthinkingly clouding her own identity, replied,
"Ned, you mean ... yes...."
"Well, if you're to be here long we will see you, surely. And if there's anything I can do for you, please ask it."
"You're very kind," she said, as she turned from him.
In her room she stood silent a moment, palms against her cheeks. Bayard's words came back to her:
"I didn't think you was married ... especially to a thing like that...."
And now this other man concluded that she could not be Ned's wife!
"I must be his wife ... hisgoodwife!" she said, with a stamp of her foot. "If he ever needed one ... it's now...."
Ned Lytton swam back to consciousness through painful half dreams. Light hurt his inflamed eyes; a horrible throbbing, originating in the center of his head, proceeded outward and seemed to threaten the solidity of his skull; his body was as though it had been mauled and banged about until no inch of flesh remained unbruised; his left forearm burned and stung fiendishly. He was in bed, undressed, he realized, and covered to the chin with clean smelling bedding. He moved his tortured head from side to side and marveled dully because it rested on a pillow.
It was some time before he appreciated more. Then he saw that the fine sunlight which hurt his eyes streamed into the room from open windows and door, that it was flung back at him by whitewashed walls and scrubbed floor. He was in someone's house, cared for without his knowing. He moved stiffly on the thought. Someone had taken him in, someone had shown him a kindness, and, even in his semi-stupor, he wondered, because, for an incalculable period, he had been hating and hated.
He did not know how Bayard had dragged a bed from another room and set it up in his kitchen that he might better nurse his patient; did not know how the rancher had slept in his chair, and then but briefly, that he might not be tardy in attending to any need during the early morning hours; did not realize that the whole program of life in that comfortable ranch house had been altered that it might center about him. He did comprehend, though, that someone cared, that he was experiencing kindness.
The sound of moving feet and the ring of spurs reached him; then a boot was set on the threshold and Bruce Bayard stepped into the room. He was rubbing his face with a towel and in the other hand was a razor and shaving brush. He had been scraping his chin in the shade of the ash tree that waved lazily in the warm breeze and tossed fantastically changing shadows through the far window. He looked up as he entered and encountered the gaze from these swollen, inflamed eyes set in the bruised face of Ned Lytton.
"Hello!" he cried in surprise. "You're awake?"
He put down the things he carried and crossed the room to the bedside.
"Yes.... For God's sake, haven't you got a drink?"—in a painful rasp.
"I have; one; just one, for you," the other replied, left the room and came back with a tumbler a third filled with whiskey. He propped Lytton's head with one hand and held the glass to his misshapen lips, while he guzzled greedily.
"More ... another ..." Lytton muttered a moment after he was back on his pillow.
"Seems to me you'd ought to know you've punished enough of this by now," the rancher said, standing with his hands on his hips and looking at the distorted expression of suffering on Lytton's face.
The sick man moved his head slightly in negation. Then, after a moment:
"How'd I get here? Who are you ... anyhow?"
"Don't you know me?"
The fevered eyes held on him, studying laboriously, and a smile struggled to bend the puffed lips.
"Sure ... you're the fellow, Nora's fellow ... the girl in the hotel. I tried to ... and she said you'd beat me up...." Something intended for a laugh sounded from his throat. The face of the man above him flushed slightly and the jaw muscles bulged under his cheek. "Where in hell am I? How'd I get here?"
"I brought you here last night. You'd gone the limit in town. Somebody tried to shoot you an' got as far's your arm. I brought you here to try to make somethin' like a man of you,"—ending with a hint of bitterness in spite of the whimsical smile with which he watched the effect of his last words.
Lytton stirred.
"Damned arm!" he muttered, thickly, evidently conscious of only physical things. "I thought something was wrong. It hurts like.... Say, whatever your name is, haven't you got another drink?"
"My name is Bayard; you know me when you're sober. You're at my ranch, th' Circle A. You've had your drink for to-day."
"May—Bayard. Say, for God's sake, Bayard, you ain't going to let me.... Why, like one gentleman to another, when your girl Nora, the waitress ... said you'd knock me ... keep away. I wasn't afraid.... Didn't know she was yours.... I quit when I knew.... Treated you like a gentleman. Now why ... don't you treat me like a gentle ... give me a drink. I kept away from your wo—"
"Oh, shut up!"
The ominous quality of the carelessly spoken, half laughing demand carried even to Lytton's confused understanding and he checked himself between syllables, staring upward into the countenance of the other.
"In the first place, she's not my woman, in th' way you mean; if she was, I wouldn't stand here an' only tell you to shut your mouth when you talked about her like that. Sick as you are, I'd choke you, maybe. In th' second place, I'm no gentleman, I guess,"—with a smile breaking through into a laugh. "I'm just a kind of he-man an' I don't know much about th' way you gentlemen have dealin's with each other.
"No more booze for you to-day. Get that in your head, if you can. I've got coffee for you now an' some soup."
He turned and walked to the stove in the far corner, kicked open the draft and took a cup from the shelf above. All the while the bleared, scarce understanding gaze of the man in bed followed him as though he were trying to comprehend, trying to get the meaning of Bayard's simple, direct sentences.
After he had been helped in drinking a quantity of hot coffee and had swallowed a few spoonfuls of soup, Lytton dropped back on the pillow, sighed and, with his puffed eyes half open, slipped back into a state that was half slumber, half stupor.
Bayard took the wounded arm from beneath the cover, unwrapped the bandages, eyed the clotted tear critically and bound it up again. Then he walked to the doorway and, with hands hooked in his belt, scowled out across the lavendar floor of the treeless valley which spread before and below him, rising to blue heights in the far, far distance. He stood there a long, silent interval, staring vacantly at that vast panorama, then, moved slowly across the fenced dooryard, let himself into a big enclosure and approached a round corral, through the bars of which the sorrel horse watched his progress with alert ears. For a half hour he busied himself with currycomb and brush, rubbing the fine hair until the sunlight was shot back from it in points of golden light and all the time the frown between his brows grew deeper, more perplexed. Finally, he straightened, tapped the comb against a post to free it of dust, flung an arm affectionately about the horse's neck, caressed one of the great, flat cheeks, idly, and, after a moment, began to laugh.
"Because we set our fool eyes on beauty in distress we cross a jag-cure with a reform school an' set up to herd th' cussed thing!" he chuckled. "Abe, was there ever two bigger fools 'n you an' me? Because she's a beauty, she'll draw attention like honey draws bees; because she's in trouble an' can't hide it, she'll have everybody prospectin' round to locate her misery an' when they do, we'll be in th' middle of it all, keepin' th' worthless husband of a pretty young woman away from her. All out of th' goodness of our hearts. It won't sound good when they talk about it an' giggle, Abe. It won't sound good!" And then, very seriously,
"How 'n hell could she marry a ... thing like that?"
During the day Lytton roused several times and begged for whiskey, incoherently, scarce consciously, but only once again did Bayard respond with stimulants. That was late evening and, after the drink, the man dropped off into profound slumber, not to rouse from it until the sun again rose above the hills and once more flooded the room with its glorious light. Then, he looked up to see Bayard smiling seriously at him, a basin and towel in his hands.
"You're a good sleeper," he said. "I took a look at your pinked arm an' you didn't even move; just cussed me a little."
The other smiled, this time in a more human manner, for the swelling had partly gone from his lips and his eyes were nearer those of his species.
"Now, sit up," the cowman went on, "an' get your face washed, like a good boy."
Gently, swiftly, thoroughly, he washed Lytton's face and neck in water fresh from the well under the ash tree, and, when he had finished, he took the sick man in the crook of his big, steady arm, lifted him without much effort and placed him halfway erect against the re-arranged pillows.
"Would you eat somethin'?" he asked, and for the first time that day his patient spoke.
"Lord, yes! I'm starved,"—feebly.
Bayard brought coffee again and eggs and stood by while Lytton consumed them with a weak show of relish. During this breakfast only a few words were exchanged, but when the dishes were removed and Bayard returned to the bed with a glass of water the other stared into his face for the space of many breaths.
"Old chap, you're mighty white to do all this," he said, and his voice trembled with earnestness. "I ... I don't believe I've ever spoken to you a dozen times when I was sober and yet you.... How long have you been doing all this for me?"
"Only since night before last," Bayard answered, with a depreciating laugh. "It's no more 'n any man would do for another ... if he needed it."
Lytton searched his face seriously again.
"Oh, yes, it is," he muttered, with a painful shake of his head. "No one has ever done for me like this, never since I was a little kid....
"I ... I don't blame 'em; especially the ones out here. I've been a rotter all right; no excuse for it. I ... I've gone the limit and I guess whoever tried to shoot me was justified ... I don't know,"—with a slow sigh—"how much hell I've raised.
"But ... but why did you do this for me? You've never seen me much; never had any reason to like me."
The smile went from Bayard's eyes. He thought "I'm doing this not for you, but for a woman I've seen only once...." What he said aloud was: "Why, I reckoned if somebody didn't take care of you, you'd get killed up. I might just as well do it as anybody an' save Yavapai th' trouble of a funeral."
They looked at one another silently.
"A while ago ... yesterday, maybe ... I said something to you about a, about a woman," the man said, and an uneasiness marked his expression. "I apologize, Old Man. I don't know just what I said, but I was nasty, and I'm sorry. A ... a man's woman is his own affair; nobody's else."
"You think so?" The question came with a surprising bluntness.
"Why, yes; always."
Bayard turned from the bedside abruptly and strode across the floor to the table where a pan waited for the dirty dishes, rolling up his sleeves as he went, face troubled. Lytton's eyes followed him, a trifle sadly at first, but slowly, as the other worked, a cunning came into them, a shiftiness, a crafty glitter. He moistened his lips with his tongue and stirred uneasily on his pillow. Once, he opened his mouth as though to speak but checked the impulse. When the dishpan was hung away and Bayard stood rolling down his sleeves, Lytton said:
"Old man, yesterday you gave me a drink or two. Can't ... haven't you any left this morning?"
"I have," the rancher said slowly, "but you don't need it to-day. You did yesterday, but this mornin' you've got some grub in you, you got somethin' more like a clear head, an' I don't guess any snake juice would help matters along very fast. There's more coffee here an' you can fill up on that any old time you get shaky."
"Coffee!" scoffed the other, a sudden weak rage asserting itself. "What th' hell do I want of coffee? What I need's whiskey! Don't you think I know what I want? Lord, Bayard, I'm a man, ain't I? I can judge for myself what I want, can't I?"
"Yesterday, you said you was a gentleman," Bayard replied, reminiscently, his tone lightly chaffing, "an' I guess that about states your case. As for you knowin' what you want ... I don't agree with you; judgin' from your past, anyhow."
The man in the bed bared his teeth in an unpleasant smile; two of the front teeth were missing, another broken, result of some recent fight, and with his swollen eyes he was a revolting sight. As he looked at him, Bayard's face reflected his deep disgust.
"What's your game?" Lytton challenged. "I didn't ask you to bring me here, did I? I haven't asked any favors of you, have I? You ... You shanghaied me out to your damned ranch; you keep me here, and then won't even give me a drink out of your bottle. Hell, any sheepherder'd do that for me!
"If you think I'm ungrateful for what you've done—sobered me up, I mean—just say so and I'll get out. That was all right. But what was your object?"
"I thought by bringing you out here you might get straightened up. I did it for your own good. You don't understand right now, but you may ... sometime."
"My own good! Well, I've had enough for my own good, now, so I guess I won't wait any longer to understand!"
He kicked off the covers and stood erect, swaying dizzily. Bayard stepped across to him.
"Get back into bed," he said, evenly, with no display of temper. "You couldn't walk to water an' you couldn't set on a horse five minutes. You're here an' you're goin' to stay a while whether you like it or not."
The cords of his neck stood out, giving the only evidence of the anger he felt. He gently forced the other man back into bed and covered him, breathing a trifle swiftly but offering no further protest for explanation.
"You keep me here by force, and then you prate about doing it for my own good!" Lytton panted. "You damned hypocrite; you.... It's on account of a woman, I know! She tried to get coy with me; she tried to make me think she was all yours when I followed her up. She told you about it and ... damn you, you're afraid to let me go back to town!"—lifting himself on an elbow. "Come, Bayard, be frank with me: the thing between us is a woman, isn't it?"
The rancher eyed him a long time, almost absently. Then he walked slowly to the far corner of the room and moved a chair back against the wall with great pains; it was as though he were deciding something, something of great importance, something on which an immediate decision was gravely necessary. He faced about and walked slowly back to the bedside without speaking. His lips were shut and the one hand held behind him was clenched into a knot.
"Not now ... a woman," he said, as though he were uncertain himself. "Not now ... but it may be, sometime...."
The other laughed and fell back into his pillows. Bayard looked down at him, eyes speculative beneath slightly drawn brows.
"And then," he added, "if it ever comes to that...."
He snapped his fingers and turned away abruptly, as if the thought brought a great uneasiness.
It was afternoon the next day that Bruce Bayard, swinging down from his horse, whipped the dust from his clothing with his hat and walked through the kitchen door of the Manzanita House.
"Hello, Nora," he said to the girl who approached him. "Got a little clean water for a dirty cow puncher?"
He kicked out of his chaps and, dropping his hat to the floor, reached for the dipper. The girl, after a brief greeting, stood looking at him in perplexed speculation.
"What's wrong, Sister? You look mighty mournful this afternoon!"
"Bruce, what do you know about Ned Lytton?" she asked, cautiously, looking about to see that no one could overhear.
"Why? What doyouknow about him?"
"Well, his wife's here; you took him upstairs with you that night dead drunk, you went home and he was gone before any of us was up. She ... she's worried to fits about him. Everybody's tryin' to put her off his track, 'cause they feel sorry for her; they think he's probably gone back to his mine to sober up, but nobody wants to see her follow and find out what he is. Nobody thinks she knows how he's been actin'.
"You know, they think that she's his sister. I don't."
He scooped water from the shallow basin and buried his face in the cupped hands that held it, rubbing and blowing furiously.
"That's what I come to town for, Nora, because I suspected she'd be worryin'." To himself he thought, "Sister! That helps!"
"You mean, you know where he is?"
"Yeah,"—nodding his head as he wiped his hands—"I took him home. I got him there in bed an' I come to town th' first chance I got to tell her he's gettin' along fine."
"That was swell of you, Bruce," she said, with an admiring smile.
He shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.
"Yes, it was!" she insisted. "To do it for her. She's th' sweetest thing ever come into this town, an' he's...."
She ended by making a wry face.
"You had a run-in with him, didn't you?" he asked, as if casually, and the girl looked at him sharply.
"How'd you know?"
"He's been kind of nutty an' said somethin' about it."
A pause.
"He come in here last week, Bruce, drunk. He made a grab for me an' said somethin' fresh an' he was so crazy, so awful lookin', that it scart me for a minute. I told him to keep away or you'd knock all th' poison out of him. He ... You see,"—apologetically—"I was scart an' I knew that was th' easiest way out—to tell him you'd get after him. You ... Th' worst of 'em back up when they think you're likely to land on 'em."
He reached out and pinched her cheek, smiled and shook his head with mock seriousness.
"Lordy, Sister, you'd make me out a hell-winder of a bad man, wouldn't you?"
"Not much! 'N awful good man, Bruce. That's what puts a crimp in 'em—your goodness!"
He flushed at that.
"Tryin' to josh me now, ain't you?" he laughed. "Well, josh away, but if any of 'em get fresh with you an' I'll ... I'll have th' sheriff on 'em!"—with a twinkle in his gray eyes. Then he sobered.
"I s'pose I'd better go up to her room now," he said, an uneasy manner coming over him. "She'll be glad to know he's gettin' along so well....
"So everybody thinks she's his sister, do they?"—with an effort to make his question sound casual and as an afterthought.
"Yes, they do. I'm th' only one who's guessed she's his wife an' I kept my mouth shut. Rest of 'em all swear she couldn't be, that's she's his sister, 'cause she ... well, she ain't th' kind that would marry a thing like that. I didn't say nothin'. I let 'em think as they do; but I know! No sister would worry th' way she does!"
"You're a wise gal," he said, "an' when you said she was th' sweetest thing that ever come to this town you wasn't so awful wrong."
He opened the door and closed it behind him.
In the middle of the kitchen floor the girl stood alone, motionless, her eyes glowing, pulses quickened. Then, the keen light went from her face; its expression became doggedly patient, as if she were confronted by a long, almost hopeless undertaking, and with a sigh she turned to her tasks.
Patient Nora! As Bayard had closed the door behind him unthinkingly, so had he closed the door to his heart against the girl. All her crude, timid advances had failed to impress him, so detached from response to sex attraction was his interest in her. And for months she had waited ... waited, finding solace in the fact that no other woman stood closer to him; but now ... she feared an unnamed influence.
Ann Lytton, staring at the page of a book, heard his boots on the stair. He mounted slowly, spurs ringing lightly with each step, and, when he was halfway up, she rose to her feet, walked to the door of her room and stood watching him come down the narrow, dark hallway, filling it with his splendid height, his unusual breadth.
They spoke no greeting. She merely backed into the room and Bruce followed with a show of slight embarrassment. Yet his gaze was full on her, steady, searching, intent. Only when she stopped and held out her hand did his manner of looking at her change. Then, he smiled and met her firm grasp with a hand that was cold and which trembled ever so slightly.
"He ... is he ..." she began in an uncertain voice.
"He's doin' fine, ma'am," he said, and her fingers tightened on his, sending a thrill up his arm and making its muscles contract to draw her a bit closer to him. "He's doin' fine," he repeated, relinquishing his grasp. "He's feelin' better an' lookin' better an' he'll begin to gain strength right off."
An inarticulate exclamation of gladness broke from her.
"Oh, it's been an age!" she said, smiling wanly and shaking her head slowly as she looked up into his face. "Every hour has seemed a day, every day a week. I didn't dare, didn't dare think; and I've hoped so long, with so little result that I didn't dare hope!"
She bowed her head and held her folded hands against her mouth. For a moment they were so, the cowboy looking down at her with a restless, covetous light in his eyes and it was the impulsive lifting of one hand as though he would stroke the blue-black braids that roused her.
"Come, sit down," she said, indicating a chair opposite hers by the open window. "I want you to tell me everything and I want to ask you if it isn't best that I go to him now.
"Now, from the beginning, please!"
He looked into her eyes as though he did not hear her words. Her expression of eager anticipation changed; her look wavered, she left off meeting his gaze and Bayard, with a start, moved in his chair.
"There ain't much to tell," he mumbled. "I got him home easy enough an' sent th' team back that day by a friend of mine who happened along...."
Her eyes returned to his face, riveting there with an impersonal earnestness that would not be challenged. Her red lips were parted as she sat with elbows on knees in the low rocker before him. It was his gaze, now, that wavered, but he hastened on with his recital of what he thought best to tell about what had occurred at his ranch in the last two days.
From time to time he glanced at her and on every occasion the mounting appreciation of her beauty, the unfaltering earnestness of her desire to learn every detail about her husband, the wonder that her sort could remain devoted to Ned Lytton's kind, combined to enrage him, to make him rebel hotly, even as he talked, at thought of such impossible human relations, and he was on the point of giving vent to his indignation when he remembered with a decided shock that on their first meeting she had told him that she loved her husband. Beyond that, he reasoned, nothing could be said.
"He's awful weak, of course, but he was quiet," he concluded. "I left him sleepin' an' I'll get back before he rouses up, it's likely."
"Well, don't you think I might go back with you?" she asked, eagerly. "Don't you think he's strong enough now, so I might be with him?"
He had expected this and was steeled against it.
"Why, you might, ma'am, if things was different," he said. "It's sort of rough out there; just a shack, understand, an' you've never lived that kind of life. There's only one room, an' I...."
"Oh, I hadn't thought of crowding you out! Please don't think I'd overlook your own comfort."
Her regret was so spontaneous, that he stirred uneasily, for he was not accustomed to lying.
"Not at all, ma'am. Why, I'd move out an' sleep in th' hills for you, if I knew it was best ... for you!"
The heart that was in his voice startled her. She sat back in her chair.
"You've been very kind ... so kind!" she said, after a pause.
He fidgetted in his chair and rose.
"Nobody could help bein' kind ... to you, ma'am," he stammered. "If anybody was anything but kind to you they deserve...."
He realized of a sudden that the man for whose sake she was undergoing this ordeal had been cruel to her, and checked himself. Because bitterness surged up within him and he felt that to follow his first impulses would place him between Ann Lytton and her husband, aligned against the man in the rôle of protector.
She divined the reason for his silence and said very gently,
"Remember the cripples!"
He turned toward her so fiercely that she started back, having risen.
"I'm tryin' to!" he cried, with a surprising sharpness. "Tryin' to, ma'am, every minute; tryin' to remember th' cripples."
He looked about in flushed confusion. Ann stared at him.
His intensity frightened her. The men of her experience would not have presumed to show such direct interest in her affairs on brief acquaintance. A deal of conventional sparring and shamming would have been required for any of them to evince a degree of passion in the discussion of her predicament; but this man, on their second meeting, was obviously forced to hold himself firmly, restraining a natural prompting to step in and adjust matters to accord with his own sense of right. The girl felt instinctively that his motives were most high, but his manner was rough and new; she was accustomed to the usual, the familiar, and, while her confidence in Bayard had been profoundly aroused, her inherent distrust of strangeness caused her to suspect, to be reluctant to accept his attitude without reserve. Looking up at her he read the conflict in her face.
"I'd better go now," he added in a voice from which the vigor had gone. "I..."
"But you'll let me know about Ned?" she asked, trying to rally her composure.
"I'll come to-morrow, ma'am," he promised.
"That'll be so kind of you!"
"You don't understand, maybe, that it's no kindness to you," he said. "It might be somethin' else. Have you thought of that? Have you thought, ma'am, that maybe I ain't th' kind of man I'm pretendin' to be?"
Then, he walked out before she could answer and she stood alone, his words augmenting the disquiet his manner had aroused. She moved to the window, anxiously waiting to see him ride past. He did, a few minutes later, his head down in thought, his fine, flat shoulders braced backward, body poised splendidly, light, masterly in the saddle, the wonderful creature under him moving with long, sure strides. The woman drew a deep breath and turned back into the room.
"I mustn't ... I mustn't," she whispered.
Then wheeled quickly, snatched back the curtains and pressed her cheek against the upper panes to catch a last glimpse of him.
Next day Bayard was back and found that the hours Ann had spent alone had taken their toll and she controlled herself only by continual repression. He urged her to talk, hoping to start her thinking fresh thoughts, but she could think, then, only of the present hour. Her loneliness had again broken down all barriers. Bayard was her confessor, her talk with him the only outlet for the emotional pressure that threatened her self-control; that relief was imperative, overriding her distrust of the day before. For an hour the man listened while she gave him the dreary details of her married life with that eagerness of the individual who, for too long a period, has hidden and nursed heart-breaking troubles. She was only twenty-four and had married at twenty. A year later Ned's father had died, the boy came into sudden command of considerable property, lost his head, frittered away the fortune, drank, could not face the condemnation of his family and fled West on the pretext of developing the Sunset mine, the last tangible asset that remained. She tried to cover the entire truth there, but Bayard knew that Lytton's move was only desertion, for she told of going to work to support herself, of standing between Ned and his relatives, of shielding him from the consequences of the misadministration of his father's estate, of waiting weeks and months for word of him, of denying herself actual necessities that she might come West on this mission.
At the end she cried and Bayard felt an unholy desire to ride to his Circle A ranch and do violence to the man who had functioned in this woman's life as a maker of misery. But he merely sat there and put his hands under his thighs to keep them from reaching out for the woman, to comfort her, to claim a place as her protector....
The talk and tears relieved Ann and she smiled bravely at him when he left; a tenderness was in her face that disturbed him.
Day after day the rancher appeared in Yavapai, each time going directly to the hotel and to Ann. Many times he talked to her in her room; often, they were seen together on the veranda; occasionally, they walked short distances. The eyes of the community were on Ann anyhow, because, being new, she was intrinsically interesting, but this regularity on the part of Bayard could not help but attract curious attention and cause gossip, for in the years people had watched him grow from a child to manhood one of the accepted facts about him had been his evident lack of interest in women. To Nora, the waitress, he had given frank, companionable attention and regarding them was a whispered tradition arising when the unknown girl arrived in Yavapai and Bruce appeared to be on intimate terms with her from the first.
But now Nora received little enough of his time. She watched his comings and goings with a growing concern which she kept in close secret and no one, unless they had watched ever so closely, would have seen the slow change that came over the brown haired girl. Her amiable bearing toward the people she served became slightly forced, her laughter grew a trifle hard, and, when Bruce was in sight, she kept her eyes on him with steady inquiry, as one who reads eagerly and yet dreads to know what is written.
One day the cattleman came from the hotel and crossed the street to the Yavapai saloon where a dozen men were assembled. Tommy Clary was there among others and, when they lined up before the bar on Bruce's arrival, feet on the piece of railroad steel that did service as footrail, Tommy, with a wink to the man at his right said:
"Now, Bruce, you're just in time to settle 'n argument. All these here otherhombresare sayin' you've lost your head an' are clean skirt crazy, an' I've been tellin' 'em that you're only tryin' to be a brother to her. Ain't that right, now? Just back me up, Bruce!"
He stood back and gestured in mock appeal, while the others leaned forward over the bar at varying degrees that they might see and grinned in silence. Bayard looked straight before him and the corners of his mouth twitched in a half smile.
"Who is this lady you're honorin' by hitchin' me up with?" he asked.
"Ho, that's good! I s'pose you don't quite comprehend our meanin'! Well, I'll help you out. This Lytton girl, sister to our hydrophobia skunk! They think you're in love, Bruce, but I stick up for you like a friend ought to. I think you're only brotherly!"
"Why, Tommy, they ought to take your word on anythin' like that," Bayard countered, turning slowly to face the other. "Th' reason th'Yavapai Argusperished was 'cause Tom Clary beat th' editor to all th' news, wasn't it?"
The laugh was on the short cowboy and he joined it heartily.
"But if that's true—that brother stuff—," he said, when he could be heard, "seems to me you're throwin' in with a fine sample of stalwart manhood!"
Then they were off on a concerted damnation of Ned Lytton and under its cover Bayard thanked his stars that Nora had been right, that Yavapai had been satisfied with jumping at the conclusion that Ann could not be her husband's wife.
"But I'll tell you, Bruce," went on Tommy, as Bayard started to leave, "if I was as pretty a fellow as you are, I'd make a play for that gal myself! If she'd only get to know me an' know 'bout my brains, it'd all be downhill an' shady. But she won't. You got th' looks; I've got th' horse power in my head. Can't we form a combination?"
"I'm sort of again' combinations ... where women are concerned," Bruce answered, and walked out before they could see the seriousness that possessed him.
On his way out of town Bayard passed two friends but did not look at them nor appear to hear their salutations. He was a mile up the road before his absorption gave way to a shake of the head and the following summing up, spoken to the jogging Abe:
"Gosh, Pardner, back there they've all got me in love with her. I had a hard time keepin' my head, when they tried to josh me about it. I ain't ever admitted it to myself, even, but has that—not admittin' it—got anything to do with it, I wonder? Does it keep it from bein' so? Why should I get hot, if it ain't true?"
When they were in sight of the ranch, he spoke again,
"How 'n th' name of God can a man help lovin' a woman like that?"
And in answer to the assertion that popped up in his mind, he cried aloud: "He ain't no man;heain't ... an' she loves him!"
He put the stallion into a high lope then, partly to relieve the stress of his thinking, partly because he suddenly realized that he had been away from the ranch many hours. This was the first time that Lytton had been up and about when he departed and he wondered if, in the interval, the man had left the ranch, had stolen a march on him, and escaped to Yavapai or elsewhere to find stimulant.
Lytton's improvement seemed to have been marked in the last two days. That forenoon, when Bayard told him he was to go to town, the man had insisted on helping with the work, though his body was still weak. He had been pleasant, almost jovial, and it was with pride that the rancher had told Ann of the results he had obtained by his care and his patience; had spoken with satisfaction in spite of the knowledge that ultimate success meant a snuffing out of the fire that burned in his heart ... the fire that he would not yet admit existed.
Arrived at the ranch, Bruce forced the sorrel against his gate, leaned low to release the fastening and went on through. He was grave of face and silent and he walked toward the house after dismounting, deep in thought, struggling with the problem of conduct which was evolving from the circumstance in which he found himself.
On the threshold, after looking into the kitchen, he stood poised a moment. Then, with a cry of anger he strode into the room, halted and looked about him.
"You damned liar!" he cried into the silence.
Ned Lytton lay across the bed, face downward, breathing muffled by the tumbled blankets, and on the floor beside him was an empty whiskey bottle.
"You liar!" Bayard said again. "You strung me this mornin', didn't you? This was why you was so crazy to help me get an early start! You coyote!"
He moved noisily across the room and halted again to survey the scene. A cupboard had been roughly emptied and the clock had been overturned when Lytton searched its shelf; in another room an old dresser stood gaping, the things it had contained in a pile on the floor, its drawers flung in a corner. Everywhere was evidence of a hurried search for a hidden thing. And that sought object was the bottle, the contents of which had sent the prostrate figure into its present state.
"You're just ... carrion!" he said, disgustedly, staring at Lytton.
Then, with set face, he undressed the man, laid him gently on the pillows and covered him well.
"God help me to remember that you're a cripple!" he muttered, and turned to straighten the disorder of his house.
An hour later Bayard drew a chair to the bedside, seated himself and frowned steadily at the sleeping man.
"I've got to remember you're a cripple ... got to," he said, over and over. "For her sake, I must. An' I can't ... trust myself near her ... I can't!"
The drunken man roused himself with a start and stared blearily, unintelligently into the other's face.
"Tha's righ', Ole Man," he mumbled. "Tha's ri'...."
With forebodings Bruce Bayard went to Ann Lytton the next day. She saw trouble on his face as he entered her room.
"What is it?" she asked, quietly, steadying herself, for she was ever ready for the worst.
He only continued to look gravely at her.
"Don't be afraid to tell me, Mr. Bayard. I can stand it; you can't hide it."
He looked at her, until he made sure that she was not speculating, that she was certain that he brought her bad news.
"Yesterday, while I was here, your husband ransacked my house an' found a quart of whiskey I had...."
"Oh! After he sent you away, making you feel..."
"You know him right well, ma'am," he interrupted. "Yes, I guess all his show of bein' himself in th' mornin' was to get me to move out so he could look for th' booze. He knew it was there; he'd been waitin' this chance, I expect."
"How awful! What a way to treat you."
He smiled. "Don't mind me, ma'am; I'm thinkin' about you."
She looked back at him bravely.
"And the other day ... when you left, you tried to make me stop thinking these kind things about you," she challenged. "You suggested that your interest in Ned and in me might not be fine."
It did not occur to either of them that at such a moment, under those conditions which they told themselves prevailed, talk and thought of their own special relations was out of place.
"I'm only doin' what I can ... for you," he assured her. "An' I guess it ain't much I can do. I'm kind of a failure at reformin' men, I guess. I want to keep on tryin', though. I,"—he moistened his lips—"I don't like to think of givin' up an' I don't like to think of turnin' him over to you like he is."
She smiled appreciatively, downing her misery for the moment, and hastened to say:
"Don't you think it would be better, if I were there now? You see, I could be with him all the time, watch him, help him over the worst days. It surely wouldn't set him back to see me now."
"And might it not be that living alone with you, away from the things he needs: good care, the comforts he's been brought up to know, the right food...."
So confused was Bayard before the conviction that he must meet this argument, that he proceeded without caution, without thought of the foundation of lies on which his separation of husband and wife rested, he burst out:
"But he has them there! Here, ma'am, he'd been seein' an' hearin' folks, he'd be tempted continually. Out there ... why, ma'am, he don't see nobody, hear nothin'. He couldn't be more comfortable. There ain't a house in Yavapai, not one this side o' Prescott, that's better fixed up. I brought out a bed for him into th' kitchen so 't would be lighter, easier for him to be watched. He ... I have sheets for him an' good beddin'. I got eggs an' fruit an' ..."
The perplexity on her face stopped him.
"But you said, you said it was too rough for a woman, that it wasn't much of a house, that it only had one room, that it ..."
One hand extended, leaning toward him, brows raised, accusing, she sought for explanation and she saw his face flood with flush, saw his chest fill.
"Well, I lied to you," he said, the lines of his body going suddenly lax as he half turned from her. "It ain't rough. It's a pretty fair outfit."
She dropped her hands until they met before her and a look of offended trust, came into her face, settling the lines about her mouth into an expression of determination.
"But why?" she asked him. "Why should you lie to me and keep me from Ned, my husband? I trusted you; I believed what you said. Why was it, Mr. Bayard?"
He turned on her, eyes burning, color running from his face.
"I'll tell you why, ma'am," he said, chokingly, as though his lungs were too full of air. "I'll tell you: It's because I didn't dare trust myself under th' same roof with you, that's why; it's because I know that if you're around me you'll be ... you'll be in danger."
"No man should tempt himself too far an' 'twould be temptin', if I was to let you come there. You don't know this country. You don't know us men ... men like I am. I don't know your kind of men myself; but we're rough, we're not nice when we want a thing. We haven't got nice manners. I tell you, ma'am, I want to help you all I can, but I've got to look out for myself, you see! Do you see that, ma'am? I thought I could see you now an' then safe enough, but I can't I guess.... This had to come out; it had to!"
A forearm half raised she stepped back from him, settling her weight to one foot. He breathed heavily twice to relieve the congestion that strained his voice.
"When I stood down there th' other night,"—gesturing toward the entrance of the hotel—"an' looked into the darkness an' saw your face there, it was like an angel ... or somethin'. It caught me in th' throat, it made my knees shake—an' they've never shook from fear or anythin' else in my life. When we set in that next room washin' out that wound, bindin' it up, I didn't give a damn if that man lived or died—"
"Oh!" she cried, and drew away another step, but he followed close, bound that she should hear, should understand.
"—If he lived or died," he repeated. "I wanted to be near you, to watch your fingers, to see th' move of your shoulders, to look at th'—th' pink of your neck through your waist, to see your lips an' your eyes an' your hair ... ma'am. I didn't give a damn about that man. It was you; your strangeness, your nerve, your sand, I wanted to see, to know about ... an' your looks. Then you said, you said he was your husband an' for a minute I wanted him to die, I did! That was a black minute, ma'am; things went round, I didn't know what was happenin'. Then, I come out of it and I realized; realized what kind of a woman you are, if you'd come clear from th' East on th' trail of a ... a ... your husband, an' speak of him as a cripple an' be as ... as wrought up over him as you was—
"I thought then, like a fool I was, that I'd be doin' somethin' fine if I took that ... that ... your husband an' made a man of him an' sent him back to you, a man!"
He gulped and breathed and his hands fell to his sides. He moved back an awkward pace.
"Well, it would,"—averting his face. The resonance had gone from his voice. "It would have been fine. It ... itwillbe fine,"—in a whisper.
"But I can't stand you around," he muttered, the tone rallying some of its strength. "I can't; I can't! I couldn't have you in th' same room in my sight. I'd keep thinkin' what he is an' what you are; comparin' you. It'd tear my heart out!
"Ma'am don't think I ain't tried to fight against this!" extending his palms pleadingly. "I've thought about you every minute since I first saw you down there 'n th' hallway. I've lied to myself, I've tried to make myself think different but I can't! I can't help it, ma'am ... an' I don't know as I would if I could, 'cause it's somethin' I never knew could be before!"
He was talking through clenched teeth now, swiftly, words running together, and the woman, a hand on her lips, gave evidence of a queer, fascinating fright.
He had said that she did not know his sort of man. He had spoken truth there. And because she did not know his breed, she did not know how to judge him now. Would he really harm her? Was he possessed of desires and urgings of which he had no control? She put those questions to herself and yet she could not make her own heart believe the very things he had told her about himself. She feared, yes; but about the quality she feared was a strong fascination. He caused her to sense his own uncurbed vitality, yet about the danger of which he talked was a compelling quality that urged her on, that made her want to know that danger intimately ... to suffer, perhaps, but to know!
"You'll let me alone, won't you, ma'am?" he continued. "You'll stay away? You'll stay right here an' give me a chance to play my hand? I'll make him or break him, ma'am! I'll send him back to you, if there's a spark of man left in him, I will; I promise you that! I will because you're th' only woman—"
"Don't!" She threw up a hand as she cried sharply, "Don't say it!"
"I will say it!" he declared, moving to her again. "I will!
"I love you, I love you! I love that lock of hair blowin' across your cheek; I love that scared look in your eyes now; I love th' way th' blood's pumpin' in your veins; I love you ... all of you. But you told me th' other night, you loved your husband. I asked you. You said you did. 'I do,' that's what you said. I know how you looked, how it sounded, when you said it, 'I do.' That's why I'm workin' with him; that's why I want to make him a man. You can't waste your lovin', ma'am; you can't!"
He stepped even closer.
"That's why you've got to keep away from me! You can't handle him alone. You can't come to my ranch to handle him because ofme. Nobody else will take him in around here. It's me or nobody. It's my way or th' old way he's been goin' until he comes to th' end.
"I promise you this. I'll watch over him an' care for him an' guard him in every way. I'll put the best I've got into bringin' him back.... An' all th' time I'll be wishin'—prayin', if I could—that a thunderbolt 'uld strike him dead! He ain't fit for you, ma'am! He's no more fit for you than ... than ...
"Hell, ma'am, there's no use talkin'! He's your husband, you've said you loved him, that's enough. But if he, if he wasn't your husband, if he ..."
He jerked open the front of his shirt, reached in and drew out his flat, blue automatic pistol.
She started back with a cry.
"Don't you be afraid of me," he cried fiercely, grasping her wrist. "Don't you ever!
"You take this gun; you keep it. It's mine. I don't want to be able to hurt him, if I should ever lose my head. Sometimes when I set there an' look at him an' hear him cussin' me, I get hot in th' head; hot an' heavy an' it buzzes. I ... I thought maybe sometime I might go crazy an' shoot him,"—with deadly seriousness. "An' I wouldn't do that, ma'am, not to yours, no matter what he might do or say to me. I brought my rifle in to-day to have th' sights fixed; they needed it an' 't would get it out of th' house. You'll keep this gun, won't you, please, ma'am?"
His pleading was as direct as that of a child and, eyes on his with a mingling of emotions, Ann Lytton reached a groping hand for the weapon. She was stunned. Her nervous weakness, his strength, the putting into words of that great love he bore for her, the suggested picture of contrast with the man between them, the conflict it all aroused in her conscience, the reasonless surging of her deepest emotions, combined to bewilder the woman. She reached out slowly to take his weapon and do his bidding, moved by a subconscious desire to obey, and all the while her eyes grew wider, her breath faster in its slipping between her parted lips.
Her fingers touched the metal, warmed by his body heat, closed on it and her hand, holding the pistol, fell back to her side. She turned her face from him and, with a palm hard against one cheek, whispered,
"Oh, this is horrible!"
The man made a wry smile.
"I presume it is, ma'am,"—drearily, "but I can't help it, lovin' you."
"No, no, not that!" she cried. "I didn't meanthatwas horrible. It ... it isn't. The horrible thing is the rest, the whole situation."
"I know it is," he went on, heedless of her explanation, moving toward the window and looking into the street as he talked, his back to her. "I know it is, but it had to be. If I had kept from talkin' it would sort of festered in me. When a horse runs somethin' in his foot, you've got to cut th' hoof away, got to hurt him for a while, or it'll go bad with him. Let what's in there out an' gettin' along will be simple.
"That's how it was with me, you see. If I'd kept still, I'd 'a' gone sort ofloco, I might have hurt him. But now ...
"Why, now, I can just remember that you know how I feel, that you wouldn't want a man who's said he loves you to be anythin' but kind to your ... to Ned Lytton."
When he finished, the woman took just one step forward. It was an impulsive movement, as if she would run to him, throw herself on him; and her lips were parted, her throat ready to cry out and ask him to take her and forget all else but that love he had declared for her. In a flash the madness was past; she remembered that she must not forget anything because of his confession of love, rather that she must keep more firmly than ever in mind those other factors of her life, that she must stifle and throttle this yearning for the man before her which had been latent, the existence of which she had denied to herself until this hour, and which was consuming her strength now with its desire for expression.
She walked slowly to the dresser and laid his gun there, as though even its slight weight were a burden.
"I'm so sorry," she said, as though physically weak, "I'm so sorry." He turned away from the window with a helpless smile. "I don't feel right, now, in letting you do this for me. I feel ..."
"Why don't you feel right?"
"Because ... because it means that you are giving me everything and I'm giving nothing in return."
"Don't think that, ma'am," with a slow, convinced shaking of his head, "I'm doin' little enough for what I get."
"For whatyouget!"
"What I get, ma'am, is this. I can come to see you. I can look at your face, I can see your hair, I can watch you move an' hear you talk an' be near you now an' then, even if I ain't any right, even if ..."
He threw out his arms and let them fall back to his thighs as he turned from her again.
"That's what I get in exchange," he continued a moment later. "That's my pay, an' for it, I'd go through anything, thirst or hunger or cold ... anythin', ma'am. That's how much I think of you: that's why carin' for ... for that man out home ain't any job even if he is ... if you are his!"
On that, doubt, desire, again overrode her training, her traditional manner of thought. She struggled to find words, but she could not even clarify her ideas. Impressions came to her in hot, passing flashes. A dozen times she was on the point of crying out, of telling him one thing or another, but each time the thought was gone before she could seize upon and crystallize it. All she fully realized was that this thing was love, big, clean, sanctified; that this man was a natural lover of women, with a body as great, as fine as the heart which could so reveal itself to her; and that in spite of that love's quality she was helpless, bound, gagged even, by the circumstances that life had thrown about her. She would have cried out against them, denouncing it all ...
Only for the fact that that thing, conscience, handed down to her through strict-living generations, kept her still, binding her to silence, to passivity.
"I won't bother you again this way," she heard him saying, his voice sounding unreal as it forced its way through the roaring in her head. "I had to get it out of my system, or it'd have gone in some other direction; reaction, they call it, I guess. Then, somebody'd have been hurt or somethin' broken, maybe your heart,"—looking at her with his patient smile.
"I'll go back home; I'll work with him. Sometimes, I'll come to see you, if you don't mind, to tell you about ... him. You don't mind, do you?"
With an obvious effort, she shook her head. "No, I don't mind. I'll be glad to see you," she muttered, holding her self-possession doggedly.
An awkward pause followed in which Bayard fussed with the ends of the gay silk scarf that hung about his neck and shoulders.
"I guess I'd better go now," he mumbled, and picked up his hat.
"You see, I don't know what to say to you," Ann confessed, drawing a hand across her eyes. "It has all overwhelmed me so. I ... perhaps another time I can talk it over with you."
"If you think it's best to mention it again, ma'am," he said.
She extended her hand to him and he clasped it. On the contact, his arm trembled as though he would crush the small fingers in his, but the grasp went no further than a formal shake.
"In a day or two ... Ann," he said, using her given name for the first time.
He bowed low, turned quickly and half stumbled into the hall, closing the door behind him as he went.
The woman sat down on the edge of the bed weakly.
In the dining room Nora Brewster was dusting and she looked up quickly at Bayard's entrance.
"Hello, Bruce," she said, eyes fastening on him eagerly. "You're gettin' to be a frequent caller, ain't you?"
He tried to smile when he answered,
"Hardly a caller; kind of an errand boy, between bein' a nurse an' jailer."
He could not deceive the girl. She dropped her dustcloth to a chair, scanning his face intently.
"What's wrong, Bruce? You look all frazzled out."
He could not know how she feared his answer.
"Nothin'," he evaded. "He's been pretty bad an' I've missed sleep lately; that's all."
But that explanation did not satisfy Nora. She knew it was not the whole truth. She searched his face suspiciously.
"She ... his wife," he went on, steadying his voice. "It's hard on her, Nora."
"I know it is, poor thing," she replied, almost mechanically. "I talk to her every time I can, but she, she ain't my kind, Bruce. You know that. The' ain't much I can say to her. Besides, I dasn't let on that I know who she is or that you've got her husband."
Her eyes still held on his inquiringly.
"You might get her outdoors," he ventured. "Keepin' in that room day an' night, worryin' as she does, is worse 'n jail. You ... You ride a lot. Why don't you get her some ridin' clothes an' take her along? I'll tell Nate to give you an extra horse. You see...."
The girl did see. She saw his anxiety for the woman upstairs. She knew the truth then, and the thing which she had feared through those days rang in her head like a sullen tocsin. She had felt an uneasiness come into her heart with the arrival of this eastern woman, this product of another civilization with her sweetness, her charm for both her own sex and for men. And that uneasiness had grown to apprehension, had mounted as she watched the change in Bayard under Ann's influence until now, when she realized that the thing which she had hoped against for months, which she had felt impending for days, had become reality; and that she, Bayard, Ned Lytton, Ann, were fast in the meshes of circumstances that bound and shut down upon them like a net, forecasting tragedy and the destruction of hopes. Nora feared, she feared with that groundless, intuitive fear peculiar to her kind; almost an animal instinct, and she felt her heart leaping, her head becoming giddy as that warning note struck and reverberated through her consciousness. Her gaze left the man's face slowly, her shoulders slackened and almost impatiently she turned back to her work that he might not see the foreboding about her.