"From th' desert I come to theeOn a stallion shod wi—
"From th' desert I come to theeOn a stallion shod wi—
"No ... not that," he muttered. "I'll not be comin' ... on a stallion shod with fire, or anythin' else." Then he began this cruder, livelier strain:
"Foot in th' stirrup an' hand on th' horn,Best damn cowboy ever was born,"Coma ti yi youpa ya, youpa ya,Coma ti yi—
"Foot in th' stirrup an' hand on th' horn,Best damn cowboy ever was born,
"Coma ti yi youpa ya, youpa ya,Coma ti yi—
"Dog-gone bolt's too short, Abe," he muttered to the sorrel who stood within the enclosure. "Too short—
"I herded an' I hollered an' I done very well,Till th' boss says, Boys, just let 'em go to hell!"Coma ti yi—
"I herded an' I hollered an' I done very well,Till th' boss says, Boys, just let 'em go to hell!
"Coma ti yi—
"What do you see, Boy?"
As he turned to go toward the blacksmith shop, he saw the horse standing with head up and every line of his body rigid, gazing off on the valley.
"You see somebody?" he asked, and swung up on the corral for a better view.
Far out beyond and below him a lazy wisp of dust rose lightly to be trailed away by the breath of warm breeze, and, after his eyes had studied it a moment, he discerned a moving dot that he knew was horse and rider.
"Lytton didn't go that way," he muttered, as he dropped to the ground again. "No use worryin' any more, though; it's time somebody knew he was here; they will soon, an' it won't do any harm."
He swept the valley with his gaze again and shook his head. "Seems like it's in shadow all the time now," he muttered, "an' not a cloud in the sky!"
When he found a bolt of proper length and fitted it in place the horse and rider were appreciably nearer and he watched them crawl toward him a moment.
"I went to th' wagon to get my roll,To come back to Texas, dad-burn my soul;I went to th' wagon to draw my roll,Th' boss said I was nine dollars in th' hole!"Coma ti yi, youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya,Coma ti—"
"I went to th' wagon to get my roll,To come back to Texas, dad-burn my soul;I went to th' wagon to draw my roll,Th' boss said I was nine dollars in th' hole!
"Coma ti yi, youpy, youpy ya, youpy ya,Coma ti—"
He turned again to look at the approaching rider before he went into the stable. Then, for twenty minutes he was busy with hammer and saw, humming to himself, thinking of things quite other than the work at which his hands were busy.
"Is this the way you greet your visitors?"
It was Ann Lytton's voice coming from the stable doorway, and Bayard straightened slowly, turning awkwardly to look at her over his shoulder. She was flushed, flustered, uncertain for the moment just how to comport herself, but he did not notice for he was far off balance himself.
"Good-mornin', ma'am," he said, taking off his hat and stepping out from the stall in which he had been working. "What do you want here?"
His voice was pitched almost in a tone of rebuke.
"I came to see my husband," she answered, and for a moment they stared hard at one another, Bayard, as though he did not believe her, and the woman, as if conscious that he questioned the truth of her reply. Also, as if she feared he might read in her thewholetruth.
"He ought to be back soon," the rancher said, replacing his hat. "He's off for a ride. Won't you come into the house?"
They stepped outside. He saw that behind her saddle a bundle was tied. He looked from it to her inquiringly.
"I have thought it all over," she said, as if he had challenged her with words, "and I've made up my mind that my place, for the time, anyhow, is with Ned. It's best for me to be here; it's best for Ned to know and have it over with.... Have a complete understanding."
He looked away from her, failing to mark the significance of her last words or to see the fresh determination in her face.
"It had to come sometime. I expect now's about as likely a day as any," he said, gloomily, and untied the roll from her saddle. "I'll show you around th' house so you'll know where things are,"—and started across toward the shade of the ash tree.
Ann walked beside him, wanting to speak, not knowing what to say. She found no words at all, until they gained the kitchen and stood within. Bayard placed her bundle on the table.
"Do you mean that you won't be here?" she faltered.
"Well, that's th' best way," he said, looking down and rubbing the back of a chair thoughtfully.
"I can't...."
"Yes, you can,"—divining what was in her mind and interrupting. "I'll be glad to have you meet him here, ma'am. 'Twould offend me if you went away, but I think, considerin' everythin', how you've been apart so long an' all, it'd be better for me to leave you two alone. I've got business in town anyhow," he lied. "I'd have to go in either to-night or in th' mornin'. It's th' best way all round."
He did not look at her during this, could not trust himself to. He felt that to meet her gaze would mean that he would be tempted again to declare his love for her, his hatred for her husband, because this hour was another turning point for them all. For the safety of Ned Lytton to hold himself in accord with his own sense of right, it was wise for him to be away at the meeting of husband and wife; not fear for himself but of himself drove him from his hearth. He knew that Ann's eyes were on him, steady and inquiring, felt somehow that she had suddenly become mistress of the situation. Heretofore, he had dominated all their interviews. But now that eminence was gone. He was retreating from this woman and not wholly in good order, for he could not remain with her nor could he trust himself to give a true explanation of his departure.
To delay longer, to just stand there and discuss the very embarrassing situation, would be no relief, might only lead to greater discomfiture, he knew, so he said:
"All th' things to cook with are in that cupboard, ma'am,"—turning away from her to indicate. "All th' pots an' pans an' dishes are below there, on those shelves. He ... your husband knows, anyhow. He can show you round.
"In here.... This is his room."
He paused when halfway across the floor, turned and looked at her. In her eye he caught a troubled quality.
"He's been sleepin' here," he repeated, walking on and opening the door.
The woman followed and looked over his shoulder.
"But I've another room; my room, in here,"—moving to another door. "This is mine, an' as I won't be here you can use it as you ... as you want to."
Nothing in his tone or manner of speech suggested anything but the idea contained in his words, but Ann's eyes rested on his profile with a sudden gratitude, a warmth. Surprise came to her a moment later and she exclaimed,
"Oh, how fine!"
He had thrown the door back and stood aside for her to enter. Light came into the room from three windows and before the gentle breeze white curtains billowed inward. Navajo blankets covered the floor. The bed, in one corner, was spread with a gay serape and beside it was a bookcase with shelves well filled. In the center of the room stood a table and on it a reading lamp. About the walls were pictures, few in number but interesting.
At Ann's exclamation Bruce smiled broadly, pleased.
"I'm glad you like it," he said. "I do. I thought maybe you would."
"Why, it's splendid!" she cried again. "It doesn't look like a room in the house of a bachelor rancher. It doesn't look like...."
She stopped and looked up at him, puzzled, questioning so eloquently with her gaze that it was unnecessary for him to await the spoken query.
"Yes, I did it myself," he said with a flushed laugh. Their self-consciousness was relieved by the change of thought. "It's mine; all mine. You ... You're the first person to come in here, ma'am, except Tim.... He was my daddy, an' he's dead. I don't ask folks in here 'cause it's so much trouble to explain to most of 'em. They'd think I'm stuck up, with lace curtains an' all...."
He waved his hands to include the setting.
"I can live with th' roughest of 'em an' enjoy it; I can put up with anything when it's necessary, but somehow I've always wanted something different, something that'll fill a place that plenty of grub an' a hot stove don't always satisfy.
"Them curtains,"—with a chuckle—"came from th' Manzanita House. They were th' first decorations I put up. I woke up one mornin' after I'd been ... well, relieving my youth a little. I was in one of th' hotel rooms. 'Twas about this time of year an' th' wind was soft an' gentle, blowin' through th' windows like it does now, an' them curtains looked so cool an' clean an' homelike that I... Well, I just rustled three pair, ma'am!"
He laughed again and crossed the room to free one curtain that had caught itself on a protruding hook.
"Tim an' me had a great argument, when I brought 'em home. Tim, he says that if I was goin' to have curtains, I ought to go through with th' whole deal an' have gilt rods to hang 'em on. I says, no, that was goin' too far, gettin' to be too dudish, so I nailed 'em up!"
He pointed to show her the six-penny nails that held them in place, and Ann laughed heartily.
"Then, I played a little game that th' boys out here call Monte. It's played with cards, ma'am. I played with a Navajo I know—an' cards—an' he had just one kind of luck, awful bad. That's where these blankets come from,"—smiling in recollection.
All this pleased him; he saw the humor of a man of his physique, his pursuit, furnishing a room with all the pains of a girl.
"Those are good rugs. See? They're all black an' gray an' brown: natural colors. Red an' green are for tourists.
"I bought that serape from a Mexican in Sonora when I was down there lookin' around. That lamp, though, that's th' best thing I got."
He leaned low to blow the dust from its green shade with great pains, and Ann laughed outright at him.
"I never could learn to dust proper, ma'am. It don't bother me so long's I don't see it," he confessed. "A man who came out here to stay with us for his health—a teacher—brought that lamp; when he went back, he left it for me. I think a lot of it."
"You read by it?" she asked.
"Lord, yes! Those,"—waving his hand toward the books, and she walked across to inspect them, Bayard moving beside her. "He left 'em for me. He keeps sendin' me more every fall. I ... I learnt all I know out of them, an' from what he told me. It ain't much—what I know. But I got it all myself; that makes it seem more."
Ann's throat tightened at that, but she only leaned lower over the shelves. Dickens was there, and Thackeray; one or two of Scott and a broken set of Dumas. History and travel predominated, with a volume of Kipling verse and a book on mythology discovered in a cursory inspection.
"I think a lot of my books. I like 'em all.... I liked that story 'bout Oliver Twist th' best of 'em," he said, pointing to the Dickens. "Poor kid! An' old Bill Sykes! Lord, he was a hellion—a bad one, ma'am,"—correcting himself hastily. "An' Miss Sharpe this man Thackeray wrote about in his book! I'd like to know a woman like her; she sure was a slick one, wasn't she? She'd done well in th' cow business."
"Do you like these?" she asked, indicating the Scott.
"Well, sometimes," he said. "I like th' history in 'em, but, unless I got a lot of time, like winter, I don't read 'em much. I like 'Ivanhoe' pretty well any time, but in most of 'em Walt sure rounded up a lot of words!"
She smiled at that.
"This is th' best of 'em all, though," he said, drawing out Carlyle's French Revolution. "It took me all one winter to get on to th' hang of that book, but I stayed by her an' ... well, I'd rather read it now than anythin'. Funny that a man writin' so long ago could say so many things that keep right on makin' good.
"I'd like to know him," he said a moment later. "I could think up a lot of questions to ask a man like that."
He stood running over the worn, soiled pages of his "French Revolution" lost in thought and Ann, stooping before the shelves, turned her face to watch him covertly. This was the explanation of the Bruce Bayard she knew and loved; she now understood. This was why he had drawn her to him so easily. He was rough of manner, of speech, but behind it all was thought, intelligence; not that alone, but the intelligence of an intrinsically fine mind. For an unschooled man to accomplish what he had accomplished was beyond her experience.
"I liked them," he said, touching some volumes of Owen Wister. "Lord, he sure knows cowboys an' such. He wrote a story about 'nhombrecalled Jones, Specimen Jones, that makes me sore from laughin' every time I read it. It's about Arizona an' naturally hits me.
"That's why I like that picture. It's my country, too." He pointed to a print of Remington's "Fight for The Water Hole."
"That's th' way it looks—heat an' color an' distance," he said. "But when a thing's painted like that, you get more 'n th' looks. You get taste an' smell an' th' feeling. I get thirsty an' hot an' desperate every time I look at that picture very long....
"This Cousin Jack, Kipling," he resumed, turning back to the books, "he wrote a poem about what a man ought to be before he considers himself a man that says all there is to say on th' subject. Nothin' new in what he wrote, but he's corraled all th' ideas anybody's ever thought about. It's fine—"
"But who is that?" she broke in, walking closer to the photograph of a young woman, too eager to see the whole of this room to pause long over any one thing.
He smiled in embarrassment.
"My sister, ma'am."
"Your sister!"
"Yeah. You see, I never had any folks. Nearest thing to ancestors I know about was a lot of bent steel an' burnin' railroad cars. Old Tim picked me out of a wreck when I was a baby, an' we never found out nothin' about me." He rubbed the back of one hand on his hip. "I... It ain't nice, knowin' you don't belong to nobody, so I picked out my family,"—smiling again.
"I was in Phoenix once an' I saw that lady's picture in front of a photograph gallery. It was early mornin' an' I was on my way to th' train comin' north. I busted th' glass of th' show case an' took it. I left a five-dollar gold piece there so th' photographer wouldn't mind, an' I guess th' lady, if she knew, wouldn't care so awful much. Nobody ever seen her here but Tim an' me. I respect her a lot, like I would my sister. You expect she would mind, ma'am?"
"I think she would be very much pleased," Ann said, soberly.
"An' that up there's my mother," he said, after their gazes had clung a moment.
"Whistler's 'Mother'!"
"Yes, he painted it; but she's th' one I'd like to have for my mother, if I could picked her out. She looks like a good mother, don't she? I thought so when I got that ... with a San Francisco newspaper."
Ann did not trust herself to speak or to look at him.
"Your father?" she asked after a moment.
"Oh, I had one. Tim. He was my daddy. He did all any father could for me. No, ma'am, I wouldn't pick out nobody to take Tim's place. He brought me up. But if I was to have uncles, I'd like them."
He moved across the room to where prints of Lincoln and Lee were tacked to the wall.
"But, they were enemies!" Ann objected.
"Sure, I know it. But they both thought somethin' an' stuck by it an' fought it out. Lincoln believed one way, Lee another; they both stood by their principles an' that's all that counts. Out here we have cattlemen an' sheepmen. I'm in cattle an' lots of times I've felt like gunnin' for th' fellers who were tryin' to sheep me, but then I'd stop an' think that maybe there was somethin' to be said on their side.
"I'd sure liked to have men for uncles who could believe in a thing as hard as they believed!"
A pause followed and he looked about the room again calculatingly; then started as though he had forgotten something.
"But what I brought you in here for was to tell you that this is yours, to do what you want with ... you ..."
His words brought them back to the situation they confronted and an embarrassed silence followed.
"I don't feel right, driving you out like this," Ann protested, at length.
"But don't you understand? Nobody's ever been in here, but Tim, who's dead, an' you. You're th' first person I've ever asked to stay in here. I'd like it ... to think you'd been in here ... stayin'.... It's you who 're doin' th' favor...."
He ended in a lowered tone and was so intent, so keen in his desire that Ann looked on him with a queer little feeling of misgiving. Every now and then she had encountered those phases of him for which she could not account, which made her doubt and, for the instant, fear him. But, after she had searched his face and found there nothing but the sincere concern for her welfare, she knew that his motive was of the highest, that he thought only of her, and she answered,
"Why, I'll be glad to stay here, in your room."
He turned and walked into the kitchen, swinging one hand.
"I'll be driftin'," he said, when she followed, forcing himself to a brusque manner which disarmed her.
"You ask Ned to water th' horses. I'm ridin' th' pinto to town. I'll be back to-morrow sometime."
He put on his hat and started for the door resolutely. Then halted.
"If anything should happen," he began, attempting a casual tone. But he could not remain casual, nor could he finish his sentence. He stammered and flushed and his gaze dropped. "Nothin' will ... to you," he finished.
With that he was gone, leading her borrowed horse back to town at her request. From a point half a mile distant he looked back. She was still in the doorway and when he halted his pony he saw a flicker of white as she waved a handkerchief at him. He lifted his hat in salute; then rode on, with a heart that was heavy and cold.
"Th' finest woman that God ever gave a body," he said, "an' I've given her over to th' only man that walks th' earth who wouldn't try to appreciate her!"
Ann watched him go, an apprehensive mood coming upon her. He shacked off on the pinto horse while Abe, left alone in the corral, trotted about and nickered and pawed to show his displeasure at being left behind. For a long time the girl stood there, not moving, breathing slowly; then she looked about her, turned and walked into Bruce's room, roamed around, examining the books, the pictures, the furniture, touching things with her finger tips gently, lovingly, hearing his voice again as it told her of them. For her each article in that room now held a particular interest. She stared at the photograph of the girl he had selected as a sister, at Whistler's fine, capped old lady, opened the "French Revolution" and riffled the leaves he had thumbed and soiled and torn, and laughed deep in her throat as she saw the curtains hanging irregularly from their six-penny nails ... laughed, though her eyes were damp.
A step sounded in the kitchen and the woman became rigid as she listened.
"... hotter ..."
Just the one word of the muttered sentence was distinguishable, but she knew it was not Bayard's voice; knew, then, whose it must be.
Very quietly she walked to the doorway of the bedroom and stood there. Ned Lytton had halted a step from the kitchen entry and was wiping his face with a black silk kerchief. He completed the operation, removed his hat, tossed it to a chair, unbuttoned the neck of his shirt ... and ceased all movements.
For each the wordless, soundless period that followed seemed to be an age. The woman looked at the man with a slight feeling of giddiness, a sensation that was at once relief and horror, for he was as her worst fears would have it; his face, in spite of his weeks of good living, was the color of suet, purple sacks under the eyes, lips hard and cruel, and from chin to brow were the indelible marks of wasting, of debauchery.
"Ann!" he exclaimed.
Surprise, dread, a mingling of many emotions was in the tone, and he waited at high tension for her to answer. His wife, a woman he had not seen in three years, standing there before him in the garb of this new country, beautiful, desirable, come as though from thin air! He thought this might be merely an hallucination, that it might be some uncanny creation of his unstable mind.
"Yes, Ned; it is I," she answered, with a catch in her voice.
On her words he stepped quickly forward, fear gone, eagerness about him. He took her hands in his, fondling them nervously, and had she not swayed back from him to the slightest noticeable degree, he would have followed out his prompting to take her lips with as much matter-of-factness as he had clutched her hands.
"Ann, where did you come from?" he cried. "Why, I thought maybe you were a ... a ghost or something! Oh, I'm glad to see you!"
"Are you, Ned?"—almost plaintively, stroking the back of one of his hands as she looked into his lighted eyes, reading sadly the desire behind that shallow joy at sight of her. "Are you really glad?"
"Of course I'm glad! Who wouldn't be? Gad, Ann, you're in fine shape!"—stepping back from her, still holding her hands, and looking her up and down, greedily. "Oh, you're good to look at!"
He went close to her again and reached out one arm quickly to slip it about her waist, but she turned away from him quite casually and he stopped, disconcerted, hurt, humiliated, but covering the fact as well as he could.
An awkward fraction of a minute followed, which he broke by asking:
"But where did you come from, Ann? How did you get here? How did you know? What brought you?"
She smiled wanly.
"One at a time, Ned. You brought me. You should know that. I came out here to find you, to see what was happening, to help you if I could."
She allowed him to take her hands again and looked wistfully into his face as she talked. A change came into his expression with her words and his gaze shifted from hers while a show of petulance appeared in his slightly drawn brows.
"Well, I've needed help in one way," he muttered.
"You've been very ill, I know."
"You know?"—in surprise.
"Yes; I have been here through it all."
He dropped her hand and tilted his head incredulously.
"Through it all! What do you mean?"
"I've been here for a month."
"A month! You've been here a month and this is the first time you've come to see me?"
"I didn't think it best to come before."
"You've been here while I've been passing through hell itself? You've known about me, known how I've suffered? Have you?"
"Oh, Ned, I have...."
"And you didn't come to me when I needed help most! You've not even taken the trouble to find out about me—"
"You're wrong there," Ann broke in simply. With the return of his old, petulant, irritating manner, the wistfulness slipped from her and a little show of independence, of resentment, came over the woman. "I have known about you; I've kept track of you; I've waited and prayed for the time when it would be best for me to see you...."
He folded his arms theatrically and swung one leg over the corner of the table. Ann stopped talking on that, for his attitude was one of open challenge.
"You've come out here to spy on me! Isn't that it? You've come to help me, you said, and yet you wouldn't even let me know you were here? Isn't it the same old game? Isn't it?"
She did not answer.
"Isn't it a fact that you've been waiting to see what I'd do when I got well? I suppose you've come out here to-day with a prayer-book and a lot of soft words, a lot of cant, to try to reform me?" He thrust his face close to hers as he asked the last.
"Is this the way you're going to greet me?" she asked. "Haven't you anything but the same old suspicion, the same old denunciation for me?"
He looked away from her and shrugged his shoulders.
"How have you known about me when you haven't been to see me?" he asked, evasively.
"Mr. Bayard has kept me informed."
He looked at her through a moment of silence, and she looked back as steadily, as intently as he.
"Bayard?" he asked. "Bayard? He's been telling you ... about me?"
"He's been as kind to me as he has to you, Ned,"—with a feeling of misgiving even as she uttered the words. "He has ... ridden to Yavapai many times just to tell me about you."
He looked at her again, and she saw the puzzlement in his face. He started as though to speak, checked himself and looked past her into Bayard's room.
"Where is he now?"
"He's gone to town; he left a few moments after I came. He asked me to—"
"Did he show you into that room?"
"Yes,"—turning to look. "He told me to use it."
Her husband eyed her calculatingly and rested his weight on the table once more. It was as though he had settled some important question for himself.
"Why haven't you been out before, Ann?" he asked her, eyes holding on her face to detect its slightest change of expression.
She felt herself flushing at that; her conscience again!
"You were in an awful condition, Ned," she forced herself to say. "I saw you in Yavapai, the night I arrived. I—I helped Mr. Bayard fix your arm; I knew how ill you would be when you came to yourself. We agreed—Mr. Bayard and I—that it would needlessly excite you, if I were to come here, so I stayed away. I stayed as long as I could,"—with deadly honesty—"I had to come to-day."
"You and Bayard.... You both thought it best for me to stay here without knowing my wife was in Arizona?"
His attitude had become that of a cross-examiner.
"Yes, Ned. You were in fearful shape. You know that for days after you—"
"And you've relied on him to give you news of me?"
He stood erect and moved nearer, watching her face closely as her eyes became less certain, her cheeks a deeper color.
"Yes, Ned. Don't get worked up. It's been all right. I'm sure the weeks you put in here have given...."
"Given what?" he broke in, brows gathering, thrusting out his chin, glaring at her and drawing back his lips to bare the gap left by the broken and missing teeth.
The woman recoiled.
"Give what?" he demanded again, trembling from knee to fingers. "To give him a chance to come and see you, that's what you've given!"
"Ned Ly—"—crouching, a hand to one cheek, Ann backed into Bayard's room quickly as her husband, fists clenched and raised, lurched toward her.
"Don't talk to me!" he cried thickly, face dark, voice unnatural. "Don't talk to me,"—looking not at her eyes but at her heaving breast. "I know. I know now what I should have known weeks ago! I know now why he's been shaving his pretty face every day, why he's been dolling up every time he left for town, putting on his gay scarfs, changing his shirts like a gentleman, instead of a dirty hound that would steal a man's wife as soon as he would steal a neighbor's calf! I know why he's held me here and lied to me and played the hypocrite,"—words running together under the intensity of his raving.
"I see it now! I see why he's admitted that there was a woman bothering him. I see why he's tried to ring in that hotel waitress to make me think she was the one he went to see. I see it all; I see what a fool I've been, what a lying pup Bayard is with all his smug talk about helping me! Helping me ... when he's been helping himself to my wife!"
"Ned!"
"A month, eh?" he went on. "You've been here a month, have you? And he's known it; he's kept me here, by God, through fear, that's all. I confess it to you! I'd have been gone long ago but I was afraid of him! He's intimidated me on the pretext of doing it for my own good while he could steal my wife ... my wife ... you-u-u...."
He advanced slowly, reasonless eyes on hers now, and Ann backed swiftly, putting the table between them, watching him with fear stamped on her features.
"Ugh! The snake! The poison, lying, grovelling—"
"Ned!"
The sharpness of her cry, the way she straightened and stamped her foot and vibrated with indignation broke through his rage, even, and he stopped.
"You don't know what you're saying." Her voice quivered. "You're accusing the best man friend you've ever had; you're cursing one of the best men that ever walked ground, and you're doing it without reason!"
"Without reason, am I?" he parried, quieter, breathing hard, but controlling his voice. "It's without reason when he lives with me a month, seeing my wife day after day, knowing I've not seen her in years and then never breathing a word about it? It's without reason when he opens this room to you ... a room he's never let me look into, and tells you to use it? It's no reason when he runs away to town rather than face me here in your presence? Can you argue against that?
"And it's without reason when you stand there flushed to your hair, you guilty woman?"
He thumped the table with his fist. "You guilty woman," he repeated, just above a whisper. "You guilty—My wife, conspiring with your lover while he keeps me here by force, by brute force. Can you argue against that ... against that?"
It was the great moment of Ann Lytton's life. It seemed as though the inner conflict was causing congestion in her chest, stilling her heart, clogging her breathing, making her blind and powerless to move or speak or think. It was the last struggle against her old manner of thought, against the old Ann, the strangling for once and for all that narrow conscience, the wiping out of that false conception of morality, for she emerged from her moment of doubt, of torment, a beautiful, brave creature. Her great sacrifice had been offered; it had been repulsed with contempt and now she stood free, ready to fight for her spiritual honor, her self-respect, in the face of a world's disapproval, if that should become necessary.
"Yes, I can argue against that," she cried, closing her eyes and smiling in fine confidence. "I can, Ned Lytton. I can, because he is my lover, because the love he bears for me is pure, is good, is true holiness!"
She leaned toward him across the table, still smiling and letting her voice drop to its normal tone, yet losing none of its triumphant resonance.
"And you can say that," he jeered, "after he's been ... after you've been letting him keep you a month!"
"Oh, you can't hurt me with your insults, Ned, for they won't go home. You know that statement isn't true; you know me too well for that. I'm your wife by law, Ned, but beyond that I'm as free as I was five years ago, before I ever saw you. Emancipating myself wasn't easy. I came out here hampered by tradition and terms and prejudice, but I've learned the truth from this country, these people, from ... you. I've learned that without love, without sympathy, without understanding or the effort, the desire, to understand, no marriage is a marriage; that without them it is only ugly, hideous.
"I've had to fight it all out and think it all out for myself. Circumstances and people have helped me make my decision. I owed you something, I still thought, and I came here to-day to fulfill my duty, to give you another chance. If you had met me with even friendliness, I'd have shut my eyes, my ears, my heart to Bruce Bayard in spite of all he means to me. I'd have gone with you, thinking that I might take up the work of regeneration where he left off and give my life to making a man of you, foregoing anything greater, better for myself, in the hope that some day, some time you and I might approach halfway to happiness.
"But what did you do; what did I find? In the first moments hate of me came into your face; you jeered at me for coming, mocked me. That's what happened. Then you suspect me, suspect Bayard, who has kept you alive, who has given you another chance at everything ... including me."
"Suspect him? Of course I suspect him! You've admitted your guilt, you damned—"
"Don't go on that way, Ned. It's only a waste of time. I told you what would have happened, if you had greeted me in another way. You've had your chance ... you've had your thousand chances in these last five years. It's all over now. It's over between us, Ned. It's been a bitter, dreary failure and the sooner we end it all, the better. Don't think I'm going to transgress what you call morality," she pleaded, smiling weakly. "You deserted me, Ned, after you'd abused me. You've refused to support me, you've been unfaithful in every way. I don't think the law that made me your wife will refuse to release me now—"
"You're forgetting something," he broke in, rallying his assurance with an effort. "You're forgetting that while you were conspiring to keep me here, your lover, Bruce Bayard,"—drawling the words—"was meeting you secretly. What do you think your law will say to that?"
"I'll trust to it, Ned," she answered, in splendid composure. "I will trust to other men to judge between us—"
"Then, I won't!" he screamed, stepping quickly around the table, grasping for her arm. She retreated quickly and he lunged for her again and again missed.
Then, with a choking oath, he threw the table aside and the lamp went crashing to the floor.
"Then, I won't, damn you! You're my wife, to do as I please with; the law gave you to me, and it hasn't taken you from me yet!"
He advanced menacingly toward her as she backed into a corner, paling with actual fear now; his elbows stuck stiffly out from his sides, his hands were clenched at his hips, face thrust forward, feet carrying him to her with slow uncertainty.
"Ned—" Her voice quavered. "Ned, what are you going to do?"
"Maybe I'll ... strangle you!" he said.
She looked quickly from side to side and one hand clutched at her breast convulsively, clutched the cloth ... and something that was resting within her waist. She started and with a quick movement unbuttoned the garment at her bosom, reached in and drew out an automatic pistol.
"Ned, don't force me!" she said, slowly, voice unsteady.
The man halted, hesitated, backed away, both hands half raised.
"Ann, you wouldn't shoot me!" he whispered.
"You said ... you'd strangle me, Ned,"—leaning against the wall for support, because weakness had swept over her.
Lytton drew a hand across his eyes. He trembled visibly.
"But ... I was mad, Ann," he stammered. "I was crazy; I wouldn't...."
Her hands dropped to her sides and she turned her face from him, shutting her eyes and frowning at the helplessness that came over her with the excitement and the fear of a physical encounter. She could brave any moral clash, but her body was a woman's body, her strength a woman's strength, and now, when she faced disaster, her muscles failed her.
Ned comprehended. He stepped quickly to her side, reached to the hand that held the weapon, fastened on it and with a wrench, jerked it free from her limp grasp.
"You would, would you?" he muttered, his old malevolence returning with assurance that the woman could no longer defend herself. "This! Where did you get it?"—surveying the weapon.
"It's Bayard's."
"He gave it to you to use on me?"—with a short laugh.
The woman shook her head wearily.
"You refuse to understand anything," she responded. "He gave it to me to protect you from himself."
He stood looking at her, revolving that assertion quickly in his mind, feeling for the first time that his command over the situation was good only so long as they were alone. Before his suddenly rising fear of Bruce Bayard his bitterness retreated.
"Well, we'll quit this place," he said with a swagger. "We'll clear out, you and I.... I've had enough of this damned treachery; trying to steal you, my wife. I might have known. I told him his foot would slip!"
Ann scarcely heard. She was possessed by a queer lethargy. She wanted to rest, to be quiet, to be left alone, yet she knew that much remained to be endured. She had never rebelled before; she had always compromised and she felt that after her great demonstration of self-sufficiency nothing could matter a great deal. Ned had said that they would quit this place. She had no idea of resisting, of even arguing. It was easier to go, to delay a further break, for their journey would not be far, she felt, nor would she be with her husband long. Bayard would come somehow; he had come when she was in danger before, and now that which menaced her was of much less consequence. Why fear?
She stooped to pick up a book that had been thrown to the floor when the table overturned.
"Leave that alone!" he ordered.
She straightened mechanically, the listlessness that was upon her making it far easier to obey than to summon the show of strength necessary to resist.
"We'll quit this place," Ned repeated again. "And you'll go with me ..."
He turned to face the doorway. The bent reading lamp lay at his feet, shade and chimney wrecked, oil gurgling from it. He kicked the thing viciously, sending it crashing against the wall.
"The damned snake!" he muttered. "He brought you in here, did he? Into this place.... Bah!"
He seized a volume from the bookcase and flung it at the ruined lamp.
"Ned, don't!" she pleaded.
"You keep quiet; you'll have enough to think about coming with me. Come on, now!"
Mechanically she responded and with unreal, heavy movements put on her hat as he told her to do, crossed the kitchen floor and emerged into the afternoon sunlight. Her husband's horse, still saddled, stood in the shade of the ash tree.
"He's left only that damn stallion," she heard Ned say. "Well, we'll take him."
"What for, Ned?" she asked dully, walking after him as he strode toward the corral and catching his sleeve, shaking it for his attention. "Why are you taking him?"
"To take you away on," he snapped.
"That's stealing."
"He didn't think of that when he tried to steal my wife; I'll steal two of his horses for a while ... just like he had you ... for a while."
Her strength of wit had been spent in the furious scene within the house and she attempted no answer, just stood outside while Lytton entered the corral, bridled the curious stallion and turned to lead him out. Abe would not move. He would not even turn about and the man's strength was not sufficient to do more than pull his head around.
"Come along, you——"
He took off his hat and swung it to strike the horse's nose sharply, but Abe only threw up his head and blinked rapidly. The ears were flat and he switched his tail when Lytton again tried to drag him out. He would not respond; just braced backward and resisted.
Ann forced her mind to function with some degree of alertness.
"Let me take him, Ned," she said, white faced and quiet. "I can't see you abuse him."
She took the reins from her husband who relinquished his grip on them reluctantly; then she spoke a low word to the sorrel. He sniffed her garments and moved his nostrils in silent token of recognition. This was the woman Bayard had put on his back, the only person besides his master who had ever straddled him, so it must be all right. He turned and followed her from the corral while Lytton swore under his breath.
Ten minutes later, the woman mounted on the stallion, they rode through the gate. Ann was silent, scarcely comprehending what happened.
They did not turn to the left and take the road toward Yavapai; instead, Ned followed a course that held straight eastward, gradually taking them away from the wagon tracks, out into the great expanse of valley.
"Where are you taking me, Ned?" Ann finally rallied her wits enough to ask.
"Back to my castle!" he mocked. "Back to the mine, where nobody'll come to get you!"
On that, Bayard's unexplained warning occurred to the girl and she felt her heart leap.
"Not that!" she said, dully. "Oh, Ned, not that. Something awful ... will happen if you go back there."
He looked at her, suspecting that this was a ruse.
"What makes you think that?"
"I was warned never to let you go back there."
"Did Bayard warn you?"—leaning low in his saddle that he might see her face better. She answered with a nod. "And why didn't he want me to go back there?"
"I don't know, Ned. But—Take my word, I beg of you!"
He rose in his stirrups and shook his fist at her.
"He steals my wife and tries to frighten me away from my property, does he? What's his interest in the Sunset mine? Do you know? No? Well, we'll find out by to-morrow night, damn him!"
He slapped his coat pocket where the automatic rested and lifted his quirt to cut the hindquarters of the slow moving stallion.
It was late night when they halted at a ranch, and the house was in darkness.
"We'll put up here," Ned growled. "We'll make on before daylight ... if we can get this damned horse to move!"
He drew back a fist as though he would strike the stallion, for the sorrel had retarded them, insisting on turning and trying to start back toward the Circle A ranch, refusing to increase his pace beyond a crawling walk, held to that only by Ann's coaxing, for she knew that if she gave the animal his head and let him turn back, her husband would be angered to a point where he might abuse the beast.
She feared no special thing now. She wanted to reach some destination, some place where she could rest and think. This being led away seemed as only some process of transition; it was unpleasant, but great happiness was not far off. Of that she was certain.
But she could not let Ned go on to his mine. Danger of some sort waited there and it was impossible for her to allow him to walk into it. She had planned while they rode that afternoon just how she would make the first move to prevent his reaching the Sunset and as her husband hammered on the door of the house to rouse the occupants she drew a pin from her hat, shoved herself back in the saddle, and, while he was parleying with the roused rancher, scratched swiftly and nervously on the smooth leather.
The hours he spent in Yavapai that night were memorable ones for Bruce Bayard. He rode the distance to town at a slow walk and arrived after the sun had set. He had no appetite for food but, nevertheless, after washing in the kitchen, he went into the hotel dining room and talked absently to Nora.
It did not occur to him to mention what had happened that afternoon to the girl. That had been a matter too purely personal to permit its discussion with another. While he talked to her, his mind was wholly occupied with thoughts other than those of which he spoke and he did not see that the waitress was studying him carefully, reading what was written on his face. Nora knew that Ann was gone; she knew that she had taken with her a new conviction, a new courage, and the fact that Bayard had left her at his ranch, probably with Ned Lytton, puzzled the girl.
Bruce was not certain that he had acted wisely. Many circumstances might arise in which his presence at the ranch could be a determining factor. At times he wondered vaguely if Lytton might not attempt to do his wife violence, but always he comforted himself by assurance of her strength of character, of her moral fiber, contrasting it with Ned's vacillating nature.
"She'd take care of herself anywhere," he thought time after time.
When he had gone through with the formal routine of feeding himself he went out to stroll about. He watched the train arrive and depart, he talked absently with an Indian he knew and jested with the red man's squaw. He bought a Los Angeles paper and could not center his mind on a line of its printed pages. He walked aimlessly, finally entering the saloon where a dozen were congregated.
"That piano of yours has got powerful lungs, ain't it?" he asked the bartender, wincing, as the mechanical instrument banged out its measure.
"This here beer's so hot it tastes like medicine," he complained, putting down his glass after his first swallow, and picking up the bottle to look at it with a wry face.
"It's right off th' ice," the other assured.
"You can have th' rest of it for th' deservin' poor," he said and strode out, while the others laughed after him.
Up and down the street, into the general store to exchange absent-minded pleasantries with the proprietor's wife, across to the hotel where he tried to sit quietly in a chair, back to the saloon; up and down, up and down.