He hesitated for a moment, and then moved to her side; not audaciously and confident, as was his wont with women, but with a boyish colour in his face, and a timid, half-embarrassed manner.
"Can I do anything for you, Miss?" he said, falteringly. "You don't seem to be well. I mean you look tired. Shan't I bring you a chair? It's the heat of this hole—I mean it's so warm here. Shan't I go for a glass of water, a carriage?"
Here she suddenly lifted her eyes to his, and his voice and presence of mind utterly abandoned him.
"It's nothing," she said, with a dignified calm, as sudden and as alarming to Jack as her previous agitation—"nothing," she added, fixing her clear eyes on his, with a look so frank, so open, and withal, as it seemed to Jack, so cold and indifferent, that his own usually bold glance fell beneath it, "nothing but the heat and closeness; I am better now."
"Shall I"——began Jack, awkwardly.
"I want nothing, thank you."
Seeming to think that her conduct required some explanation, she added, hastily—
"There was a crowd at the door as I was going out, and in the press I felt giddy. I thought some one—some man—pushed me rudely. I daresay I was mistaken."
She glanced at the porch against which a man was still leaning.
The suggestion of her look and speech—if it were a suggestion—was caught instantly by Jack. Without waiting for her to finish the sentence, he strode to the door. To his wrathful surprise the lounger was Victor. Mr. Hamlin did not stop for explanatory speech. With a single expressive word, and a single dexterous movement of his arm and foot, he tumbled the astonished Victor down the steps at one side, and then turned toward his late companion.But she had been equally prompt. With a celerity quite inconsistent with her previous faintness, she seized the moment that Victor disappeared to dart by him and gain her carriage, which stood in waiting at the porch. But as it swiftly drove away, Mr. Hamlin caught one grateful glance from those wonderful eyes, one smile from those perfect lips, and was happy. What matters that he had an explanation—possibly a quarrel on his hands? Ah me! I fear this added zest to the rascal's satisfaction.
A hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned and saw the face of the furious Victor, with every tooth at a white heat, and panting with passion. Mr. Hamlin smiled pleasantly.
"Why, I want to know!" he ejaculated, with an affectation of rustic simplicity, "if it ain't you, Johnny. Why, darn my skin! And this is your house? You and St. Anthony in partnership, eh? Well, that gets me! And here I tumbled you off your own stoop, didn't I? I might have known it was you by the way you stood there. Mightn't I, Johnny?"
"My name is not Johnny—Carámba!" gasped Victor, almost beside himself with impatient fury.
"Oh, it's that, is it? Any relation to theCarámbasof Dutch Flat? It ain't a pretty name. I like Johnny better. And I wouldn't make a row here now. Not to-day, Johnny; it's Sunday. I'd go home. I'd go quietly home, and I'd beat some woman or child to keep myself in training. But I'd go home first. I wouldn't draw that knife, neither, for it might cut your fingers, and frighten the folks around town. I'd go home quietly, like a good nice little man. And in the morning I'd come round to the hotel on the next square, and I'd ask for Mr. Hamlin, Mr. Jack Hamlin, Room No. 29; and I'd go right up to his room, and I'd have such a time with him—such a high old time; I'd just make that hotel swim with blood."
Two or three of the monte players had gathered around Victor, and seemed inclined to take the part of their countryman. Victor was not slow to improve this moment of adhesion and support.
"Is it dogs that we are, my compatriots?" he said to them bitterly; "and he—this one—a man infamous!"
Mr. Hamlin, who had a quick ear for abusive and interjaculatory Spanish, overheard him. There was a swift chorus of "Carámba!" from the allies, albeit wholesomely restrained by something in Mr. Hamlin's eye which was visible, and probably a suspicion of something in Mr. Hamlin's pocket which was not visible. But the remaining portion of Mr. Hamlin was ironically gracious.
"Friends of yours, I suppose?" he inquired, affably. "'Carámbas' all of them, too! Perhaps they'll call with you? Maybe they haven't time and are in a hurry now? If my room isn't large enough, and they can't wait, there's a handy lot o' ground beyond on the next square—Plaza del Toros, eh? What did you say? I'm a little deaf in this ear."
Under the pretence of hearing more distinctly, Jack Hamlin approached the nearest man, who, I grieve to say, instantly and somewhat undignifiedly retreated. Mr. Hamlin laughed. But already a crowd of loungers had gathered, and he felt it was time to end this badinage, grateful as it was to his sense of humour. So he lifted his hat gravely to Victor and his friends, replaced it perhaps aggressively tilted a trifle over his straight nose, and lounged slowly back to his hotel, leaving his late adversaries in secure but unsatisfactory and dishonourable possession of the field. Once in his own quarters, he roused the sleeping Pete, and insisted upon opening a religious discussion, in which, to Pete's great horror, he warmly espoused the Catholic Church, averring, with severalstrong expletives, that it was the only religion fit for a white man, and ending somewhat irreverently by inquiring into the condition of the pistols.
Meanwhile Victor had also taken leave of his friends.
"He has fled—this most infamous!" he said; "he dared not remain and face us! Thou didst observe his fear, Tiburcio? It was thy great heart that did it!"
"Rather he recognised thee, my Victor, and his heart was that of the coyote."
"It was the Mexican nation, ever responsive to the appeal of manhood and liberty, that made his liver as blanched as that of the chicken," returned the gentleman who had retreated from Jack. "Let us then celebrate this triumph with a little glass."
And Victor, who was anxious to get away from his friends, and saw in the prospectiveaguardientea chance for escape, generously led the way to the first wine-shop.
It chanced to be the principal one of the town. It had the generic quality—that is, was dirty, dingy, ill-smelling, and yellow with cigarette smoke. Its walls were adorned by various prints—one or two French in origin, excellent in art, and defective in moral sentiment, and several of Spanish origin, infamous in art, and admirable in religious feeling. It had a portrait of Santa Anna, and another of the latest successful revolutionary general. It had an allegorical picture representing the Genius of Liberty descending with all the celestial machinery upon the Mexican Confederacy. Moved apparently by the same taste for poetry and personification, the proprietor had added to his artistic collection a highly coloured American handbill representing the Angel of Healing presenting a stricken family with a bottle of somebody's Panacea. At the farther extremity of the low room a dozen players sat at a green-baize table absorbed in monte. Beyond them,leaning against the wall, a harp-player twanged the strings of his instrument, in a lugubrious air, with that singular stickiness of touch and reluctancy of finger peculiar to itinerant performers on that instrument. The card-players were profoundly indifferent to both music and performer.
The face of one of the players attracted Victor's attention. It was that of the odd English translator—the irascible stranger upon whom he had intruded that night of his memorable visit to Don José. Victor had no difficulty in recognising him, although his slovenly and negligent working-dress had been changed to his holiday antique black suit. He did not lift his eyes from the game until he had lost the few silver coins placed in a pile before him, when he rose grimly, and nodding brusquely to the other players, without speaking left the room.
"He has lost five half-dollars—his regular limit—no more, no less," said Victor to his friend. "He will not play again to-night!"
"You know of him?" asked Vincente, in admiration of his companion's superior knowledge.
"Si!" said Victor. "He is a jackal, a dog of the Americanos," he added, vaguely intending to revenge himself on the stranger's former brusqueness by this depreciation. "He affects to know our history—our language. Is it a question of the fine meaning of a word—the shade of a technical expression?—it is him they ask, not us! It is thus they treat us, these heretics!Carámba!"
"Carámba!" echoed Vincente, with a vague patriotism superinduced byaguardiente. But Victor had calculated to unloose Vincente's tongue for his private service.
"It is the world, my friend," he said, sententiously. "These Americanos—come they here often?"
"You know the great American advocate—our friend—Don Arturo Poinsett?"
"Yes," said Victor, impatiently. "Comes he?"
"Eh! does he not?" laughed Vincente. "Always. Ever. Eternally. He has a client—a widow, young, handsome, rich, eh?—one of his own race."
"Ah! you are wise, Vincente!"
Vincente laughed a weak spirituous laugh.
"Ah! it is a transparent fact. Truly—of a verity. Believe me!"
"And this fair client—who is she?"
"Donna Maria Sepulvida!" said Vincente, in a drunken whisper.
"How is this? You said she was of his own race."
"Truly, I did. She isAmericana. But it is years ago. She was very young. When the Americans first came, she was of the first. She taught the child of the widower Don José Sepulvida, herself almost a child; you understand? It was the old story. She was pretty, and poor, and young; the Don grizzled, and old, and rich. It was fire and tow. Eh? Ha! Ha! The Don meant to be kind, you understand, and made a rich wife of the littleAmericana. He was kinder than he meant, and in two years,Carámba!made a richer widow of the Donna."
If Vincente had not been quite thrown by his potations, he would have seen an undue eagerness in Victor's mouth and eyes.
"And she is pretty—tall and slender like the Americans, eh?—large eyes, a sweet mouth?"
"An angel. Ravishing!"
"And Don Arturo—from legal adviser turns a lover!"
"It is said," responded Vincente, with drunken cunning and exceeding archness; "but thou and I, Victor, know better. Love comes not with a brief! Eh? Look, it is an old flame, believe me. It is said it is not two months that he first came here, and she fell in love with him atthe first glance.Absurdo! Disparátado!Hear me, Victor; it was an old flame; an old quarrel made up. Thou and I have heard the romance before. Two lovers not rich, eh? Good! Separation; despair. The Señorita marries the rich man, eh?"
Victor was too completely carried away by the suggestion of his friend's speech, to conceal his satisfaction. Here was the secret at last. Here was not only a clue, but absolutely the missing Grace Conroy herself. In this youngAmericana—this—widow—this client of her former lover, Philip Ashley, he held the secret of three lives. In his joy he slapped Vincente on the back, and swore roundly that he was the wisest of men.
"I should have seen her—the heroine of this romance—my friend. Possibly, she was at mass?"
"Possibly not. She is Catholic, but Don Arturo is not. She does not often attend when he is here."
"As to-day?"
"As to-day."
"You are wrong, friend Vincente," said Victor, a little impatiently. "I was there; I saw her."
Vincente shrugged his shoulders and shook his head with drunken gravity.
"It is impossible, Señor Victor, believe me."
"I tell you I saw her," said Victor, excitedly. "Borrachon!She was there! By the pillar. As she went out she partook ofagua bendita. I saw her; large eyes, an oval face, a black dress and mantle."
Vincente, who, happily for Victor, had not heard the epithet of his friend, shook his head and laughed a conceited drunken laugh.
"Tell me not this, friend Victor. It was not her thou didst see. Believe me, I am wise. It was the Donna Dolores who partook ofagua bendita, and alone. For there is none,thou knowest, that has a right to offer it to her. Look you, foolish Victor, she has large eyes, a small mouth, an oval face. And dark—ah, she is dark!"
"'In the dark all are as the devil,'" quoted Victor, impatiently, "how should I know? Who thenisshe?" he demanded almost fiercely, as if struggling with a rising fear. "Who is this Donna Dolores?"
"Thou art a stranger, friend Victor. Hark ye. It is the half-breed daughter of the old commander of San Ysabel. Yet, such is the foolishness of old men, she is his heiress! She is rich, and lately she has come into possession of a great grant, very valuable. Thou dost understand, friend Victor? Well, why dost thou stare? She is a recluse. Marriage is not for her; love, love! the tender, the subduing, the delicious, is not for her. She is of the Church, my Victor. And to think that thou didst mistake this ascetic, this nun, this little brown novice, this Donna Dolores Salvatierra for the little American coquette. Ha! Ha! It is worth the fee of another bottle? Eh? Victor, my friend! Thou dost not listen. Eh? Thou wouldst fly, traitor. Eh? what's that thou sayst? Bobo! Dupe thyself!"
For Victor stood before him, dumb, but for that single epithet. Was he not a dupe? Had he not been cheated again, and this time by a blunder in his own malice? If he had really, as he believed, identified Grace Conroy in this dark-faced devotee whose name he now learned for the first time, by what diabolical mischance had he deliberately put her in possession of the forged grant, and so blindly restored her the missing property? Could Don Pedro have been treacherous? Could he have known, could they all—Arthur Poinsett, Dumphy, and Julie Devarges—have known this fact of which he alone was ignorant? Were they not laughing at him now? The thought was madness.
With a vague impression of being shaken rudely off by a passionate hand, and a drunken vision of a ghastly and passionate face before him uttering words of impotent rage and baffled despair, Vincente, the wise and valiant, came slowly and amazedly to himself, lying over the table. But his late companion was gone.
A cold, grey fog had that night stolen noiselessly in from the sea, and, after possessing the town, had apparently intruded itself in the long, low plain before thehaciendaof the Rancho of the Holy Trinity, where it sullenly lingered even after the morning sun had driven in its eastern outposts. Viewed from the Mission towers, it broke a cold grey sea against the corral of thehacienda, and half hid the white walls of thehaciendaitself. It was characteristic of the Rancho that, under such conditions, at certain times it seemed to vanish entirely from the sight, or rather to lose and melt itself into the outlines of the low foot-hills, and Mr. Perkins, the English translator, driving a buggy that morning in that direction, was forced once or twice to stop and take his bearings anew, until the grey sea fell, and thehaciendaagain heaved slowly into view.
Although Mr. Perkins' transformations were well known to his intimate associates, it might have been difficult for any stranger to have recognised the slovenly drudge of Pacific Street, in the antique dandy who drove the buggy. Mr. Perkins' hair was brushed, curled, and darkened by dye. A high stock of a remote fashion encompassed his neck, above which his face, whitened by cosmetics to conceal his high complexion, rested stiffly and expressionlessas a mask. A light blue coat buttoned tightly over his breast, and a pair of close-fitting trousers strapped over his japanned leather boots, completed his remarkableensemble. It was a figure well known on Montgomery Street after three o'clock—seldom connected with the frousy visitor of the Pacific Street den, and totally unrecognisable on the plains of San Antonio.
It was evident, however, that this figure, eccentric as it was, was expected at thehacienda, and recognised as having an importance beyond its antique social distinction. For, when Mr. Perkins drew up in the courtyard, the gravemajor domoat once ushered him into the formal, low-studded drawing-room already described in these pages, and in another instant the Donna Dolores Salvatierra stood before him.
With a refined woman's delicacy of perception, Donna Dolores instantly detected under this bizarre exterior something that atoned for it, which she indicated by the depth of the half-formal curtsey she made it. Mr. Perkins met the salutation with a bow equally formal and respectful. He was evidently agreeably surprised at his reception, and impressed with her manner. But like most men of ill-assured social position, he was a trifle suspicious and on the defensive. With a graceful gesture of her fan, the Donna pointed to a chair, but her guest remained standing.
"Iam a stranger to you, Señor, butyouare none to me," she said, with a gracious smile. "Before I ventured upon the boldness of seeking this interview, your intelligence, your experience, your honourable report was already made known to me by your friends. Let me call myself one of these—even before I break the business for which I have summoned you."
The absurd figure bowed again, but even through the pitiable chalk and cosmetics of its complexion, an embarrassedcolour showed itself. Donna Dolores noticed it, but delicately turned toward an old-fashioned secretary, and opened it, to give her visitor time to recover himself. She drew from a little drawer a folded, legal-looking document, and then placing two chairs beside the secretary, seated herself in one. Thus practically reminded of his duty, Mr. Perkins could no longer decline the proffered seat.
"I suppose," said Donna Dolores, "that my business, although familiar to you generally—although you are habitually consulted upon just such questions—may seem strange to you, when you frankly learn my motives. Here is a grant purporting to have been made to my—father—the late Don José Salvatierra. Examine it carefully, and answer me a single question to the best of your judgment." She hesitated, and then added—"Let me say, before you answer yes or no, that to me there are no pecuniary interests involved—nothing that should make you hesitate to express an opinion which you might be called upon legally to prove.Thatyou will never be required to give. Your answer will be accepted by me in confidence; will not, as far as the world is concerned, alter the money value of this document—will leave you free hereafter to express a different opinion, or even to reverse your judgment publicly if the occasion requires it. You seem astounded, Señor Perkins. But I am a rich woman. I have no need to ask your judgment to increase my wealth."
"Your question is"——said Mr. Perkins, speaking for the first time without embarrassment.
"Is that document a forgery?"
He took it out of her hand, opened it with a kind of professional carelessness, barely glanced at the signature and seals, and returned it.
"The signatures are genuine," he said, with business-likebrevity; then he added, as if in explanation of that brevity, "I have seen it before."
Donna Dolores moved her chair with the least show of uneasiness. The movement attracted Mr. Perkins' attention. It was something novel. Here was a woman who appeared actually annoyed that her claim to a valuable property was valid. He fixed his eyes upon her curiously.
"Then you think it is a genuine grant?" she said, with a slight sigh.
"As genuine as any that receive a patent at Washington," he replied, promptly.
"Ah!" said Donna Dolores, simply. The feminine interjection appeared to put a construction upon Señor Perkins' reply that both annoyed and challenged him. He assumed the defensive.
"Have you any reason to doubt the genuineness of this particular document?"
"Yes. It was only recently discovered among Don José's papers, and there is another in existence."
Señor Perkins again reached out his hand, took the paper, examined it attentively, held it to the light and then laid it down. "It is all right," he said. "Where is the other?"
"I have it not," said Donna Dolores.
Señor Perkins shrugged his shoulders respectfully as to Donna Dolores, but scornfully of an unbusiness-like sex. "How did you expect me to institute a comparison?"
"There is no comparison necessary if that document is genuine," said the Donna, quickly.
Señor Perkins was embarrassed for a moment. "I mean there might be some mistake. Under what circumstances is it held—who holds it? To whom was it given?"
"That is a part of my story. It was given five yearsago to a Dr. Devarges—I beg your pardon, did you speak?"
Señor Perkins had not spoken, but was staring with grim intensity at Donna Dolores. "You—said—Dr. Devarges," he repeated, slowly.
"Yes. Did you know him?" It was Donna Dolores' turn to be embarrassed. She bit her lip and slightly contracted her eyebrows. For a moment they both stood on the defensive.
"I have heard the name before," Mr. Perkins said at last, with a forced laugh.
"Yes, it is the name of a distinguishedsavant," said Donna Dolores, composedly. "Well—heis dead. But he gave this grant to a young girl named—named"—Dolores paused as if to recall the name—"named Grace Conroy."
She stopped and raised her eyes quickly to her companion, but his face was unmoved, and his momentary excitement seemed to have passed. He nodded his head for her to proceed.
"Named Grace Conroy," repeated Donna Dolores, more rapidly, and with freer breath. "After the lapse of five years a woman—an impostor—appears to claim the grant under the name of Grace Conroy. But perhaps finding difficulty in carrying out her infamous scheme, by some wicked, wicked art, she gains the affections of the brother of this Grace, and marries him as the next surviving heir." And Donna Dolores paused, a little out of breath, with a glow under her burnished cheek and a slight metallic quality in her voice. It was perhaps no more than the natural indignation of a quickly sympathising nature, but Mr. Perkins did not seem to notice it. In fact, within the last few seconds his whole manner had become absent and preoccupied; the stare which he had fixed a momentbefore on Donna Dolores was now turned to the wall, and his old face, under its juvenile mask, looked still older.
"Certainly, certainly," he said at last, recalling himself with an effort. "But all this only goes to prove that the grant may be as fraudulent as the owner. Then, you have nothing really to make you suspicious of your own claim but the fact of its recent discovery? Well, that I don't think need trouble you. Remember your grant was given when lands were not valuable, and your late father might have overlooked it as unimportant." He rose with a slight suggestion in his manner that the interview had closed. He appeared anxious to withdraw, and not entirely free from the same painful pre-absorption that he had lately shown. With a slight shade of disappointment in her face Donna Dolores also rose.
In another moment he would have been gone, and the lives of these two people thus brought into natural yet mysterious contact have flowed on unchanged in each monotonous current. But as he reached the door he turned to ask a trivial question. On that question trembled the future of both.
"This real Grace Conroy then I suppose has disappeared. And this—Doctor—Devarges"—he hesitated at the name as something equally fictitious—"you say is dead. How then did this impostor gain the knowledge necessary to set up the claim? Who isshe?"
"Oh, she is—that is—she married Gabriel Conroy under the name of the widow of Dr. Devarges. Pardon me! I did not hear what you said. Holy Virgin! What is the matter? You are ill. Let me call Sanchez! Sit here!"
He dropped into a chair, but only for an instant. As she turned to call assistance he rose and caught her by the arm.
"I am better," he said. "It is nothing—I am oftentaken in this way. Don't look at me. Don't call anybody except to get me a glass of water—there, that will do."
He took the glass she brought him, and instead of drinking it threw back his head and poured it slowly over his forehead and face as he leaned backward in the chair. Then he drew out a large silk handkerchief and wiped his face and hair until they were dry. Then he sat up and faced her. The chalk and paint was off his face, his high stock had become unbuckled, he had unbuttoned his coat and it hung loosely over his gaunt figure; his hair, although still dripping, seemed to have become suddenly bristling and bushy over his red face. But he was perfectly self-possessed, and his voice had completely lost its previous embarrassment.
"Rush of blood to the head," he said, quietly; "felt it coming on all the morning. Gone now. Nothing like cold water and sitting posture. Hope I didn't spoil your carpet. And now to come back to your business." He drew up his chair, without the least trace of his former diffidence, beside Donna Dolores, "Let's take another look at your grant." He took it up, drew a small magnifying glass from his pocket and examined the signature. "Yes, yes! signature all right. Seal of the Custom House. Paper all regular." He rustled it in his fingers, "You're all right—the swindle is with Madame Devarges. There's the forgery—there's this spurious grant."
"I think not," said Donna Dolores, quietly.
"Why?"
"Suppose the grant is exactly like this in everything, paper, signature, seal and all."
"That proves nothing," said Mr. Perkins, quickly. "Look you. When this grant was drawn—in the early days—there were numbers of these grants lying in theCustom House like waste paper, drawn and signed by the Governor, in blank, only wanting filling in by a clerk to make them a valid document. She!—this impostor—this Madame Devarges, has had access to these blanks, as many have since the American Conquest, and that grant is the result. But she is not wise, no! I know the handwriting of the several copyists and clerks—I was one myself. Put me on the stand, Donna Dolores—put me on the stand, and I'll confront her as I have the others."
"You forget," said Donna Dolores, coldly, "that I have no desire to legally test this document. And if Spanish grants are so easily made, why might not this one of mine be a fabrication? You say you know the handwriting of the copyists—look at this."
Mr. Perkins seized the grant impatiently, and ran his eye quickly over the interlineations between the printed portions. "Strange!" he muttered. "This is not my own nor Sanchez; nor Ruiz; it is a new hand. Ah! what have we here—a correction in the date—in still another hand? And this—surely I have seen something like it in the office. But where?" He stopped, ran his fingers through his hair, but after an effort at recollection abandoned the attempt. "But why?" he said, abruptly, "why should this be forged?"
"Suppose that the other were genuine, and suppose that this woman got possession of it in some wicked way. Suppose that some one, knowing of this, endeavoured by this clever forgery to put difficulties in her way without exposing her."
"But who would do that?"
"Perhaps the brother—her husband! Perhaps some one," continued Donna Dolores, embarrassedly, with the colour struggling through her copper cheek, "some—one—who—did—not—believe that the real Grace Conroy was dead or missing!"
"Suppose the devil!—I beg your pardon. But people don't forge documents in the interests of humanity and justice. And why should it be given toyou?"
"I am known to be a rich woman," said Donna Dolores. "I believe," she added, dropping her eyes with a certain proud diffidence that troubled even the preoccupied man before her, "I—believe—that is I am told—that I have a reputation for being liberal, and—and just."
Mr. Perkins looked it her for a moment with undisguised admiration. "But suppose," he said, with a bitterness that seemed to grow out of that very contemplation, "suppose this woman, this adventuress, this impostor, were a creature that made any such theory impossible. Suppose she were one who could poison the very life and soul of any man—to say nothing of the man who was legally bound to her; suppose she were a devil who could deceive the mind and heart, who could make the very man she was betraying most believe her guiltless and sinned against; suppose she were capable of not even the weakness of passion; but that all her acts were shrewd, selfish, pre-calculated even to a smile or a tear—do you think such a woman—whom, thank God! such asyoucannot even imagine—do you suppose such a woman would not have guarded against even this? No! no!"
"Unless," said Donna Dolores, leaning against the secretary with the glow gone from her dark face and a strange expression trembling over her mouth, "unless it were the revenge of some rival."
Her companion started. "Good! It is so," he muttered to himself. "Iwould have done it. I could have done it! You are right, Donna Dolores." He walked to the window and then came hurriedly back, buttoning his coatas he did so, and rebuckling his stock. "Some one is coming! Leave this matter with me. I will satisfy you and myself concerning this affair. Will you trust this paper with me?" Donna Dolores without a word placed it in his hand. "Thank you," he said, with a slight return of his former embarrassment, that seemed to belong to his ridiculous stock and his buttoned coat rather than any physical or moral quality. "Don't believe me entirely disinterested either," he added, with a strange smile. "Adios."
She would have asked another question, but at that instant the clatter of hoofs and sound of voices arose from the courtyard, and with a hurried bow he was gone. The door opened again almost instantly to the bright laughing face and coquettish figure of Mrs. Sepulvida.
"Well!" said that little lady, as soon as she recovered her breath. "For a religiously inclined young person and a notorious recluse, I must say you certainly have more masculine company than falls to the lot of the worldly. Here I ran across a couple of fellows hanging around thecasaas I drove up, and come in only to find you closeted with an old exquisite. Who was it—another lawyer, dear? I declare, it's too bad.Ihave only one!"
"And that one is enough, eh?" smiled Donna Dolores, somewhat gravely, as she playfully tapped Mrs. Sepulvida's fair cheek with her fan.
"Oh yes!" she blushed a little coquettishly—"of course! And here I rode over, post haste, to tell you the news. But first, tell me who is that wicked, dashing-looking fellow outside the courtyard? It can't be the lawyer's clerk."
"I don't know who you mean; but it is, I suppose," said Donna Dolores, a little wearily. "But tell me the news. I am all attention."
But Mrs. Sepulvida ran to the deep embrasured window and peeped out. "It isn't the lawyer, for he is driving away in his buggy, as if he were hurrying to get out of the fog, and my gentleman still remains. Dolores!" said Mrs. Sepulvida, suddenly facing her friend with an expression of mock gravity and humour, "this won't do! Who is that cavalier?"
With a terrible feeling that she was about to meet the keen eyes of Victor, Donna Dolores drew near the window from the side where she could look out without being herself seen. Her first glance at the figure of the stranger satisfied her that her fears were unfounded; it was not Victor. Reassured, she drew the curtain more boldly. At that instant the mysterious horseman wheeled, and she met full in her own the black eyes of Mr. Jack Hamlin. Donna Dolores instantly dropped the curtain and turned to her friend.
"I don't know!"
"Truly, Dolores?"
"Truly, Maria."
"Well, I believe you. I suppose then it must beme!"
Donna Dolores smiled, and playfully patted Mrs. Sepulvida's joyous face.
"Well, then?" she said invitingly.
"Well, then," responded Mrs. Sepulvida, half in embarrassment and half in satisfaction.
"The news!" said Donna Dolores.
"Oh—well," said Mrs. Sepulvida, with mock deliberation, "it has come at last!"
"It has?" said Donna Dolores, looking gravely at her friend.
"Yes. He has been there again to-day."
"And he asked you?" said Donna Dolores, opening her fan and turning her face toward the window.
"He asked me."
"And you said"——
Mrs. Sepulvida tripped gaily toward the window and looked out.
"I said"——
"What?"
"NO!"
After the visit of Mr. Peter Dumphy, One Horse Gulch was not surprised at the news of any stroke of good fortune. It was enough that he, the great capitalist, the successful speculator, had been there! The information that a company had been formed to develop a rich silver mine recently discovered on Conroy's Hill was received as a matter of course. Already the theories of the discovery were perfectly well established. That it was simply a grand speculativecoupof Dumphy's—that upon a boldly conceived plan this man intended to build up the town of One Horse Gulch—that he had invented "the lead" and backed it by an ostentatious display of capital in mills and smelting works solely for a speculative purpose; that five years before he had selected Gabriel Conroy as a simple-minded tool for this design; that Gabriel's Two and One Half Millions was merely an exaggerated form of expressing the exact wages—One Thousand dollars a year, which was all Dumphy had paid him for the use of his name, and that it was the duty of every man to endeavour to realise quickly on the advanceof property before this enormous bubble burst—this was the theory of one-half the people of One Horse Gulch. On the other hand, there was a large party who knew exactly the reverse. That the whole thing was purely accidental; that Mr. Peter Dumphy being called by other business to One Horse Gulch, while walking with Gabriel Conroy one day had picked up a singular piece of rock on Gabriel's claim, and had said, "This looks like silver;" that Gabriel Conroy had laughed at the suggestion, whereat Mr. Peter Dumphy, who never laughed, had turned about curtly and demanded in his usual sharp business way, "Will you take Seventeen Millions for all your right and title to this claim?" That Gabriel—"you know what a blank fool Gabe is!"—had assented, "and this way, sir, actually disposed of a property worth, on the lowest calculation, One Hundred and Fifty Millions." This was the generally accepted theory of the other and more imaginative portion of One Horse Gulch.
Howbeit within the next few weeks following the advent of Mr. Dumphy, the very soil seemed to have quickened through that sunshine, and all over the settlement pieces of plank and scantling—thin blades of new dwellings—started up under that beneficent presence. On the bleak hill sides the more extensive foundations of the Conroy Smelting Works were laid. The modest boarding-house and restaurant of Mrs. Markle was found inadequate to the wants and inconsistent with the greatness of One Horse Gulch, and a new hotel was erected. But here I am anticipating another evidence of progress—namely, the daily newspaper, in which these events were reported with a combination of ease and elegance one may envy yet never attain. Said theTimes:—
"The Grand Conroy House, now being inaugurated, will be managed by Mrs. Susan Markle, whose talents as achef de cuisineare as well known to One Horse Gulch as her rare social graces and magnificentpersonal charms. She will be aided by her former accomplished assistant, Miss Sarah Clark. As hash-slinger, Sal can walk over anything of her weight in Plumas."
"The Grand Conroy House, now being inaugurated, will be managed by Mrs. Susan Markle, whose talents as achef de cuisineare as well known to One Horse Gulch as her rare social graces and magnificentpersonal charms. She will be aided by her former accomplished assistant, Miss Sarah Clark. As hash-slinger, Sal can walk over anything of her weight in Plumas."
With these and other evidences of an improvement in public taste, the old baleful title of "One Horse Gulch" was deemed incongruous. It was proposed to change that name to "Silveropolis," there being, in the figurative language of the Gulch, "more than one horse could draw."
Meanwhile, the nominal and responsible position of Superintendent of the new works was filled by Gabriel, although the actual business and executive duty was performed by a sharp, snappy young fellow of about half Gabriel's size, supplied by the Company. This was in accordance with the wishes of Gabriel, who could not bear idleness; and the Company, although distrusting his administrative ability, wisely recognised his great power over the workmen through the popularity of his easy democratic manners, and his disposition always to lend his valuable physical assistance in cases of emergency. Gabriel had become a great favourite with the men ever since they found that prosperity had not altered his simple nature. It was pleasant to them to be able to point out to a stranger this plain, unostentatious, powerful giant, working like themselves, and with themselves, with the added information that he owned half the mine, and was worth Seventeen Millions! Always a shy and rather lonely man, his wealth seemed to have driven him, by its very oppressiveness, to the society of his humble fellows for relief. A certain deprecatoriness of manner whenever his riches were alluded to, strengthened the belief of some in that theory that he was merely the creature of Dumphy's speculation.
Although Gabriel was always assigned a small and insignificant part in the present prosperity of One Horse Gulch, it was somewhat characteristic of the peculiarwrongheadedness of this community that no one ever suspected his wife of any complicity in it. It had been long since settled that her superiority to her husband was chiefly the feminine charm of social grace and physical attraction. That, warmed by the sunshine of affluence, this butterfly would wantonly flit from flower to flower, and eventually quit her husband and One Horse Gulch for some more genial clime, was never doubted. "She'll make them millions fly ef she hez to fly with it," was the tenor of local criticism. A pity, not unmixed with contempt, was felt for Gabriel's apparent indifference to this prophetic outlook; his absolute insensibility to his wife's ambiguous reputation was looked upon as the hopelessness of a thoroughly deceived man. Even Mrs. Markle, whose attempts to mollify Olly had been received coldly by that young woman—even she was a convert to the theory of the complete domination of the Conroy household by this alien and stranger.
But despite this baleful prophecy, Mrs. Conroy did not fly nor show any inclination to leave her husband. A new house was built, with that rapidity of production that belonged to the climate, among the pines of Conroy's Hill, which on the hottest summer day still exuded the fresh sap of its green timbers and exhaled a woodland spicery. Here the good taste of Mrs. Conroy flowered in chintz, and was always fresh and feminine in white muslin curtains and pretty carpets, and here the fraternal love of Gabriel brought a grand piano for the use of Olly, and a teacher. Hither also came the best citizens of the county—even the notabilities of the State, feeling that Mr. Dumphy had, to a certain extent, made One Horse Gulch respectable, soon found out also that Mrs. Conroy was attractive; the Hon. Blank had dined there on the occasion of his last visit to his constituents of the Gulch; the Hon. Judge Beeswingerhad told in her parlour several of his most effective stories. Colonel Starbottle's manly breast had dilated over her dish-covers, and he had carried away with him not only a vivid appreciation of her charms capable of future eloquent expression, but an equally vivid idea of his own fascinations, equally incapable of concealment. Gabriel himself rarely occupied the house except for the exigencies of food and nightly shelter. If decoyed there at other times by specious invitations of Olly, he compromised by sitting on the back porch in his shirt sleeves, alleging as a reason his fear of the contaminating influence of his short black pipe.
"Don't ye mindme, July," he would say, when his spouse with anxious face and deprecatory manner would waive her native fastidiousness and aver that "she liked it." "Don't ye mind me, I admire to sit out yer. I'm a heap more comfortable outer doors, and allus waz. I reckon the smell might get into them curtings, and then—and then," added Gabriel, quietly ignoring the look of pleased expostulation with which Mrs. Conroy recognised this fancied recognition of her tastes, "and thenOlly's friends and thet teacher, not being round like you and me allez and used to it,theymightn't like it. And I've heerd that the smell of nigger-head terbacker do git inter the strings of a pianner and kinder stops the music. A pianner's a mighty cur'us thing. I've heerd say they're as dilikit and ailin' ez a child. Look in 'em and see them little strings a twistin' and crossin' each other like the reins of a six mule team, and it 'tain't no wonder they gets mixed up often."
It was not Gabriel's way to notice his wife's manner very closely, but if he had at that moment he might have fancied that there were other instruments whose fine chords were as subject to irritation and discordant disturbance. Perhaps only vaguely conscious of some womanish sullennesson his wife's part, Gabriel would at such times disengage himself as being the possible disorganising element, and lounge away. His favourite place of resort was his former cabin, now tenantless and in rapid decay, but which he had refused to dispose of, even after the erection of his two later dwellings rendered it an unnecessary and unsightly encumbrance of his lands. He loved to linger by the deserted hearth and smoke his pipe in solitude, not from any sentiment, conscious or unconscious, but from a force of habit, that was in this lonely man almost as pathetic.
He may have become aware at this time that a certain growing disparity of sentiment and taste which he had before noticed with a vague pain and wonder, rendered his gradual separation from Olly a necessity of her well-doing. He had indeed revealed this to her on several occasions with that frankness which was natural to him. He had apologised with marked politeness to her music teacher, who once invited him to observe Olly's proficiency, by saying in general terms that he "took no stock in chunes. I reckon it's about ez easy, Miss, if ye don't ring me in. Thet chile's got to get on without thinkin' o' me—or my 'pinion—allowin' it was wuth thinkin' on." Once meeting Olly walking with some older and more fashionable school friends whom she had invited from Sacramento, he had delicately avoided them with a sudden and undue consciousness of his great bulk, and his slow moving intellect, painfully sensitive to what seemed to him to be the preternatural quickness of the young people, and turned into a by-path.
On the other hand, it is possible that with the novelty of her new situation, and the increased importance that wealth brought to Olly, she had become more and more oblivious of her brother's feelings, and perhaps less persistent in her endeavours to draw him toward her. She knew that hehad attained an equal importance among his fellows from this very wealth, and also a certain evident, palpable, superficial respect which satisfied her. With her restless ambition and the new life that was opening before her, his slower old-fashioned methods, his absolute rusticity—that day by day appeared more strongly in contrast to his surroundings—began to irritate where it had formerly only touched her sensibilities. From this irritation she at last escaped by the unfailing processes of youth and the fascination of newer impressions. And so, day by day and hour by hour, they drifted slowly apart. Until one day Mrs. Conroy was pleasantly startled by an announcement from Gabriel, that he had completed arrangements to send Olly to boarding-school in Sacramento. It was understood, also, that this was only a necessary preliminary to the departure of herself and husband for a long-promised tour of Europe.
As it was impossible for one of Gabriel's simple nature to keep his plans entirely secret, Olly was perfectly aware of his intention, and prepared for the formal announcement, which she knew would come in Gabriel's quaint serious way. In the critical attitude which the child had taken toward him, she was more or less irritated, as an older person might have been, with the grave cautiousness with which Gabriel usually explained that conduct and manner which was perfectly apparent and open from the beginning. It was during a long walk in which the pair had strayed among the evergreen woods, when they came upon the little dismantled cabin. Here Gabriel stopped. Olly glanced around the spot and shrugged her shoulders. Gabriel, more mindful of Olly's manner than he had ever been of any other of her sex, instantly understood it.
"It ain't a purty place, Olly," he began, rubbing his hands, "but we've had high ole times yer—you and me.Don't ye mind the nights I used to kem up from the gulch and pitch in to mendin' your gownds, Olly, and you asleep? Don't ye mind that—ar dress I copper fastened?" and Gabriel laughed loudly, and yet a little doubtfully.
Olly laughed too, but not quite so heartily as her brother, and cast her eyes down upon her own figure. Gabriel followed the direction of her glance. It was not perhaps easy to re-create in the figure before him the outré little waif who such a short time—such a long time—ago had sat at his feet in that very cabin. It is not alone that Olly was better dressed, and her hair more tastefully arranged, but she seemed in some way to have become more refined and fastidious—a fastidiousness that was plainly an out-growth of something that she possessed buthedid not. As he looked at her, another vague hope that he had fostered—a fond belief that as she grew taller she would come to look like Grace, and so revive the missing sister in his memory—this seemed to fade away before him. Yet it was characteristic of the unselfishness of his nature, that he did not attribute this disappointment to her alone, but rather to some latent principle in human nature whereof he had been ignorant. He had even gone so far as to invite criticism on a hypothetical case from the sagacious Johnson. "It's the difference atween human natur and brute natur," that philosopher had answered promptly. "A purp's the same purp allez, even arter it's a grown dorg, but a child ain't—it's the difference atween reason and instink."
But Olly, to whom this scene recalled another circumstance, did not participate in Gabriel's particular reminiscence.
"Don't you remember, Gabe," she said, quickly, "the first night that sister July came here and stood right in that very door? Lord! how flabergasted we was to be sure! And if anybody'd told me, Gabe, thatshewas going tomarryyou—I'd, I'd a knocked 'em down," she blurted out, after hesitating for a suitable climax.
Gabriel, who in his turn did not seem to be particularly touched with Olly's form of reminiscence, rose instantly above all sentiment in a consideration of the proprieties. "Ye shouldn't talk o' knockin' people down, Olly—it ain't decent for a young gal," he said, quickly. "Not that I mind it," he added, with his usual apology, "but allowin' that some of them purty little friends o' yours or teacher now, should hear ye! Sit down for a spell, Olly. I've suthin' to tell ye."
He took her hand in his and made her sit beside him on the rude stone that served as the old doorstep of the cabin.
"Maybe ye might remember," he went on, lightly lifting her hand in his, and striking it gently across his knee to beget an easy confidential manner, "maybe ye might remember that I allers allowed to do two things ef ever I might make a strike—one was to give you a good schoolin'—the other was to find Grace, if so be as she was above the yearth. They waz many ways o' finding out—many ways o' settin' at it, but they warn'tmyways. I allus allowed that ef thet child was in harkenin' distance o' the reach o' my call, she'd hear me. I mout have took other men to help me—men ez was sharp in them things, men ez was in that trade—but I didn't. And why?"
Olly intimated by an impatient shake of her head that she didn't know.
"Because she was that shy and skary with strangers. Ye disremember how shy she was, Olly, in them days, for ye was too young to notice. And then, not bein' shy yourself, but sorter peart, free and promisskiss, ready and able to keep up your end of a conversation with anybody, and allus ez chipper as a jay-bird—why, ye don't kinderallow that fur Gracy as I do. And thar was reasons why that purty chile should be shy—reasons ye don't understand now, Olly, but reasons pow'ful and strong to such a child as thet."
"Ye mean, Gabe," said the shamelessly direct Olly, "that she was bashful, hevin' ran away with her bo."
That perplexity which wiser students of human nature than Gabriel have experienced at the swift perception of childhood in regard to certain things left him speechless. He could only stare hopelessly at the little figure before him.
"Well, wot didyoudo, Gabe? Go on!" said Olly, impatiently.
Gabriel drew a long breath.
"Thar bein' certing reasons why Gracy should be thet shy—reasons consarning propperty o' her deceased parients," boldly invented Gabriel, with a lofty ignoring of Olly's baser suggestion, "I reckoned that she should get the first word frommeand not from a stranger. I knowed she warn't in Californy, or she'd hev seen them handbills I issued five years ago. What did I do? Thar is a paper wot's printed in New York, called theHerald. Thar is a place in that thar paper whar they print notisses to people that is fur, fur away. They is precious words from fathers to their sons, from husbands to their wives, from brothers to sisters, ez can't find each other, from"——
"From sweethearts to thar bo's," said Olly, briskly; "I know."
Gabriel paused in speechless horror.
"Yes," continued Olly. "They calls 'em 'Personals.' Lord! I know all 'bout them. Gals get bo's by them, Gabe!"
Gabriel looked up at the bright, arching vault above him. Yet it did not darken nor split into fragments. And hehesitated. Was it worth while to go on? Was there anything he could tell this terrible child—his own sister—which she did not already know better than he?
"I wrote one o' them Pursonals," he went on to say, doggedly, "in this ways." He paused, and fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, finally drew out a well-worn newspaper slip, and straightening it with some care from its multitudinous enfoldings, read it slowly, and with that peculiar patronising self-consciousness which distinguishes the human animal in the rehearsal of its literary composition.
"Ef G. C. will communicate with sufferin' and anxious friends, she will confer a favour on ole Gabe. I will come and see her, and Olly will rise up and welcome her. Ef G. C. is sick or don't want to come she will write to G. C. G. C. is same as usual, and so is Olly. All is well. Address G. C., One Horse Gulch, Californy—till further notiss."
"Ef G. C. will communicate with sufferin' and anxious friends, she will confer a favour on ole Gabe. I will come and see her, and Olly will rise up and welcome her. Ef G. C. is sick or don't want to come she will write to G. C. G. C. is same as usual, and so is Olly. All is well. Address G. C., One Horse Gulch, Californy—till further notiss."
"Read it over again," said Olly.
Gabriel did so, readily.
"Ain't it kinder mixed up with them G. C.'s?" queried the practical Olly.
"Not for she," responded Gabriel, quickly, "that's just what July said when I showed her the 'Pursonal.' But I sed to her as I sez to you, it taint no puzzle to Gracy.Sheknows ez our letters is the same. And ef it 'pears queer to strangers, wots the odds? Thet's the idee ov a 'pursonal.' Howsomever, it's all right, Olly. Fur," he continued, lowering his voice confidentially, and drawing is sister closer to his side, "it's bin ansered!"
"By Grace?" asked Olly.
"No," said Gabriel, in some slight confusion, "not by Grace, exactly—that is—but yer's the anser." He drew from his bosom a small chamois-skin purse, such as miners used for their loose gold, and extracted the moreprecious slip. "Read it," he said to Olly, turning away his head.
Olly eagerly seized and read the paper.
"G. C.—Look no more for the missing one who will never return. Look at home. Be happy.—P. A."
"G. C.—Look no more for the missing one who will never return. Look at home. Be happy.—P. A."
Olly turned the slip over in her hands. "Is that all?" she asked, in a higher key, with a rising indignation in her pink cheeks.
"That's all," responded Gabriel; "short and shy—that's Gracy, all over."
"Then all I got to say is it's mean!" said Olly, bringing her brown fist down on her knee. "And that's wot I'd say to that thar P. A.—that Philip Ashley—if I met him."
A singular look, quite unlike the habitual placid, good-humoured expression of the man, crossed Gabriel's face as he quietly reached out and took the paper from Olly's hand.
"Thet's why I'm goin' off," he said, simply.
"Goin' off," repeated Olly.
"Goin' off—to the States. To New York," he responded, "July and me. July sez—and she's a peart sort o' woman in her way, ef not o' your kind, Olly," he interpolated, apologetically, "but pow'ful to argyfy and plan, and she allows ez New York 'ud nat'rally be the stampin' ground o' sich a high-toned feller ez him. And that's why I want to talk to ye, Olly. Thar's only two things ez 'ud ever part you and me, dear, and one on 'em ez this very thing—it's my dooty to Gracy, and the other ez my dooty to you. Et ain't to be expected that when you oughter be gettin' your edykation you'd be cavortin' round the world with me. And you'll stop yer at Sacramento in a A-1 first-class school, ontil I come back. Are ye hark'nin', dear?"
"Yes," said Olly, fixing her clear eyes on her brother.
"And ye ain't to worrit about me. And it 'ud be as well, Olly, ez you'd forget all 'bout this yer gulch, and the folks. Fur yer to be a lady, and in bein' thet brother Gabe don't want ennythin' to cross ye. And I want to say to thet feller, Olly, 'Ye ain't to jedge this yer fammerly by me, fur the men o' that fammerly gin'rally speakin' runs to size, and ain't, so to speak, strong up yer,'" continued Gabriel, placing his hands on his sandy curls; "'but thar's a little lady in school in Californy ez is jest what Gracy would hev bin if she'd had the schoolin'. And ef ye wants to converse with her she kin give you pints enny time' And then I brings you up, and nat'rally I reckon thet you ain't goin' back on brother Gabe—in 'stronomy, grammar, 'rithmetic and them things."
"But wot's the use of huntin' Grace if she says she'll never return?" said Olly, sharply.
"Ye musn't read them 'pursonals' ez ef they was square. They're kinder conundrums, ye know—puzzles. It says G. C. will never return. Well, s'pose G. C. has another name. Don't you see?"
"Married, maybe," said Olly, clapping her hands.
"Surely," said Gabriel, with a slight colour in his cheeks. "Thet's so."
"But s'pose it doesn't mean Grace after all?" persisted Olly.
Gabriel was for a moment staggered.
"But July sez it does," he answered, doubtfully.
Olly looked as if this evidence was not entirely satisfactory.
"But what does 'look at home' mean?" she continued.
"Thet's it," said Gabriel, eagerly. "Thet reads—'Look at little Olly—ain't she there?' And thet's like Gracy—allus thinkin' o' somebody else."
"Well," said Olly, "I'll stop yer, and let you go. But wot areyougoin' to do without me?"
Gabriel did not reply. The setting sun was so nearly level with his eyes that it dazzled them, and he was fain to hide them among the clustering curls of Olly, as he held the girl's head in both his hands. After a moment he said—
"Do ye want to know why I like this old cabin and this yer chimbly, Olly?"
"Yes," said Olly, whose eyes were also affected by the sun, and who was glad to turn them to the object indicated.
"It ain't because you and me hez sot there many and many a day, fur that's suthin' that we ain't goin' to think about any more. It's because, Olly, the first lick I ever struck with a pick on this hill was just yer. And I raised this yer chimbly with the rock. Folks thinks thet it was over yonder in the slope whar I struck the silver lead, thet I first druv a pick. But it warn't. And I sometimes think, Olly, that I've had as much square comfort outer thet first lick ez I'll ever get outer the lead yonder. But come, Olly, come! July will be wonderin' whar you is, and ther's a stranger yonder comin' up the road, and I reckon I ain't ez fine a lookin' bo ez a young lady ez you ez, orter to co-mand. Never mind, Olly, he needn't know ez you and me is any relashuns. Come!"
In spite of Gabriel's precautionary haste, the stranger, who was approaching by the only trail which led over the rocky hillside, perceived the couple, and turned toward them interrogatively. Gabriel was forced to stop, not, however, without first giving a slight reassuring pressure to Olly's hand.
"Can you tell me the way to the hotel—the Grand Conroy House I think they call it?" the traveller asked politely.
He would have been at any time an awe-inspiring and aggressive object to One Horse Gulch and to Gabriel, and at this particular moment he was particularly discomposing. He was elaborately dressed, buttoned and patent-leather booted in the extreme limit of some bygone fashion, and had the added effrontery of spotless ruffled linen. As he addressed Gabriel he touched a tall black hat, sacred in that locality to clergymen and gamblers. To add to Gabriel's discomfiture, at the mention of the Grand Conroy House he had felt Olly stiffen aggressively under his hand.
"Foller this yer trail to the foot of the hill, and ye'll strike Main Street; that'll fetch ye thar. I'd go with ye a piece, but I'm imployed," said Gabriel, with infinite tact and artfulness, accenting each word with a pinch of Olly's arm, "imployed by this yer young lady's friends to see her home, and bein' a partikler sort o' fammerly, they makes a row when I don't come reg'lar. Axin' your parding, don't they, Miss?" and to stop any possible retort from Olly before she could recover from her astonishment, he had hurried her into the shadows of the evergreen pines of Conroy Hill.
The Grand Conroy Hotel was new, and had the rare virtue of comparative cleanliness. As yet the odours of bygone dinners, and forgotten suppers, and long dismissed breakfasts had not possessed and permeated its halls and passages. There was no distinctive flavour of preceding guests in its freshly clothed and papered rooms. There was a certain virgin coyness about it, and even the activeministration of Mrs. Markle and Sal was delicately veiled from the public by the interposition of a bar-keeper and Irish waiter. Only to a few of the formerhabituésdid these ladies appear with their former frankness and informality. There was a public parlour, glittering with gilt framed mirrors and gorgeous with red plush furniture, which usually froze the geniality of One Horse Gulch, and repressed its larger expression, but there was a little sitting-room beyond sacred to the widow and her lieutenant Sal, where visitors were occasionally admitted. Among the favoured few who penetrated this arcana was Lawyer Maxwell. He was a widower, and was supposed to have a cynical distrust of the sex that was at once a challenge to them and a source of danger to himself.
Mrs. Markle was of course fully aware that Mrs. Conroy had been Maxwell's client, and that it was while on a visit to him she had met with the accident that resulted in her meeting with Gabriel. Unfortunately Mrs. Markle was unable to entirely satisfy herself if there had been any previous acquaintance. Maxwell had declared to her that to the best of his knowledge there had been none, and that the meeting was purely accidental. He could do this without violating the confidence of his client, and it is fair to presume that upon all other matters he was loyally uncommunicative. That Madame Devarges had consulted him regarding a claim to some property was the only information he imparted. In doing this, however, he once accidentally stumbled, and spoke of Mrs. Devarges as "Grace Conroy." Mrs. Markle instantly looked up. "I mean Mrs. Conroy," he said hastily.
"Grace—that was his sister who was lost—wasn't it?"
"Yes," replied Maxwell, demurely, "did he ever talk much to you about her?"
"No-o," said Mrs. Markle, with great frankness, "he andme only talked on gin'ral topics; but from what Olly used to let on, I reckon that sister was the only woman he ever loved."
Lawyer Maxwell, who, with an amused recollection of his extraordinary interview with Gabriel in regard to the woman before him, was watching her mischievously, suddenly became grave. "I guess you'll find, Mrs. Markle, that his present wife amply fills the place of his lost sister," he said, more seriously than had intended.
"Never," said Mrs. Markle, quickly. "Not she—the designin', crafty hussy!"
"I am afraid you are not doing her justice," said Maxwell, wiping away a smile from his lips, after his characteristic habit; "but then it's not strange that two bright, pretty women are unable to admire each other. What reason have you to chargeherwith being designing?" he asked again, with a sudden return of his former seriousness.
"Why, her marryin' him," responded Mrs. Markle, frankly; "look at that simple, shy, bashful critter, do you suppose he'd marry her—marry any woman—that didn't throw herself at his head, eh?"
Mrs. Markle's pique was so evident that even a philosopher like Maxwell could not content himself with referring it to the usual weakness of the sex. No man cares to have a woman exhibit habitually her weakness for another man, even when he possesses the power of restraining it. He answered somewhat quickly as he raised his hand to his mouth to wipe away the smile that, however, did not come. "But suppose that you—and others—are mistaken in Gabriel's character. Suppose all this simplicity and shyness is a mask. Suppose he is one of the most perfect and successful actors on or off the stage. Suppose he should turn out to have deceived everybody—even his present wife!"—and Lawyer Maxwell stopped in time.
Mrs. Markle instantly fired. "Suppose fiddlesticks and flapjacks! I'd as soon think o' suspectin' thet child," she said, pointing to the unconscious Manty. "You lawyers are allus suspectin' what you can't understand!" She paused as Maxwell wiped his face again. "What do you mean anyway—why don't yer speak out? What do you know of him?"
"Oh, nothing! only it's as fair to say all this of him as of her—on about the same evidence. For instance, here's a simple, ignorant fellow"——
"He ain't ignorant," interrupted Mrs. Markle, sacrificing argument to loyalty.
"Well, this grown-up child! He discovers the biggest lead in One Horse Gulch, manages to get the shrewdest financier in California to manage it for him, and that too after he has snatched up an heiress and a pretty woman before the rest of 'em got a sight of her. That may be simplicity; but my experience of guilelessness is that, ordinarily, it isn't so lucky."
"They won't do him the least good, depend upon it," said Mrs. Markle, with the air of triumphantly closing the argument.
It is very possible that Mrs. Markle's dislike was sustained and kept alive by Sal's more active animosity, and the strict espionage that young woman kept over the general movements and condition of the Conroys. Gabriel's loneliness, his favourite haunt on the hillside, the number and quality of Mrs. Conroy's visitors, even fragments of conversation held in the family circle, were all known to Sal, and redelivered to Mrs. Markle with Sal's own colouring. It is possible that most of the gossip concerning Mrs. Conroy already hinted at, had its origin in the views and observations of this admirable young woman, who did not confine her confidences entirely to her mistress. And when oneday a stranger and guest, staying at the Grand Conroy House, sought to enliven the solemnity of breakfast by social converse with Sal regarding the Conroys, she told him nearly everything that she had already told Mrs. Markle.
I am aware that it is alleged that some fascinating quality in this stranger's manner and appearance worked upon the susceptible nature and loosened the tongue of this severe virgin, but beyond a certain disposition to minister personally to his wants, to hover around him archly with a greater quantity of dishes than that usually offered the transient guest, and to occasionally expatiate on the excellence of some extra viand, there was really no ground for the report. Certainly, the guest was no ordinary man; was quite unlike the regularhabituésof the house, and perhaps to some extent justified this favouritism. He was young, sallow-faced, with very white teeth and skin, yellow hands, and a tropical, impulsive manner, which Miss Sarah Clark generally referred to as "Eyetalian." I venture to transcribe something of his outward oral expression.
"I care not greatly for the flapjack, nor yet for the dried apples," said Victor, whom the intelligent reader has at once recognised, "but a single cup of coffee sweetened by those glances and offered by those fair hands—which I kiss!—are to me enough. And you think that the Meestrees Conroy does not live happily with her husband. Ah! you are wise, you are wise, Mees Clark, I would not for much money find myself under these criticism, eh?"
"Well, eyes bein' given to us to see with by the Lord's holy will, and it ain't for weak creeturs like us to misplace our gifts or magnify 'em," said Sal, in shrill, bashful confusion, allowing an underdone fried egg to trickle from the plate on the coat-collar of the unconscious Judge Beeswinger, "I do say when a woman sez to her husband, ez she's sworn to honour and obey, 'This yer'smyhouse, andthis yer'smyland, and yer kin git,' thar ain't much show o' happiness thar. Ef it warn't for hearin' this with my own ears, bein' thar accidental like, and in a sogial way, I wouldn't hev believed it. And she allowin' to be a lady, and afeared to be civil to certain folks ez is ez good ez she and far better, and don't find it necessary to git married to git a position—and could hev done it a thousand times over ef so inclined. But folks is various and self praise is open disgrace. Let me recommend them beans. The pork, ez we allus kills ourselves fur the benefit o' transient gests, bein' a speciality."