162
“Mrs. Huntington,” he said warmly. “You’re a peach!”
She laughed gaily, and put both her tiny hands in his, for just an instant.
This was the last straw. Seth snorted like a baited animal, whirled around, bolted from the house, and ran blindly to the barn.
“Saddle Nigger!” he yelled to Williams, who obeyed with stumbling alacrity, while Huntington strode up and down before the door.
From the window of the ranch house Claire and Hillyer, silent, watched him until he had flung himself into the saddle, dug the spurs into the flanks of his favorite and now astonished black horse, and disappeared up the hill.
“Where’s he going?” asked Hillyer, suspicious that Huntington meant mischief.
Claire drew back from the window with a sigh of relief.
“He’s going to––” She laughed softly, but with just a little tremor in her voice––“He’s going to––look after the cattle.”
Hillyer saw that her blue eyes were moist.
“He’s the best man in the world, and––I love him,” she said, looking at Hillyer with a soft appeal. “You believe that, don’t you?”
“Indeed I do, Mrs. Huntington,” Hillyer answered heartily.
“Then you must forgive him; he has such a temper!”
“I’m sorry we had any misunderstanding,” Hillyer was able to say sincerely. “I’ll talk it over with him––later.”
163
“Please!” urged Claire.
“But I must go now. Those things for Marion, please.”
“I’ll have them ready in a minute. And I’ve only to slip on another dress, and––”
“But you don’t mean––You’re not going?”
“Of course I am!” she answered, with a look of surprise.
“I think you’d better not,” he said quietly.
“But why?”
“Now think a minute, Mrs. Huntington. Your husband objects to your going. It will not only anger him more, but it will hurt him. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” she admitted reluctantly.
Her coals of fire had kindled her imagination. Such a romantic idea! There would be such talk, such a sensation!
“It would be another matter if there were anything you could do,” Hillyer went on. “But there isn’t. And I know very well that Marion would send you back if you did go.”
That was true enough, on reflection; but it was a disappointment!
“But Marion! There alone!” she said, making her last stand.
“I shall be there,” replied Hillyer. “The Chinaman’s going to fix a bed for me. I’ll look after Marion.”
So she yielded, and was glad of it when she had time to think it over. She gave Hillyer the bundle for Marion, and watched him go, waving a good-by from the veranda. Then she hastened to the kitchen to make apple dumplings for supper. If there was one thing164that could always be counted on to soothe Seth it was apple dumplings.
Meanwhile it was indeed a black day for Huntington. Fate was against him. Tearing himself, mangled in spirit, out of one trap, he rode blindly into another. Far up in the hills, riding savagely, he knew not where, nor cared, vowing dark vengeance on Haig, his attention was drawn at last by the weird and ominous bellowing of cattle. Following the sound, he came to a little hollow where a hundred or more cattle were gathered, like the rapt spectators in an amphitheater, around two bulls engaged in mortal combat. One, as Seth quickly saw, was a red Hereford, his best thoroughbred; the other, a black Angus, and even more valuable, was Haig’s. The red bull, bleeding from many wounds, was plainly being worsted in the encounter. With a roar of rage, Huntington drew his revolver, urged his unwilling horse down into the arena where the turf was torn up for many yards around the combatants, circled about until he could take sure aim, and emptied every chamber of the gun into the head and neck of the Angus. The bull sank to the ground, head first, in a lumbering mass that kicked once or twice, shivered, and lay still.
But the Hereford, red-eyed with blood and fury, turned on Huntington, and drove him, barely escaping being gored, into the thick timber. In a place of safety Huntington jerked his horse around, and sat limp in the saddle, staring down at the scene of his final humiliation.
“That’s it! That’s it!” he bellowed. “Even my own bull turns on me. Haw! Haw!” His hollow,165hoarse, and unmirthful laughter echoed among the pines. “Great joke! Haig will like that. And the rest of them. Hell!”
But Haig! And the Angus! Well, there’d got to be a show-down anyhow pretty soon. He dismounted, and seated himself on a fallen tree trunk, and gave himself up to reflections upon which it is only the most obvious kindness and discretion to draw the curtain.
166CHAPTER XVTHE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
The days dragged by under the burdens of doubt and torture, and out of the Valley of the Shadow came Philip Haig, with some new and disquieting thoughts to occupy him in his convalescence. Toiling up out of the darkness, where foul fiends seemed to have torn and mangled his body with their fiery claws, his fingers were still warm from the pressure of a soft, guiding hand; there was a haunting memory of kisses on his forehead, of a cheek laid close to his; and he could still hear the gentle but commanding voice that told him to be patient––to be still––that life was coming back to him.
Life! As if he cared for life! Had he not spent years on years in seeking what just now had been in his very grasp, only to be withdrawn by two caressing hands? And Doctor Morris, on the day of his final visit, had left him no possibility of misunderstanding.
“Miss Gaylord has saved your life,” he said. “I could do little. It was her nursing that pulled you through.”
He wanted much to tell the doctor just how much value he placed on that life. But to what purpose? Doctors lived in their own peculiar atmosphere of conceit and self-deception, crowing like a hen over a new-laid167egg whenever they chanced to bring back a soul to the miseries from which it had struggled to escape. It would be a waste of words, for Norris would never understand. Would Marion? Cold terror seized him at the thought of the coming, the inevitable scene with her. She, he realized vaguely, was different from––from all the others he had ever seen and looked down upon from his safe heights of cynical hatred and contempt. She was not selfish or mercenary––not consciously selfish or mercenary. And she was not vile. But she was all the more dangerous because her heart was pure. She was too high-bred, too fine, to demand payment of his debt; but her very reticence and delicacy, he foresaw, would make his repudiation of that debt––that factitious debt––more difficult. Twice or thrice, as he struggled with his problem, he was conscious of a curious, disturbing thrill. She loved him. There had been a time, long, long ago––But now he was a man; he had learned his lesson; and he knew that the chains would be no less hateful because they were made of gold.
There came a day when he sat, wrapped in blankets, in an armchair near the window, where he could see the grass waving in the sunlight on the slope above the cottage, and the pines bending in the breeze high up the hill. Marion, near him, her hands folded in her lap, looked sometimes out of the window but more often at him, though his eyes avoided hers. She was scarcely less pale than he, and very tired and worn. Despite Hillyer’s protestations she had slept little in the ten days of Philip’s peril; for she would trust no one but herself to do with iron determination exactly what the168doctor had commanded. Philip’s pitiable pleading for water in his semi-delirium her love alone was strong enough to resist. But this was the last day of her watch over him. In an hour she must go. She had frankly asked Robert to let her have this last afternoon alone with Philip; and had promised him that he should then have the answer to every question that he had loyally put aside for her.
They sat a long time silent, while the shadow of the cottage lengthened on the grass.
“It wasn’t worth it, Miss Gaylord,” Haig said at length.
“I––I don’t understand,” she faltered.
“Doctor Norris tells me that you saved my life.”
“I’m glad if he thinks I helped a little,” she answered, trying to smile.
“He left me no room for doubt. Very plain-spoken is Doctor Norris.”
“I’m afraid he exaggerated,” she protested gently.
“No.”
“But Jim––”
“Jim’s all right in his way, but he couldn’t have done it.”
“I am paid,” she said simply.
“Paid?”
“Yes. Knowing that you live.”
“No. You think you mean that, perhaps, but you don’t.”
“I don’t mean what?” she asked in surprise.
“You don’t mean that you are paid.”
She turned away, and looked out the window, her heart throbbing.
169
“I must tell you something, Miss Gaylord,” he went on resolutely. “I’m not grateful.”
“Not grateful?”
“I mean, I’m not glad to owe my life to you.”
“But I haven’t asked––”
“No. Not directly.” He hesitated a moment. “It’s like this: If a man had saved my life, I could pay him. There would be a clasp of the hand, and a look from man to man. Or I should save his life in turn, or do him some service. Or––there are other ways. There’s Pete’s way and Jim’s way––of paying. But I can’t pay you in any of the ways I could pay a man. And I can’t pay in the only way a woman knows.”
“Don’t,” she cried. “Don’t, please!”
She was right, he thought. He was doing it brutally. He must try another method. There followed a long silence, while he tried to frame a speech that would tell her, and would not hurt too much; for now, strangely, he found himself reluctant to give her pain, even to put himself in a false light before her––to be misunderstood. At last he leaned toward her––forced her to meet his gaze.
“Could you––if you had ever loved one man with all your heart and soul––held him as dear to you as life––dearer than life itself––without whom life would be impossible––could you ever love another?”
For all her anguish she was able to detect the trap that he had set for her. “Yes” would cheapen the quality and deny the finality of her love for him; “no” would be an acceptance of the doom and tragedy she saw shadowing his eyes. She did not answer.
170
“You see, you dare not answer that,” he went on. “I suppose I ought to tell you the story. But I won’t. It’s long, and not a pretty story at all. But this much I will tell you. I gave one woman all I had to give. She threw it away––and laughed at me. I have nothing more.”
She took it very bravely and very quietly, as it seemed to him. He felt a certain admiration. There was good blood in the girl. Her father must have been worth knowing. His thoughts would have taken a different direction––would have been nothing so complacent if he had known just what she was thinking. His speech, terrifying at first, had actually renewed a hope that had fallen very low. She did not believe a word of what he had said, that is, of his having nothing more to give. Whenever did woman believe any such thing as that, no matter how solemnly, on what stoutest oaths, with what tragic air a man has told it to her? Love is not love that doubts its own compelling power. And Marion, gazing fondly at Philip now, felt somewhat as a mother feels who smilingly indulges some childhood tragedy of her boy, knowing that it will pass as the cloud upon an April sky. If this was the worst he had to say to her––
But it was not the worst. Philip felt an intense relief to see her accept the situation with such unexpected calm. He admired her consciously now,––for her intelligence. He began to think that he might almost take her hand, and thank her, as he would thank a man for doing him a service, however mistakenly. But something held him back from that folly. He wondered a little at her silence, and it was by way of breaking it171before it should become embarrassing that he searched for something safe and commonplace to say to her.
“It was my own fault, you know, that I was injured.”
“Why your own fault?”
“I was in a bad humor. I lost my self-control. And I got what I deserved.”
He thought she would ask him why he had been in a bad humor, and he purposed to say that he was raging in discontent, longing for the white road again. It would be safe enough now, no doubt, to tell her in this fashion that if ever she should come to the Park again she would not find him there. But his words had suggested something entirely different to her mind.
“What are you going to do with him?” she asked, in sudden vague anxiety.
“Do with him?”
“Yes––Sunnysides? I wish you’d please sell him.”
“Sell him? Sell Sunnysides?” His voice betrayed his astonishment.
“Yes.”
“But I haven’t ridden him yet.”
“You don’t mean––” Her voice failed.
“That I’m going to ride him? Just as soon as I get well.”
For some seconds she sat dazed. It was so utterly unexpected. The thought had not once occurred to her that he would try again what had all but cost him his life. It is at some such point as this that man’s and woman’s natures make one of their many departures from the parallel. To Haig the taming of Sunnysides now meant everything; to Marion it seemed a useless, a worse than useless risk, a wicked waste. What had been172the worth, then, of all her labor of love, if it was to be thrown away? He would be killed the next time. And in the horror with which she foresaw that tragic end of all that she had planned and builded, her courage and confidence fell away from her, and left her weak and helpless. She uttered a thin, little cry, and slipped to the floor on her knees, clasping his emaciated hand that lay on an arm of the chair.
“No! No!” she cried frantically. “Please, Philip! Please promise me you won’t do that!”
Then she broke down completely, her head drooped, and she sank down in a heap, with her face between her hands.
Haig was stunned. He had blundered again. Fool, not to have let her go away from him in silence, in calm! He looked down at that crumpled figure, at the mass of tawny hair, with the red-gold lights in it, the enticing soft whiteness of her neck where the hair curved cleanly upward, the graceful slope of the shoulders that now shook with sobs. And something stirred in him, something deep, too deep to be reached and overpowered. It grew until it sang through all his being, a feeling such as he had never known before. She was fine and beautiful; she was a thing to be desired; and he had only to reach out, and take her for his own. Before he was aware of it, he had stretched out his hand until it almost touched her hair. Then from across the years a mocking voice rang out shrill and cold and cruel: “Now don’t you go mussing up my apartment, Pipo!”
He drew back his hand with a jerk, and clutched the chair; and sat bolt upright, while every nerve rang with the alarm.
173
Minutes passed. The sobs gradually subsided; the figure on the floor slowly ceased its convulsive movements; and again a deep silence enveloped the room. Out on the brown-green slope the sun’s rays were slanting low, the shadow of the cottage climbed the hill.
Well, Haig thought, he had bungled the business after all. That was what came of trying to do it nicely, with delicacy. Hard words were the kindest in the end, because the quickest understood.
She had not yet lifted her head when he turned to look at her again; and that made it easier.
“I can’t leave the ranch––just now,” he said slowly. “If I could, I would. So I think––I think you ought to go back home––to New York, I mean––at once.”
She did not answer. And it was only after another silence that she looked up at him, and he saw that her eyes were still filled with tears, and there was a curious little puckering of her chin.
“You said you wished you could repay me,” she said. “Do you?”
“Yes,” he answered, wondering. “But I told you––”
“But there is a way!”
“Well?”
“Promise me you will not ride Sunnysides.”
He shook his head.
“No. I can’t promise that.”
“Why?”
“That’s one of the things you couldn’t possibly understand.”
“But it’s such a little thing!”
174
“If I gave you that, I should indeed have nothing left. You would have all.”
It was true that she could not in the least understand. But she knew she could not move him.
“Then promise me,” she pleaded, “that you’ll not try it until you are quite, quite well!”
“Oh. I promise you that!” he replied, with a grim smile.
“Thank you––Philip!”
Presently she arose, and looked down at him with a long, lingering gaze that seemed to be searching for something in his features.
“You’ll take just what Jim gives you?” she asked anxiously.
“Of course.”
“And not try to––boss him about the medicines and the food?”
“I promise to obey orders.”
“And you’ll be very careful?”
“Yes.”
She moved slowly toward the door. But halfway there she stopped, and turned to look at him again. How could she leave him now? She couldn’t! She couldn’t! He was gazing away from her, out through the window. Wasn’t he going to say a word to her––of farewell? She came back unsteadily, and stood behind his chair, her hands stretched out above his head. Then suddenly, impulsively, not touching him with her hands, she leaned down, and kissed his forehead.
“Good-by!” she said, her voice breaking.
“Good-by!” he answered gently, but without turning his head.
175
He heard the door opened and closed, very softly. After that he sat a long time in silence. Well, she was gone! It had been a trying afternoon, and he was glad to have it ended. And yet the room seemed to be extraordinarily empty, as it had never been before his illness. The stillness rather oppressed him. Damn it all, sickness did strange things to a man! Took a lot out of him! He straightened himself in his chair.
Presently Jim entered.
“Well, Jim!” said Haig. “Here we are again, eh? I’m hungry.”
“You eat, she come back,” Jim answered shrewdly.
Haig looked at him sharply, but the Chinaman’s face was like a paper mask.
“Shut up!” he cried savagely.
176CHAPTER XVIQUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Hillyer was waiting for her at the barn when she came at last, with a smile that eased his anxiety, if only in an inconsiderable degree. But he saw, as he took her handbag and bundle, and placed them in the automobile, that she had been crying. This gladdened while it angered him, and he was lost among the many interpretations that might be put upon those signs of distress. Had she come to the end of her infatuation? Had she been subjected to insults as the reward of her service? He dared not ask her such questions––not yet; but he was resolved (and there were material reasons, too, for that decision) to have his own case settled, one way or another, at once.
Neither of them spoke more than a conventional word or two until Hillyer, after full speed down Haig’s road to the junction, slowed up on the main highway along the Brightwater. It was the serenest of summer evenings, very still and fragrant, with a touch of autumn in the air. The eastern sky was filled with pale golds and pinks, and the foothills were warm with purples. Marion’s face was averted from Hillyer, and her eyes were fixed, not on the soft alternations of color in the sky, but on Thunder Mountain, where the only clouds to be seen in all the expanse of blue lay low upon its uncompromising head.
177
“Marion!” said Hillyer, at length.
She did not miss the note in his voice that exposed his intention, but long preparation for this moment enabled her to face him calmly.
“Yes, I know, Robert,” she said. “You have much to say to me.”
“I’m going to-morrow,” he began abruptly. “Will you go with me?”
“To-morrow? Go with you?” she repeated, with a little start of surprise.
“Yes. Will you go with me?”
“But I don’t understand, Robert.”
“I must be in Denver the day after to-morrow.”
“I––I didn’t know your time was so short. I’m afraid––I’ve spoiled your visit.”
“That doesn’t matter, Marion, if you’ll go back with me.”
“But I can’t––just yet.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not ready. I haven’t half finished my visit with Claire.”
She was, after all, somewhat confused, for she had not expected him to approach the subject in just this way.
“But the summer is almost gone. It’s near the end of August,” persisted Hillyer.
“There’s another month of good weather. And September, Claire says, is the most beautiful of all.”
“That may be, unless Huntington’s right. He told me only yesterday that it’s going to be an early winter. There’s come a chill in the air even since I’ve been here.”
178
“Nonsense!” she replied, recovering her composure. “I’ll go out with the last stage.”
“And get caught in an avalanche or something!”
“I suppose Seth does want to get rid of me!” she said, with a faint laugh.
“That’s not it at all.”
“Well, I’m not afraid.”
“But suppose you stay too late, and get caught. You’d have to remain here all winter. The Park, Huntington says, is as tight as a jail after the snows come.”
“Claire stays here through the winter sometimes.”
He felt a fresh alarm, and showed it. It would be just like her! he thought.
“See here, Marion!” he said, plunging at last. “I’ve obeyed your order not to say anything about––the future. I meant not to say anything until the time was up. But you must see I can’t keep silent now, after––what’s happened. You must know I can’t go away and leave you without knowing what––it all means. You said you’d tell me as soon as you’d finished nursing––him. No, wait, please! Let me say it at once. You know I love you. I want you to marry me. I need you, Marion. There’s never been an hour, a minute that I haven’t thought of you. I can’t work––I can’t do anything without you. I love you more than––”
“Stop, Robert!” she cried. “You’re making it harder for both of us.”
“Harder––for––both of us?” he repeated slowly.
“Yes.”
There was a moment’s silence. Hillyer, while he179spoke, had half-consciously stopped the automobile, which stood now, humming softly, in the middle of the road that stretched white and empty ahead of them and behind them. The night breeze had risen, blowing cold from the snows, and the shadows were creeping down into the valley, as if they came from dark caverns in the hills.
“Robert,” she said sadly. “It’s no use. I must tell you. I––I can’t marry you.”
“Why?”
“You make me say it!” she cried. “Well, Robert, I––I don’t love you.”
“I’m not asking you to love me!” he rejoined, almost savagely. “I only ask you––”
“Listen!” she interrupted, placing a hand on his arm. “That’s not all.”
“You mean––”
She stopped him with a pressure on his arm.
“Once, not knowing, I almost consented,” she went on. “But something checked me––held me back. You remember how restless I was––how troubled. You would have laughed at me if I had told you. But something seemed to be calling me––a voice from a long distance. I laughed at myself for a foolish girl––at first. I said it was nerves, and I fought against it. And it was then that I came nearest to saying yes to you, thinking that I was indeed foolish in holding back. I liked you. I’ve always liked you, Robert. You’d been such a splendid friend, and I was grateful. I wanted to repay you––”
She stopped suddenly, and a flush mounted swiftly into her pale cheeks. Repay! The word recalled180sharply to her, acutely and painfully, all that Haig had said about paying her. Were they, then, in the same dreadful situation, she and Haig, with debts they could never pay? For the first time some sense of the terrible finality of his decision struck in upon her secret hopes.
“Don’t talk of that!” Robert was saying, seizing the moment of silence. “I never––”
“But always, when I was about to yield––I couldn’t. I didn’t know why then. But now I do.”
“You mean––Haig?” he asked hoarsely.
“Yes.”
“You don’t––” He could not bring himself to speak the word.
“Yes, Robert. I love him.”
It took all the courage she possessed. But she owed it to him and to herself.
“I don’t believe it!” he blurted out. “I won’t believe it! You are not yourself, Marion. You are worn out. You have been fascinated. He’s strange––different––new to you. It’s your imagination, not your heart, that’s been––won. He’s led you on by––”
“No!” she broke in. “You’re quite wrong. It’s not his fault at all. He doesn’t love me.”
“Of course not. I know that kind of fellow. You didn’t need to leave New York to find plenty like him. He only wants to––”
“Robert!” she cried warningly.
“Then what––”
“He hates me, I think,” she replied sadly.
“Then why in the world do you––” He was floundering. “What do you know about him, anyhow? Who is he? Where did he come from?”
181
That sounded so much like Seth Huntington that she smiled, thinking of the picture that he must have drawn for Hillyer.
“I know very little about him,” she replied quietly. “But I know that Cousin Seth is mistaken.”
“But how do you know he hates you?”
“He made that clear in the beginning––not me alone, but all women. He shunned me. He told me twice that I must not speak to him again. And this afternoon, while you waited for me––” Her voice broke, with a laugh that was half a sob. “He––finished it.”
“He was rude to you!” he cried. “I’ll make him––”
She put her hand quickly on his arm.
“No. He was very gentle––and kind.”
“What did he say?” Hillyer demanded, almost imperatively.
“He said that––he couldn’t leave the ranch just now, so I’d better go back to New York––at once.”
“He did, did he?” cried Hillyer angrily, his chivalry for the moment dominant. But then he saw suddenly another meaning, for him, in the brutal ultimatum; and his face brightened. “That settles it, doesn’t it?” he exclaimed eagerly.
“Settles what?”
“Why, you’ll go with me!”
“No.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you I’m not ready yet.”
There was a silence while Hillyer, buoyed up with new hope, made some hurried calculations.
182
“Then listen, Marion!” he said. “I’ll go to Denver, and come back in a week or ten days. I’ll arrange things so that I can stay here until––”
“Oh, Robert! You won’t understand.”
He stared at her blankly.
“You’re making it so hard for me!” she cried pathetically. “I’ve told you already that I cannot marry you.”
“But why! Why!” he persisted.
“Because I haven’t myself––I’ve nothing to give.”
“But how can you love him after he has––”
“Told me he does not love me?” she said, taking the words from him. “Then how can you love me when I have said the same thing to you?”
He struggled desperately, in deep water.
“It’s different, Marion. You don’t hate me––I think. You say you like me. That’s enough now––to start with. It’s all I ask. I’ll try to make you happy, and I’ll wait for love. You shall have all the things in the world you want. I’m making scads of money. Everything I touch just rolls up into bank notes. I want you to come and spend all that money for me. Remember, Marion, your father wished it. If he were here now––”
“Yes!” she put in with sudden fire. “If he were here now do you know what he would say to me?”
He felt that he had blundered, and made no reply.
“He would say to me––Oh, I can hear him now! He would say: ‘Follow your heart, daughter. Love’s the only thing in the world that really counts.’”
She smiled triumphantly, but wistfully. And Hillyer was still silent.
183
“Daddy wasn’t very good at quoting Scripture,” she went on musingly, “but he used to say: ‘Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.’”
“But there isn’t any hatred therewith!” cried Hillyer desperately. “I love you, Marion, and if you don’t love me––you don’t hate me. So there’s more than half of it, and––can’t we trust the future a little bit?”
“No.”
“But what are you going to do?” he asked, shifting his line of attack.
“I don’t know,” she replied, with a helpless gesture.
“You can’t go back to New York without money enough to take your proper place in the world. Of course, if you’ll let me, I’ll––”
“Robert!” she interrupted sharply.
“Well, I mean it just the same!” he replied stoutly. “I’ve got to take care of you, and if you won’t––See here, Marion! I simply refuse to be turned down this way. I’ll not take your stubborn, whimsy little ‘no’ for my answer. You’re on my hands, thank God! whether you like it or not. Maybe you won’t love me. Maybe you won’t marry me. We’ll see about that! But I’m going to look after you––I’m going to take care of you, just the same––and you can just stop tightening those lips––they’re not as red as they ought to be––and you can make up your mind that you can boss me so far and no farther.”
Marion smiled at him indulgently, but gratefully, and even a little proudly; for she had been very proud of him in the days when only friendship was spoken of.184She did not in the least resent his speech; but neither did she answer him.
“It’s getting late, Robert,” she said, shivering a little.
“So it is,” he replied. “And you’ve no warm wrap for the night air.”
He drew the lap-robe around her, and started the automobile. Through the gathering night they drove, almost without speaking, to Huntington’s, where the best supper that Claire could contrive from the limited stores at her disposal awaited the prodigal. There was naturally some constraint at table. Huntington had made his peace with Hillyer, having apologized humbly, and expatiated on the cause of his wrath. But he did not know how he stood with Marion, who had been a long time in the camp of the enemy, and who doubtless knew too of his speech about her trunks. He had not dared to ask Hillyer whether he had related that incident to her, and he felt the need of extreme discretion until he should discover what kind of a rod she had in pickle for him, or, at any rate, until the time should be propitious to tell her that he was sorry for his conduct. Marion was tired, and disinclined to talk, while Hillyer, on his side, had his mind fully occupied, between his deal in mines and his deal in love, in both of which he had encountered unexpected difficulties. Only Claire was gay and untroubled, and she accepted eagerly the task of saving the party from awkward silences. For once in many moons she was allowed to talk unchecked, and she made the most of her opportunity.
After supper, Marion announced her purpose to go to bed at once. She was sure, she declared, that she could sleep “around the clock.”
185
“I’ll be off before you’re up, then,” said Hillyer.
“You must go to-morrow?” asked Claire.
“Absolutely. It means thousands.”
“Then we’ll sit on the veranda a few minutes,” said Marion. “Not long, though. I’m dreadfully sleepy.”
It was not long. They found they had little to say to each other, since the one subject of which both were thinking, each from a different point of view, was tacitly barred. And Hillyer soon saw that Marion was sorely in need of rest.
“Go to bed now, dear girl!” he said presently. “And please take good care of yourself. I want to see the color back in your cheeks when I return.”
“I will, Robert,” she answered. “I’ll be quite all right in a day or two.”
“And you––don’t really think of staying here all winter?” he ventured to ask diffidently.
“No,” she replied. “That’s hardly possible.”
“Then good-by––until you hear my horn in the road down yonder.”
“Good-by, Robert, and good luck!”
She gave him both her hands, for a moment, with a tenderness that lingered with him far on his way.
186CHAPTER XVIIINTERLUDE
August ripened into September, and the Park underwent a subtle and fascinating change. In the meadows the hay lay in long windrows, golden green; on the slopes vermilion flowers succeeded blue; in the sunsets tender pinks yielded to burnt orange and vivid red. The nights had grown perceptibly colder, but the days were still warm and dry and radiant, though with a tang in the air that stirred the blood. And a thousand perfumes, known and unknown, distilled from meadow and field and forest, scented every vagrant breeze.
Marion was soon herself again, in body if not in mind. A few long nights of sleep, a few days in the saddle, and sufficient nourishment (for she had neglected herself at Haig’s, despite Jim’s solicitude) restored her physically to what she had been on the day of Haig’s accident. But she, too, had changed, and as subtly as the season.
“What’s come over Marion?” asked Huntington of Claire one day, after he had caught himself regarding her with the rapt interest of a discoverer.
Claire looked at him pityingly. She knew, but she was not going to tell him.
“Why?” she asked innocently.
“Well, I don’t exactly know,” he replied doubtfully.187“She’s prettier than ever––but so are you. That isn’t it. She’s kind of––It’s no use. I don’t know.”
Claire laughed, and then became severe.
“That’s because she’s forgiven you,” she said.
“No, it isn’t!” he asseverated, not without embarrassment. “You can see for yourself that she’s different.”
“Very well!” she retorted maliciously. “Perhaps if you’d done such a noble thing as nursing Haig back to life you’d be different too.”
“I’d see him in––”
“Shame!” she cried. “You wouldn’t do anything of the kind. Your bark’s worse than your bite, sir. And besides, while I think of it, you really must stop saying ‘hell’ and ‘damn’ so much. The habit’s growing on you.”
Having no ready answer to that speech, he merely looked at her, perhaps a little guiltily, then bent down and kissed her, and hurried out of the house. He was, in truth, though he never would have had the courage to acknowledge it, even to Claire, ashamed of himself, and anxious too. His inflammable temper had rather out-flamed itself in its last-recorded performance, and he had begun to suspect that it had been responsible for some, though by no means all, of his troubles. The killing of Haig’s bull, he now realized, was a foolish and indefensible act, which could be traced easily to him because of the bull that was gored; and he must prepare to account to Haig for it. And so, knowing that he would again be in the wrong, as in the affair at the post-office, he was torn between accentuated bitterness188toward Haig and growing discontent with himself. He would never be afraid of Haig, but he was becoming steadily more afraid of Marion. Whether it was that he had really developed intuition, which told him of Marion’s spiritual growth, or that he was in constant dread lest she make some new demand upon him in regard to Haig, he lived in much awe of her. She had once spoken, on a memorable occasion, of making peace between Haig and himself. It would be just like her, wouldn’t it, to try to bring them together? Well, let her try it! He would be the last man in Paradise Park. And so on, until he was once more almost satisfied with himself.
The faithful Smythe, meanwhile, brought Marion almost daily news of Philip. That he was rapidly recovering she heard with a ringing joy, which had its alloy of fear; for she knew that the day he felt himself to be in full possession of his powers he would attempt again to conquer Sunnysides. So from day to day her apprehension mounted until it became well-nigh insupportable. And her own helplessness maddened her. What could she do? Nothing! Nothing but wait, and pray God to protect him. Every night she prayed for him, and every morning, on her knees; and every hour the prayer was in her heart. She rode sometimes as far as the farther edge of the woods that crowned the ridge, and looked long at the little valley, and at the smoke rising in a thin spiral from the ranch house that she could not see. At the right of it would be the cottage, and at the left the barn, and the corral where Sunnysides bided his time. And then, having looked until she could endure no more, she would ride slowly189home, to await the next coming of Smythe with news.
Once she went to the glade of the columbines. She did not feel any longer the antipathy she once felt to the spot that had, in one devastating moment, revealed to her the fatuity of her dreams. Now she was in search of the old hopes that she had once revelled in, while she gathered armloads of columbines, and imagined they were for Philip.
Dismounting eagerly at the foot of the little hill, she plunged through the brush, and halted at the margin of the glade, stricken with the keenest disappointment. The columbines were gone; only a brave, pale blossom here and there lingered pathetically in a waste of dried and drooping stems. She stood staring at them a moment; then, with a cry, she threw herself down among them, and gave herself up to grief, letting the tears come in what flood they would, while her hand clutched one poor survivor of the summer glory.
Gone, then, like the summer, were all those dreams. And very soon must come the end of all. Barely two weeks remained to her in the Park,––barely two weeks in which the miracle that she awaited could be wrought. What miracle could move him when her love had failed? And yet––Once, in her desperation, she suggested to Claire and Seth that she should remain all winter in the Park; but they rose up together against any such scheme. It was absurd, they agreed. They would be delighted to have her with them as many summers as she might wish; and they were already counting on her return to them next June. But the Park in winter was no place for a woman, unless she had been long inured to such hardships as were involved in that hibernation.190Claire had remained two winters there, it was true, but Seth had vowed that she should never miss the last stage again. Marion’s proposal only clinched the matter the more firmly; and it was eventually agreed that Claire should go with Marion to New York, where they would live very quietly, taking what pleasures their means would permit, until spring should bring them back to the mountains. And so, barring a miracle, she was at the end of her hopes.
Meanwhile, she had heard from Robert. He was nearly wild, he wrote. The big deal was going slowly––not badly, but with maddening delays. He was tempted to “chuck the whole business,” though it meant thousands, perhaps half a million. Yet how could he do that? He was working for her; and if he left Denver the deal would certainly fall through. But there was yet time; any day the stubborn partner might yield; and so on. Poor Robert! thought Marion. She imagined what Philip would have done if he had wanted her as Robert did. Would any deal, any prospect of millions, have kept him away from her? So she reasoned, forgetting entirely the other side of the case. Haig, if she could have asked him, would have told her: yes, that’s all very well, but the man would have to get those thousands or other thousands afterwards, just the same; a woman wants to have her cake and eat it too; and so much the worse for the man if he cannot dance attendance on her and make money for her at the same time!
She wrote to Robert that be must not think of leaving his business. Moreover, she would soon be in Denver, on her way back home.