Branded Part 25

"I have been waiting and postponing this talk in the hope that you would realize that you are not doing Polly fair justice. Like most American fathers, I am not supposed to know how matters stand between you, and I deal only with the facts as they appear to an onlooker. The home has been open to you, and you have made such use of your welcome as to lead others to believe that you are Polly's lover."

"I am," I a.s.serted.

"Ah," he said; "that clears the ground admirably. I like you, Bertrand, and I shall be glad to hear your defense, if you have any."

What could I say? Driven thus into a corner, I could only protest, rather incoherently, that I loved Polly, and that, in other circ.u.mstances, I should long since have asked her to be my wife.

"The 'circ.u.mstances' are connected with Miss Geddis?" he asked pointedly.

"Only incidentally. Considered for herself, Miss Geddis is a woman for whom any self-respecting man could have little regard."

For the first time in the interview the ex-schoolmaster's mild eyes grew hard.

"Then I am to infer that she has a hold of some sort upon you?"

"She has," I rejoined shortly.

"That simplifies matters still more," he averred, with as near an approach to severity as one of his characteristics could compa.s.s. "I don't wish to make or meddle to the extent of telling Polly what I have heard and what you have admitted. But in justice to her and to me, you should be man enough to stay away from the house and let Polly alone.

Am I unreasonable?"

"Not in the least. You might go much farther and still be blameless.

I have no valid excuse to offer, but if I should say that there are extenuating circ.u.mstances----"

He raised a thin hand in protest.

"Let us leave it at the point at which there will be the least ill-feeling," he cut in; and from that he switched without preface to a discussion of the varying ore values in a newly opened adit of the mine.

When he was gone I went into Barrett's room. As I have intimated, one of the troubles of mine-owning--if the mine be a producer--is to hold the smelter people in line. Like other Cripple Creek property owners, we had been up against the high costs of reduction almost from the first, and we were constantly sending test consignments of our ore to various smelters throughout the country, and even to Europe, in order to obtain checking data.

"About that car-load of Number Three ore we are sending to Falkenheim in California," I said to Barrett. "I'm going to break away and go with it if you have no objections."

Barrett looked up quickly.

"I think that is a wise move, Jimmie; a very wise move," he said gravely; and this meant that he, too, had been reading the Denver newspapers. Then he added: "We can get along all right without you, for awhile, and you may stay as long as you like. When will you go?"

"To-day; on the afternoon train."

"Straight west?--or by way of Denver?"

"Straight west, over the Midland, I guess."

This is what I said, and it is what I meant to do when I went back to my own office to set things in order for the long absence--for I fully meant it to be long. My office duties were not complicated, and the few things to be attended to were soon out of the way. One of the letters to be written was one that I did not dictate to the stenographer. It was to the Reverend John Whitley, enclosing a draft to be forwarded to my sister in Glendale. Ever since he had served me in the matter of returning Horace Barton's pocketbook, I had used him as an intermediary for communicating, money-wise, with my people. He had kept my secret, and was still keeping it.

The business affairs despatched, I crossed to the hotel to pack a couple of suit-cases. All these preliminary preparations included no word or line to Polly. I promised myself that I should write her when it was all over. The thing to be done now and first was to drop out as unostentatiously as possible. So ran the well-considered intention.

But when I went down to an early luncheon there was a telegram awaiting me. It was from Agatha Geddis, and its wording was a curt mandate.

"Expect you on afternoon train. Don't fail."

During the half-hour which remained before train-time I fought the wretched battle all over again, back and forth and up and down until my brain reeled. At the end there was a s.h.i.+fty compromise. I was still fully determined to drop out and go to California; at one stroke to break with Polly Everton, and to put myself beyond the reach of the woman with claws; but I weakly decided to go by way of Denver, taking the night train west from the capital city over the Union Pacific. It was a cowardly expedient, prompted wholly by the old, sharp-toothed fear of consequences if I should fall to obey the wire summons, and I knew it. I offer nothing in extenuation.

Agatha met me at the Denver Union Station, and at her suggestion we went together to dinner at the Brown Palace. I did not know until later why she had sent for me, or why she chose a particular table in the dining-room, or why she went to pieces--figuratively speaking--when, at the serving of the dessert, a note was handed her.

After that, I should have said that she had been drinking too much champagne, if I had not known better.

"I want you to go with me up to my suite, Bertie; I've moved to the hotel," she said hurriedly as we were leaving the dining-room.

If I went reluctantly it was not owing to any new-born squeamishness.

Heaven knows, I had been compromised with her too many times to care greatly for anything that could be added now. In the sitting-room of her private suite she punched the light switch and came to sit on the arm of my chair. If she had put an arm around my neck, as she did now and then when the wine was in and what few scruples she had were pushed aside, I think I should have strangled her.

"You are going to be awfully sweet to me to-night, Bertie," she began, with honey on her tongue. "You are going to be my good angel. I need a lot of money, and I want you to be nice and get it for me."

"No," I refused briefly. "You've bled me enough."

"Just this one more time, Boy," she coaxed. "I've simply _got_ to have it, you know."

"Why don't you get it from your father?"

"He has quit," she said, with a toss of the shapely head. "Besides, you are so much easier."

"How much do you want, this time?"

She named a sum which was a fair measure of my entire checking account in the Cripple Creek bank; no small amount, this, though by agreement Gifford, Barrett and I had set aside a liberal portion of the mine earnings as undivided profits. When I hesitated, fairly staggered by the enormity of her demand, she added: "Don't tell me you haven't got it; I know you have. You don't spend anything except the little you dole out for me."

"If I have that much, I am not carrying it around with me."

"I didn't suppose you carried it in your pocket. But you are well known here in Denver, and you can get your checks cashed at any hour of the day or night, if you go to the right places. You've done it before."

I was desperate enough to be half crazed. Not content with making me lose the love of the one woman in the world, she was preparing to rob me like a merciless highwayman.

"Nothing for nothing, the world over," I said, between set teeth. "I mean to have the worth of my money, this time."

With a quick twist on the arm of the chair she leaned over and put her cheek against mine. "There are others," she laughed softly, "but there has never been a day or an hour when you couldn't make them wait, Bertie, dear." And then: "No; I haven't been drinking."

"You will give me what I want, if I will pay the price?" I demanded.

"You heard what I said," she whispered.

I made her sit up and tried to face her.

"This is what I want. Four years ago you and your father sent me to prison for a crime that I didn't commit. Go over to that table and write and sign me my clearance--tell the bald truth and sign your name to it--and you shall have your money."

In a flash she slipped from her place on the arm of the chair and stood before me transformed into a flaming incarnation of vindictive rage.

In spite of the pace she had been keeping she was still very beautiful, and her anger served to heighten that physical charm which was the keynote of her power over men.

"_Oh_!" she panted; "so _that_ was what you were willing to pay for!

You want a bill of health so you can go back to that little hussy in Cripple Creek! Listen to me, Bert Weyburn: you've broken the last thread. I could kill you if you couldn't serve my turn better alive than dead! _I want that money_. If you don't bring it here to me by ten o'clock, the Denver police are going to find out that you, the wealthy third partner in the Little Clean-Up, are the man they photographed nearly a year ago, the man whose thumb-print they took, the man who is wanted as an escaped convict who has broken his parole--No, don't speak; let me finish. For the money you are going to bring me, I'll keep still--to the police. But for the slap you've just given me. . . . Did you ever read that line of Congreve's about a woman scorned? You've had your last little love-scene with Polly Everton!"

I'll tell it all. This time the murder demon proved too strong for me.

It was a sheer madman who sprang at her out of the depths of the arm-chair and bent her back over the little oak writing-table with his hands at her throat. She was not womanly enough to scream; instead, she fought silently and with the strength and cunning of mortal fear.