The Everlasting Whisper Part 37

Meanwhile Gratton took a second pull at his flask, set it carefully aside and stood up, swinging his arms to get the blood running, beating his hands against his thighs, stamping gingerly. He began looking at her curiously. Presently he said: "Do you think we are ever going to get out of this alive?"

"Yes." Her voice rang with a.s.surance. "Mark King has gone for help. All we have to do is wait for a few days."

His pale brows flew up.

"King? He has gone? He has left you alone here?"

Again she said: "Yes." Gratton began plucking at his lip, striding up and down now. It became obvious to her that there had been nothing wrong within him beyond what his frantic terror had done to him. Perhaps, left alone, he would have died out there in the snow; now, having already leaned on her, having her company and the hope she held out, he began to look his old self.

"Now I'll go for the things in the other cave," she suggested. And as an afterthought: "Now that you are feeling better, perhaps you will go up with me and help?"

"Why," he said, "why--of course. Yes, we'll both go."

For in his new mood, warmed by the fire and the raw whiskey, and, further, having seen that she had done the thing with no mishap, he was willing to do what before he could not do.

"Come," he said. "Let's hurry."

Along the paths they had already made it was a much easier matter to make the return trip. At the cliffs Gratton allowed Gloria to go ahead, since she knew the way up and he did not. He followed her closely, and at first with little difficulty or hesitation. The higher they climbed, however, the slower he went; once he hesitated so long that she began to believe that dizziness had overcome him and that he was coming no further. But at length she came to the ledge and the wall King had made, and Gratton, looking up and seeing her above him, began climbing again.

Gloria held aside the canvas flap; he followed her into the cave. Her fire, though low, still burned. For the sake of more light she put on more dry wood from the great heap King had left for her. She began to look about, planning swiftly just how easiest to move the few belongings which must go with her. She could pile odds and ends into a blanket; she could remake the canvas roll as King had done so often; she and Gratton could drag the bundles to the front of the cave and push them over, down the cliffs.

"First, we'll get things together, all in a heap," she said aloud.

He came forward and stood warming his nervous hands at her fire, his eyes everywhere at once. He marked the s.h.i.+pshape air of the cavern, the parcels which were to-night's supper and to-morrow's three poor little meals, each set carefully apart from the others on the rock shelf. He saw how the firewood was piled in its place, not scattered; how Gloria's bed and King's looked almost comfortable because of the fir-boughs; how the clean pots and pans were in their places. Then he turned his full eyes like searchlights upon the girl.

"And you," he said, marvelling, "_you_ actually came with a man like King into a place like this!"

"I was a fool," cried Gloria. "A pitiful little fool. Oh!"

Had she been thinking less of Gloria and more of this other man with whom she was now to cope she must have marked a certain swift change in his att.i.tude. It became less furtive, more a.s.sured. His eyes left her to rove again, lingered with the two couches, and returned to her.

"You found King wasn't your kind," he announced. "You have quarrelled!"

"From the very beginning," she replied quickly. "He is unthinkable. I would have left him long ago, only ..."

"Only there was no place to go," Gratton finished it for her. "And now,"

he continued slowly, studying her, "you are willing to come with me."

"Yes," she told him unhesitatingly.

"But," he offered musingly, "you refused me once and turned to him."

"Haven't I told you I was a fool? I didn't know then quite what men were ... some men."

She was not measuring every word now. She meant simply that she was determined to have done with Mark King, holding bitterly that she hated him; that she would go to any one to be definitely through with King.

Yet he had time to weigh her words and draw from each one his own significance.

His eyes followed her as she gathered up her few personal and intimate possessions, comb, brush, little silken things of pale pink and blue. A faint colour seeped into the usually colourless lips at which his dead-white teeth were suddenly gnawing. When she saw the look in his eyes, she stared at him wonderingly.

"What is it?" she asked, her voice puzzled.

"What is what?" Gratton laughed, but the look was still there. His eyes did not laugh.

"What makes you look like that? What are you thinking?"

Now it was he who was vaguely puzzled. Then he shrugged.

"I was just thinking how superb you are," he replied, not entirely untruthfully. For his ulterior thought had been reared upon the vital fact of her triumphant beauty.

The compliment was too much like hundreds she had received in her life to alarm her. Rather, it pleased; what word of praise had she heard during these latter days?

His voice sounded queerly, as though his breath came with difficulty.

Maybe it did, since he was no outdoors man, and to him the climb up the rocks and the brief journey along the mountain flank was a painful labour. Certain it was that the faint flush was still in the sallow cheeks. Suddenly he lifted his hands, putting them out toward her. She saw again the strange look in his eyes.

"Gloria!" he said hoa.r.s.ely, "you are wonderful! And you have come to me!"

Gloria met his rather too ardent admiration with that cool little laugh which had been her weapon in other days. She was not afraid of Gratton.

To-day she had led and he had followed. She had commanded and he had obeyed. Here was a pleasant change from King's masterfulness, and she fully intended to hold Gratton well in hand.

"I came to you," she said frankly, "because I was a woman in distress and had no alternative. That there has ever been any unpleasantness between us does not alter that fact. You understand me, don't you?"

He hardly heard her. To his mind the situation was clearness itself.

Gloria had come alone into the forest with Mark King. She had been with him all these days and nights. But she and King had quarrelled; tired of each other already, perhaps. Gratton did not care what the reason was; he was gloatingly satisfied with the outcome. He had always coveted her; it took much to stir his pale blood, and only the superb beauty of Gloria Gaynor had ever fully done so. King had stolen her away, but she had left him and had come straight to Gratton!

He came a step closer and the firelight showed how the muscles of his throat were working. Gloria's eyes widened. But not yet did she fully understand and not yet did she fear.

"Mr. Gratton," she began.

"Gloria!" he cried out. "Gloria!"

His hands, suddenly flung out, were upon her. She tore them away, wrenched herself free from him, and started back. As she did so her little silken bundle dropped at her feet. Gratton caught it up and buried his face in it. Now as he looked up at her his eyes and all that she could see of his face were stamped with that which lay in his heart.

"Oh!" she cried, shrinking not so much from him as from the thing she read so plainly at last. "Surely, you do not think ... you do not misinterpret ... my being here at all, my being with Mr. King...."

"No," cried Gratton wildly. "I misinterpret nothing. You came alone with him into the mountains. What chance is there for two interpretations there? You gave yourself to him; you saw your mistake; you hated him.

You have come to me. I have always loved you; I want you."

Her cheeks flamed red with hot anger. There was a flutter in her heart, a wild tremor in her blood. She drew back from him. He followed, his arms out. She was amazed, for the moment shocked into consternation. And yet she knew no such terror as had been hers when King had advanced on her, rope in hand. Her new contempt of Gratton was too high for that.

Now she marked the small stature, little taller, little stronger, than her own; the pale face, the narrow chest, the slender body.

"You know what I mean, what I want," he was muttering. "That sweet young-thing innocence is all right in its place but that place is not here alone in the mountains with a man."

"Man!" she burst out scathingly. "You, _a man_! Why, you wretched little beast!"

But Gratton, his brain reeling with hot fancy, came on.

"You were afraid of King. You said that he made you do what he wanted.

What about me? You are going to do what I tell you. I ...By G.o.d, I will make you! Beast, you call me? No more beast than any other man. I have wanted you all these years. You have wanted me, or you would not have been so glad to see me. Only a few days ago you were ready to marry me!

And now ..."