Master Tales of Mystery Part 39

"Yes," I said bitterly, "keep up the acting. The practice is good, even if it deceives no one."

"I don't understand a word you are saying," she retorted, getting angry in turn. "You speak as if I had done wrong--as if--I don't know what; and I have a right to know to what you allude."

"I don't see how I can be any clearer," I muttered. "I was under the station platform, hiding from the cowboys, while you and Lord Ralles were walking. I didn't want to be a listener, but I heard a good deal of what you said."

"But I didn't walk with Lord Ralles," she cried, "The only person I walked with was Captain Ackland."

That took me very much aback, for I had never questioned in my mind that it wasn't Lord Ralles. Yet the moment she spoke, I realized how much alike the two brothers' voices were, and how easily the blurring of distance and planking might have misled me. For a moment I was speechless. Then I replied coldly--

"It makes no difference with whom you were. What you said was the essential part."

"But how could you for an instant suppose that I could say what I did to Lord Ralles?" she demanded.

"I naturally thought he would be the one to whom you would appeal concerning my 'insulting' conduct."

Madge looked at me for a moment as if transfixed. Then she laughed, and cried--

"Oh, you idiot!"

While I still looked at her in equal amazement, she went on, "I beg your pardon, but you are so ridiculous that I had to say it. Why, I wasn't talking about you, but about Lord Ralles."

"Lord Ralles!" I cried.

"Yes."

"I don't understand," I exclaimed.

"Why, Lord Ralles has been--has been--oh, he's threatened that if I wouldn't--that--"

"You mean he--?" I began, and then stopped, for I couldn't believe my ears.

"Oh," she burst out, "of course you couldn't understand, and you probably despise me already, but if you knew how I scorn myself, Mr.

Gordon, and what I have endured from that man, you would only pity me."

Light broke on me suddenly. "Do you mean, Miss Cullen," I cried hotly, "that he's been cad enough to force his attentions upon you by threats?"

"Yes. First he made me endure him because he was going to help us, and from the moment the robbery was done, he has been threatening to tell.

Oh, how I have suffered!"

Then I said a very silly thing. "Miss Cullen," I groaned, "I'd give anything if I were only your brother." For the moment I really meant it.

"I haven't dared to tell any of them," she explained, "because I knew they would resent it and make Lord Ralles angry, and then he would tell, and so ruin papa. It seemed such a little thing to bear for his sake, but, oh, it's been--suppose you despise me!"

"I never dreamed of despising you," I said. "I only thought, of course--seeing what I did--and--that you were fond--No--that is--I mean--well--The beast!" I couldn't help exclaiming.

"Oh," said Madge, blus.h.i.+ng, and stammering breathlessly, "you mustn't think--there was really--you happened to--usually I managed to keep with papa or my brothers, or else run away, as I did when he interrupted my letter-writing--when you thought we had--but it was nothing of the--I kept away just--but the night of the robbery I forgot, and on the trail his mule blocked the path. He never--there really wasn't--you saved me the only time he--he--that he was really rude; and I am so grateful for it, Mr. Gordon."

I wasn't in a mood to enjoy even Miss Cullen's grat.i.tude. Without stopping for words, I dashed into 218, and, going straight to Albert Cullen, I shook him out of a sound sleep, and before he could well understand me I was alternately swearing at him and raging at Lord Ralles.

Finally he got the truth through his head, and it was nuts to me, even in my rage, to see how his English drawl disappeared, and how quick he could be when he really became excited.

I left him hurrying into his clothes, and went to my car, for I didn't dare to see the exodus of Lord Ralles, through fear that I couldn't behave myself. Albert came into 97 in a few moments to say that the Englishmen were going to the hotel as soon as dressed, the captain having elected to stay by his brother.

"I wouldn't have believed it of Ralles. I feel jolly cut up, you know," he drawled.

I had been so enraged over Lord Ralles that I hadn't stopped to reckon in what position I stood myself toward Miss Cullen, but I didn't have to do much thinking to know that I had behaved about as badly as was possible for me. And the worst of it was that she could not know that right through the whole I had never quite been able to think badly of her. I went out on the platform of the station, and was lucky enough to find her there alone.

"Miss Cullen," I said, "I've been ungentlemanly and suspicious, and I'm about as ashamed of myself as a man can be and not jump into the Grand Canon. I've not come to you to ask your forgiveness, for I can't forgive myself, much less expect it of you. But I want you to know how I feel, and if there's any reparation, apology, anything, that you'd like, I'll--"

Madge interrupted my speech there by holding out her hand.

"You don't suppose," she said, "that, after all you have done for us, I could be angry over what was merely a mistake?"

That's what I call a trump of a girl, worth loving for a lifetime.

Well, we coupled on to No. 2 that morning and started East, this time Mr. Cullen's car being the "ender." All on 218 were wildly jubilant, as was natural, but I kept growing bluer and bluer. I took a farewell dinner on their car the night we were due in Albuquerque, and afterward Miss Cullen and I went out and sat on the back platform.

"I've had enough adventures to talk about for a year," Madge said, as we chatted the whole thing over, "and you can no longer brag that the K. & A. has never had a robbery, even if you didn't lose anything."

"I have lost something," I sighed sadly.

Madge looked at me quickly, started to speak, hesitated, and then said, "Oh, Mr. Gordon, if you only could know how badly I have felt about that, and how I appreciate the sacrifice."

I had only meant that I had lost my heart, and, for that matter, probably my head, for it would have been ungenerous even to hint to Miss Cullen that I had made any sacrifice of conscience for her sake, and I would as soon have asked her to pay for it in money as have told her.

"You mustn't think--" I began.

"I have felt," she continued, "that your wish to serve us made you do something you never would have otherwise done, for--Well, you--any one can see how truthful and honest--and it has made me feel so badly that we--Oh, Mr. Gordon, no one has a right to do wrong in the world, for it brings such sadness and danger to innocent--And you have been so generous--"

I couldn't let this go on. "What I did," I told her, "was to fight fire with fire, and no one is responsible for it but myself."

"I should like to think that, but I can't," she said. "I know we all tried to do something dishonest, and while you didn't do any real wrong, yet I don't think you would have acted as you did except for our sake. And I'm afraid you may some day regret--"

"I sha'n't," I cried; "and, so far from meaning that I had lost my self-respect, I was alluding to quite another thing."

"Time?" she asked.

"No."

"What?"

"Something else you have stolen."

"I haven't," she denied.

"You have," I affirmed.

"You mean the novel?" she asked; "because I sent it in to 97 to-night."