The Last Woman Part 18

"Why? Would it have made any difference in your going?"

"Most certainly it would."

"Do you mean that you would have declined to come with me?"

"I do."

"But why?"

"Chiefly, because I do not approve of plots and schemes, in any form.

Had you asked me, frankly and openly, to drive to Cedarcrest with you, I should have felt no hesitation in accepting; as it is, you have given offense, Mr. Morton."

"So much so that you won't even call me d.i.c.k?" he said, with a light laugh that was more forced than real.

"Yes. You have not proven yourself quite the friend I hoped you would be. Friends don't plot against each other."

"Shall I turn the car about and take you home?" he asked shortly, with tightening lips, angered unreasonably by the att.i.tude she had a.s.sumed.

"No; you may take me to our destination, Cedarcrest."

They drove on in silence for a considerable time after that, and, as soon as they were in the country, on less-frequented roads, Morton increased the speed of his roadster until they were flying along the highway in utter and absolute defiance of the statutes. When they presently arrived at a turn within a few miles of their destination, a turn that would have taken them directly to the house they sought, Morton did not move the steering-wheel of the car, but kept on, straight ahead, and with ever increasing speed.

Patricia knew the road very well indeed; she had been over it many times, and now she called out to her companion:

"You have taken the wrong road. You should have gone around that last turn."

Morton did not reply, or attempt to do so. He seemed not to have heard her.

"Won't you please slow down a little?" she asked, after another moment; and the question came somewhat tremulously, because, strange to say, Patricia was just a little frightened by the circ.u.mstance that now confronted her.

Again, Morton made no reply, nor did he comply with her request, and the car flew on and on, while Patricia tried to collect her thoughts, and to determine what were best for her to do toward restraining this head-strong companion of hers, who now seemed like a runaway colt that has taken the bit in its teeth, and has found the strength to defy opposition.

"Richard Morton!" she exclaimed sharply, touching his arm, tentatively. "Why don't you answer me? What are you trying to do?

Where are you taking me?"

For just an instant, he flashed his eyes into hers; then he replied, grimly:

"I am taking you for a good ride. We'll steer around to Cedarcrest by another road, presently."

"But I wish to go there at once."

"You can't."

"Do you mean that you refuse to do as I request?"

"Yes," he replied, shortly; and shut his jaws together with a snap like a nut-cracker.

"You dare?"

"I dare anything, Patricia, when I am brought to it. I would like to keep this machine going, at this pace, for hours and days and weeks, with you seated there beside me, and never thinking of a stop until I had you out yonder, in the wild country, where I was born and raised."

Again, she reached out and touched him on the arm, for she was more frightened than she would have confessed to herself; but, before she could speak, he called to her in a tone that was almost savage in its intensity:

"Be careful, please. Don't interfere with my steering, or you will ditch us."

"I demand that you bring this car to a stop," she said coldly, controlling herself with an effort. "I insist that you turn it about, and go back. I am amazed at your conduct, Mr. Morton--amazed and hurt.

You are offending me more deeply than you realize."

Again, he did not answer her, and Patricia, now thoroughly alarmed, sought vainly for a means of bringing this impetuous and dare-devil young ranchman to his senses. She thought once, as they ascended a short hill, of leaping from the car to the ground, but the speed was too great for her to take such a risk. It even occurred to her to seize the steering-wheel, and to give it a sharp turn, thus wrecking the machine; but she shuddered with terror when she thought of the possibilities of such an act.

Half a mile farther on, Morton turned the car from the main highway they had been following, and drove it at full speed along a narrow road, where the going was somewhat rough, and where both had to give their entire attention to retaining their seats.

"Are you mad?" she cried out to him, at last. She did not remember ever to have been so frightened before. Actual fear was a new sensation with Patricia Langdon.

Still, he did not answer her, and Patricia started to her feet, determined to make the leap to the ground, risking broken limbs, or worse, to escape from this situation, which was becoming more awful with every moment that pa.s.sed. A sudden terror lest the man beside her had gone mad, seized her. But Morton grasped her with his left hand, and pulled her back into the seat.

"Don't do that!" he ordered her, crisply.

"Then, stop the car," she replied. "Oh, please, do stop the car. You have no idea how you frighten me. It is very dark, here, and this is a terrible road. Please stop, Mr. Morton."

"Call me d.i.c.k, and I'll stop."

"Please stop the car--d.i.c.k!"

He closed the throttle, and applied the brake. In another moment the speedy roadster slowed down gradually, and came to a stop, just at the edge of a wood, where there was no house, or evidence of one, visible in any direction; and, then, Richard Morton and Patricia Langdon stared into each other's eyes through the gathering darkness, the former with set jaws and a defiant smile, and the latter with plainly revealed terror.

CHAPTER XV

ALMOST A TRAGEDY

Morton's pa.s.sion for the beautiful girl beside him had overcome his discretion to such an extent that he was hardly responsible for what he did. The exhilaration of this swift ride through the gathering darkness, the sense of nearness to the woman he believed he loved with every force in him, the certainty that they were alone, and that, for the moment at least, she was his sole possession, stirred up within the young ranchman's mind those elements of barbaric wildness which had grown and thrived to riotousness and recklessness during the life he had lived on the cattle-ranges of Montana, but which had been more or less dormant during his Eastern experiences. He forgot, for the moment, the Sunday-night scene wherein he had promised to be Patricia's friend, and had ceased to be her lover; he remembered only that she was there beside him, with her terror-stricken eyes peering into his beseechingly, and that she looked more beautiful than ever she had before. But, more than all else, the influence she had had over him was absent, and this was so because her haughty defiance and the proud spirit she had hitherto manifested in her att.i.tude were gone. He had never seen her like this before, with the courage taken out of her. It was a new and unknown quality, alluringly feminine, wholly dependent, that possessed her now. She was frightened. And so Morton forgot himself. He permitted the innate wildness of his own nature to rule. He followed an impulse, as wild as it was unkind. He seized her in his arms, and crushed her against him, raining kisses upon her cheeks and brow, and upon even her lips. Patrica strove bravely to fight him off; she struggled mightily to prevent this greatest of all indignities. She cried out to him, beseeching that he release her, but he seemed not to hear, or, if he heard, he paid no heed, and, after a moment more of vain effort, Patricia's figure suddenly relaxed. She realized the utter futility of her effort to hold the man at bay, and she was suddenly inspired to practise a subterfuge upon him. She permitted herself to sink down helplessly, into his confining grasp, and she became, apparently, unconscious.

It was Richard Morton's turn to be frightened, then. On the instant, he realized what he had done. The enormity of the offense he had committed against her rushed upon him like a blow in the face, and he released her, so that she sank back into the confining seat beside him.

"Patricia! Patricia!" he called to her. He seized her hands, and rubbed them; he turned them over and struck the palms of them sharply, for he had somewhere heard that such action would bring a person out of a swoon; but, although he struggled anxiously, doing whatsoever he could to arouse her, and beseeching her in impa.s.sioned tones to speak to him, she seemed to remain unconscious, with her head lying back against the seat, her eyes closed, and her face paler than he had ever seen it before.

The car had stopped before the edge of a wood. Just beyond it, there was a bridge over which they must have pa.s.sed, had they continued on their way. Morton raised his head and looked despairingly about him.

He saw the bridge, and experience taught him that there must be a stream of water beneath it. With quick decision, he sprang from the car and ran forward, believing that, if he could return with his cap filled with water, he might restore his companion to consciousness.

Then, strange to relate, no sooner had he left the car than Patricia opened her eyes, straightened her figure, and with a quick leap changed her seat to the one beneath the steering-wheel. She accomplished this while Morton was speeding away from her, toward the water.

She saw him arrive at the bridge and disappear down the bank, beneath it; and forthwith, she reversed the gear of the steamer, and opened the throttle. The engine responded instantly, and at the imminent risk of wrecking the car, she backed it, and turned it, reversing and going forward several times, before she quite succeeded in bringing it around, within the narrow s.p.a.ce. But, at last, she did succeed, and, just at the moment when the car was headed in the opposite direction, Richard Morton reappeared. He saw, at a glance, what had happened during his short absence. He understood that Patricia had outwitted him, and he ran forward, shouting aloud as he did so.

Patricia caught one glimpse of him over her shoulder, and saw that he carried in his hands the cap he had filled with water to use in restoring her to consciousness--a consciousness she had not for a moment lost, which now was so alert and manifest in effecting her escape.