The Golden Woman Part 46

"Guess that leddy's down at the farm by now," Buck went on. "Joan was guessing she'd get around to-day. That's why I didn't go along there."

"Yes, she is there." The Padre lit his pipe and smoked steadily.

Buck turned quickly.

"How d'you know?"

"I met her on the trail. They missed their way this morning and hit the trail below here, at the foot of the steps."

"You didn't--let her see you?" Buck asked, after a pause.

The Padre smiled.

"I spoke to her. I put her on the right trail."

"You spoke to her?" Buck's tone was half incredulous. "Did she--recognize you?"

The other nodded.

"You see, I've not changed much--except for my hair."

"What did she do--say?"

The Padre's smile remained.

"Said--I should see her again."

For some moments the two men faced each other across the room. The yellow lamplight plainly revealed their different expressions. The Padre's smile was inimitable in its sphinx-like obscurity, but Buck's eyes were frankly troubled.

"And that means?" Buck's question rang sharply.

"She has neither forgotten nor--forgiven."

Buck returned abruptly to his contemplation of the night, but his thoughts were no longer the happy thoughts of the lover. Without knowing it he was proving to himself that there were other things in the world which could entirely obscure the happy light which the presence of Joan shed upon his life.

The Padre sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head, while his pipe burned hot and the smoke of it rose thickly. It was the only outward sign he gave of any emotion. Buck suddenly forgot the night. A desperate thought was running hotly through his brain. His friend's admission had set his fertile young brain working furiously.

It was traveling just whither a vivid imagination carried it. A reckless purpose was swiftly formulating.

After a while he turned again. His resolve was taken on the impulse of the moment.

"Padre," he said, "you shall never----" But his sentence remained incomplete. He broke off, listening.

The other was listening too.

There was the sharp cracking of a forest tree--one of those mysterious creakings which haunt the woodland night. But there was another sound too. The trained ears of these men caught its meaning on the instant.

It was the vague and distant sound of wheels upon the soft bed of the sandy trail.

"A heavy wagon, an'--two hosses," said Buck.

The Padre nodded.

"Coming from the direction of the farm. Sounds like the old team,--and they're being driven too fast for heavy horses. Joan hasn't got a saddle-horse of her own."

His last remark explained his conviction, and the suggestion found concurrence in Buck's mind.

They waited, and the sound grew louder. Then, without a word, Buck pa.s.sed out of the room.

A few minutes later the rumble of wheels ceased, and the Padre heard Buck's voice greeting Joan.

A tragic light shone in Joan's eyes as she stood in the centre of the room glancing from her lover to his friend. She was searching for an opening for what she had come to say. Her distraught brain was overwhelmed with thoughts she could not put into words. She had driven over with the heavy team and wagon because she had no other means of reaching these two, and unless she reached them to-night she felt that by morning her sanity must be gone. Now--now--she stood speechless before them. Now, her brain refused to prompt her tongue. All was chaos in her mind, and her eyes alone warned the men of the object of her coming.

It was the Padre's voice that finally guided her. He read without hesitation or doubt the object of her mission.

"Yes," he said simply. "I am Moreton Bucklaw, the man accused of your father's murder."

Suddenly the girl's head drooped forward, and her hands covered her face as though to shut out the terrible truth which the man's words conveyed.

"O G.o.d!" she cried. "Then she was not lying to me."

Buck's eyes, fierce, almost savage at the sight of the girl's despair, shot a swift glance at his friend. It was a glance which only the white-haired man could have understood. To the looker-on it would have expressed a terrible threat. To the Padre it was the expression of a heart torn to shreds between love and friends.h.i.+p.

"If she told you I killed him--she was lying."

The man had not raised his tone. There was no other emotion in his manner than distress for the girl's suffering.

Joan looked up, and a gleam of hope struggled through her despair.

"Then it's not true? Oh, I knew it--I knew it! She _was_ lying to me.

She _was_ lying to me as she has always lied to me. Oh, thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d!" She dropped back into the chair that had been placed for her, but which up to that moment she had ignored.

The two men waited for her emotion to pa.s.s. Buck as yet had nothing to say. And the Padre knew that until she was mistress of herself words would only be wasted.

Presently she looked up. Her eyes were dry, and the agony that had sent her upon her headlong mission was pa.s.sing. The Padre's relief showed in the smile with which he met her glance. Buck stood steadily regarding her, longing to help her, but knowing that his time had not come yet.

"Tell me," she said, struggling hard for steadiness. "Tell me all--for I--I cannot seem to understand anything."

The Padre bowed his head.

"You know your own story. It is all substantially true that Mercy Lascelles has told you. All, that is, except that she claims I killed your father. She did not see your father die. I did. I was the only one who saw him die--by his own hand, a desperate and ruined man.

Listen, and I will tell you the whole story without concealing one t.i.ttle of my own doings and motives."

Half an hour pa.s.sed while the man's even voice recited without emotion all the details leading up to Charles Stanmore's death. He kept nothing back--his own love for the then handsome Mercy, and the pa.s.sionate insult he had offered her, when, in her love for the dead man, she became his housekeeper. He intended that, for Buck's sake, this girl should know everything, nor had he the least desire for any concealment on personal account. He did not spare his own folly and the cowardice of his flight. He felt that concealment of any sort could only injure Buck, whom at all costs he must not hurt. He even a.n.a.lyzed, with all the logic at his command, Mercy Lascelles' motives in accusing him. He declared his belief in her desire to marry the widowed man and her own consequent hatred of himself, whose presence was a constant thwart to her plans.

And when he had finished something of the trouble had pa.s.sed out of the girl's eyes. The color had returned to her cheeks, and he knew that he had achieved his purpose.

"I suppose it is terrible to you, child, to hear me speak of your aunt, one of your own s.e.x, a blood relative, in this way," he said in conclusion. "But I believe that she is absolutely mad in her hatred of me. And now that she has discovered my whereabouts nothing less will satisfy her than that I must stand my trial, and--go to the electric chair. It is my purpose to stand my trial. It was for that reason, when I recognized her this morning, before she even saw me, I purposely thrust myself in her way. I intended that she should not lack opportunity, and my reason--well, that doesn't much matter."