Where the Trail Divides Part 26

"You mean you're not going to come with me to-night?" She scarcely recognised her own voice. "You're never going to be with me again?"

"Never?" A long, long pause. "G.o.d alone knows about that, Bess." A second halt. "Not until things between us are different, at least."

"How!" Blindly, weakly, the girl threw out her hand, grasped the casing of the door. "Oh, How! How!"

No answer, not the twitching of a muscle, nor the whisper of a breath; just that dread, motionless silence. A moment the girl stood it, hoping against hope, praying for a miracle; then she could stand it no longer.

Gropingly clutching at every object within reach, she made her way into the dark interior; flung herself full dressed onto the bed, her face buried desperately among the covers.

All the night which followed a sentinel paced back and forth in front of the ranch house door; back and forth like an automaton, back and forth in a motion that seemed perpetual. Within the tiny low-ceiled room, in the fulness of time, the girl sobbed herself into a fitful sleep; but not once did the sentinel pause to rest, not once in those dragging hours before day did he relax. With the coming of the first trace of light he halted, and on silent moccasined feet stole within.

But again he only remained for moments, and when he returned it was merely to stride away to the stable. Within the s.p.a.ce of minutes, before the east had fairly begun to grow red, silently as he did everything, he rode away astride the mouse-coloured cayuse into the darkness to the west.

It was broad day when the girl awoke, and then with a vague sense of depression and of impending evil. The door was open and the bright morning light flooded the room. Beyond the entrance stretched the open prairie: an endless sea of green with a tiny brown island, her own dooryard, in the foreground. With dull listlessness, the girl propped herself up in bed and sat looking about her. Absently, aimlessly, her eyes pa.s.sed from one familiar object to another. Without any definite conception of why or of where, she was conscious of an impression of change in the material world about her, a change that corresponded to the mental crisis that had so recently taken place. Glad as was the suns.h.i.+ne without this morning, in her it aroused no answering joy.

Ubiquitous as was the vivid surrounding life, its message pa.s.sed her by.

Like a haze enveloping, dulling all things, was a haunting memory of the past night and of what it had meant. As a traveller lost in this fog, she lay staring about, indecisive which way to move, idly waiting for light. Ordinarily action itself would have offered a solution of the problem, would have served at least as a diversion; but this morning she was strangely listless, strangely indifferent. There seemed to her no adequate reason for rising, no definite object in doing anything more than she was doing. In conformity she pulled the pillow higher and, lifting herself wearily, dropped her chin into her palm and lay with wide-open eyes staring aimlessly away.

Just how long she remained there so, she did not know. The doorway faced south, and bit by bit the bar of sunlight that had entered therein began moving to the left across the floor. Unconsciously, for the lack of anything better to do, she watched its advance. It fell upon a tiny shelf against the wall, littered with a collection of papers and magazines; and the reflected light from the white sheets glared in her eyes. It came to the supper table of the night before, the table she had not cleared, and like an accusing hand, lay directed at the evidence of her own slothfulness. On it went with the pa.s.sing time, on and on; crossed a bare spot on the uncarpeted floor, and like a live thing, began climbing the wall beyond.

Deliberately, with a sort of fascination now, the girl watched its advance. Her nerves were on edge this morning, and in its relentless stealth it began to a.s.sume an element of the uncanny. Like a hostile alien thing, it seemed searching here and there in the tiny room for something definite, something it did not find. Fatuous as it may seem, the impression grew upon her, augmented until in its own turn it became a dominant influence. Her glance, heretofore absent, perfunctory, became intense. The glare was well above the floor by this time and climbing higher and higher. Answering the mythical challenge, of a sudden she sat up free in bed and, as though at a spoken injunction, looked about her fairly.

The place where she glanced, the point toward which the light was mounting, was beside her own bed and where, from rough-fas.h.i.+oned wooden pegs, hung the Indian's pathetically scant wardrobe. At first glance there seemed to the girl nothing unusual revealed thereon, nothing significant; and, restlessly observant, the inspection advanced. Then, ere the mental picture could vanish, ere a new impression could take its place, in a flash of tardy recollection and of understanding came realisation complete, and her eyes returned. For perhaps a minute thereafter she sat so, her great eyes unconsciously opening wider and wider, her brown skin shading paler second by second. A minute so, a minute of nerve-tense inaction; then with a little gesture of weariness and of abandon absolute, she dropped back in her place, and covered her face from sight.

CHAPTER XVII

SACRIFICE

A week had gone by. Each day of the seven the thoroughbred with the slender legs and the tiny sensitive ears had stood in the barren dooryard before Elizabeth Landor's home. Moreover, with each repet.i.tion the arrival had been earlier, the halt longer. Though the weather was perfect, nevertheless the beast had grown impatient under the long waits, and telltale, a glaring black mound had come into being where he had pawed his displeasure. At first Craig on departing had carefully concealed the testimony of his presence beneath a sprinkling of dooryard litter; but at last he had ceased to do so, and bit by bit the mound had grown. Day had succeeded day, and no one had appeared to question the visitor's right of coming or of going. Even the wolf was no longer present to stare his disapproval. Verily, unchallenged, the king had come into his own in this realm of one; and as a monarch absolute ever rules, Clayton Craig had reigned, was reigning now.

For he no longer halted perforce at the doorstep. He had never been invited to enter, yet he had entered--and the girl had spoken no word to prevent. Not by request were his cap and riding stick hanging from a peg beside the few belongings of How Landor; yet, likewise unchallenged, they were there. Not by the girl's solicitation was he lounging intimately in the single rocker the room boasted; yet once again the bald fact remained that though it was not yet nine by the clock, he was present, his legs comfortably crossed, his eyes, beneath drooping lids, whimsically observing the girl as she went about the perfunctory labour of putting the place to rights.

"I say, Bess," he remarked casually at length, "you've dusted that unoffending table three times by actual count since I've been watching.

Wouldn't it be proper to rest a bit now and entertain your company?"

The girl did not smile.

"Perhaps." She put away the cloth judicially. "I fancied you were tolerably amused as it was. However, if you prefer--" She drew another chair opposite, and, sitting down, folded her hands in her lap.

A moment longer the man sat smiling at her; then shade by shade the whimsical expression vanished, and the normal proprietary look he had grown to a.s.sume in her presence took its place.

"By the way, Bess," he commented, "isn't it about time to drop sarcasm when you and I are together? I know I've been a most reprehensible offender, but haven't I been punished enough?"

"Punished?" There was just the ghost of a smile. "Is this your idea of punishment?"

The man flushed involuntarily. His face had cleared remarkably in the past week of abstinence, and through the fair skin the colour showed plain.

"Well, perhaps punishment is a little too severe. Leastways you've held me at arm's length until I'm beginning to despair."

"Despair?" Again the ghost smiled forth. "Do you fancy I'm so dull that I don't realise what I'm doing, what you've done?"

For the second time the involuntary colour appeared; but the role that the man was playing, the role of the injured, was too effective to abandon at once.

"You can't deny that you've held me away all this last week, Bess," he objected. "You've permitted me to call and call again; but that is all.

Otherwise we're not a bit nearer than we were when I first returned."

"Nearer?" This time the smile did not come. Even the ghost refused to appear. "I wonder if that's true." A pause. "At least I've gotten immeasurably farther away from another."

"Your husband you mean?"

"I mean How. There are but you and he in my life."

The pose was abandoned. It was useless now.

"Tell me, Bess," said the man intimately. "You and I mean too much to each other not to know everything there is to know."

"There's nothing to tell." The girl did not dissimulate now. The inevitable was in sight, approaching swiftly--and she herself had chosen. "He's merely given me up."

"He knows, Bess?" Blank unbelief was on the questioner's face, something else as well, something akin to exultation.

"Yes," repressedly. "He's known since that first night."

"And he hasn't objected, hasn't done anything at all?"

Just for an instant, ere came second thought, the old defiance, the old pride, broke forth.

"Do you fancy you would be here now, that you wouldn't have known before this if he objected?" she flamed.

"Bess!"

"I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said that." Already the blaze had died, never to be rekindled. "Forget that I said that. I didn't mean to."

The man did not answer, he scarcely heard. Almost as by a miracle, the last obstacle had been removed from his way. He had counted upon blindness, the unsuspicion of perfect confidence; but a pa.s.sive, conscious conformity such as this--The thing was unbelievable, providential, too unnaturally good to last. The present was a strategic moment, the time for immediate, irrevocable action, ere there came a change of heart. It had not been a part of Clayton Craig's plans to permit a meeting between himself and the Indian. As a matter of fact he had taken elaborate, and, as it proved, unnecessary precautions to avoid such a consummation. Even now, the necessity pa.s.sed, he did not alter his plans. Not that he was afraid of the red man. He had proven to himself by an incontrovertible process of reasoning that such was not the case. It was merely to avoid unpleasantness for himself and for the girl--particularly for the latter. Moreover, no possible object could be gained by such a meeting. Things were as they were and inevitable. He merely decided to hasten the move. It was the forming of this decision that had held him silent. It was under its influence that he spoke.

"When is it to be, Bess," he asked abruptly, "the final break, I mean?"

"It has already been, I tell you. It's all over."

"The new life, then," guided the man. "You can't go on this way any longer. It's intolerable for both of us."

"Yes," dully, "it's intolerable for all of us."

Craig arose and, walking to the door, looked out. In advance he had imagined that the actual move, when all was ready, would be easy. Now that the time had really arrived, he found it strangely difficult. He hardly knew how to begin.

"Bess." Of a sudden he had returned swiftly and, very erect, very dominant, stood looking down at her. "Bess," repeated, "we've avoided the obvious long enough, too long. As I said, you've succeeded in keeping me at arm's length all the last week; but I won't be denied any longer. I'm willing to take all the blame of the past, and all the responsibility of the future. I love you, Bess. I've told you that before, but I repeat it now. I want you to go away with me, away from this G.o.d-cursed land that's driving us both mad--at least leave for a time. After a while, when we both feel different, we can come back if we wish; but for the present--I can't stand this uncertainty another week, another day." He paused for breath, came a step nearer.