by Bret Harte
CHAPTER VII.
The sun arose so brightly over Hymettus on the morning after themeeting of the three partners that it was small wonder that Barker'simpressionable nature quickly responded to it, and, without awakeningthe still sleeping child, he dressed hurriedly, and was the firstto greet it in the keen air of the slope behind the hotel. To hispantheistic spirit it had always seemed as natural for him to earlywelcome his returning brothers of the woods and hills as to saygood-morning to his fellow mortals. And, in the joy of seeing Black Spurrising again to his level in the distance before him, he doffed his hatto it with a return of his old boyish habit, laid his arm caressinglyaround the great girth of the nearest pine, clapped his hands to thescampering squirrels in his path, and whistled to the dipping jays.In this way he quite forgot the more serious affairs of the precedingnight, or, rather, saw them only in the gilding of the morning, until,looking up, he perceived the tall figure of Demorest approaching him;and then it struck him with his first glance at his old partner's facethat his usual suave, gentle melancholy had been succeeded by a criticalcynicism of look and a restrained bitterness of accent. Barker's loyalheart smote him for his own selfishness; Demorest had been hard hitby the discovery of the forgery and Stacy's concern in it, and haddoubtless passed a restless night, while he (Barker) had forgotten allabout it. "I thought of knocking at your door, as I passed," he said,with sympathetic apology, "but I was afraid I might disturb you. Isn'tit glorious here? Quite like the old hill. Look at that lizard; hehasn't moved since he first saw me. Do you remember the one who used tosteal our sugar, and then stiffen himself into stone on the edge of thebowl until he looked like an ornamental handle to it?" he continued,rebounding again into spirits.
"Barker," said Demorest abruptly, "what sort of woman is this Mrs. VanLoo, whose rooms I occupy?"
"Oh," said Barker, with optimistic innocence, "a most proper woman, oldchap. White-haired, well-dressed, with a little foreign accent and astill more foreign courtesy. Why, you don't suppose we'd"--
"But what is she like?" said Demorest impatiently.
"Well," said Barker thoughtfully, "she's the kind of woman who might beVan Loo's mother, I suppose."
"You mean the mother of a forger and a swindler?" asked Demorestsharply.
"There are no mothers of swindlers and forgers," said Barker gravely,"in the way you mean. It's only those poor devils," he said, pointing,nevertheless, with a certain admiration to a circling sparrow-hawk abovehim, "who have inherited instincts. What I mean is that she might be VanLoo's mother, because he didn't SELECT her."
"Where did she come from? and how long has she been here?" askedDemorest.
"She came from abroad, I believe. And she came here just after you left.Van Loo, after he became secretary of the Ditch Company, sent for herand her daughter to keep house for him. But you'll see her to-day orto-morrow probably, when she returns. I'll introduce you; she'll berather glad to meet some one from abroad, and all the more if he happensto be rich and distinguished, and eligible for her daughter." He stoppedsuddenly in his smile, remembering Demorest's lifelong secret. But tohis surprise his companion's face, instead of darkening as it waswont to do at any such allusion, brightened suddenly with a singularexcitement as he answered dryly, "Ah well, if the girl is pretty, whoknows!"
Indeed, his spirits seemed to have returned with strange vivacityas they walked back to the hotel, and he asked many other questionsregarding Mrs. Van Loo and her daughter, and particularly if thedaughter had also been abroad. When they reached the veranda they founda few early risers eagerly reading the Sacramento papers, which had justarrived, or, in little knots, discussing the news. Indeed, they wouldprobably have stopped Barker and his companion had not Barker, anxiousto relieve his friend's curiosity, hurried with him at once to themanager's office.
"Can you tell me exactly when you expect Mrs. Van Loo to return?" askedBarker quickly.
The manager with difficulty detached himself from the newspaper whichhe, too, was anxiously perusing, and said, with a peculiar smile, "Wellno! she WAS to return to-day, but if you're wanting to keep her rooms,I should say there wouldn't be any trouble about it, as she'll hardly becoming back here NOW. She's rather high and mighty in style, I know, anda determined sort of critter, but I reckon she and her daughter wouldn'tcare much to be waltzing round in public after what has happened."
"I don't understand you," said Demorest impatiently. "WHAT hashappened?"
"Haven't you heard the news?" said the manager in surprise. "It's inall the Sacramento papers. Van Loo is a defaulter--has hypothecatedeverything he had and skedaddled."
Barker started. He was not thinking of the loss of his wife'smoney--only of HER disappointment and mortification over it. Poor girl!Perhaps she was also worrying over his resentment,--as if she did notknow him! He would go to her at once at Boomville. Then he rememberedthat she was coming with Mrs. Horncastle, and might be already onher way here by rail or coach, and he would miss her. Demorest in themeantime had seized a paper, and was intently reading it.
"There's bad news, too, for your friend, your old partner," said themanager half sympathetically, half interrogatively. "There has been adrop out in everything the bank is carrying, and everybody is unloading.Two firms failed in 'Frisco yesterday that were carrying things for thebank, and have thrown everything back on it. There was an awful paniclast night, and they say none of the big speculators know where theystand. Three of our best customers in the hotel rushed off to the baythis morning, but Stacy himself started before daylight, and got thethrough night express to stop for him on the Divide on signal. Shall Isend any telegrams that may come to your room?"
Demorest knew that the manager suspected him of being interested in thebank, and understood the purport of the question. He answered, with calmsurprise, that he was expecting no telegrams, and added, "But if Mrs.Van Loo returns I beg you to at once let me know," and taking Barker'sarm he went in to breakfast. Seated by themselves, Demorest looked athis companion. "I'm afraid, Barker boy, that this thing is more seriousto Jim than we expected last night, or than he cared to tell us. Andyou, old man, I fear are hurt a little by Van Loo's flight. He had somemoney of your wife's, hadn't he?"
Barker, who knew that the bulk of Demorest's fortune was in Stacy'shands, was touched at this proof of his unselfish thought, and answeredwith equal unselfishness that he was concerned only by the fear of Mrs.Barker's disappointment. "Why, Lord! Phil, whether she's lost or savedher money it's nothing to me. I gave it to her to do what she liked withit, but I'm afraid she'll be worrying over what I think of it,--as ifshe did not know me! And I'm half a mind, if it were not for missingher, to go over to Boomville, where she's stopping."
"I thought you said she was in San Francisco?" said Demorestabstractedly.
Barker colored. "Yes," he answered quickly. "But I've heard since thatshe stopped at Boomville on the way."
"Then don't let ME keep you here," returned Demorest. "For if Jimtelegraphs to me I shall start for San Francisco at once, and I ratherthink he will. I did not like to say so before those panic-mongersoutside who are stampeding everything; so run along, Barker boy, andease your mind about the wife. We may have other things to think aboutsoon."
Thus adjured, Barker rose from his half-finished breakfast and slippedaway. Yet he was not quite certain what to do. His wife must have heardthe news at Boomville as quickly as he had, and, if so, would be on herway with Mrs. Horncastle; or she might be waiting for him--knowing, too,that he had heard the news--in fear and trembling. For it was Barker'scustom to endow all those he cared for with his own sensitiveness, andit was not like him to reflect that the woman who had so recklesslyspeculated against his opinion would scarcely fear his reproaches in herdefeat. In the fullness of his heart he telegraphed to her in case shehad not yet left Boomville: "All right. Have heard news. Understandperfectly. Don't worry. Come to me." Then he left the hotel by thestable entrance in order to evade the guests who had congregated onthe veranda, and made his way to
a little wooded crest which he knewcommanded a view of the two roads from Boomville. Here he determined towait and intercept her before she reached the hotel. He knew that manyof the guests were aware of his wife's speculations with Van Loo, andthat he was her broker. He wished to spare her running the gauntletof their curious stares and comments as she drove up alone. As he wasclimbing the slope the coach from Sacramento dashed past him on theroad below, but he knew that it had changed horses at Boomville at fouro'clock, and that his tired wife would not have availed herself of it atthat hour, particularly as she could not have yet received the fatefulnews. He threw himself under a large pine, and watched the stagecoachdisappear as it swept round into the courtyard of the hotel.
He sat there for some moments with his eyes bent upon the two forksof the red road that diverged below him, but which appeared to becomewhiter and more dazzling as he searched their distance. There wasnothing to be seen except an occasional puff of dust which eventuallyrevealed a horseman or a long trailing cloud out of which a solitarymule, one of a pack-train of six or eight, would momentarily emerge andbe lost again. Then he suddenly heard his name called, and, looking up,saw Mrs. Horncastle, who had halted a few paces from him between twocolumns of the long-drawn aisle of pines.
In that mysterious half-light she seemed such a beautiful andgoddess-like figure that his consciousness at first was unable to graspanything else. She was always wonderfully well dressed, but the warmthand seclusion of this mountain morning had enabled her to wear a lightgown of some delicate fabric which set off the grace of her figure,and even pardoned the rural coquetry of a silken sash around her stillslender waist. An open white parasol thrown over her shoulder madea nimbus for her charming head and the thick coils of hair under herlace-edged hat. He had never seen her look so beautiful before. And thatthought was so plainly in his frank face and eyes as he sprang to hisfeet that it brought a slight rise of color to her own cheek.
"I saw you climbing up here as I passed in the coach a few minutes ago,"she said, with a smile, "and as soon as I had shaken the dust off Ifollowed you."
"Where's Kitty?" he stammered.
The color faded from her face as it had come, and a shade of somethinglike reproach crept into her dark eyes. And whatever it had been herpurpose to say, or however carefully she might have prepared herself forthis interview, she was evidently taken aback by the sudden directnessof the inquiry. Barker saw this as quickly, and as quickly referred itto his own rudeness. His whole soul rushed in apology to his face as hesaid, "Oh, forgive me! I was anxious about Kitty; indeed, I had thoughtof coming again to Boomville, for you've heard the news, of course? VanLoo is a defaulter, and has run away with the poor child's money."
Mrs. Horncastle had heard the news at the hotel. She paused a moment tocollect herself, and then said slowly and tentatively, with a watchfulintensity in her eyes, "Mrs. Barker went, I think, to the Divide"--
But she was instantly interrupted by the eager Barker. "I see. I thoughtof that at once. She went directly to the company's offices to see ifshe could save anything from the wreck before she saw me. It was likeher, poor girl! And you--you," he went on eagerly, his whole facebeaming with gratitude,--"you, out of your goodness, came here to tellme." He held out both hands and took hers in his.
For a moment Mrs. Horncastle was speechless and vacillating. She hadoften noticed before that it was part of the irony of the creation ofsuch a simple nature as Barker's that he was not only open to deceit,but absolutely seemed to invite it. Instead of making others franker,people were inclined to rebuke his credulity by restraint andequivocation on their own part. But the evasion thus offered to her,although only temporary, was a temptation she could not resist. And itprolonged an interview that a ruthless revelation of the truth mighthave shortened.
"She did not tell me she was going there," she replied still evasively;"and, indeed," she added, with a burst of candor still more dangerous,"I only learned it from the hotel clerk after she was gone. But I wantto talk to you about her relations to Van Loo," she said, with a returnof her former intensity of gaze, "and I thought we would be less subjectto interruption here than at the hotel. Only I suppose everybody knowsthis place, and any of those flirting couples are likely to come here.Besides," she added, with a little half-hysterical laugh and a slightshiver, as she looked up at the high interlacing boughs above her head,"it's as public as the aisles of a church, and really one feels as ifone were 'speaking out' in meeting. Isn't there some other spot a littlemore secluded, where we could sit down," she went on, as she poked herparasol into the usual black gunpowdery deposit of earth which mingledwith the carpet of pine-needles beneath her feet, "and not get allsticky and dirty?"
Barker's eyes sparkled. "I know every foot of this hill, Mrs.Horncastle," he said, "and if you will follow me I'll take you to one ofthe loveliest nooks you ever dreamed of. It's an old Indian spring nowforgotten, and I think known only to me and the birds. It's not morethan ten minutes from here; only"--he hesitated as he caught sightof the smart French bronze buckled shoe and silken ankle whichMrs. Horncastle's gathering up of her dainty skirts around her haddisclosed--"it may be a little rough and dusty going to your feet."
But Mrs. Horncastle pointed out that she had already irretrievablyruined her shoes and stockings in climbing up to him,--although Barkercould really distinguish no diminution of their freshness,--and thatshe might as well go on. Whereat they both passed down the long aisle ofslope to a little hollow of manzanita, which again opened to a view ofBlack Spur, but left the hotel hidden.
"What time did Kitty go?" began Barker eagerly, when they were half downthe slope.
But here Mrs. Horncastle's foot slipped upon the glassy pine-needles,and not only stopped an answer, but obliged Barker to give all hisattention to keep his companion from falling again until they reachedthe open. Then came the plunge through the manzanita thicket, then acool wade through waist-deep ferns, and then they emerged, holding eachother's hand, breathless and panting before the spring.
It did not belie his enthusiastic description. A triangular hollow,niched in a shelf of the mountain-side, narrowed to a point from whichthe overflow of the spring percolated through a fringe of alder, tofall in what seemed from the valley to be a green furrow down the wholelength of the mountain-side. Overhung by pines above, which met andmingled with the willows that everywhere fringed it, it made the onecooling shade in the whole basking expanse of the mountain, and yet waspenetrated throughout by the intoxicating spice of the heated pines.Flowering reeds and long lush grasses drew a magic circle round an openbowl-like pool in the centre, that was always replenished to the slowmurmur of an unseen rivulet that trickled from a white-quartz cavernin the mountain-side like a vein opened in its flank. Shadows of timidwings crossed it, quick rustlings disturbed the reeds, but nothing more.It was silent, but breathing; it was hidden to everything but the skyand the illimitable distance.
They threaded their way around it on the spongy carpet, covered bydelicate lace-like vines that seemed to caress rather than trammel theirmoving feet, until they reached an open space before the pool. It wascushioned and matted with disintegrated pine bark, and here they satdown. Mrs. Horncastle furled her parasol and laid it aside; raisedboth hands to the back of her head and took two hat-pins out, which sheplaced in her smiling mouth; removed her hat, stuck the hat-pins in it,and handed it to Barker, who gently placed it on the top of a tall reed,where during the rest of that momentous meeting it swung and droopedlike a flower; removed her gloves slowly; drank still smilingly andgratefully nearly a wineglassful of the water which Barker broughther in the green twisted chalice of a lily leaf; looked the picture ofhappiness, and then burst into tears.
Barker was astounded, dismayed, even terror-stricken. Mrs. Horncastlecrying! Mrs. Horncastle, the imperious, the collected, the coldlycritical, the cynical, smiling woman of the world, actually crying!Other women might cry--Kitty had cried often--but Mrs. Horncastle!Yet, there she was, sobbing; actually sobbing like a schoolgirl
,her beautiful shoulders rising and falling with her grief; cryingunmistakably through her long white fingers, through a lacepocket-handkerchief which she had hurriedly produced and shaken frombehind her like a conjurer's trick; her beautiful eyes a thousand timesmore lustrous for the sparkling beads that brimmed her lashes and welledover like the pool before her.
"Don't mind me," she murmured behind her handkerchief. "It's veryfoolish, I know. I was nervous--worried, I suppose; I'll be better in amoment. Don't notice me, please."
But Barker had drawn beside her and was trying, after the fashion of hissex, to take her handkerchief away in apparently the firm belief thatthis action would stop her tears. "But tell me what it is. Do Mrs.Horncastle, please," he pleaded in his boyish fashion. "Is it anything Ican do? Only say the word; only tell me SOMETHING!"
But he had succeeded in partially removing the handkerchief, and socaught a glimpse of her wet eyes, in which a faint smile struggled outlike sunshine through rain. But they clouded again, although she didn'tcry, and her breath came and went with the action of a sob, and herhands still remained against her flushed face.
"I was only going to talk to you of Kitty" (sob)--"but I suppose I'mweak" (sob)--"and such a fool" (sob) "and I got to thinking of myselfand my own sorrows when I ought to be thinking only of you and Kitty."
"Never mind Kitty," said Barker impulsively. "Tell me aboutyourself--your own sorrows. I am a brute to have bothered you about herat such a moment; and now until you have told me what is paining you soI shall not let you speak of her." He was perfectly sincere. Whatwere Kitty's possible and easy tears over the loss of her money to theunknown agony that could wrench a sob from a woman like this? "Dear Mrs.Horncastle," he went on as breathlessly, "think of me now not as Kitty'shusband, but as your true friend. Yes, as your BEST and TRUEST friend,and speak to me as you would speak to him."
"You will be my friend?" she said suddenly and passionately,grasping his hand, "my best and truest friend? and if I tell youall,--everything, you will not cast me from you and hate me?"
Barker felt the same thrill from her warm hand slowly possess his wholebeing as it had the evening before, but this time he was prepared andanswered the grasp and her eyes together as he said breathlessly, "Iwill be--I AM your friend."
She withdrew her hand and passed it over her eyes. After a moment shecaught his hand again, and, holding it tightly as if she feared he mightfly from her, bit her lip, and then slowly, without looking at him,said, "I lied to you about myself and Kitty that night; I did not comewith her. I came alone and secretly to Boomville to see--to see the manwho is my husband."
"Your husband!" said Barker in surprise. He had believed, with the restof the world, that there had been no communication between them foryears. Yet so intense was his interest in her that he did not noticethat this revelation was leaving now no excuse for his wife's presenceat Boomville.
Mrs. Horncastle went on with dogged bitterness, "Yes, my husband. I wentto him to beg and bribe him to let me see my child. Yes, MY child," shesaid frantically, tightening her hold upon his hand, "for I lied to youwhen I once told you I had none. I had a child, and, more than that, achild who at his birth I did not dare to openly claim."
She stopped breathlessly, stared at his face with her former intensityas if she would pluck the thought that followed from his brain. Buthe only moved closer to her, passed his arm over her shoulders with amovement so natural and protecting that it had a certain dignity in it,and, looking down upon her bent head with eyes brimming with sympathy,whispered, "Poor, poor child!"
Whereat Mrs. Horncastle again burst into tears. And then, with her headhalf drawn towards his shoulder, she told him all,--all that had passedbetween her and her husband,--even all that they had then but hinted at.It was as if she felt she could now, for the first time, voice all theseterrible memories of the past which had come back to her last night whenher husband had left her. She concealed nothing, she veiled nothing;there were intervals when her tears no longer flowed, and a cruelhardness and return of her old imperiousness of voice and manner tooktheir place, as if she was doing a rigid penance and took a bittersatisfaction in laying bare her whole soul to him. "I never had afriend," she whispered; "there were women who persecuted me with theirjealous sneers; there were men who persecuted me with their selfishaffections. When I first saw YOU, you seemed something so apart anddifferent from all other men that, although I scarcely knew you, Iwanted to tell you, even then, all that I have told you now. I wantedyou to be my friend; something told me that you could,--that you couldseparate me from my past; that you could tell me what to do; that youcould make me think as you thought, see life as YOU saw it, and trustalways to some goodness in people as YOU did. And in this faith Ithought that you would understand me now, and even forgive me all."
She made a slight movement as if to disengage his arm, and, possibly,to look into his eyes, which she knew instinctively were bent upon herdowncast head. But he only held her the more tightly until her cheekwas close against his breast. "What could I do?" she murmured. "A manin sorrow and trouble may go to a woman for sympathy and support and theworld will not gainsay or misunderstand him. But a woman--weaker, morehelpless, credulous, ignorant, and craving for light--must not in heragony go to a man for succor and sympathy."
"Why should she not?" burst out Barker passionately, releasing her inhis attempt to gaze into her face. "What man dare refuse her?"
"Not THAT," she said slowly, but with still averted eyes, "but becausethe world would say she LOVED him."
"And what should she care for the opinion of a world that stands asideand lets her suffer? Why should she heed its wretched babble?" he wenton in flashing indignation.
"Because," she said faintly, lifting her moist eyes and moist and partedlips towards him,--"because it would be TRUE!"
There was a silence so profound that even the spring seemed to withholdits song as their eyes and lips met. When the spring recommenced itsmurmur, and they could hear the droning of a bee above them and therustling of the reed, she was murmuring, too, with her face against hisbreast: "You did not think it strange that I should follow you--that Ishould risk everything to tell you what I have told you before I toldyou anything else? You will never hate me for it, George?"
There was another silence still more prolonged, and when he looked againinto the flushed face and glistening eyes he was saying, "I have ALWAYSloved you. I know now I loved you from the first, from the day when Ileaned over you to take little Sta from your lap and saw your tendernessfor him in your eyes. I could have kissed you THEN, dearest, as I donow."
"And," she said, when she had gained her smiling breath again, "youwill always remember, George, that you told me this BEFORE I told youanything of her."
"HER? Of whom, dearest?" he asked, leaning over her tenderly.
"Of Kitty--of your wife," she said impatiently, as she drew back shylywith her former intense gaze.
He did not seem to grasp her meaning, but said gravely, "Let us nottalk of her NOW. Later we shall have MUCH to say of her. For," he addedquietly, "you know I must tell her all."
The color faded from her cheek. "Tell her all!" she repeated vacantly;then suddenly she turned upon him eagerly, and said, "But what if she isgone?"
"Gone?" he repeated.
"Yes; gone. What if she has run away with Van Loo? What if she hasdisgraced you and her child?"
"What do you mean?" he said, seizing both her hands and gazing at herfixedly.
"I mean," she said, with a half-frightened eagerness, "that she hasalready gone with Van Loo. George! George!" she burst out suddenly andpassionately, falling upon her knees before him, "do you think that Iwould have followed you here and told you what I did if I thought thatshe had now the slightest claim upon your love or honor? Don't youunderstand me? I came to tell you of her flight to Boomville with thatman; how I accidentally intercepted them there; how I tried to save herfrom him, and even lied to you to try to save her from your indignation;but how she deceived me
as she has you, and even escaped and joined herlover while you were with me. I came to tell you that and nothing more,George, I swear it. But when you were kind to me and pitied me, I wasmad--wild! I wanted to win you first out of your own love. I wanted youto respond to MINE before you knew your wife was faithless. Yet I wouldhave saved her if I could. Listen, George! A moment more before youspeak!"
Then she hurriedly told him all; the whole story of his wife's dishonor,from her entrance into the sitting-room with Van Loo, her later appealfor concealment from her husband's unexpected presence, to the use shemade of that concealment to fly with her lover. She spared no detail,and even repeated the insult Mrs. Barker had cast upon her with thetriumphant reproach that her husband would not believe her. "Perhaps,"she added bitterly, "you may not believe me now. I could even stand thatfrom you, George, if it could make you happier; but you would still haveto believe it from others. The people at the Boomville Hotel saw themleave it together."
"I do believe you," he said slowly, but with downcast eyes, "and if Idid not love you before you told me this I could love you now for thepart you have taken; but"--He stopped.
"You love her still," she burst out, "and I might have known it.Perhaps," she went on distractedly, "you love her the more that you havelost her. It is the way of men--and women."
"If I had loved her truly," said Barker, lifting his frank eyes to hers,"I could not have touched YOUR lips. I could not even have wished to--asI did three years ago--as I did last night. Then I feared it was myweakness, now I know it was my love. I have thought of it ever since,even while waiting my wife's return here, knowing that I did not andnever could have loved her. But for that very reason I must try to saveher for her own sake, if I cannot save her for mine; and if I fail,dearest, it shall not be said that we climbed to happiness over herback bent with the burden of her shame. If I loved you and told you so,thinking her still guiltless and innocent, how could I profit now by herfault?"
Mrs. Horncastle saw too late her mistake. "Then you would take herback?" she said frenziedly.
"To my home--which is hers--yes. To my heart--no. She never was there."
"And I," said Mrs. Horncastle, with a quivering lip,--"where do Igo when you have settled this? Back to my past again? Back to myhusbandless, childless life?"
She was turning away, but Barker caught her in his arms again. "No!"he said, his whole face suddenly radiating with hope and youthfulenthusiasm. "No! Kitty will help us; we will tell her all. You do notknow her, dearest, as I do--how good and kind she is, in spite of all.We will appeal to her; she will devise some means by which, without thescandal of a divorce, she and I may be separated. She will take dearlittle Sta with her--it is only right, poor girl; but she will let mecome and see him. She will be a sister to us, dearest. Courage! All willcome right yet. Trust to me."
An hysterical laugh came to Mrs. Horncastle's lips and then stopped.For as she looked up at him in his supreme hopefulness, his divineconfidence in himself and others--at his handsome face beaming withlove and happiness, and his clear gray eyes glittering with an almostspiritual prescience--she, woman of the world and bitter experience,and perfectly cognizant of her own and Kitty's possibilities, was,nevertheless, completely carried away by her lover's optimism. For ofall optimism that of love is the most convincing. Dear boy!--for he wasbut a boy in experience--only his love for her could work this magic. Soshe gave him kiss for kiss, largely believing, largely hoping, that Mrs.Barker was in love with Van Loo and would NOT return. And in this hopean invincible belief in the folly of her own sex soothed and sustainedher.
"We must go now, dearest," said Barker, pointing to the sun already nearthe meridian. Three hours had fled, they knew not how. "I will bringyou back to the hill again, but there we had better separate, you takingyour way alone to the hotel as you came, and I will go a little way onthe road to the Divide and return later. Keep your own counsel aboutKitty for her sake and ours; perhaps no one else may know the truthyet." With a farewell kiss they plunged again hand in hand through thecool bracken and again through the hot manzanita bushes, and so partedon the hilltop, as they had never parted before, leaving their wholeworld behind them.
Barker walked slowly along the road under the flickering shade ofwayside sycamore, his sensitive face also alternating with his thoughtin lights and shadows. Presently there crept towards him out of thedistance a halting, vacillating, deviating buggy, trailing a cloud ofdust after it like a broken wing. As it came nearer he could see thatthe horse was spent and exhausted, and that the buggy's sole occupant--awoman--was equally exhausted in her monotonous attempt to urge itforward with whip and reins that rose and fell at intervals with feeblereiteration. Then he stepped out of the shadow and stood in the middleof the sunlit road to await it. For he recognized his wife.
The buggy came nearer. And then the most exquisite pang he had ever feltbefore at his wife's hands shot through him. For as she recognizedhim she made a wild but impotent attempt to dash past him, and then assuddenly pulled up in the ditch.
He went up to her. She was dirty, she was disheveled, she was haggard,she was plain. There were rings of dust round her tear-swept eyes andsmudges of dust-dried perspiration over her fair cheek. He thought ofthe beauty, freshness, and elegance of the woman he had just left, andan infinite pity swept the soul of this weak-minded gentleman. He rantowards her, and tenderly lifting her in her shame-stained garments fromthe buggy, said hurriedly, "I know it all, poor Kitty! You heard thenews of Van Loo's flight, and you ran over to the Divide to try and savesome of your money. Why didn't you wait? Why didn't you tell me?"
There was no mistaking the reality of his words, the genuine pity andtenderness of his action; but the woman saw before her only the familiardupe of her life, and felt an infinite relief mingled with a certaincontempt for his weakness and anger at her previous fears of him.
"You might have driven over, then, yourself," she said in a high,querulous voice, "if you knew it so well, and have spared ME thishorrid, dirty, filthy, hopeless expedition, for I have not savedanything--there! And I have had all this disgusting bother!"
For an instant he was sorely tempted to lift his eyes to her face, buthe checked himself; then he gently took her dust-coat from her shouldersand shook it out, wiped the dust from her face and eyes with his ownhandkerchief, held her hat and blew the dust from it with a vivid memoryof performing the same service for Mrs. Horncastle only an hour before,while she arranged her hair; and then, lifting her again into the buggy,said quietly, as he took his seat beside her and grasped the reins:--
"I will drive you to the hotel by way of the stables, and you can goat once to your room and change your clothes. You are tired, you arenervous and worried, and want rest. Don't tell me anything now until youfeel quite yourself again."
He whipped up the horse, who, recognizing another hand at the reins,lunged forward in a final effort, and in a few minutes they were at thehotel.
As Mrs. Horncastle sat at luncheon in the great dining-room, a littlepale and abstracted, she saw Mrs. Barker sweep confidently into theroom, fresh, rosy, and in a new and ravishing toilette. With a swiftglance of conscious power towards the other guests she walked towardsMrs. Horncastle. "Ah, here you are, dear," she said in a voice thatcould easily reach all ears, "and you've arrived only a little beforeme, after all. And I've had such an AWFUL drive to the Divide! And onlythink! poor George telegraphed to me at Boomville not to worry, and hisdispatch has only just come back here."
And with a glance of complacency she laid Barker's gentle and forgivingdispatch before the astonished Mrs. Horncastle.