CHAPTER XXIII
THE ODDS AGAINST HIM
The noise of the opening of the door and the in-rush of cold air thatfollowed awoke Enid Maitland to instant action. She rose to her feet andfaced the entrance through which she expected Newbold to reappear--forof course the newcomer must be he--and for the life of her she could nothelp that radiating flash of joy at that momentary anticipation whichfairly transfigured her being; although if she had stopped to reflectshe would have remembered that not in the whole course of theiracquaintance had Newbold ever entered her room at any time withoutknocking and receiving permission.
Some of that joy yet lingered in her lovely face when she tardilyrecognized the newcomer in the half light. Armstrong, scarcely waitingto close the door, sprang forward joyfully with his hands outstretched.
"Enid!" he cried.
Naturally he thought the look of expectant happiness he had surprisedupon her face was for him and he accounted for its sudden disappearanceby the shock of his unexpected, unannounced, abrupt, entrance.
The warm color had flushed her face, but as she stared at him her aspectrapidly changed. She grew paler. The happy light that had shone in hereyes faded away and as he approached her she shrank back.
"You!" she exclaimed almost in terror.
"Yes," he answered smilingly, "I have found you at last. Thank God youare safe and well. Oh, if you could only know the agonies I have gonethrough. I thought I loved you when I left you six weeks ago, but now--"
In eager impetuosity he drew nearer to her. Another moment and he wouldhave taken her in his arms, but she would have none of him.
"Stop," she said with a cold and inflexible sternness that gave pauseeven to his buoyant joyful assurance.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"The matter? Everything, but--"
"No evasions, please," continued the man still cheerfully but with agrowing misgiving. His suspicions in abeyance for the moment because ofhis joy at seeing her alive and well arose with renewed force. "I leftyou practically pledged to me," he resumed.
"Not so fast," answered Enid Maitland, determined to combat theslightest attempt to establish a binding claim upon her.
"Isn't it true?" asked Armstrong. "Here, wait," he said before she couldanswer, "I am half frozen, I have been searching for you since earlymorning in the storm." He unbuttoned and unbelted his huge fur coat ashe spoke and threw it carelessly on the floor by his Winchester leaningagainst the wall. "Now," he resumed, "I can talk better."
"You must have something to eat then," said the girl.
She was glad of the interruption since she was playing for time. She didnot quite know how the interview would end, he had come upon her sounexpectedly and she had never formulated how she should say to him thatwhich she felt she must say. She must have time to think, to collectherself, which he on his part was quite willing to give her, for he wasnot much better prepared for the interview than she. He really washungry and tired; his early journey had been foolhardy and in thehighest degree dangerous. The violence of his admiration for her, addedto the excitement of her presence and the probable nearness of Newboldas to whose whereabouts he wondered, were not conducive to rapidrecuperation. It would be comfort to him also to have food and time.
"Sit down," she said. "I shall be back in a moment."
The fire of the morning was still burning in the stove in the kitchen;to heat a can of soup, to make him some buttered toast and hot coffeewere the tasks of a few moments. She brought them back to him, set themon the table before him and bade him fall to.
"By Jove," exclaimed the man after a little time as he began to eathastily but with great relish what she had prepared, while she stoodover him watching him silently, "this is cozy. A warm, comfortable room,something to eat served by the finest woman in the world, the prettiestgirl on earth to look at--what more could a man desire? This is the wayit's going to be always in the future."
"You have no warrant whatever for saying or hoping that," answered thegirl slowly but decisively.
"Have I not?" asked the man quickly. "Did you not say to me a littlewhile ago that you liked me better than any man you had ever met andthat I might win you if I could? Well, I can, and what's more I will inspite of yourself." He laughed. "Why, the memory of that kiss I stolefrom you makes me mad." He pushed away the things before him and rose tohis feet once more. "Come, give me another," he said; "it isn't in thepower of woman to stand out against a love like mine."
"Isn't it?"
"No, indeed."
"Louise Newbold did," she answered very quietly, but with the swiftnessand the dexterity of a sword thrust by a master hand, a mighty arm.
Armstrong stared at her in open-mouthed astonishment.
"What do you know about Louise Rosser or Newbold?" he asked at last.
"All that I want to know."
"And did that damned hound tell you?"
"If you mean Mr. Newbold, he never mentioned your name, he does not knowyou exist."
"Where is he now?" thundered the man.
"Have no fear," answered the woman calmly, "he has gone to thesettlements to tell them I am safe and to seek help to get me out of themountains."
"Fear!" exclaimed Armstrong, proudly, "I fear nothing on earth. Foryears, ever since I heard his name in fact, I have longed to meet him. Iwant to know who told you about that woman, Kirkby?"
"He never mentioned your name in connection with her."
"But you must have heard it somewhere," cried the man thoroughlybewildered. "The birds of the air didn't tell it to you, did they?"
"She told me herself," answered Enid Maitland.
"She told you! Why, she's been dead in her grave five years, shot todeath by that murderous dog of a husband of hers."
"A word with you, Mr. Armstrong," said the woman with great spirit. "Youcan't talk that way about Mr. Newbold; he saved my life twice over, froma bear and then in the cloud burst which caught me in the canyon."
"That evens up a little," said Armstrong. "Perhaps for your sake I willspare him."
"You!" laughed the woman contemptuously. "Spare him! Be advised, look toyourself; if he ever finds out what I know, I don't believe any power onearth could save you."
"Oh," said Armstrong carelessly enough, although he was consumed withhate and jealousy and raging against her clearly evident disdain, "I cantake care of myself, I guess. Anyway, I only want to talk about you, notabout him or her. Your father--"
"Is he well?"
"Well enough, but heart-broken, crushed. I happened to be in his housein Philadelphia when the telegram came from your uncle that you werelost and probably dead. I had just asked him for your hand," he added,smiling grimly at the recollection.
"You had no right to do that."
"I know that."
"It was not, it is not, his to give."
"Still, when I won you I thought it would be pleasant all around if heknew and approved."
"And did he?"
"Not then, he literally drove me out of the house; but afterward he saidif I could find you I could have you; and I have found you and I willhave you whether you like it or not."
"Never," said the woman decisively.
The situation had got on Armstrong's nerves, and he must perforce showhimself in his true colors. His only resources were his strength, not ofmind but of body. He made another most damaging mistake at thisjuncture.
"We are alone here, and I am master, remember," he said meaningly."Come, let's make it up. Give me a kiss for my pains and--"
"I have been alone here for a month with another man," answered EnidMaitland, who was strangely unafraid in spite of his threat. "Agentleman, he has never so much as offered to touch my hand without mypermission; the contrast is quite to your disadvantage."
"Are you jealous of Louise Rosser?" asked Armstrong, suddenly seeingthat he was losing ground and casting about desperately to account forit, and to recover what was escaping him. "Why, that was nothing, a mereboy and girl affair," he r
an on with specious good humor, as if it wereall a trifle. "The woman was, I hate to say it, just crazy in love withme, but I really never cared anything especially for her, it was just aharmless sort of flirtation anyway. She afterward married this manNewbold and that's all there was about it."
The truth would not serve him and in his desperation and desire hestaked everything on this astounding lie. The woman he loved looked athim with her face as rigid as a mask.
"You won't hold that against me, will you?" pleaded the man. "I told youthat I'd been a man among men, yes among women, too, here in this roughcountry and that I wasn't worthy of you; there are lots of things in mypast that I ought to be ashamed of and I am, and the more I see you themore ashamed I grow, but as for loving any one else all that I've everthought or felt or experienced before now is just nothing."
And this indeed was true, and even Enid Maitland with all her prejudicecould realize and understand it. Out of the same mouth, it was said ofold, proceeded blessing and cursing, and from these same lips came truthand falsehood; but the power of the truth to influence this woman was asnothing to the power of falsehood. She could never have loved him, shenow knew; a better man had won her affections, a nobler being claimedher heart; but if Armstrong had told the truth regarding hisrelationship to Newbold's wife and then had completed it with hispassionate avowal of his present love for her, she would have at leastadmired him and respected him.
"You have not told me the truth," she answered directly, "you havedeliberately been false."
"Can't you see," protested the man, drawing nearer to her, "how much Ilove you?"
"Oh, that, yes I suppose that is true; so far as you can love anyone Iwill admit that you do love me."
"So far as I can love anyone?" he repeated after her. "Give me a chanceand I'll show you."
"But you haven't told the truth about Mrs. Newbold. You have calumniatedthe dead, you have sought to shelter yourself by throwing the burden ofa guilty passion upon the weaker vessel, it isn't man-like, it isn't--"
Armstrong was a bold fighter, quick and prompt in his decisions. He madeanother effort to set himself right. He staked his all on another throwof the dice, which he began to feel were somehow loaded against him.
"You are right," he admitted, wondering anxiously how much the womanreally knew. "It wasn't true, it was a coward's act, I am ashamed of it.I'm so mad with love for you that I scarcely know what I am doing, but Iwill make a clean breast of it now. I loved Louise Rosser after afashion before ever Newbold came on the scene. We were pledged to eachother, a foolish quarrel arose, she was jealous of other girls--"
"And had she no right to be?"
"Oh, I suppose so. We broke it off anyway, and then she married Newbold,out of pique, I suppose, or what you will. I thought I was heart-brokenat the time, it did hit me pretty hard; it was five or six years ago, Iwas a youngster then, I am a man now. The woman has been dead longsince. There was some cock-and-bull story about her falling off a cliffand her husband being compelled to shoot her. I didn't half believe itat the time and naturally I have been waiting to get even with him. Ihave been hating him for five years, but he has been good to you and wewill let bygones be bygones. What do I care for Louise Rosser, or forhim, or for what he did to her, now? I am sorry that I said what I did,but you will have to charge it to my blinding passion for you. I cantruthfully say that you are the one woman that I have ever craved withall my heart. I will do anything, be anything, to win you."
It was very brilliantly done, he had not told a single untruth, he hadadmitted much, but he had withheld the essentials after all. He wasplaying against desperate odds, he had no knowledge of how much sheknew, or where she had learned anything. Everyone about the mining campwhere she had lived had known of his love for Louise Rosser, but he hadnot supposed there was a single human soul who had been privy to itslater developments, and he could not figure out any way by which EnidMaitland could have learned by any possibility any more of the storythan he had told her. He had calculated swiftly and with the utmostnicety, just how much he should confess. He was a keen witted, cleverman and he was fighting for what he held most dear, but his eagernessand zeal, as they have often done, overrode his judgment, and he madeanother mistake at this juncture. His evil genius was at his elbow.
"You must remember," he continued, "that you have been alone here inthese mountains with a man for over a month; the world--"
"What, what do you mean?" exclaimed the girl, who indeed knew very wellwhat he meant, but who would not admit the possibility.
"It's not every man," he added, blindly rushing to his doom, "that wouldcare for you or want you--after that."
He received a sudden and terrible enlightenment.
"You coward," she cried, with upraised hand, whether in protest or tostrike him neither ever knew, for at that moment the door opened thesecond time that morning to admit another man.
The Chalice Of Courage: A Romance of Colorado Page 27