THE GREAT HAPPINESS
The town was rapidly losing sharpness of detail, for the straggling
buildings were becoming more and more blurred and were growing into sharp
silhouettes in the increasing dusk, and the sickly yellow lights were
growing more numerous in the scattered windows.
Helen moved about the dining-room engaged in setting the table and
she had just placed fresh flowers in the vase, when she suddenly stopped
and listened. Faintly to her ears came the pounding hoofbeats of a
galloping horse on the well-packed street, growing rapidly nearer with
portentous speed. It could not be Miss Ritchie, for there was a vast
difference between the comparatively lazy gallop of her horse and the
pulse-stirring tattoo which she now heard. The hoofbeats passed the
corner without slackening pace, and whirled up the street, stopping in
front of the house with a suddenness which she had long since learned
to attribute to cowboys. She stood still, afraid to go to the door,
numbed with a nameless fear--something terrible must have happened,
perhaps to The Orphan. The rider ran up the path, his spurs jingling
sharply, leaped to the porch, and the door was dashed open to show him
standing before her, sombrero in hand, his quirt dangling from his left
wrist. He was dusty and tired, but the expression on his face terrified
her, held her speechless.
"Helen!" he cried hoarsely, driving her fear deeper into her heart by
his altered voice. "Helen!" She trembled, and he made a gesture of
hopelessness and involuntarily stepped toward her, letting the door swing
shut behind him. He stood just within the room, rigidly erect, his eyes
meeting hers in the silence of strong emotion. Breathlessly she retreated
as he advanced, as if instinct warned her of what he had to tell her,
until the table was between them; and a spasm of pain flickered across
his face as he noticed it, leaving him hard and stern again, but in
his eyes was a look of despair, a keen misery which softened her and
drew her toward him even while she feared him.
The silence became unbearable and at last she could endure it no longer.
"What is it?" she breathed, tensely. "What have you to tell me?"
His eyes never wavered from her face, fascinated in despair of what he
must read there, much as he dreaded it, and he answered her from between
set lips, much as a man would pronounce his own death sentence. "I have
broken my word," he said, harshly.
"Broken your word--to me?" she asked.
"Yes."
Her face brightened and was softened by a child-like wonder, for she felt
relieved in a degree, and unconsciously she moved nearer to him. "What is
it--what have you done?"
He regarded her without appraising the change in her expression and his
reply was as harsh and stern as his first statement, accompanied by no
excuses nor words of extenuation. "I have killed a man," he said.
A shiver passed over her and her eyes went closed for a moment. The
great choice was at hand now, and in her heart a fierce, short battle
raged; on one side was arrayed her early training, all her teachings, all
regard for the ideas of law and order which she had absorbed in the East,
where human life was safeguarded as the first necessity; and on the
other was the Unwritten Law of the range as exemplified by The Orphan.
Blood, and human blood, was precious, and her early environment fought
bitterly against this regime of direct justice, so startlingly driven
into her mind by his bold, cold admission. And then, he had sinned in
this way again after he had promised her not to do so. The last thought
dominated her and she opened her eyes and looked at him hopefully.
"Perhaps," she said, eagerly, "perhaps you could not avoid it--perhaps you
were forced to do it."
"No."
"Oh!" she cried. "You did not--you did not shoot him down without warning!
I _know_ you didn't!"
"No, not that," he said slowly. "And, besides, this was his third offense.
Twice I have given him his life, and I would have done so again but for
what I discovered after I faced him." He paused for a moment and then
continued, with more feeling in his voice, a ring of victory and an
irrepressible elation. "I found that he was the man for whom I have
been looking for fifteen years, and whom I had sworn to kill. He killed
my father, killed him like a dog and without a chance for life, hung
him to a tree on his own land. And when I learned that, when he had
confessed to me, I forgot the new game, I forgot everything but the
watch in my hand slowly ticking away his life, the time I had given him
to make his peace with God--and I hated the slow seconds, I begrudged
him every movement of the hands. Then I shot him, and I was glad, so
glad--but oh, dear! If you--if you----"
His voice wavered and broke and he dropped to his knees before her with
bowed head as she came slowly toward him and seized the hem of her gown
in both hands, kissing it passionately, burying his face in its folds like
a tired boy at his mother's knee.
Her eyes were filled with tears and they rimmed her lashes as she looked
down on the man at her feet. Bending, she touched him and then placed her
hands on his head, tenderly kissing the tangled hair in loving forgiveness.
"Dear, dear boy," she murmured softly. "Don't, dear heart. Don't, you
must not--oh, you must not! Please--come with me; get up, dear, and sit
with me over here in the corner; then you shall tell me all about it. I
am sure you have not done wrong--and if you have--don't you know I love
you, boy? Don't you know I love you?"
He stirred slightly, as if awakening from a troubled sleep, and slowly
raised his head and looked at her with doubt in his eyes, for it was so
much like a dream--perhaps it was one. But he saw a light on her face,
a light which a man sees only on the face of one woman and which blinds
him against all other lights forever. Then it was true, all true--he had
heard aright! "Helen!" he cried, "Helen!" and the ring in his voice
brought new tears to her eyes. He sprang to his feet, tense, eager, all
his nerves tingling, and his quirt hissed through the air and snapped a
defiance, a warning to the world as he clasped her to him. "I _knew_,
I _knew!_" he cried passionately. "In my heart I _knew_ you were a
thoroughbred!"
He tilted her head back, but she laughed low with delight and eluded him,
leading him to a chair, the chair he had occupied on the occasion of his
first visit, and then drew a low, rough footrest beside him and seated
herself at his feet, her elbows resting on his knees and her chin in her
hands. He looked down into the upturned face and then glanced swiftly
about the homelike room and back to her face again. She snuggled tightly
against his knees and waited patiently for his story.
He sighed contentedly and touched her cheek reverently and then told her
all of the story of Tex Williard, from the very beginning to the very end,
from the time he had seen Tex bending over one of his father's cows to
the last scene in the thicket. When he had finished, Helen took his head
between her hands, pressing it warmly as she nodded wisely to show that
she understood. He looked deep into her eyes and then suddenly bent
his head until his lips touched her ear: "Helen, darling," he whispered,
"how long must I wait?"
"Why, you scamp!" she exclaimed, teasingly, threatening to draw away from
him. "You haven't even told me that you love me!"
He pressed her hands tightly and laughed aloud, joyously, filled with an
elated, effervescent gladness which surged over him in waves of delight:
"Haven't I? Oh, but you know better, dear. Many and many times I have
told you that, and in many ways, and you knew it and understood. You
never doubted it, and I hope," he added seriously, "that you never will."
"I never will, dear."
They did not hear Grace Ritchie in the kitchen, did not hear her quiet
step as it crossed the threshold and stopped, and then tiptoed to the
rear door and sped lightly around the house to the street, and down it
to where Mrs. Shields and Mary were walking toward the house. They did not
know that half an hour had passed since the coming of the quiet step and
the three women, and that the supper was hopelessly ruined. They knew
nothing--and Everything: they had learned the Great Happiness.
THE END
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