CHAPTER XV

THE CASTAWAYS OF THE MOUNTAINS

The man was evidently seeking her, for so soon as he caught sight of her

he broke into a run and came bounding up the steep ascent with the speed

and agility of a chamois or a mountain sheep. As he approached the girl

rose to her feet and supported herself upon the boulder against which

she had been leaning, at the same time extending her hand to greet him.

"Oh," she cried, her voice rising nervously as he drew near, "I am so

glad you are back, another hour of loneliness and I believe I should

have gone crazy."

Now whether that joy in his return was for him, personally or for him

abstractly, he could not tell; whether she was glad that he had come

back simply because he was a human being who would relieve her

loneliness or whether she rejoiced to see him individually, was a matter

not yet to be determined. He hoped the latter, he believed the former.

At any rate he caught and held her outstretched hand in the warm clasp

of both his own. Burning words of greeting rushed to his lips

torrentially, what he said, however, was quite commonplace; as is so

often the case, thought and outward speech did not correspond.

"It's too cold for you out here, you must go into the house at once," he

declared masterfully and she obeyed with unwonted meekness.

The sun had set and the night air had grown suddenly chill. Still

holding her hand they started toward the cabin a few rods away. Her

wounded foot was of little support to her and the excitement had

unnerved her; in spite of his hand she swayed; without a thought he

caught her about the waist and half lifted, half led her to the door. It

seemed as natural as it was inevitable for him to assist her in this way

and in her weakness and bewilderment she suffered it without comment or

resistance. Indeed there was such strength and power in his arm, she was

so secure there, that she liked it. As for him his pulses were bounding

at the contact; but for that matter even to look at her quickened his

heart beat.

Entering the main room he led her gently to one of the chairs near the

table and immediately thereafter lighted the fire which he had taken the

precaution to lay before his departure. It had been dark in the cabin,

but the fire soon filled it with glorious light. She watched him at his

task and as he rose from the hearth questioned him.

"Now tell me," she began, "you found--"

"First your supper, and then the story," he answered, turning toward the

door of the other room.

"No," pleaded the girl, "can't you see that nothing is of any importance

to me but the story? Did you find the camp?"

"I found the place where it had been."

"Where it had been!"

"There wasn't a single vestige of it left. That whole pocket, I knew it

well, had been swept clean by the flood."

"But Kirkby, and Mrs. Maitland and--"

"They weren't there."

"Did you search for them?"

"Certainly."

"But they can't have been drowned," she exclaimed piteously.

"Of course not," he began reassuringly. "Kirkby is a veteran of these

mountains and--"

"But do you know him?" queried the girl in great surprise.

"I did once," said the man, flushing darkly at his admission. "I haven't

seen him for five years."

So that was the measure of his isolation, thought the woman, keen for

the slightest evidence as to her companion's history, of which, by the

way, he meant to tell her nothing.

"Well?" she asked, breaking the pause.

"Kirkby would certainly see the cloudburst coming and he would take the

people with him in the camp up on the hogback near it. It is far above

the flood line, they would be quite safe there."

"And did you look for them there?"

"I did. The trail had been washed out, but I scrambled up and found

undisputed evidence that my surmise was correct. I haven't a doubt that

all who were in the camp were saved."

"Thank God for that," said the girl, greatly relieved and comforted by

his reassuring words. "And my uncle, Mr. Robert Maitland, and the rest

on the mountain, what do you think of them?"

"I am sure that they must have escaped too. I don't think any of them

have suffered more than a thorough drenching in the downpour and that

they are all safe and perhaps on their way to the settlements now."

"But they wouldn't go back without searching for me, would they?" cried

the girl.

"Certainly not, I suppose they are searching for you now."

"Well then--"

"Wait," said the man. "You started down the canyon, you told everybody

that you were going that way. They naturally searched in that direction;

they hadn't the faintest idea that you were going up the river."

"No," admitted Enid, "that is true. I did not tell anyone. I didn't

dream of going up the canyon when I started out in the morning; it was

the result of a sudden impulse."

"God bless that--" burst out the man and then he checked himself,

flushing again, darkly.

What had he been about to say? The question flashed into his own mind

and into the woman's mind at the same time when she heard, the

incompleted sentence; but she, too, checked the question that rose to

her lips.

"This is the way I figure it," continued the man hurriedly to cover up

his confusion. "They fancy themselves alone in these mountains, which

save for me they are; they believe you to have gone down the canyon.

Kirkby with Mrs. Maitland and the others waited on the ridge until Mr.

Maitland and his party joined them. They couldn't have saved very much

to eat or wear from the camp, they were miles from a settlement, they

probably divided into two parties; the larger with the woman and

children started for home, the second went down the canyon searching for

your dead body!"

"And had it not been for you," cried the girl impulsively, "they had

found it."

"God permitted me to be of service to you," answered the man simply. "I

can follow their speculations exactly; up or down, they believed you to

have been in the canyon when the storm broke, therefore there was only

one place and one direction to search for you."

"And that was?"

"Down the canyon."

"What did you do then?"

"I went down the canyon myself. I think I saw evidences that someone had

preceded me, too."

"Did you overtake them!"

"Certainly not; they traveled as rapidly as I, they must have started

early in the morning and they had several hours the advantage of me."

"But they must have stopped somewhere for the night and--"

"Yes," answered the man. "If I had had only myself to consider, I should

have pressed on through the night and overtaken them when they camped."

"Only yourself?"

"You made me promise to return here by nightfall. I don't know whether I

should have obeyed you or not. I kept on as long as I dared and still

leave myself time to get back to you by dark."

She had no idea of the desperate speed he had made to reach her while it

was still daylight.

"If you hadn't come when you did, I should have died," cried the girl

impetuously. "You did perfectly right. I don't think I am a coward, I

hope not, I never was afraid before, but--"

"Don't apologize or explain to me, it's not necessary; I understand

everything you feel. It was only because I had given you my word to be

back by sunset that I left off following their trail. I was afraid that

you might think me dead or that something had happened and--"

"I should, I did," admitted the girl. "It wasn't so bad during the day

time, but when the sun went down and you did not come I began to imagine

everything. I saw myself left alone here in these mountains, helpless,

wounded, without a human being to speak to. I could not bear it."

"But I have been here alone for five years," said the man grimly.

"That's different. I don't know why you have chosen solitude, but I--"

"You are a woman," returned the other gently, "and you have suffered,

that accounts for everything."

"Thank you," said Enid gratefully. "And I am so glad you came back to

me."

"Back to you," reiterated the man and then he stopped. If he had allowed

his heart to speak he would have said, back to you from the very ends of

the world--"But I want you to believe that I honestly did not leave the

trail until the ultimate moment," he added.

"I do believe it," she extended her hand to him. "You have been very

good to me, I trust you absolutely."

And for the second time he took that graceful, dainty, aristocratic hand

in his own larger, stronger, firmer grasp. His face flushed again; under

other circumstances and in other days perhaps he might have kissed that

hand; as it was he only held it for a moment and then gently released

it.

"And you think they are searching for me?" she asked.

"I know it. I am sure of what I myself would do for one I love--I loved

I mean, and they--"

"And they will find me?"

The man shook his head.

"I am afraid they will be convinced that you have gone down with the

flood. Didn't you have a cap or--"

"Yes," said the woman, "and a sweater. The bear you shot covered the

sweater with blood. I could not put it on again."

As she spoke she flushed a glorious crimson at the remembrance of that

meeting, but the man was looking away with studied care. She thanked him

in her heart for such generous and kindly consideration.

"They will have gone down the stream with the rest, and it's just

possible that the searchers may find them, the body of the bear too.

This river ends in a deep mountain lake and I think it is going to snow,

it will be frozen hard to-morrow."

"And they will think me--there?"

"I am afraid so."

"And they won't come up here?"

"It is scarcely possible."

"Oh!" exclaimed the woman faintly at the dire possibility that she might

not be found.

"I took an empty bottle with me," said the man, breaking the silence,

"in which I had enclosed a paper saying that you were here and safe,

save for your wounded foot, and giving directions how to reach the

place. I built a cairn of rocks in a sheltered nook in the valley where

your camp had been pitched and left the tightly corked bottle wedged on

top of it. If they return to the camp they can scarcely fail to see it."

"But if they don't go back there."

"Well, it was just a chance."

"And if they don't find me?"

"You will have to stay here for a while; until your foot gets well

enough to travel," returned the man evasively.

"But winter is coming on, you said the lake would freeze to-night, and

if it snows?"

"It will snow."

The woman stared at him, appalled.

"And in that case--"

"I am afraid," was the slow reply, "that you will have to stay here"--he

hesitated in the face of her white still face--"all winter," he added

desperately.

"Alone!" exclaimed the girl faintly. "With you?"

"Miss Maitland," said the man resolutely, "I might as well tell you the

truth. I can make my way to the settlements now or later, but it will be

a journey of perhaps a week. There will be no danger to me, but you will

have to stay here. You could not go with me. If I am any judge you

couldn't possibly use your foot for a mountain journey for at least

three weeks, and by that time we shall be snowed in as effectually as if

we were within the Arctic Circle. But if you will let me go alone to the

settlement I can bring back your uncle, and a woman to keep you company,

before the trails are impassable. Or enough men to make it practicable

to take you through the canyons and down the trails to your home again. I

could not do that alone even if you were well, in the depth of the

winter."

The girl shook her head stubbornly.

"A week alone in these mountains and I should be mad," she said

decisively. "It isn't to be thought of."

"It must be thought of," urged the man. "You don't understand. It is

either that or spend the winter here--with me."

The woman looked at him steadily.

"And what have I to fear from you?" she asked.

"Nothing, nothing," protested the other, "but the world?"

"The world," said the woman reflectively. "I don't mean to say that it

means nothing to me, but it has cause enough for what it would fain say

now." She came to her decision swiftly. "There is no help for it," she

continued; "we are marooned together." She smiled faintly as she used

the old word of tropic island and southern sea. "You have shown me that

you are a man and a gentleman, in God and you I put my trust. When my

foot gets well, if you can teach me to walk on snow shoes and it is

possible to get through the passes, we will try to go back; if not, we

must wait."

"The decision is yours," said the man, "yet I feel that I ought to point

out to you how--"

"I see all that you see," she interrupted. "I know what is in your mind,

it is entirely clear to me, we can do nothing else."

"So be it. You need have no apprehension as to your material comfort; I

have lived in these mountains for a long time, I am prepared for any

emergency, I pass my time in the summer getting ready for the winter.

There is a cave, or recess rather, behind the house which, as you see,

is built against the rock wall, and it is filled with wood enough to

keep us warm for two or three winters; I have an ample supply of

provisions and clothing for my own needs, but you will need something

warmer than that you wear," he continued.

"Have you needle and thread and cloth?" she asked.

"Everything," was the prompt answer.

"Then I shall not suffer."

"Are you that wonder of wonders," asked the man, smiling slightly, "an

educated woman who knows how to sew?"

"It is a tradition of Philadelphia," answered the girl, "that her

daughters should be expert needlewomen."

"Oh, you are from Philadelphia."

"Yes, and you?"

She threw the question at him so deftly and so quickly that she caught

him unaware and off his guard a second time within the hour.

"Baltimore," he answered before he thought and then bit his lip.

He had determined to vouchsafe her no information regarding himself and

here she had surprised him into an admission in the first blush of their

acquaintance, and she knew that she had triumphed for she smiled in

recognition of it.

She tried another tack.

"Mr. Newbold," she began at a venture, and as it was five years since he

had heard that name, his surprise at her knowledge, which after all was

very simple, betrayed him a third time. "We are like stories I have

read, people who have been cast away on desert islands and--"

"Yes," said the man, "but no castaways that I have ever read of have

been so bountifully provided with everything necessary to the comfort

of life as we are. I told you I lacked nothing for your material

welfare, and even your mind need not stagnate."

"I have looked at your books already," said the woman, answering his

glance.

This was where she had found his name he realized.

"You will have this room for your own use and I will take the other for

mine," he continued.

"I am loath to dispossess you."

"I shall be quite comfortable there, and this shall be your room

exclusively except when you bid me enter, as when I bring you your

meals; otherwise I shall hold it inviolate."

"But," said the woman, "there must be an equal division of labor, I must

do my share."

"There isn't much to do in the winter, except to take care of the

burros, keep up the fire and prepare what we have to eat."

"I am afraid I should be unequal to outdoor work, but in the rest I must

do my part."

He recognized at once that idleness would be irksome.

"So you shall," he assented heartily, "when your foot is well enough to

make you an efficient member of our little society."

"Thank you, and now--"

"Is there anything else before I get supper?"

"You think there is no hope of their searching for me here?"

The man shook his head.

"If James Armstrong had been in the party," she said reflectively, "I am

sure he would never have given up."

"And who is James Armstrong, may I ask?" burst forth the other bluntly.

"Why he--I--he is a friend of my uncle's and an--acquaintance of my

own."

"Oh," said the man shortly and gloomily, as he turned away.

Enid Maitland had been very brave in his presence, but when he went out

she put her head down on her arms on the table and cried softly to

herself. Was ever a woman in such a predicament, thrown into the arms of

a man who had established every conceivable claim upon her gratitude,

forced to live with him shut up in a two-room log cabin upon a lonely

mountain range, surrounded by lofty and inaccessible peaks, pierced by

terrific gorges soon to be impassable from the snows? She had read many

stories of castaways from Charles Reade's famous "Foul Play" down to

more modern instances, but in those cases there had always been an

island comparatively large over which to range, with privacy,

seclusion, opportunity for withdrawal; bright heavens, balmy breezes,

idyllic conditions. Here were two uplifted from the earth upon a

sky-piercing mountain; they would have had more range of action and more

liberty of motion if they had been upon a derelict in the ocean.

And she realized at the same time that in all those stories the two

castaways always loved each other. Would it be so with them? Was it so!

And again the hot flame within outvied the fire on the hearth as the

blood rushed to the smooth surface of her cheek again.

What would her father say if he could know her position, what would the

world say, and above all what would Armstrong say? It cannot be denied

that her thoughts were terribly and overwhelmingly dismayed, and yet

that despair was not without a certain relief. No man had ever so

interested her as this one. What was the mystery of his life, why was he

there, what had he meant when he had blessed the idle impulse that had

sent her into his arms?

Her heart throbbed again. She lifted her face from her hands and dried

her tears, a warm glow stole over her and once again not altogether from

the fire. Who and what was this man? Who was that woman whose picture he

had taken from her? Well, she would have time to find out. And meantime

the world outside could think and do what it pleased. She sat staring

into the firelight, seeing pictures there, dreaming dreams. She was as

lovely as an angel to the man when he came back into the room.

BOOK IV

OH YE ICE AND SNOW, PRAISE YE THE LORD

CHAPTER XVI

THE WOMAN'S HEART

That upper earth on which they lived was covered with a thick blanket of

snow. The lakes and pools were frozen from shore to shore. The mountain

brooks, if they flowed at all, ran under thick arches of ice. The

deepest canyons were well nigh impassable from huge drifts that sometimes

almost rose level with the tops of the walls. In every sheltered spot

great banks of white were massed. The spreading branches of the tall

pine trees in the valleys drooped under heavy burdens of snow. Only here

and there sharp gaunt peaks were swept clean by the fierce winter winds

and thrust themselves upward in the icy air, naked and bare. The cold

was polar in its bitter intensity.

The little shelf, or plateau, jutting out from the mountain side upon

which the lonely cabin stood was sheltered from the prevailing winds,

but the house itself was almost covered with the drifts. The constant

fire roaring up the huge stone chimney had melted some of the snow at

the top and it had run down the slanting roof and formed huge icicles

on what had been the eaves of the house. The man had cut away the drifts

from doors and windows for light and liberty. At first every stormy

night would fill his laborious clearings with drifting snow, but as it

became packed down and frozen solid he was able to keep his various ways

open without a great deal of difficulty. A little work every morning and

evening sufficed.

Every day he had to go down the mountain stairway to the bottom of the

pocket to feed and water the burros. What was a quick and simple task in

milder, warmer seasons, sometimes took him half a day under the present

rigorous conditions. And the woman never saw him start out in the storm

without a sinking heart and grave apprehension. On his return to the

cabin half frozen, almost spent and exhausted, she ever welcomed him

with eager gratitude and satisfaction which would shine in her eyes,

throb in her heart and tremble upon her lips, control it as she might.

And he thought it was well worth all the trouble and hardships of his

task to be so greeted when he came back to her.

Winter had set in unusually early and with unprecedented severity. Any

kind of winter in the mountains would have amazed the girl, but even the

man with his larger experiences declared he had never before known such

sharp and sudden cold, or such deep and lasting snow. His daily records

had never shown such low temperatures, nor had his observation ever

noted such wild and furious storms as raged then and there. It seemed as

if Nature were in a conspiracy to seal up the mountains and all they

contained, to make ingress and egress alike impossible.

A month had elapsed and Enid's foot was now quite well. The man had

managed to sew up her boot where his knife had cut it, and although the

job was a clumsy one the result was a usable shoe. It is astonishing the

comfort she took when she first put it on and discarded for good the

shapeless woolen stocking which had covered the clumsy bandage, happily

no longer necessary. Although the torn and bruised member had healed and

she could use it with care, her foot was still very tender and capable

of sustaining no violent or long continued strain. Of necessity she had

been largely confined to the house, but whenever it had been possible he

had wrapped her in his great bear skin coat and had helped her out to

the edge of the cliff for a breath of fresh air.

Sometimes he would leave her there alone, would perhaps have left her

alone there always had she not imperiously required his company.

Insensibly she had acquired the habit--not a difficult one for a woman

to fall into--of taking the lead in the small affairs of their

circumscribed existence, and he had acquiesced in her dominance without

hesitation or remonstrance. It was she who ordered their daily walk and

conversation. Her wishes were consulted about everything; to be sure no

great range of choice was allowed them, or liberty of action, or

freedom, in the constraints with which nature bound them, but whenever

there was any selection she made it.

The man yielded everything to her and yet he did it without in any way

derogating from his self respect or without surrendering his natural

independence. The woman instinctively realized that in any great crisis,

in any large matter, the determination of which would naturally affect

their present or their future, their happiness, welfare, life, he would

assert himself, and his assertion would be unquestioned and

unquestionable by her.

There was a delightful satisfaction to the woman in the whole situation.

She had a woman's desire to lead in the smaller things of life and yet

craved the woman's consciousness that in the great emergencies she would

be led, in the great battles she would be fought for, in the great

dangers she would be protected, in the great perils she would be saved.

There was rest, comfort, joy and satisfaction in these thoughts.

The strength of the man she mastered was evidence of her own power and

charm. There was a sweet, voiceless, unconscious flattery in his

deference of which she could not be unaware.

Having little else to do, she studied the man and she studied him with a

warm desire and an enthusiastic predisposition to find the best in him.

She would not have been a human girl if she had not been thrilled to the

very heart of her by what the man had done for her. She recognized that

whether he asserted it or not, he had established an everlasting and

indisputable claim upon her.

The circumstances of their first meeting, which as the days passed did

not seem quite so horrible to her, and yet a thought of which would

bring the blood to her cheek still on the instant, had in some way

turned her over to him. His consideration of her, his gracious

tenderness toward her, his absolute abnegation, his evident overwhelming

desire to please her, to make the anomalous situation in which they

stood to each other bearable in spite of their lonely and unobserved

intimacy, by an absolute lack of presumption on his part--all those

things touched her profoundly.

Although she did not recognize the fact then, perhaps, she loved him

from the moment her eyes had opened in the mist and rain after that

awful battle in the torrent to see him bending over her.

No sight that had ever met Enid Maitland's eyes was so glorious, so awe

inspiring, so uplifting and magnificent as the view from the verge of

the cliff in the sunlight of some bright winter morning. Few women had

ever enjoyed such privileges as hers. She did not know whether she liked

the winter crowned range best that way, or whether she preferred the

snowy world, glittering cold in the moonlight; or even whether it was

more attractive when it was dark and the peaks and drifts were only

lighted by the stars which shone never so brightly as just above her

head.

When he allowed her she loved to stand sometimes in the full fury of the

gale with the wind shrieking and sobbing, like lost souls in some icy

inferno, through the hills and over the pines, the snow beating upon

her, the sleet cutting her face if she dared to turn toward the storm.

Generally he left her alone in the quieter moments, but in the tempest

he stood watchful, on guard by her side, buttressing her, protecting

her, sheltering her. Indeed, his presence then was necessary; without

him she could scarce have maintained a footing. The force of the wind

might have hurled her down the mountain but for his strong arm. When

the cold grew too great he led her back carefully to the hut and the

warm fire.

Ah, yes, life and the world were both beautiful to her then, in night,

in day, by sunlight, by moonlight, in calm and storm. Yet it made no

difference what was spread before the woman's eyes, what glorious

picture was exhibited to her gaze, she could not look at it more than a

moment without thinking of the man. With the most fascinating panorama

that the earth's surface could spread before human vision to engage her

attention she looked into her own heart and saw there this man!

Oh, she had fought against it at first, but lately she had luxuriated in

it. She loved him, she loved him! And why not? What is it that women

love in men? Strength of body? She could remember yet how he had carried

her over the mountains in the midst of the storm, how she had been so

bravely upborne by his arms to his heart. She realized later what a task

that had been, what a feat of strength. The uprooting of that sapling,

and the overturning of that huge grizzly were child's play to the long

portage up the almost impassable canyon and mountain side which had

brought her to this dear haven.

Was it strength of character she sought, resolution, determination? This

man had deliberately withdrawn from the world, buried himself in this

mountain; and had stayed there deaf to the alluring call of man or

woman; he had had the courage to do that.

Was it strength of mind she admired? Enid Maitland was no mean judge of

the mental powers of her acquaintance. She was just as full of life and

spirit and the joy of them as any young woman should be, but she had not

been trained by and thrown with the best for nothing. _Noblesse oblige!_

That his was a mind well stored with knowledge of the most varied sort

she easily and at once perceived. Of course the popular books of the

last five years had passed him by, and of such he knew nothing, but he

could talk intelligently, interestingly, entertainingly upon the great

classics. Keats and Shakespeare were his most thumbed volumes. He had

graduated from Harvard as a Civil Engineer with the highest honors of

his class and school and the youngest man to get his sheepskin! Enid

Maitland herself was a woman of broad culture and wide reading and she

deliberately set herself to fathom this man's capabilities. Not

infrequently, much to her surprise, sometimes to her dismay, but

generally to her satisfaction, she found that she had no plummet with

which to sound his greater depths.

Did she seek in him that fine flower of good breeding, gentleness and

consideration? Where could she find these qualities better displayed?

She was absolutely alone with this man, entirely in his power, shut off

from the world and its interference as effectually as if they had both

been abandoned on an ice floe at the North Pole or cast away on some

lonely island in the South Seas, yet she felt as safe as if she had been

in her own house, or her uncle's, with every protection that human power

could give. He had never presumed upon the situation in the least

degree, he never once referred to the circumstances of their meeting in

the remotest way, he never even discussed her rescue from the flood, he

never told her how he had borne her through the rain to the lonely

shelter of the hills, and in no way did he say anything that the most

keenly scrutinizing mind would torture into an allusion to the pool and

the bear and the woman. The fineness of his breeding was never so well

exhibited as in this reticence. More often than not it is what he does

not rather than what he does that indicates the man.

It would be folly to deny that he never thought of these things. Had he

forgotten them there would be no merit in his silence; but to remember

them and to keep still--aye, that showed the man! He would close his

eyes in that little room on the other side of the door and see again the

dark pool, her white shoulders, her graceful arms, the lovely face with

its crown of sunny hair rising above the rushing water. He had listened

to the roar of the wind through the long nights, when she thought him

asleep if she thought of him at all, and heard again the scream of the

storm that had brought her to his arms. No snow drop that touched his

cheek when he was abroad but reminded him of that night in the cold rain

when he had held her close and carried her on. He could not sit and mend

her boot without remembering that white foot before which he would fain

have prostrated himself and upon which he would have pressed passionate

kisses if he had given way to his desires. But he kept all these things

in his heart, pondered them and made no sign.

Did she ask beauty in her lover? Ah, there at last he failed. According

to the canyons of perfection he did not measure up to the standard. His

features were irregular, his chin a trifle too square, his mouth a

thought too firm, his brow wrinkled a little; but he was good to look

at, for he looked strong, he looked clean and he looked true. There was

about him, too, that stamp of practical efficiency that men who can do

things always have. You looked at him and you felt sure that what he

undertook, that he would accomplish; that decision and capability were

incarnate in him.

But after all the things are said, love goes where it is sent, and I, at

least, am not the sender. This woman loved this man neither because nor

in spite of these qualities. That they were might account for her

affection, but if they had not been, it may be that that affection, that

that passion, would have sprung up in her heart still. No one can say,

no one can tell how or why those things are. She had loved him while she

raged against him and hated him. She did neither the one nor the other

of those two last things, now, and she loved him the more.

Mystery is a great mover, there is nothing so attractive as a problem we

cannot solve. The very situation of the man, how he came there, what he

did there, why he remained there, questions to which she had yet no

answer, stimulated her profoundly. Because she did not know she

questioned in secret; interest was aroused and the transition to love

was easy.

Propinquity, too, is responsible for many an affection. "The ivy clings

to the first met tree." Given a man and woman heart free and throw them

together and let there be decent kindness on both sides, and it is

almost inevitable that each shall love the other. Isolate them from the

world, let them see no other companions but the one man and the one

woman and the result becomes more inevitable.

Yes, this woman loved this man. She said in her heart--and I am not one

to dispute her conclusions--that she would have loved him had he been

one among millions to stand before her, and it was true. He was the

complement of her nature. They differed in temperament as much as in

complexion, and yet in such differences as must always be to make

perfect love and perfect union, there were striking resemblances,

necessary points of contact.

There was no reason whatever why Enid Maitland should not love this man.

The only possible check upon her feelings would have been her rather

anomalous relation to Armstrong, but she reflected that she had promised

him definitely nothing. When she had met him she had been heart whole,

he had made some impression upon her fancy and might have made more with

greater opportunity, but unfortunately for him, luckily for her, he had

not enjoyed that privilege. She scarcely thought of him longer.

She would not have been human if her mind had not dwelt upon the world

beyond the skyline on the other side of the range. She knew how those

who loved her must be suffering on account of her disappearance, but

knowing herself safe and realizing that within a short time, when the

spring came again, she would go back to them and that their mourning

would be turned into joy by her arrival, she could not concern herself

very greatly over their present feelings and emotions; and besides, what

would be the use of worrying over those things. There was subject more

attractive for her thoughts close at hand. And she was too blissfully

happy to entertain for more than a moment any sorrow.

She pictured her return and never by any chance did she think of going

back to civilization alone. The man she loved would be by her side, the

church's blessing would make them one. To do her justice in the

simplicity and purity of her thoughts she never once thought of what the

world might say about that long winter sojourn alone with this man. She

was so conscious of her own innocence and of his delicate forbearance,

she never once thought how humanity would elevate its brows and fairly

cry upon her from the house tops. She did not realize that were she ever

so pure and so innocent she could not now or ever reach the high

position which Caesar, who was none too reputable himself, would fain

have had his wife enjoy?

CHAPTER XVII

THE MAN'S HEART

Now love produces both happiness and unhappiness, dependent upon

conditions, but on the whole I think the happiness predominates, for

love itself if it be true and high is its own reward. Love may feel

itself unworthy and may shrink even from the unlatching of the shoe lace

of the beloved, yet it joys in its own existence nevertheless. Of course

its greatest satisfaction is in the return, but there is a sweetness

even in the despair of the truly loving.

Enid Maitland, however, did not have to endure indifference, or fight

against a passion which met with no response, for this man loved her

with a love that was greater even than her own. The moon, in the trite

aphorism, looks on many brooks, the brook sees no moon but the one above

him in the heavens. In one sense his merit in winning her affection for

himself from the hundreds of men she knew was the greater; in many years

he had only seen this one woman. Naturally she should be everything to

him. She represented to him not only the woman but womankind. He had

been a boy practically when he had buried himself in those mountains,

and in all that time he had seen nobody like Enid Maitland. Every

argument which has been exploited to show why she should love him could

be turned about to account for his passion for her. Those arguments are

not necessary, they are all supererogatory, like idle words. To him also

love had been born in an hour. It had flashed into existence as if from

the fiat of the Divine.

Oh, he had fought against it. Like the eremites of old he had been

scourged into the desert by remorse and another passion, but time had

done its work. The woman he first loved had ministered not to the

spiritual side of the man, or if she had so ministered in any degree it

was because he had looked at her with a glamour of inexperience and

youth. During those five years of solitude, of study and of reflection,

the truth had gradually unrolled itself before him. Conclusions vastly

at variance with what he had ever believed possible as to the woman upon

whom he had first bestowed his heart had got into his being and were in

solution there, this present woman was the precipitant which brought

them to life. He knew now what the old appeal of his wife had been. He

knew now what the new appeal of this woman was.

In humanity two things in life are inextricably intermingled, body and

soul. Where the function of one begins and the function of the other

ends no one is able to say. In all human passions there are admixtures

of the earth earthy. We are born the sons of the Old Adam as we are

re-born the sons of the New. Passions are complex. As in harvest wheat

and tares grow together until the end, so in love earth and heaven

mingle ever. He remembered a clause from an ancient marriage service he

had read. "With my body I thee worship," and with every fiber of his

physical being, he loved this woman.

It would be idle to deny that, impossible to disguise the facts, but in

the melting pot of passion the preponderant ingredients were mental and

spiritual; and just because higher and holier things predominated, he

held her in his heart a sacred thing. Love is like a rose: the material

part is the beautiful blossom, the spiritual factor is the fragrance

which abides in the rose jar even after every leaf has faded away, or

which may be expressed from the soft petals by the hard circumstances of

pain and sorrow until there is left nothing but the lingering perfume of

the flower.

His body trembled if she laid a hand upon him, his soul thirsted for

her; present or absent he conjured before his tortured brain the

sweetness that inhabited her breast. He had been clear-sighted enough

in analyzing the past, he was neither clear-sighted nor coherent in

thinking of the present. He worshiped her, he could have thrown himself

upon his knees to her; if it would have added to her happiness she could

have killed him, smiling at her. Rode she in the Juggernaut car of the

ancient idol, with his body would he have unhesitatingly paved the way

and have been glad of the privilege. He longed to compass her with sweet

observances. The world revenged itself upon him for his long neglect, it

had summed up in this one woman all its charm, its beauty, its romance,

and had thrust her into his very arms. His was one of those great

passions which illuminate the records of the past. Paolo had not loved

Francesca more.

Oh, yes, the woman knew he loved her. It was not in the power of mortal

man, no matter how iron his restraint, how absolute the imposition of

his will, to keep his heart hidden, his passion undisclosed. No one

could keep such things secret. His love for her cried aloud in a

thousand ways: even his look when he dared to turn his eyes upon her was

eloquent of his feeling. He never said a word, however; he held his lips

at least fettered and bound for he believed that honor and its

obligations weighed down the balance upon the contrary side to which

his inclinations lay.

He was not worthy of this woman. In the first place all he had to offer

her was a blood-stained hand. That might have been overcome in his mind;

but pride in his self-punishment, his resolution to withdraw himself

from man and woman until such time as God completed his expiation and

signified His acceptance of the penitent by taking away his life, held

him inexorably.

The dark face of his wife rose before him. He forced himself to think

upon her; she had loved him, she had given him all that she could. He

remembered how she had pleaded with him that he take her on that last

and most dangerous of journeys, her devotion to him had been so great

she could not let him go out of her sight a moment, he thought

fatuously! And he had killed her. In the queer turmoil of his brain he

blamed himself for everything. He could not be false to his purpose,

false to her memory, unworthy of the passion in which he believed she

had held him and which he believed he had inspired.

If he had gone out in the world, after her death, he might have

forgotten most of these things, he might have lived them down. Saner,

clearer views would have come to him. His morbid self-reproach and

self-consciousness would have been changed. But he had lived with them

alone for five years and now there was no putting them aside. Honor and

pride, the only things that may successfully fight against love,

overcame him. He could not give way. He wanted to, every time he was in

her presence he longed to, sweep her to his heart and crush her in his

arms and bend her head back and press kisses of fire on her lips.

But honor and pride held him back. How long would they continue to

exercise dominion over him? Would the time come when his passion rising

like a sea would thunder upon these artificial embankments of his soul,

beat them down and sweep them away?

At first the disparity between their situations, not so much on account

of family or of property--the treasures of the mountains, hidden since

creation, he had discovered and let lie--but because of the youth and

position of the woman compared to his own maturer years, his desperate

experience, and his social withdrawal, had reinforced his determination

to live and love without a sign. But he had long since got beyond this.

Had he been free he would have taken her like a viking of old, if he had

to pluck her from amid a thousand swords and carry her to a beggar's hut

which love would have turned to a palace. And she would have come with

him on the same conditions.

He did not know that. Women have learned through centuries of weakness

that fine art of concealment which man has never mastered. She never let

him see what she thought of him. Yet he was not without suspicion; if

that suspicion grew to certainty, would he control himself then?

At first he had sought to keep out of her way, but she had compelled him

to come in. The room that was kitchen and bedroom and store-room for him

was cheerless and somewhat cold. Save at night or when he was busy with

other tasks outside they lived together in the great room. It was always

warm, it was always bright, it was always cheerful, there.

The little piles of manuscript she had noted were books he had written.

He made no effort to conceal such things from her. He talked frankly

enough about his life in the hills, indeed there was no possibility of

avoiding the discussion of such topics. On but two subjects was he

inexorably silent. One was the present state of his affections and the

other was the why and wherefore of his lonely life. She knew beyond

peradventure that he loved her, but she had no faint suspicion even as

to the reason why he had become a recluse. He had never given her the

slightest clew to his past save that admission that he had known Kirkby,

which was in itself nothing definite and which she never connected with

that package of letters which she still kept with her.

The man's mind was too active and fertile to be satisfied with manual

labor alone, the books that he had written were scientific treatises in

the main. One was a learned discussion of the fauna and flora of the

mountains. Another was an exhaustive account of the mineral resources

and geological formations of the range. He had only to allow a whisper,

a suspicion of his discovery of gold and silver in the mountains to

escape him and the canyons and crests alike would be filled with eager

prospectors. Still a third work was a scientific analysis of the water

powers in the canyons.

He had willingly allowed her to read them all. Much of them she found

technical and, aside from the fact that he had written them,

uninteresting. But there was one book remaining in which he simply

discussed the mountains in the various seasons of the year; when the

snows covered them, when the grass and the moss came again, when the

flowers bloomed, when autumn touched the trees. There was the soul of

the man, poetry expressed in prose, man-like but none the less poetry

for that. This book she pored over, she questioned him about it, they

discussed it as they discussed Keats and the other poets.

Those were happy evenings. She on one side of the fire sewing, her

finger wound with cloth to hold his giant thimble, fashioning for

herself some winter garments out of a gay colored, red, white and black

ancient and exquisitely woven Navajo blanket, soft and pliable almost as

an old fashioned piece of satin--priceless if she had but known

it--which he put at her disposal. While on the other side of the same

homely blaze he made her out of the skins of some of the animals that he

had killed, shapeless foot coverings, half moccasin and wholly legging,

which she could wear over her shoes in her short excursions around the

plateau and which would keep her feet warm and comfortable.

By her permission he smoked as he worked, enjoying the hour, putting

aside the past and the future and for a few moments blissfully content.

Sometimes he laid aside his pipe and whatever work he was engaged upon

and read to her from some immortal noble number. Sometimes the

entertainment fell to her and she sang to him in her glorious contralto

voice, music that made him mad. Once he could stand it no longer. At

the end of a burst of song which filled the little room--he had risen

to his feet while she sang, compelled to the erect position by the

magnificent melody--as the last notes died away and she smiled at him,

triumphant and expectant of his praise and his approval, he hurled

himself out of the room and into the night; wrestling for hours with the

storm which after all was but a trifle to that which raged in his bosom.

While she, left alone and deserted, quaked within the silent room till

she heard him come back.

Often and often when she slept quietly on one side the thin partition,

he lay awake on the other, and sometimes his passion drove him forth to

cool the fever, the fire in his soul, in the icy, wintry air. The

struggle within him preyed upon him, the keen loving eye of the woman

searched his face, scrutinized him, looked into his heart, saw what was

there.

She determined to end it, deciding that he must confess his affections.

She had no premonition of the truth and no consideration of any evil

consequences held her back. She could give free range to her love and

her devotion. She had the ordering of their lives and she had the power

to end the situation growing more and more impossible. She fancied the

matter easily terminable. She thought she had only to let him see her

heart in such ways as a maiden may, to bring joy to his own, to make

him speak. She did not dream of the reality.

One night, therefore, a month or more after she had come, she resolved

to end the uncertainty. She believed the easiest and the quickest way

would be to get him to tell her why he was there. She naturally surmised

that the woman of the picture, which she had never seen since the first

day of her arrival, was in some measure the cause of it; and the only

pain she had in the situation was the keen jealousy that would obtrude

itself at the thought of that woman. She remembered everything that he

had said to her and she recalled that he had once made the remark that

he would treat her as he would have his wife treated if he had one;

therefore whoever and whatever the picture of this woman was, she was

not his wife. She might have been someone he had loved, who had not

loved him. She might have died. She was jealous of her, but she did not

fear her.

After a long and painful effort the woman had completed the winter suit

she had made for herself. He had advised her and had helped her. It was

a belted tunic that fell to her knees, the red and black stripes ran

around it, edged the broad collar, cuffed the warm sleeves and marked

the graceful waist line. It was excessively becoming to her. He had been

down into the valley, or the pocket, for a final inspection of the

burros before the night, which promised to be severe, fell, and she had

taken advantage of the opportunity to put it on.

She knew that she was beautiful; her determination to make this evening

count had brought an unusual color to her cheeks, an unwonted sparkle to

her eye. She stood up as she heard him enter the other room, she was

standing erect as he came through the door and faced her. He had only

seen her in the now somewhat shabby blue of her ordinary camp dress

before, and her beauty fairly smote him in his face. He stood before

her, wrapped in his great fur coat, snow and ice clinging to it,

entranced. The woman smiled at the effect she produced.

"Take off your coat," she said gently, approaching him. "Here, let me

help you. Do you realize that I have been here over a month now? I want

to have a little talk with you. I want you to tell me something."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE KISS ON THE HAND

"Did it ever occur to you," began Enid Maitland gravely enough, for she

quite realized the serious nature of the impending conversation, "did it

ever occur to you that you know practically all about me, while I know

practically nothing about you?"

The man bowed his head.

"You may have fancied that I was not aware of it, but in one way or

another you have possessed yourself of pretty nearly all of my short

and, until I met you, most uneventful life," she continued.

Newbold might have answered that there was one subject which had been

casually introduced by her upon one occasion and to which she had never

again referred, but which was to him the most important of all subjects

connected with her; and that was the nature of her relationship to one

James Armstrong whose name, although he had heard it but once, he had

not forgotten. The girl had been frankness itself in following his deft

leads when he talked with her about herself, but she had shown the same

reticence in recurring to Armstrong that he had displayed in questioning

her about him. The statement she had just made as to his acquaintance

with her history was therefore sufficiently near the truth to pass

unchallenged and once again he gravely bowed in acquiescence.

"I have withheld nothing from you," went on the girl; "whatever you

wanted to know, I have told you. I had nothing to conceal, as you have

found out. Why you wanted to know about me, I am not quite sure."

"It was because--" burst out the man impetuously, and then he stopped

abruptly and just in time.

Enid Maitland smiled at him in a way that indicated she knew what was

behind the sudden check he had imposed upon himself.

"Whatever your reason, your curiosity--"

"Don't call it that, please."

"Your desire, then, has been gratified. Now it is my turn. I am not even

sure about your name. I have seen it in these books and naturally I have

imagined that it is yours."

"It is mine."

"Well, that is really all that I know about you. And now I shall be

quite frank. I want to know more. You evidently have something to

conceal or you would not be living here in this way. I have never asked

you about yourself, or manifested the least curiosity to solve the

problem you present, to find the solution of the mystery of your life."

"Perhaps," said the man, "you didn't care enough about it to take the

trouble to inquire."

"You know," answered the girl, "that is not true. I have been consumed

with desire to know?"

"A woman's curiosity?"

"Not that," was the soft answer that turned away his wrath.

She was indeed frank. There was that in her way of uttering those two

simple words that set his pulses bounding. He was not altogether and

absolutely blind.

"Come," said the girl, extending her hand to him, "we are alone here

together. We must help each other. You have helped me, you have been of

the greatest service to me. I can't begin to count all that you have

done for me; my gratitude--"

"Only that?"

"But that is all that you have ever asked or expected," answered the

young woman in a low voice, whose gentle tones did not at all accord

with the boldness and courage of the speech.

"You mean?" asked the man, staring at her, his face aflame.

"I mean," answered the girl swiftly, willfully misinterpreting and

turning his half-spoken question another way, "I mean that I am sure

that some trouble has brought you here. I do not wish to force your

confidence--I have no right to do so--yet I should like to enjoy it.

Can't you give it to me? I want to help you. I want to do my best to

make some return for what you have been to me and have done for me."

"I ask but one thing," he said quickly.

"And what is that?"

But again he checked himself.

"No," he said, "I am not free to ask anything of you."

And that answer to Enid Maitland was like a knife thrust in the heart.

The two had been standing, confronting each other. Her heart grew faint

within her. She stretched out her hand vaguely, as if for support. He

stepped toward her, but before he reached her she caught the back of the

chair and sank down weakly. That he should be bound and not free, had

never once occurred to her. She had quite misinterpreted the meaning of

his remark.

The man did not help her; he could not help her. He just stood and

looked at her. She fought valiantly for self-control a moment or two

and then utterly oblivious to the betrayal of her feelings involved in

the question--the moments were too great for consideration of such

trivial matters--she faltered:

"You mean there is some other woman?"

He shook his head in negation.

"I don't understand."

"There was some other woman?"

"Where is she now?"

"Dead."

"But you said you were not free."

He nodded.

"Did you care so much for her that now--that now--"

"Enid," he cried desperately. "Believe me, I never knew what love was

until I met you."

The secret was out now, it had been known to her long since, but now it

was publicly proclaimed. Even a man as blind, as obsessed, as he could

not mistake the joy that illuminated her face at this announcement. That

very joy and satisfaction produced upon him, however, a very different

effect than might have been anticipated. Had he been free indeed he

would have swept her to his breast and covered her sweet face with

kisses broken by whispered words of passionate endearment. Instead of

that he shrank back from her and it was she who was forced to take up

the burden of the conversation.

"You say that she is dead," she began in sweet appealing bewilderment,

"and that you care so much for me and yet you--"

"I am a murderer," he broke out harshly. "There is blood upon my hands,

the blood of a woman who loved me and whom, boy as I was, I thought that

I loved. She was my wife, I killed her."

"Great Heaven!" cried the girl, amazed beyond measure or expectation by

this sudden avowal which she had never once suspected, and her hand

instinctively went to the bosom of her dress where she kept that soiled,

water-stained packet of letters, "are you that man?"

"I am that man that did that thing, but what do you know?" he asked

quickly, amazed in his turn.

"Old Kirkby, my uncle Robert Maitland, told me your story. They said

that you had disappeared from the haunts of men--"

"And they were right. What else was there for me to do? Although

innocent of crime, I was blood guilty. I was mad. No punishment could be

visited upon me like that imposed by the stern, awful, appalling fact. I

swore to prison myself, to have nothing more forever to do with mankind

or womankind with whom I was unworthy to associate, to live alone until

God took me. To cherish my memories, to make such expiation as I could,

to pray daily for forgiveness. I came here to the wildest, the most

inaccessible, the loneliest, spot in the range. No one ever would come

here I fancied, no one ever did come here but you. I was happy after a

fashion, or at least content. I had chosen the better part. I had work,

I could read, write, remember and dream. But you came and since that

time life has been heaven and hell. Heaven because I love you, hell

because to love you means disloyalty to the past, to a woman who loved

me. Heaven because you are here, I can hear your voice, I can see you,

your soul is spread out before me in its sweetness, in its purity; hell

because I am false to my determination, to my vow, to the love of the

past."

"And did you love her so much, then?" asked the girl, now fiercely

jealous and forgetful of other things for the moment.

"It's not that," said the man. "I was not much more than a boy, a year

or two out of college. I had been in the mountains a year. This woman

lived in a mining camp, she was a fresh, clean, healthy girl, her father

died and the whole camp fathered her, looked after her, and all the

young men in the range for miles on either side were in love with her.

I supposed that I was, too, and--well, I won her from the others. We had

been married but a few months and a part of the time my business as a

mining engineer had called me away from her. I can remember the day

before we started on the last journey. I was going alone again, but she

was so unhappy over my departure, she clung to me, pleaded with me,

implored me to take her with me, insisted on going wherever I went,

would not be left behind. She couldn't bear me out of her sight, it

seemed. I don't know what there was in me to have inspired such

devotion, but I must speak the truth, however it may sound. She seemed

wild, crazy about me. I didn't understand it; frankly, I didn't know

what such love was--then--but I took her along. Shall I not be honest

with you? In spite of the attraction physical, I had begun to feel even

then that she was not the mate for me. I don't deserve it, and it shames

me to say it of course, but I wanted a better mind, a higher soul. That

made it harder--what I had to do, you know."

"Yes, I know."

"The only thing I could do when I came to my senses was to sacrifice

myself to her memory because she had loved me so; as it were, she gave

up her life for me, I could do no less than be true and loyal to the

remembrance. It wasn't a sacrifice either until you came, but as soon as

you opened your eyes and looked into mine in the rain and the storm upon

the rock to which I had carried you after I had fought for you, I knew

that I loved you. I knew that the love that had come into my heart was

the love of which I had dreamed, that everything that had gone before

was nothing, that I had found the one woman whose soul should mate with

mine."

"And this before I had said a word to you?"

"What are words? The heart speaks to the heart, the soul whispers to the

soul. And so it was with us. I had fought for you, you were mine, mine.

My heart sang it as I panted and struggled over the rocks carrying you.

It said the words again and again as I laid you down here in this cabin.

It repeated them over and over; mine, mine! It says that every day and

hour. And yet honor and fidelity bid me stay. I am free, yet bound; free

to love you, but not to take you. My heart says yes, my conscience no. I

should despise myself if I were false to the love which my wife bore me,

and how could I offer you a blood stained hand?"

He had drawn very near her while he spoke; she had risen again and the

two confronted each other. He stretched out his hand as he asked that

last question, almost as if he had offered it to her. She made the best

answer possible to his demand, for before he could divine what she would

be at, she had seized his hand and kissed it, and this time it was the

man whose knees gave way. He sank down in the chair and buried his face

in his hands.

"Oh, God! Oh, God!" he cried in his humiliation and shame. "If I had

only met you first, or if my wife had died as others die, and not by my

hand in that awful hour. I can see her now, broken, bruised, bleeding,

torn. I can hear the report of that weapon. Her last glance at me in the

midst of her indescribable agony was one of thankfulness and gratitude.

I can't stand it, I am unworthy even of her."

"But you could not help it, it was not your fault. And you can't

help--caring--for me--"

"I ought to help it, I ought not love you, I ought to have known that I

was not fit to love any woman, that I had no right, that I was pledged

like a monk to the past. I have been weak, a fool. I love you and my

honor goes, I love you and my self respect goes, I love you and my pride

goes. Would God I could say I love you and my life goes and end it all."

He stared at her a little space. "There is only one ray of satisfaction

in it at all, one gleam of comfort," he added.

"And what is that?"

"You don't know what the suffering is, you don't understand, you don't

comprehend."

"And why not?"

"Because you do not love me."

"But I do," said the woman quite simply, as if it were a matter of

course not only that she should love him, but that she should also tell

him so.

The man stared at her, amazed. Such fierce surges of joy throbbed

through him as he had not thought the human frame could sustain. This

woman loved him, in some strange way he had gained her affection. It was

impossible, yet she had said so! He had been a blind fool. He could see

that now. She stood before him and smiled up at him, looking at him

through eyes misted with tears, with lips parted, with color coming and

going in her cheek and with her bosom rising and falling. She loved him,

he had but to step nearer to her to take her in his arms. There was

trust, devotion, surrender, everything, in her attitude and between

them, like that great gulf which lay between the rich man and the

beggar, that separated heaven and hell, was that he could not cross.

"I never dreamed, I never hoped--oh," he exclaimed as if he had got his

death wound, "this cannot be borne."

He turned away, but in two swift steps she caught him.

"Where do you go?"

"Out, out into the night."

"You cannot go now, it is dark; hark to the storm, you will miss your

footing; you would fall, you would freeze, you would die."

"What matters that?"

"I cannot have it."

"It would be better so."

He strove again to wrench himself away, but she would not be denied. She

clung to him tenaciously.

"I will not let you go unless you give me your word of honor that you

will not leave the plateau, and that you will come back to me."

"I tell you that the quicker and more surely I go out of your life, the

happier and better it will be for you."

"And I tell you," said the woman resolutely, "that you can never go out

of my life again, living or dead," she released him with one hand and

laid it upon her heart, "you are here."

"Enid," cried the man.

"No," she thrust him gently away with one hand yet detained him with the

other--that was emblematic of the situation between them. "Not now, not

yet, let me think, but promise me you will do yourself no harm, you will

let nothing imperil your life."

"As you will," said the man regretfully. "I had purposed to end it now

and forever, but I promise."

"Your word of honor?"

"My word of honor."

"And you won't break it?"

"I never broke it to a human being, much less will I do so to you?"

She released him. He went into the other room and she heard him cross

the floor and open the door and go out into the night, into the storm

again.

CHAPTER XIX

THE FACE IN THE LOCKET

Left alone in the room she sat down again before the fire and drew from

her pocket the packet of letters. She knew them by heart, she had read

and re-read them often when she had been alone. They had fascinated her.

They were letters from some other man to this man's wife. They were

signed by an initial only and the identity of the writer was quite

unknown to her. The woman's replies were not with the others, but it was

easy enough to see what those replies had been. All the passion of which

the woman had been capable had evidently been bestowed upon the writer

of the letters she had treasured.

Her story was quite plain. She had married Newbold in a fit of pique. He

was an Eastern man, the best educated, the most fascinating and

interesting of the men who frequented the camp. There had been a quarrel

between the letter writer and the woman, there were always quarrels,

apparently, but this had been a serious one and the man had savagely

flung away and left her. He had not come back as he usually did. She

had waited for him and then she had married Newbold and then he had

come back--too late!

He had wanted to kill the other, but she had prevented, and while

Newbold was away he had made desperate love to her. He had besought her

to leave her husband, to go away with him. He had used every argument

that he could to that end and the woman had hesitated and wavered, but

she had not consented; she had not denied her love for him any more than

she had denied her respect and a certain admiration for her gallant

trusting husband. She had refused again and again the requests of her

lover. She could not control her heart, nevertheless she had kept to her

marriage vows. But the force of her resistance had grown weaker and she

had realized that alone she would perhaps inevitably succumb.

Her lover had been away when her husband returned prior to that last

fateful journey. Enid Maitland saw now why she had besought him to take

her with him. She had been afraid to be left alone! She had not dared to

depend upon her own powers any more, her only salvation had been to go

with this man whom she did not love, whom at times she almost hated, to

keep from falling into the arms of the man she did love. She had been

more or less afraid of Newbold. She had soon realized, because she was

not blinded by any passion as he, that they had been utterly mismated.

She had come to understand that when the same knowledge of the truth

came to him, as it inevitably must some day, nothing but unhappiness

would be their portion.

Every kind of an argument in addition to those so passionately adduced

in these letters urging her to break away from her husband and to seek

happiness for herself while yet there was time, had besieged her heart,

had seconded her lover's plea and had assailed her will, and yet she had

not given way.

Now Enid Maitland hated the woman who had enjoyed the first young love

of the man she herself loved. She hated her because of her priority of

possession, because her memory yet came between her and that man. She

hated her because Newbold was still true to her memory, because Newbold,

believing in the greatness of her passion for him, thought it shame and

dishonor to his manhood to be false to her, no matter what love and

longing drew him on.

Yet there was a stern sense of justice in the bosom of this young woman.

She exulted in the successful battle the poor woman had waged for the

preservation of her honor and her good name, against such odds. It was a

sex triumph for which she was glad. She was proud of her for the stern

rigor with which she had refused to take the easiest way and the

desperation with which she had clung to him she did not love, but to

whom she was bound by the laws of God and man, in order that she might

not fall into the arms of the man she did love, in defiance of right.

Enid Maitland and this woman were as far removed from each other as the

opposite poles of the earth, but there was yet a common quality in each

one, of virtuous womanhood, of lofty morality. Natural, perhaps, in the

one and to be expected; unnatural, perhaps, and to be unexpected in the

other, but there! Now that she knew what love was and what its power and

what its force--for all that she had felt and experienced and dreamed

about before were as nothing to what it was since he had spoken--she

could understand what the struggle must have been in that woman's heart.

She could honor her, reverence her, pity her.

She could understand the feeling of the man, too, she could think much

more clearly than he. He was distracted by two passions, for his pride

and his honor and for her; she had as yet but one, for him. And as there

was less turmoil and confusion in her mind, she was the more capable of

looking the facts in the face and making the right deduction from them.

She could understand how in the first frightful rush of his grief and

remorse and love the very fact that Newbold had been compelled to kill

his wife, of whom she guessed he was beginning to grow a little weary,

under such circumstances had added immensely to his remorse and

quickened his determination to expiate his guilt and cherish her memory.

She could understand why he would do just as he had done, go into the

wilderness to be alone in horror of himself and in horror of his fellow

men, to think only, mistakenly, of her.

Now he was paying the penalty of that isolation. Men were made to live

with one another, and no one could violate that law natural, or by so

long an inheritance as to have so become, without paying that penalty.

His ideas of loyalty and fidelity were warped, his conceptions of his

duty were narrow. There was something noble in his determination, it is

true, but there was something also very foolish. The dividing line

between wisdom and folly is sometimes as indefinite as that between

comedy and tragedy, between laughter and tears. If the woman he had

married and killed had only hated him and he had known, it would have

been different, but since he believed so in her love he could do nothing

else.

At that period in her reflections Enid Maitland saw a great light. The

woman had not loved her husband after all, she had loved another. That

passion of which he had dreamed had not been for him. By a strange chain

of circumstances Enid Maitland held in her hand the solution of the

problem. She had but to give him these letters to show him that his

golden image had stood upon feet of clay, that the love upon which he

had dwelt was not his. Once convinced of that he would come quickly to

her arms. She cried a prayer of blessing on old Kirkby and started to

her feet, the letters in hand, to call Newbold back to her and tell him,

and then she stopped.

Woman as she was, she had respect for the binding conditions and laws of

honor as well as he. Chance, nay, Providence, had put the honor of this

woman, her rival, in her hands. The world had long since forgotten this

poor unfortunate; in no heart was her memory cherished save in that of

her husband. His idea of her was a false one, to be sure, but not even

to procure her own happiness could Enid Maitland overthrow that ideal,

shatter that memory.

She sat down again with the letters in her hand. It had been very simple

a moment since, but it was not so now. She had but to show him those

letters to remove the great barrier between them. She could not do it.

It was clearly impossible. The reputation of her dead sister who had

struggled so bravely to the end was in her hands, she could not

sacrifice her even for her own happiness.

Quixotic, you say? I do not think so. She had blundered unwittingly,

unwillingly, upon the heart secret of the other woman, she could not

betray it. Even if the other woman had been really unfaithful in deed as

well as in thought to her husband, Enid could hardly have destroyed his

recollection of her. How much more impossible it was since the other

woman had fought so heroically and so successfully for her honor.

Womanhood demanded her silence. Loyalty, honor, compelled her silence.

A dead hand grasped his heart and the same dead hand grasped hers. She

could see no way out of the difficulty. So far as she knew, no human

soul except old Kirkby and herself knew this woman's story. She could

not tell Newbold and she would have to impose upon Kirkby the same

silence as she herself exercised. There was absolutely no way in which

the man could find out. He must cherish his dream as he would. She would

not enlighten him, she would not disabuse his mind, she could not

shatter his ideal, she could not betray his wife. They might love as

the angels of heaven and yet be kept forever apart--by a scruple, an

idea, a principle, an abstraction, honor, a name.

Her mind told her these things were idle and foolish, but her soul would

not hear of it. And in spite of her resolutions she felt that eventually

there would be some way. She would not have been a human woman if she

had not hoped and prayed that. She believed that God had created them

for each other, that He had thrown them together. She was enough of a

fatalist in this instance at least to accept their intimacy as the

result of His ordination. There must be some way out of the dilemma.

Yet she knew that he would be true to his belief, and she felt that she

would not be false to her obligation. What of that? There would be some

way. Perhaps somebody else knew, and then there flashed into her mind

the writer of the letters. Who was he? Was he yet alive? Had he any part

to play in this strange tragedy aside from that he had already essayed?

Sometimes an answer to a secret query is made openly. At this juncture

Newbold came back. He stopped before her unsteadily, his face now marked

not only by the fierceness of the storm outside, but by the fiercer

grapple of the storm in his heart.

"You have a right," he began, "to know everything now. I can withhold

nothing from you."

He had in his hand a picture and something yellow that gleamed in the

light. "There," he continued, extending them toward her, "is the picture

of the poor woman, who loved me and whom I killed, you saw it once

before."

"Yes," she nodded, taking it from him carefully and looking again in a

strange commixture of pride, resentment and pity at the bold, somewhat

coarse, entirely uncultured, yet handsome face which gave no evidence of

the moral purpose which she had displayed.

"And here," said the man, offering the other article, "is something that

no human eye but mine has ever seen since that day. It is a locket I

took from her neck. Until you came I wore it next my heart."

"And since then?"

"Since then I have been unworthy her as I am unworthy you, and I have

put it aside."

"Does it contain another picture?"

"Yes."

"Of her?"

"A man's face."

"Yours?"

He shook his head.

"Look and see," he answered. "Press the spring."

Suiting action to word the next second Enid Maitland found herself

gazing upon the pictured semblance of Mr. James Armstrong!

She was utterly unable to suppress an exclamation and a start of

surprise at the astonishing revelation. The man looked at her curiously,

he opened his mouth to question her, but she recovered herself in part

at least and swiftly interrupted him in a panic of terror lest she

should betray her knowledge.

"And what is the picture of another man doing in your wife's locket?"

she asked to gain time, for she very well knew the reply; knew it,

indeed, better than Newbold himself; who, as it happened, was equally in

the dark both as to the man and the reason.

"I don't know," answered the other.

"Did you know this man?"

"I never saw him in my life that I can recall."

"And have you--did you--"

"Did I suspect my wife?" he asked. "Never. I had too many evidences that

she loved me and me alone for a ghost of suspicion to enter my mind. It

may have been a brother, or her father in his youth."

"And why did you wear it?"

"Because I took it from her dead heart. Some day I shall find out who

the man is, and when I shall I know there will be nothing to her

discredit in the knowledge."

Enid Maitland nodded her head. She closed the locket, laid it on the

table and pushed it away from her. So this was the man the woman had

loved, who had begged her to go away with him, this handsome Armstrong

who had come within an ace of winning her own affection, to whom she was

in some measure pledged!

How strangely does fate work out its purposes. Enid had come from the

Atlantic seaboard to be the second woman that both these two men loved!

If she ever saw Mr. James Armstrong again, and she had no doubt that she

would, she would have some strange things to say to him. She held in her

hands now all the threads of the mystery, she was master of all the

solutions, and each thread was as a chain that bound her.

"My friend," she said at last with a deep sigh, "you must forget this

night and go on as before. You love me, thank God for that, but honor

and respect interpose between us. And I love you, and I thank God for

that, too, but for me as well the same barrier rises. Whether we shall

ever surmount these barriers God alone knows. He brought us together, He

put that love in our hearts, we will have to leave it to Him to do as

He will with us both. Meanwhile we must go on as before."

"No," cried the man, "you impose upon me tasks beyond my strength; you

don't know what love like mine is, you don't know the heart hunger, the

awful madness I feel. Think, I have been alone with a recollection for

all these years, a man in the dark, in the night, and the light comes,

you are here. The first night I brought you here I walked that room on

the other side of that narrow door like a lion pent up in bars of steel.

I had only my own love, my own passionate adoration to move me then, but

now that I know you love me, that I see it in your eyes, that I hear it

from your lips, that I mark it in the beat of your heart, can I keep

silent? Can I live on and on? Can I see you, touch you, breathe the same

air with you, be shut up in the same room with you hour after hour, day

after day, and go on as before? I can't do it; it is an impossibility.

What keeps me now from taking you in my arms and from kissing the color

into your cheeks, from making your lips my own, from drinking the light

from your eyes?" He swayed near to her, his voice rose, "What restrains

me?" he demanded.

"Nothing," said the woman, never shrinking back an inch, facing him with

all the courage and daring with which a goddess might look upon a man.

"Nothing but my weakness and your strength."

"Yes, that's it; but do not count too much upon the one or the other.

Great God, how can I keep away from you. Life on the old terms is

insupportable. I must go."

"And where?"

"Anywhere, so it be away."

"And when?"

"Now."

"It would be death in the snow and in the mountains to-night. No, no,

you can not go."

"Well, to-morrow then. It will be fair, I can't take you with me, but I

must go alone to the settlements, I must tell your friends you are here,

alive, well. I shall find men to come back and get you. What I cannot do

alone numbers together may effect. They can carry you over the worst of

the trails, you shall be restored to your people, to your world again.

You can forget me."

"And do you think?" asked the woman, "that I could ever forget you?"

"I don't know."

"And will you forget me?"

"Not as long as life throbs in my veins, and beyond."

"And I too," was the return.

"So be it. You won't be afraid to stay here alone, now."

"No, not since you love me," was the noble answer. "I suppose I must,

there is no other way, we could not go on as before. And you will come

back to me as quickly as you can with the others?"

"I shall not come back. I will give them the direction, they can find

you without me. When I say good-by to you to-morrow it shall be

forever."

"And I swear to you," asserted the woman in quick desperation, "if you

do not come back, they shall have nothing to carry from here but my dead

body. You do not alone know what love is," she cried resolutely, "and I

will not let you go unless I have your word to return."

"And how will you prevent my going?"

"I can't. But I will follow you on my hands and knees in the snow until

I freeze and die unless I have your promise."

"You have beaten me," said the man hopelessly. "You always do. Honor,

what is it? Pride, what is it? Self respect, what is it? Say the word

and I am at your feet, I put the past behind me."

"I don't say the word," answered the woman bravely, white faced, pale

lipped, but resolute. "To be yours, to have you mine, is the greatest

desire of my heart, but not in the coward's way, not at the expense of

honor, of self respect--no not that way. Courage, my friend, God will

show us the way, and meantime good night."

"I shall start in the morning."

"Yes," she nodded reluctantly but knowing it had to be, "but you won't

go without bidding me good-bye."

"No."

"Good night then," she said extending her hand.

"Good night," he whispered hoarsely and refused it backing away. "I

don't dare to take it. I don't dare to touch you again. I love you so,

my only salvation is to keep away."

CHAPTER XX

THE STRENGTH OF THE WEAK

Although Enid Maitland had spoken bravely enough while he was there,

when she was alone her heart sank into the depths as she contemplated

the dreadful and unsolvable dilemma in which these two lovers found

themselves so unwittingly and inextricably involved. It was indeed a

curious and bewildering situation. Passionate adoration for the other

rose in each breast like the surging tide of a mighty sea and like that

tide upon the shore it broke upon conventions, ideas, ideals and

obligations intangible to the naked eye but as real as those iron coasts

that have withstood the waves' assaults since the world's morning.

The man had shaped his life upon a mistake. He believed absolutely in

the unquestioned devotion of a woman to whom he had been forced to mete

out death in an unprecedented and terrible manner. His unwillingness to

derogate by his own conduct from the standard of devotion which he

believed had inhabited his wife's bosom, made it impossible for him to

allow the real love that had come into his heart for this new woman to

have free course; honor, pride and self respect scourged him just in

proportion to his passion for Enid Maitland.

The more he loved her, the more ashamed he was. By a curious combination

of circumstances, Enid Maitland knew the truth, she knew that from one

point of view the woman had been entirely unworthy the reverence in

which her husband held her memory. She knew that his wife had not loved

him at all, that her whole heart had been given to another man, that

what Newbold had mistaken for a passionate desire for his society

because there was no satisfaction in life for the wife away from him was

due to a fear lest without his protection she should be unable to resist

the appeal of the other man which her heart seconded so powerfully. If

it were only that Newbold would not be false to the obligation of the

other woman's devotion, Enid might have solved the problem in a moment.

It was not so simple, however. The fact that Newbold cherished this

memory, the fact that this other woman had fought so desperately, had

tried so hard not to give way, entitled her to Enid Maitland's

admiration and demanded her highest consideration as well. Chance, or

Providence, had put her in possession of this woman's secret. It was as

if she had been caught inadvertently eavesdropping. She could not in

honor make use of what she had overheard, as it were; she could not

blacken the other woman's memory, she could not enlighten this man at

the expense of his dead wife's reputation.

Although she longed for him as much as he longed for her, although her

love for him amazed her by its depth and intensity, even to bring her

happiness commensurate with her feelings she could not betray her dead

sister. The imposts of honor, how hard they are to sustain when they

conflict with love and longing.

Enid Maitland was naturally not a little thrown off her balance by the

situation and the power that was hers. What she could not do herself she

could not allow anyone else to do. The obligation upon her must be

extended to others. Old Kirkby had no right to the woman's secret any

more than she, he must be silenced. Armstrong, the only other being

privy to the truth, must be silenced too.

One thing at least arose out of the sea of trouble in a tangible way,

she was done with Armstrong. Even if she had not so loved Newbold that

she could scarcely give a thought to any other human being, she was done

with Armstrong.

A singular situation! Armstrong had loved another woman, so had Newbold,

and the latter had even married this other woman, yet she was quite

willing to forgive Newbold, she made every excuse for him, she made none

for Armstrong. She was an eminently sane, just person, yet as she

thought of the situation her anger against Armstrong grew hotter and

hotter. It was a safety valve to her feelings, although she did not

realize it. After all, Armstrong's actions rendered her a certain

service; if she could get over the objection in her soul, if she could

ever satisfy her sense of honor and duty, and obligation, she could

settle the question at once. She had only to show the letters to Newbold

and to say, "These were written by the man of the picture; it was he and

not you your wife loved," and Newbold would take her to his heart

instantly.

These thoughts were not without a certain comfort to her. All the

compensation of self-sacrifice is in its realization. That she could do

and yet did not somehow ennobled her love for him. Even women are

alloyed with base metal. In the powerful and universal appeal of this

man to her, she rejoiced at whatever was of the soul rather than of the

body. To possess power, to refrain from using it in obedience to some

higher law is perhaps to pay oneself the most flattering of

compliments. There was a satisfaction to her soul in this which was yet

denied him.

Her action was quite different from his. She was putting away happiness

which she might have had in compliance with a higher law than that which

bids humanity enjoy. It was flattering to her mind. In his case it was

otherwise: he had no consciousness that he was a victim of misplaced

trust, of misinterpreted action; he thought the woman for whom he was

putting away happiness was almost as worthy, if infinitely less

desirable, as the woman whom he now loved.

Every sting of conscious weakness, every feeling of realized shame,

every fear of ultimate disloyalty, scourged him. She could glory in it;

he was ashamed, humiliated, broken.

She heard him savagely walking up and down the other room, restlessly

impelled by the same Erinnyes who of old scourged Orestes, the violater

of the laws of moral being, drove him on. These malign Eumenides held

him in their hands. He was bound and helpless; rage as he might in one

moment, pray as he did in another, no light came into the whirling

darkness of his torn, tempest tossed, driven soul. The irresistible

impulse and the immovable body the philosophers puzzled over were

exemplified in him. While he almost hated the new woman, while he

almost loved the old, yet that he did neither the one thing nor the

other absolutely was significant.

Indeed he knew that he was glad Enid Maitland had come into his life. No

life is complete until it is touched by that divine fire which for lack

of another name we call love. Because we can experience that sensation

we are said to be made in God's image. The image is blurred as the

animal predominates, it is clearer as the spiritual has the ascendency.

The man raved in his mind. White faced, stern, he walked up and down, he

tossed his arms about him, he stopped, his eyes closed, he threw his

hands up toward God, his heart cried out under the lacerations of the

blows inflicted upon it. No flagellant of old ever trembled beneath the

body lash as he under the spiritual punishment.

He prayed that he might die at the same moment that he longed to live.

He grappled blindly for solutions of the problem that would leave him

with untarnished honor and undiminished self-respect and fidelity, and

yet give him this woman; and in vain. He strove to find a way to

reconcile the past with the present, realizing as he did so the futility

of such a proposition. One or the other must be supreme; he must

inexorably hold to his ideas and his ideals, or he must inevitably take

the woman.

How frightful was the battle that raged within his bosom. Sometimes in

his despair he thought that he would have been glad if he and she had

gone down together in the dark waters before all this came upon him. The

floods of which the heavens had emptied themselves had borne her to him.

Oh, if they had only swept him out of life with its trouble, its trials,

its anxieties, its obligations, its impossibilities! If they had gone

together! And then he knew that he was glad even for the torture,

because he had seen her, because he had loved her, and because she had

loved him.

He marveled at himself curiously and in a detached way. There was a

woman who loved him, who had confessed it boldly and innocently; there

were none to say him nay. The woman who stood between had been dead five

years, the world knew nothing, cared nothing; they could go out

together, he could take her, she would come. On the impulse he turned

and ran to the door and beat upon it. Her voice bade him enter and he

came in.

Her heart yearned to him. She was shocked, appalled, at the torture she

saw upon his face. Had he been laid upon the rack and every joint pulled

from its sockets, he could not have been more white and agonized.

"I give up," he cried. "What are honor and self-respect to me? I want

you. I have put the past behind. You love me, and I, I am yours with

every fiber of my being. Great God! Let us cast aside these foolish

quixotic scruples that have kept us apart. If a man's thoughts declare

his guilt I am already disloyal to the other woman; deeply, entirely so.

I have betrayed her, shamed her, abandoned her. Let me have some

compensation for what I have gone through. You love me, come to me."

"No," answered the woman, and no task ever laid upon her had been harder

than that. "I do love you, I will not deny it, every part of me responds

to your appeal. I should be so happy that I cannot even think of it, if

I could put my hand in your own, if I could lay my head upon your

shoulder, if I could feel your heart beat against mine, if I could give

myself up to you, I would be so glad, so glad. But it can not be, not

now."

"Why not?" pleaded the man.

He was by her side, his arm went around her. She did not resist

physically, it would have been useless; she only laid her slender hand

upon his broad breast and threw her head back and looked at him.

"See," she said, "how helpless I am, how weak in your hands? Every

voice in my heart bids me give way. If you insist I can deny you

nothing. I am helpless, alone, but it must not be. I know you better

than you know yourself, you will not take advantage of affection so

unbounded, of weakness so pitiable."

Was it the wisdom of calculation, or was it the wisdom of instinct by

which she chose her course? Resistance would have been unavailing, in

weakness was her strength.

_Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth!_

Yes, that was true. She knew it now if never before, and so did he.

Slowly the man released her. She did not even then draw away from him;

she stood with her hand still on his breast, she could feel the beating

of his heart beneath her fingers.

"I am right," she said softly. "It kills me to deny you anything, my

heart yearns toward you, why should I deny it, it is my glory not my

shame."

"There is nothing above love like ours," he pleaded, wondering what

marvelous mastery she exercised that she stopped him by a hand's touch,

a whispered word, a faith.

"No; love is life, love is God, but even God Himself is under

obligations of righteousness. For me to come to you now, to marry you

now, to be your wife, would be unholy. There would not be that perfect

confidence between us that must endure in that relation. Your honor and

mine, your self-respect and mine would interpose. If I can't have you

with a clear conscience, if you can't come to me in the same way, we are

better apart. Although it kills me, although life without you seems

nothing and I would rather not live it, we are better apart. I cannot be

your wife until--"

"Until what and until when?" demanded Newbold.

"I don't know," said the woman, "but I believe that somewhere, somehow,

we shall find a way out of our difficulty. There is a way," she said a

little incautiously, "I know it."

"Show it to me."

"No, I can not."

"What prevents?"

"The same thing which prevents you, honor, loyalty."

"To a man?"

"To a woman."

"I don't understand."

"No, but you will some day," she smiled at him. "See," she said,

"through my tears I can smile at you, though my heart is breaking. I

know that in God's good time this will work itself out."

"I can't wait for God, I want you now," persisted the other.

"Hush, don't say that," answered the woman, for a moment laying her hand

on his lips. "But I forgive you, I know how you suffer."

The man could say nothing, do nothing. He stared at her a moment and his

hand went to his throat as if he were choking.

"Unworthy," he said hoarsely, "unworthy of the past, unworthy of the

present, unworthy of the future. May God forgive me, I never can."

"He will forgive you, never fear," answered Enid gently.

"And you?" asked her lover. "I have ruined your life."

"No, you have ennobled it. Let nothing ever make you forget that.

Wherever you are and whatever you do and whatever you may have been, I

love you and I shall love you to the end. Now you must go, it is so

late, I can't stand any more. I throw myself on your mercy again. I grow

weaker and weaker before you. As you are a man, as you are stronger,

save me from myself. If you were to take me again in your arms," she

went on steadily, "I know not how I could drive you back. For God's

sake, if you love me--"

That was the hardest thing he had ever done, to turn and go out of the

room, out of her sight and leave her standing there with eyes shining,

with pulses throbbing, with breath coming fast, with bosom panting. Once

more, and at a touch she might have yielded!

BOOK V

THE CUP IS DRAINED

CHAPTER XXI

THE CHALLENGE OF THE RANGE

Mr. James Armstrong sat at his desk before the west window of his

private room in one of the tallest buildings in Denver. His suite of

offices was situated on one of the top floors and from it over the

intervening house tops and other buildings, he had a clear and

unobstructed view of the mighty range. The earth was covered with snow.

It had fallen steadily through the night but with the dawn the air had

cleared and the sun had come out brightly although it was very cold.

Letters, papers, documents, the demands of a business extensive and

varied, were left unnoticed. He sat with his elbow on the desk and his

head on his hand, looking moodily at the range. In the month that had

elapsed since he had received news of Enid Maitland's disappearance he

had sat often in that way, in that place, staring at the range, a prey

to most despondent reflections, heavy hearted and disconsolate indeed.

After that memorable interview with Mr. Stephen Maitland in Philadelphia

he had deemed it proper to await there the arrival of Mr. Robert

Maitland. A brief conversation with that distracted gentleman had put

him in possession of all the facts in the case. As Robert Maitland had

said, after his presentation of the tragic story, the situation was

quite hopeless. Even Armstrong reluctantly admitted that her uncle and

old Kirkby had done everything that was possible for the rescue or

discovery of the girl.

Therefore the two despondent gentlemen had shortly after returned to

their western homes, Robert Maitland in this instance being accompanied

by his brother Stephen. The latter never knew how much his daughter had

been to him until this evil fate had befallen her. Robert Maitland had

promised to inaugurate a thorough and extensive search to solve the

mystery of her death, which he felt was certain, in the spring when the

weather permitted humanity to have free course through the mountains.

Mr. Stephen Maitland found a certain melancholy satisfaction in being at

least near the place where neither he nor anyone had any doubt his

daughter's remains lay hid beneath the snow or ice on the mountains in

the freezing cold. Robert Maitland had no other idea than that Enid's

body was in the lake. He intended to drain it--an engineering task of no

great difficulty--and yet he intended also to search the hills for

miles on either side of the main stream down which she had gone; for she

might possibly have strayed away and died of starvation and exposure

rather than drowning. At any rate he would leave nothing undone to

discover her.

He had strenuously opposed Armstrong's recklessly expressed intention of

going into the mountains immediately to search for her. Armstrong was

not easily moved from any purpose he once entertained or lightly to be

hindered from attempting any enterprise that he projected, but by the

time the party reached Denver the winter had set in and even he realized

the futility of any immediate search for a dead body lost in the

mountains. Admitting that Enid was dead the conclusions were sound of

course.

The others pointed out to Armstrong that if the woman they all loved had

by any fortunate chance escaped the cloud burst she must inevitably have

perished from cold, starvation and exposure in the mountain long since.

There was scarcely a possibility that she could have escaped the flood,

but if she had it would only to be devoted to death a little later. If

she was not in the lake what remained of her would be in some lateral

canyon. It would be impossible to discover her body in the deep snows

until the spring and the warm weather came. When the snows melted what

was concealed would be revealed. Alone, she could do nothing. And

admitting again that Enid was alone this conclusion was as sound as the

other.

Now no one had the faintest hope that Enid Maitland was yet alive except

perhaps her father, Mr. Stephen Maitland. They could not convince him,

he was so old and set in his opinions and so utterly unfamiliar with the

conditions that they tried to describe to him, that he clung to his

belief in spite of all, and finally they let him take such comfort as he

could from his vain hope without any further attempt at contradiction.

In spite of all the arguments, however, Mr. James Armstrong was not

satisfied. He was as hopeless as the rest, but his temperament would not

permit him to accept the inevitable calmly. It was barely possible that

she might not be dead and that she might not be alone. There was

scarcely enough possibility of this to justify a suspicion, but that is

not saying there was none at all.

Day after day he had sat in his office denying himself to everyone and

refusing to consider anything, brooding over the situation. He loved

Enid Maitland, he loved her before and now that he had lost her he loved

her still more.

Not altogether admirable had been James Armstrong's outwardly successful

career. In much that is high and noble and manly his actions--and his

character--had often been lacking, but even the base can love and

sometimes love transforms if it be given a chance. The passion of Cymon

for Iphigenia, made a man and prince out of the rustic boor. His real

love for Enid Maitland might have done more for Armstrong than he

himself or anyone who knew him as he was--and few there were who had

such knowledge of him--dreamed was possible. There was one thing that

love could not do, however; it could not make him a patient philosopher,

a good waiter. His rule of life was not very high, but in one way it was

admirable in that prompt bold decisive action was its chiefest

characteristic.

On this certain morning a month after the heart breaking disaster his

power of passive endurance had been strained to the vanishing point. The

great white range was flung in his face like a challenge. Within its

secret recesses lay the solution of the mystery. Somewhere, dead or

alive, beyond the soaring rampart was the woman he loved. It was

impossible for him to remain quiet any longer. Common sense, reason,

every argument that had been adduced, suddenly became of no weight. He

lifted his head and stared straight westward. His eyes swept the long

semi-circle of the horizon across which the mighty range was drawn like

the chord of a gigantic arc or the string of a mighty bow. Each white

peak mocked him, the insolent aggression of the range called him

irresistibly to action.

"By God," he said under his breath, rising to his feet, "winter or no

winter, I go."