MADGE ALDEN'S RIDE
Methodical Henry Muir found that the events of the last few days had
resulted in a reaction and weariness which he could not readily shake
off, and he had expressed an intention of sleeping late on Monday and
taking the second train. When he and his family gathered at breakfast,
the removal to Hotel Kaaterskill was the uppermost theme, and it was
agreed that Madge and Graydon should ride thither on horseback, and
return by a train, if wearied. Mr. Muir then went to the city, well
prepared to establish himself on a safer footing. Graydon and Madge
soon after were on their way through the mountain valleys, the latter
with difficulty holding her horse down to the pace they desired to
maintain.
After riding rapidly for some distance, they reached long, lonely
stretches, favorable for conversation, and Graydon was too fond of
hearing Madge talk to lose the opportunity. He looked wonderingly
at her flushed face, with the freshness of the morning in it; her
brilliant eyes, from which flashed a spirit that nothing seemed
to daunt; the sudden compression of her lips, as with power and
inimitable grace she reined in her chafing steed. Never before had
she appeared so vital and beautiful, and he rode at her side with
something like exultation that they were so much to each other. He
was turning his back on a past fraught with peril, over which hung the
shadow of what must have been a lifelong disappointment.
"The girl who would have taken me, as Henry chooses among commercial
securities, cannot now make me an adjunct to her self-pleasing
career," he thought. "I am free--free to become to Madge what I was in
old times. No one now has the right to look askance at our affection
and companionship. What an idiot I was to endure Stella's criticism
while she was playing it so sharp between Arnault and myself! No
wonder crystal Madge said she and Stella were not congenial!
"I call Madge crystal, yet I don't understand her fully, and have not
since my return. She has had some deep, sad experience, which she is
hiding from all. From what Mrs. Wendall said at the funeral yesterday,
Madge must have revealed more of it to that dying girl than to any
one else. How my heart thrilled at those strange whispered words! How
dearly I would love to help her and bring unalloyed happiness into her
life! But whatever it was referred to I cannot touch upon till she
of her own accord gives me her confidence. Could she have formed what
promises to be a hopeless love in her Western home, and is she now
hiding a wound that will not heal, while bravely and cheerfully facing
life as it is? Perhaps her purpose to return to Santa Barbara proves
that she does not regard her love as utterly hopeless. Well, whatever
the truth may be, she hides her secret with consummate skill, and I
shall not pry into even her affairs. I only know that as I feel now I
should prize her friendship above any other woman's love."
"What are you thinking of so deeply?" she asked, meeting his eyes.
"My thought just then was that I should prize your friendship above
any other woman's love, and I had been felicitating myself that Stella
Wildmere would never have the right to criticise the fact."
"Oh, Graydon, what a man of moods and tenses you are!" Then she added,
laughing, "There has been indeed a kaleidoscopic turn in affairs. Mr.
Arnault disappeared yesterday, and Mary learned that the Wildmeres
left by the early train this morning."
"Yes, Miss Wildmere followed Arnault promptly. They are near of kin,
but not too near to marry. Their nuptials should be solemnized in Wall
Street, under flowers arranged into a dollar symbol."
"I feel sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Wildmere, though; especially the
former. I think he might have been quite different had the fates been
kinder."
"I would rather dismiss them all from my mind as far as possible.
Don't think me callous about Stella. If she had decided for me at once
and been true I would have been loyal to her in spite of everything;
but the revelation of her cold, mercenary soul makes me shudder when I
think how narrowly I escaped allying myself to it."
"You have indeed had an escape," Madge replied, gravely. "If she were
a young, thoughtless, undeveloped girl her womanhood might have come
to her afterward. I hope I am mistaken, but she has made a singular
impression on me."
"Please tell me it. You have insight into character that in one so
young is surprising."
"I have no special insight. I simply feel people. They create an
atmosphere and make some dominant impression with which I always
associate them."
"I am eager to know what impression Miss Wildmere has made."
"I fear this would be true of her, even after she becomes a mature
woman. A man might be almost perishing at her side from mental trouble
of some kind, and, so far from feeling for him and sympathizing, she
wouldn't even know it, and he couldn't make her know it. She would
look at him quietly with her gray eyes as she would at a problem in
the calculus, and with scarcely more desire to understand him, and
with perhaps less power to do so. She would turn from him to a new
dress, a new admirer, or a new phase of amusement, and forget him, and
the fact that he was her husband would not make much difference. Some
deep experience of her own may change her, but I don't know. I fear
another's experience would be like a tragedy without the walls while
she was safe within."
"Oh, Madge, think of a man with a strong, sensitive nature beating his
very heart to death against such pumice-stone callousness!"
"I don't like to think of it," she replied. "Come, I ask with you now
that we forget her as far as possible. She may not disappoint a
man like Arnault. Let them both become shadows in the background of
memory. Here's a level place. Now for a gallop."
When at last they pulled up, Graydon said, "Your horse is awfully
strong and restless to-day."
"Yes; he has not been used enough of late. He'll be quiet before
night, for I am enjoying this so much that I should like to return in
the same way."
"I am delighted to hear you say so. My spirits begin to rise the
moment I am with you, and you are the only woman I ever knew from
whose side I could not go with the feeling, 'Well, some other time
would suit me now.'"
Her laugh rang out so suddenly and merrily that her horse sprang into
a gallop, but she checked him speedily, and thought, with an exultant
thrill, "Graydon now has surely revealed an unmistakable symptom." To
him she said:
"You amuse me immensely. You are almost as outspoken as little Harry,
and, like him, you mistake the impression of the moment for the
immutable."
"Now, that's not fair to me. I've been constant to you. Own up, Madge,
haven't I?"
With a glance and smile which she never gave to others, and rarely to
him, she said:
"I own up. I don't believe a real brother would have been half so
nice.".
"Let the past guarantee the future, then. Shake hands against all
future misunderstandings."
She was scarcely ready to shake hands on such a basis, but of course
would have complied. In the slight confusion her hand relaxed its
grasp on the curb-rein, and at the same moment a locomotive, coming
along the side of the opposite mountain, blew a shrill whistle.
Instantly her horse had the bit in his teeth, and was off at a furious
pace.
At first she did not care, but soon found, with anxiety, that he
paid no attention to her efforts to check him, and that his pace was
passing into a mad run. The gorge was growing narrower, and the lofty
mountains stood, with their rocky feet, nearer and nearer together.
She could see through the intervening trees that the road and
rail-track were becoming closely parallel, and at last realized that
her horse was unmanageable.
When the engineer of the train saw Madge's desperate riding he
surmised that her horse was not under control, and put on extra steam
in order to take the exciting cause of the animal's terror out of the
way. He thought he could easily reach the summit of the clove where
the carriage-drive crossed the track before Madge, and then pass
swiftly over the down-grade beyond; but he had not calculated on the
terrific speed of the horse; and when at last the track and roadway
were almost side by side the frantic beast, with his pale rider, was
abreast of the train. For a moment the engineer was irresolute, and
then, too late, as he feared, "slowed up."
The narrow road, with a precipitous mountain on the left, was so near
to the flying train that the passengers in an open car could almost
touch Madge, and she was to them like a strange and beautiful
apparition, with her white face and large dark eyes filled with an
unspeakable dread.
"Oh, stop the train!" she cried, and her voice, with the whole power
of her lungs, rang out far above the clatter of the wheels, wakening
despairing echoes from the mountains impending on either side.
The speed of the cars was perceptibly checked; the passengers saw
the foam-flecked brute, with head stubbornly bent downward and eye of
fire, pass beyond them. An instant later, to their horrified gaze and
that of Graydon's, who was following as fast as a less swift horse
could carry him, Madge and the locomotive appeared to come together.
The young man gave a hoarse, inarticulate cry between a curse and a
shout, and whipped his horse forward furiously.
The speed of the train was renewed, and he saw through the open car
that Madge must have passed unharmed before the engine, just grazing
it. It also appeared that she was gaining the mastery, for her horse
was rearing; then cars of ordinary make intervened and hid her from
view a moment, and the train clattered noisily on.
When he crossed the track Madge was not where he had last seen her.
The road beyond ran at a greater distance from the railway, and was
lined with trees and bushes. Through an opening among these he saw
that the horse had resumed his old mad pace, that Madge was still
mounted, but that she was no longer erect, and sat with her head bowed
and her whip-hand clutching the mane. He also saw, with a sinking
heart, that the road curved a little further on, and evidently crossed
the track again.
A moment later--Oh, horror! An opening in the foliage revealed Madge
dashing headlong, apparently, into the train. He grew so faint that he
almost fell from his horse, and was scarcely conscious, until, with
a strong revulsion of hope, he found himself under the track which,
about an eighth of a mile from the previous crossing, passes just
above the roadway. Not aware of this fact, and with vision broken by
intervening trees, he could not have imagined anything else than a
collision, which must have been fatal in its consequences.
With hope his pulse quickened, his strength returned, and he again
urged his jaded horse forward, at the same time sending out his voice:
"Madge, Madge, keep up a little longer."
The road had left the car-track, the noise of the train was dying away
in the distance. At last, turning a curve, he saw that Madge's horse
had come down to a canter, and that she was pulling feebly at the
rein.
As he approached he shouted "Whoa!" with such a voice of command that
the horse stopped suddenly and she almost fell forward.
"Quick, Graydon, quick!" she gasped.
He sprang to the ground, and a second later she was an unconscious
burden in his arms.
He laid her gently on a mossy bank under an oak; then, with a
face fairly livid with passion, he drew a small revolver from his
hip-pocket, stepped back to the horse that now stood trembling and
exhausted in the road, and shot him dead.
He now saw that they had been observed at a neighboring farmhouse,
and that people were running toward them. Gathering Madge again in
his arms, he bore her toward the dwelling, in which effort he was soon
aided by a stout countryman.
The farmer's wife was all solicitude, and to her and her daughter's
ministrations Madge was left, while Graydon waited, with intense
anxiety, in the porch, explaining what had occurred, with a manner
much distraught, in answer to many questions.
"The cursed brute is done for now," he concluded.
Madge's faint proved obstinate, and at last Graydon began to urge the
farmer to go for a physician.
The daughter at last appeared with the glad tidings that the young
girl was "coming to nicely."
Graydon breathed a fervent "Thank God!" and sank weak and limp into
a seat on the porch. The farmer brought him a glass of cool milk from
the cellar, and then Graydon sent in word that he would like to see
the lady as soon as possible.
When he entered the "spare room" of the farmhouse Madge, with a smile
that was like a ray of sunshine, extended her hand from the lounge on
which she was reclining, and said:
"You didn't fail me, Graydon. I couldn't have kept up a moment longer.
I should have fainted before had I not heard your voice. How good God
has been!"
He held her hand in both his own, his mouth twitched nervously, but
his emotion was too strong for speech.
"Don't feel so badly, Graydon," she resumed, and her voice was
gentleness itself; "I am not hurt, nor are you to blame."
"I am to blame," he said, hoarsely. "I gave you that brute, but he's
dead. I shot him instantly. Oh, Madge, if--if--I feel that I would
have shot myself."
"Graydon, please be more calm," she faltered, tears coming into her
eyes. "There, see, you are making me cry. I can't bear to see you--I
can't bear to see a man--so moved. Please now, you look so pale that
I am frightened. I'm not strong, but shall get better at once if I see
you yourself."
"Forgive me, Madge, but it seems as if I had suffered the pangs of
death ten times over--there, I won't speak about it till we both have
recovered from the shock. Dear, brave little girl; how can I thank you
enough for keeping up till I could reach you!"
She began to laugh a little too nervously to be natural. Her heart was
glad over her escape, and in a gladder tumult at his words and manner.
He was no shadow of a man, nor did ice-water flow in his veins. His
feeling had been so strong that it had almost broken her self-control.
"Some day," she exulted, "some day God will turn his fraternal
affection into the wine of love."
"I'm so nervous," she said, "that I must either laugh or cry. What a
plight we are in! How shall we go forward or backward?"
"We shall not do either very soon. Mrs. Hobson is making you a cup of
tea, and then you must rest thoroughly, and sleep, if possible."
"What will you do?"
"Oh, I'll soothe my nerves with a cigar, and berate myself on the
porch! When you are thoroughly rested I'll have Mr. Hobson drive us on
to the nearest station. We are in no plight whatever, if you received
no harm."
"I haven't. Promise me one thing."
"Anything--everything."
"Do no berating. I'm sorry you killed the horse; but he did act
vilely, and I suppose you had to let off your anger in some way. I was
angry myself at first--he was so stupid. But when I found I couldn't
hold him at all I thought I must die--Oh, how it all comes back to
me! What thoughts I had, and how sweet life became! Oh, oh--" and she
began sobbing like a child.
"Madge, please--I can't endure this, indeed I can't."
But her overwrought nerves were not easily controlled, and he knelt
beside her, speaking soothingly and pleadingly. "Dear Madge, dear
sister Madge. Oh, I wish Mary was here!" and he kissed her again and
again.
"Graydon," she gasped, "stop! There--I'm better;" and she did seem to
recover almost instantly.
"Law bless you, sir," said Mrs. Hobson, who had entered with the tea,
"your sister'll be all right in an hour or so."
Graydon sprang to his feet, and there was a strong dash of color in
his face. As for the hitherto pallid Madge, her visage was like a
peony, and she was preternaturally quiet.
"Try to sleep, Madge," said Graydon, from the doorway, "and I won't
'worry or take on' a bit;" and he disappeared.
There was no sleep for her, and yet she felt herself wonderfully
restored. Was it the potency of Mrs. Hobson's tea? or that which he
had placed upon her lips?