THE AUTOMOBILE WRECK
Thirty minutes after the happening of the incidents just related, a
remarkable scene took place in Jack Gardner's smoking-room. There were
present only the men of Sally's impromptu week-end party.
If the friends whom Jack Gardner had made since his sojourn in the
East could have seen him at that moment, they would not have
recognized in the coldly stern, keen-eyed copper magnate, the
happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care Jack, of their acquaintance. The almost
tragic occurrences of the evening had brought the real Jack Gardner to
the surface, and he was for the moment again the dauntless young miner
who had fought his way upward to the position he now held, by sheer
force of character; for it requires a whole man to lift himself from
the pick and shovel, and the drill and fuse, to the millionaire
mine-owner and the person of prominence in the world such as he had
become. He stood beside the small table at one end of the room;
Morton occupied the center of it, facing him. Grouped around them, in
various attitudes, were the others of that strange gathering. Duncan
leaned idly against the mantel, and smoked his cigar with
deliberation, although his gray eyes were coldly fierce in their
expression, and his half-smile of utter contempt for the man who
occupied the center of the scene rendered his face less handsome and
attractive than usual. Malcolm Melvin was alert and attentive, from
the end of the room opposite Gardner, and the other gentlemen of the
party occupied chairs conveniently at hand.
It would be hard to define Richard Morton's attitude from any outward
expression he manifested concerning it. He stood with folded arms,
tall and straight, facing unflinchingly the accusing eyes of his
life-long friend, Jack Gardner. His lips were shut tightly together,
and he seemed like one who awaits stoically a verdict that is
inevitable.
"Morton," said Gardner, speaking coldly and with studied deliberation,
"you have been a life-long friend of mine, and, until to-night, I have
looked upon you almost as a brother; but, to-night, by your own
confession and by your acts which have followed upon that confession,
you have destroyed every atom of the friendship I have felt for you.
You have made me wish that I had never known you. You have outraged
every sense of propriety, and every feeling of manhood that I thought
you possessed. Fortunately for us all, no one is much the worse for
your scoundrelism; I can call it by no other word. You have shown
yourself to be, at heart, an unspeakable scoundrel, as undeserving of
consideration as a coyote of the plains."
Morton's face went white as death at these words, and his eyes blazed
with the fury of a wild animal that is being whipped while it is
chained down so that it cannot show resentment. He did not speak; he
made no effort to interrupt. Gardner continued:
"When Miss Langdon arrived here alone, in your roadster, she gave us
no explanation whatever of what had happened, and, while we believed
that some unpleasant incident must have occurred, we did not press her
for the story of it. Then, you came, and without mincing your words
you told the whole brutal truth; and you uttered it with a spirit of
brutality and bravado that would be unbelievable under any other
circumstances. And when, in your own self-abasement for what you had
done, you confessed to the acts of which you were guilty toward Miss
Langdon, you received, at Duncan's hands, the blow you so thoroughly
merited; I am frank to say to you that, if he had held his hand one
instant longer, it would have been my fist, instead of his, that
floored you. But that is not all. You have been a gun-fighter for so
many years, out there in your own wild country, that, before you were
fairly down after you received the blow, you must needs pull your
artillery, and use it. Do you realize, I wonder, how near to
committing a murder you have been, to-night? If Miss Brunswick had not
seen your act, if she had not started forward and thrown herself
between your weapon and its intended victim, thus frightening you so
that you sought at the last instant to withhold your fire, I tremble
for what the consequences might have been. As it happened, no one has
been harmed. You deflected your aim just in time to avoid a tragedy;
but it is not your fault that somebody does not carry a serious wound
as the consequence of your brutality. Were it not for Miss Brunswick's
act, there would be a dead man at this feast, and you would be his
murderer. But even that, horrible as it might have been, is less a
crime than the other one you have confessed. You, reared in an
atmosphere where all men infinitely respect woman-kind, deliberately
outrage every finer feeling of the one woman you have professed to
love. That, Richard Morton, is very nearly all that I have to say to
you. I have asked these gentlemen to come into the room, and to be
present during this scene, in order that we may all bind ourselves to
secrecy concerning what has happened to-night. I can assure you that
nothing of this affair will leak out to others. I have quite finished
now. One of the servants will bring your roadster around to the door.
Our acquaintance ends here."
He turned and pressed a button in the wall behind him, and a moment
later the door opened; but it was Beatrice Brunswick who stood upon
the threshold, and not the servant who had been summoned.
She hesitated an instant, then came forward swiftly, until she stood
beside Morton, facing his accusers. With one swift glance, she took in
the scene by which she was surrounded, and with a woman's intuition
understood it. Turning partly around, she permitted one hand to rest
lightly upon Morton's arm, and she said to him, ignoring the others:
"It is really too bad, Mr. Morton. I know that you did not mean it;
and I am unharmed. See: the bullet did not touch me at all. It only
frightened me. I am sure that you were over-wrought by all that had
happened, and I'll forgive you, even if the others do not. I am sure,
too, that Patricia will forgive you, if you ask her. Come with me; I
will take you to her."
She tightened her grasp upon his arm and sought to draw him toward the
door, but Jack Gardner interrupted, quickly and sharply.
"Stop Beatrice!" he said. "Mr. Morton is about to take his departure.
This is an occasion for men to deal with. Morton cannot see Miss
Langdon again unless she seeks him, and that I don't think she will
do."
"I'll get her; I'll bring her here!" exclaimed Beatrice, starting
toward the door alone; but this time it was Morton's voice that
arrested her--the first time he had spoken since he entered the room.
"Please, wait, Miss Brunswick," he said, and the quiet calmness of his
tone was a surprise to everyone present. It belied the expression of
his eyes and of his set jaws. "I thank you most heartily for what you
have said, and for what you would do now. Miss Langdon won't forgive
me, nor, indeed, do I think she ought to do so. I have not attempted
to make any explanation of my conduct to these gentlemen, but to you I
will say this: I realize the enormity of it, thoroughly, and, while I
can find no excuse for what I have done, I can offer the one
explanation, that I was, for the moment, gone mad--locoed, we call
it, in the West. If Miss Langdon will receive any message from me at
all, tell her that I am sorry."
He bowed to her with a dignity that belied his training, and, stepping
past her, opened the door, holding it so until she had passed from the
room. Then, he turned toward the others.
"I am quite ready to go now," he said. "Gardner, if you will have my
car brought around, I shall not trouble you further."
With another slight inclination of his head, he passed out of the room
and along the hall to the front door, where he paused at the top of
the steps, waiting till his car should be brought to him; and no one
attempted to follow, or say another word to him.
Standing alone at the top of the steps, while he waited for the car,
Morton was presently conscious of a slight movement near him, and he
turned quickly. Patricia Langdon slowly arose from one of the veranda
chairs, and approached him. She came quite close to him, and stopped.
For a moment, both were silent; he, with hard, unrelenting eyes, which
nevertheless expressed the exquisite pain he felt; she, with
tear-dimmed vision, in which pity, regret, sympathy and real liking
strove for dominant expression.
"I couldn't let you go, Mr. Morton, without a few more words with you,
and I have purposely waited here, because I thought it likely you
would come from the house alone."
"Thank you," he replied, not knowing what else to say.
"I am so sorry for it all, Mr. Morton; and I cannot help wondering if
I am to blame, in any measure. I wanted you to know that I freely
forgive you for whatever offense you have committed against me. I
think that is all. Good-night."
She was turning away, but he called to her, with infinite pain in his
voice:
"Wait; please, wait," he said. "Give me just another moment, I beseech
you."
She turned to face him again.
"I have been a madman to-night, Miss Langdon, and I know it," he told
her rapidly. "There is no excuse for the acts I have committed; there
can be no palliation for them. I would not have dared to ask for your
forgiveness; I can only say that I am sorry. It was not I, but a
madman, who for a moment possessed me, who conducted himself so vilely
toward you. I shall go back to my ranch again. My only prayer to you
is, that you will forget me, utterly."
Patricia came a step nearer to him, reaching out her hand,
tentatively, and said, in her softest tone, while tears moistened her
eyes:
"Good-bye, and God bless you."
But Morton, ignoring her extended hand, cleared the steps of the
veranda at one leap, and disappeared in the darkness, toward the
garage.
Five minutes later, while Patricia yet remained at the top of the
steps where Morton had left her, the steam-roadster that had been so
closely related to her experiences of the night rushed past the house
and disappeared along the winding roadway toward the Cedarcrest gate.
And she remained there, in a listening attitude, as long as she could
hear the droning murmur of its mechanism. When that died away in the
distance, she sighed, and turned to reenter the house; but it was only
to find that she was no longer alone. Roderick Duncan appeared in the
doorway, and came through the entrance, to meet her.
"Was it Morton's car that just went past the door?" he asked her.
"Yes," she replied, shrinking away from him.
"Did you see him, and talk with him, before he went away?" he asked,
partly reaching out one hand, but instantly withdrawing it.
"Yes," she answered again, retreating still farther from him.
"That was like you, Patricia. I am rather sorry for the poor chap,
despite what he did to you, to-night. You see, I know what it means,
to be so madly in love with you that it is barely possible for one to
stand or sit beside you, without crushing you in one's arms. Oh,
Patricia, won't you be kind to me? Won't you forgive me, too, as I
know, just now, you forgave that poor chap? Surely, my offense was not
so great as his."
"It has been infinitely greater," she told him, coldly; and, with head
erect, but with averted face, she went past him, through the doorway.
Down the highway, half-way between Cedarcrest and the city, was a
place where building operations were in progress; where huge rocks had
been blasted out to make room for intended improvements; where
derricks and stone-crushers and other machinery were idly waiting the
dawn of another day, when the workmen would arrive and resume their
several occupations.
Richard Morton, dashing along this highway with ever-increasing speed,
utilizing the full power of his racing roadster, remembered that place
along the highway. With cold, set face and protruding chin, he set
his jaws sharply together, and wondered why his flying car would go no
faster. He did not realize that he was covering more than a mile with
every minute of time. The pace seemed slow to him, for he had suddenly
determined what he would do. He had thought of a plan to expiate his
follies of the night.
At last, almost directly beneath an arc-light along the highway, he
saw, dimly, the spot where the stone was being quarried, and, as he
recognized it, he laughed aloud with a sort of desperate joy, because
of the plunge he intended to take. He threw the throttle wide open,
and after another moment he saw the derrick loom before him. With
careful deliberation, he turned the steering-wheel.
There was a loud crash in the darkness; the roadster leaped into the
air like a live thing, and turned over, end for end, twice. Then, it
seemed to shoot high into the air, and fell again, in a confused heap
of wreckage, among the broken stones of the quarry. Morton was thrown
from it, like the projectile from a catapult, and he came down in a
crumpled heap, somewhere among that mass of rocks; and after that
there was silence.