There was the sound of rushing water in her ears, and for a moment she
was blind. How dared he! To her, a Dudley! Then she knew she was looking
full at him with unutterable scorn in her eyes. He saw the contempt and
indignity which his words had aroused, and his face blackened.
"Just as you will!" he said, roughly. "It's nothing to me. There was a
time when I would have made you mistress of this house, and had it not
been for a scoundrelly, meddling doctor you might have married me! You
love him now--I know! I'm not a fool, but precious little happiness
you'll get from him. They ran him out of Jericho for mixing up with a
married woman, and if you want to marry a rascal like that you're
welcome to do it!"
He stopped, and glared at her like a baffled animal.
She could not yet find her voice. In a vague way she knew that she had
been hurt, sorely wounded; that a profane foot had trodden in the holy
of holies in her breast, and that a profane hand had snatched at the
sacred fire which burned upon the altar there. She knew that never in
her life before had she felt as she did now. Her purity had been
affronted, and a friend's dear name had been attacked. She was crushed,
dumb, and realizing that she had failed miserably in her mission, she
dully turned The Prince's head towards the gate, and started to ride
away. But on the instant Marston's hand was on the bridle near the bit,
and Marston's figure loomed in her path.
"Not yet!" he gritted, venom flashing from his little eyes. "There is
more to tell, and I don't think I'll have a lovely opportunity like this
again soon! You refuse? You refuse my price?"
Still the girl did not answer. She could not answer, for her tongue
seemed paralyzed. A rabid sort of anger was mounting again in the fiend
before her. She saw its signals flare in a renewed gleam in his sodden
eyes, in the dull red, gorged muscles of his thick throat. His coarse
lips were twitching, as though forming words too awful for her to hear.
At this moment, too, a cloud passed before the sun, and a quick
lessening of light was perceptible. To Julia it almost amounted to
gloom, seated as she was in the dank shade of one of the funereal
cedars, and she could have cried out in pure physical terror had her
voice at that moment been subservient to her will. For there before her,
almost within arm's length, stood Devil Marston, like a huge spider in
his loathesomeness, compelling her to remain where she was, and listen
to whatever tale of malice, flavoured with a grain of truth, perhaps,
which he might care to relate.
"The terms! The terms!" he said, again, thrusting his face towards her
with all its projecting teeth visible. "You won't be hurt! What's a
glass of wine and a kiss? Tut! The first is nothing, and I'll bet that
jackanapes of a doctor gets plenty of the second! Isn't _one_ for _me_
worth two hundred and fifty dollars?"
This speech broke Julia's reserve, with its cruel, brutal accusation.
"Hush!" she exclaimed, all the dormant and deadened forces of her nature
awaking to full and vigorous protest. "Don't dare to say such things to
me, Devil Marston! I came alone to your house this morning, because,
though I knew that you were a bad man, I believed that I would be
received and treated with proper respect. You have forfeited all right
to any kind of consideration; you have trampled upon my finer feelings
and made me suffer keenly--and you shall pay! You shall pay!"
She leaned from her saddle-bow towards him, setting her flame-tinged
face with its large, distressed, undaunted eyes in opposition to his
vulgar visage lit with fires from hell.
He started at the sudden vehemence of her speech, and the quick
transition from almost lethargy to almost violent action.
"_I_ pay?--What do you mean, girl?" he cried, gripping the bridle firmer
and throwing a quick glance in the direction of the highway, which was
no great distance off, and visible for several rods from where they were
standing.
"I mean what I say!" she repeated, undismayed. Her courage was perhaps
unnatural, induced by that low speech wherein Marston had cuttingly
spoken of the kisses she had given Glenning. "My father shall hear of
this, and Dr. Glenning, too--he whom you have vilely slandered! I
withdraw the request which I made a while ago; I don't want a dividend
if it has to come through _your_ influence and _your_ power. Though it
is rightly ours, I do not want it now, for it would degrade anyone who
touched it after _your_ word had made it possible! I scorn and detest
you! I defy you, and dare you to do your worst, you pitiful thing whom
God made like a man, and gave the nature of a brute instead of a soul!
Now I am through. Let me go! Take your hand from my bridle-rein! Miss
Dudley is ready to ride back home!"
Erect in her saddle now as a young goddess, she gazed down upon him with
high-held head, disgust and anger blending charmingly on her lovely
features. She did not feel herself. Never in her life before had such
storms of feeling swept her. She knew she was unreal; that this side to
her nature she had never seen--had never known of its existence. The
flood which had carried her to that grand height where she could brave
and dare a man like Devil Marston in his own yard, was receding. It was
too powerful to last. It had given her a glorious strength to say what
was in her heart and mind, in clear words which rang with sincerity and
conviction, but now, that she was done, was sitting with her proud chin
up and disdainful eyes fastened upon the object of her displeasure, she
felt the ebb of tears which followed the flood of courage. She was
surely and quickly coming back to her own; the normal woman in her was
being reinstated. She knew that she must go, at once, or her next words
would struggle through sobs. Though her face showed naught of it, her
breast was filled with a fearful anxiety, as she watched the effect of
her words. At first the man was stunned. He could not believe his ears.
That anyone, to say nothing of a girl, should come before him and speak
such things, was past his comprehension. He actually blinked at her,
stupidly, as she went on, and his face turned a yellowish gray. But when
she concluded his brutish rage had gained the ascendency.
"You're ready to go home--I guess you are! But I'm not ready to let you
go! You defy me! You dare me! You call me ugly names! I'm not as pretty
as your doctor friend who went regularly every evenin' to see that
married woman back in Jericho! Ha! ha! ha! You don't like that, do you?
But it's true, anyway, I--"
"Let me go--let me go!" sobbed Julia, the strain overcoming her at last,
breaking down the frail fabric of her brave young courage. "You shan't
say such things to me!"
She attempted to urge The Prince on, but the iron grip of Marston held
him.
"Go easy, young lady! Don't hurry!" mocked the monster. "There's more to
tell. I'm saving the choicest morsel of scandal for the last, then I'll
fix this long-legged fellow of yours!"
Julia had purposely delayed bringing her weapon into play, but she saw
now that the time was ripe for her to use it. She drew it from its place
and quickly leveled it at the man.
"Unloose my horse, or I swear I'll shoot!" she said, and Marston,
looking in her eyes, knew that she meant it.
He feinted, dropped the bridle, and pretended to draw aside. But the
next moment he took a rapid step forward, threw up his arm, and sent the
revolver flying through the air. It alighted on the thick grass, without
exploding. It happened that the gaunt hound which had disputed Julia's
passage at the beginning of her call, having finished the roast of beef
in a further corner of the yard, was passing that moment on his way back
to the kitchen porch, his hunger doubtless still unappeased. He was a
brute used to sudden foray and quick brawls, and this movement of his
master towards the horsewoman seemed to him a signal--a call to battle.
So, as Marston deftly disarmed Julia, the dog promptly leaped at The
Prince's front with a savage roar. The wonder is the poor girl kept her
senses, but this attack of the dog was her salvation. The sensitive
animal which she rode reared and swerved with the agility of a cat,
eluding the hound's spring and colliding with Marston, who was sent
sprawling upon the ground. The way to safety was clear! She touched The
Prince's side with her heel, drew up her reins, and told him to go in a
low voice of entreaty. But he needed no urging. Down the yard they flew,
and Julia put him at the fence, for there was no time to be lost with
the narrow gate. He went over the barrier with the ease and grace of a
swallow, and on towards the road. The farm gate letting onto the pike
she had left open, and as she dashed through it she almost ran into a
buggy coming from the direction of town, with a man in it. The Prince
swerved around the obstacle--he was running at last, and his rider made
no attempt to restrain him--and was gone down the white limestone road
like a greyhound in chase.
The top of the buggy which the man drove was down flat, for it was a
summer morning, and he loved sunshine and air. He drew his horse up to a
standstill, and turning in his seat looked back at the fleeing twain,
now rapidly diminishing in a cloud of gray dust. The glimpse which he
had caught of the two as they passed was almost as brief as that one
gets of a landscape on a night of storm during a lightning flash. He
thought he knew the colt--surely there was none other like it anywhere,
and he was confident he knew the rider, although her face was white,
terror-stricken, tear-stained. Whether she had recognized him or not he
could not say. Her haunting eyes had looked straight at him for a
moment, but no gleam of understanding had lighted them. Now they were
gone; the distant hoof-beats had died. The man turned half way around,
and looked again. This time his eyes swept the home of Devil Marston and
its vicinity. As he looked his mouth grew hard, his eyes drooped at the
corners, and the muscles of his cheeks ridged themselves under his skin.
He understood. He slowly and deliberately got out, led his horse to the
roadside and carefully hitched it, then passed through the open farm
gate and strode briskly on. Two minutes later John Glenning, with folded
arms, stood fronting Devil Marston between the cedars. The hound had
disappeared. The two men were absolutely alone. There was no word of
greeting exchanged between them. Each knew that civilities would be
superfluous and out of place. They simply met as two things of primeval
creation might meet, and the feelings which governed each of them in
that moment were wholly savage. In every one this old strain is running:
animal first, then soul, and mind, and heart. Mere being first; then
civilization, with its accessories of education and refinement. Two
animals met between the cedars; the mask had been flung aside. They had
come face to face moved entirely by the world-old battle lust. The one
naturally evil; the other made so because he knew that in some way the
woman he loved had been mistreated and abused. Words were out of place
and unnecessary, but a sense of right and decency crept into Glenning's
seething brain, and made him speak.
"I want to apologize for striking you on the street in Macon."
The sentence was cold as ice, and formal. There was no feeling in it.
The man to whom it was addressed stood with arms hanging loosely at his
sides, his face sullen and crafty. He did not reply.
"You know I had to do it," went on the steel-like voice. "I regret the
necessity more than I apologize for the blow. You deserved that. Let it
pass."
Marston spoke.
"What in the devil do you want here? Begone, before I put the dogs on
you!"
"I am here to give you a thrashing you won't forget as long as you live!
You are a coward and a cur!"
The stinging words brought no added colour to Marston's face. They did
not hurt him; his sensibilities were hardened, and were difficult to
reach. But he cast an involuntary look of longing towards the revolver
lying partly concealed in the long grass a rod or more away. The sombre
eyes watching him with hawk-like intentness noticed the glance, and
instantly turned in the same direction. Glenning saw.
"Don't you wish you had that in your hand?" he said. "I know you haven't
one on your person, or you would have shot me before now. To relieve you
of any apprehension I don't mind telling you that I am totally unarmed.
How did that come there?"
He nodded abruptly in the direction of Julia's revolver.
"I don't see that I'm in a witness box!" Marston answered, viciously.
"Take comfort," retorted Glenning, evenly. "You will be if you live long
enough. We are wasting time and bandying words to no purpose," he
resumed briskly. "I met a young lady coming from your house in evident
distress a few moments ago. She was riding hard and she was scared. Did
_you_ scare her, and had she anything to do with that revolver?"
The words of the last sentence came hard as lead bullets against
Marston's ears, and frightened him. The face of his caller had suddenly
grown white and fierce. Glenning's knotted fists were writhing under
his folded arms. Marston knew he had better speak, and speak the truth.
"She came to see me of her own free will. I invited her in, and she drew
her pistol on me. I knocked it out of her hand to keep from getting
shot."
"A likely tale, and the skeleton of truth alone, I daresay. What did
_she_ want with _you_?"
A smile of triumph lit the dark features of the hybrid.
"Something _you_ could not give her, but _I_ could!--Julia Dudley came
for a favour to _me_!"
"Keep her name out of it, damn you!"
Glenning, white hot, drew two steps nearer, though still holding himself
in check.
"We can talk without the use of names. What favour did she want?"
"She came to ask me to have the bank dividend declared, or they would
starve!"
"That was no favour. The money is Major Dudley's. You have stolen it
from them by withholding it. She came to demand her own, and her own was
denied her, no need to tell me that."
Marston thought of the price he had put upon the dividend, and, while he
longed to goad and torture his enemy to the utmost, he feared to tell
him of that part of their conversation.
"No, she didn't get it!" he answered, roughly.
"Look at me, Mr. Marston!"
Little as he liked the command, Marston centered his ever shifting eyes
upon Glenning's. But they would not stay, despite his will.
"You've been to Jericho," went on the even voice. "You came back last
night. What did you go for?"
"What in hell do you mean?" he flared out, with a bluster. "I went on
business."
"_Your_ business, or _my_ business?"
This time Marston coloured perceptibly, and shrugged his shoulders. He
did not answer.
"See here!" resumed Glenning. "I know why you went to Jericho. Now
listen. If you begin spreading lies about me in this community you shall
suffer. Tell the truth--the whole truth--and I'll not say a word. But
you don't know the whole truth, nor any part of it. You didn't go to get
the truth, but all the low, indecent scandal and gossip you could scrape
together. Usually that side is not as hard to get as the other. It is
not my fault that we have been enemies from the night I came to Macon. I
would not have you for a friend, believe me, but we might at least have
been civil. You've heard a great deal of stuff while you were away that
your informants wouldn't repeat to my face. And I tell you they are all
lies! Did you voice any of them to Miss--to her?"
Again Marston felt the truth dragged from him. But a sardonic smile of
malicious pleasure spread over his face as he answered--
"I told her a little about my trip, and how a certain friend of hers had
another sweetheart back up there, but she broke away before I could tell
her all--"
"_Broke_ away!--Devil! Did you hold her?"
Restraint for the moment was cast aside.
Glenning's long hands grasped each of Marston's arms just below the
shoulders, and so he held him motionless.
"I didn't touch her!" was the snarling answer. "I held the damned colt
by the bridle until she drew on me--"
John flung him backward with an oath.
"_Strip!_"
He hissed out the word with sibilant wrath, and threw off his light
coat. Then, trembling the least bit while fighting inwardly for calm, he
began rolling back his sleeves. He ceased these preparations long enough
to toss his hat upon his coat and discard tie and collar. Marston cast
another hungry look at the revolver, while making no move to comply with
the order he had received. Glenning came towards him.
"Are you going to fight, or must I slap your face, you dog?"
The concluding word gave Marston a happy thought, and he quickly pursed
his heavy lips, and whistled shrilly. He had no mind for an encounter
with the young man where the weapons employed would be fists alone. He
was probably stronger, but he secretly felt that he would be punished
severely should they come to blows. He had much rather that his
boar-hound fight for him, so he issued the summons.
"No more of that!" said John, sternly. "Make another sound and I strike
you, whether you are prepared or not. Are you coming, or shall I break
a switch from one of your bushes, and lay you across my knee?"
This taunt was more than flesh and blood could bear. It pierced even
Marston's seared sensibilities, and stung like something hot. He got out
of his coat with one lightning-like movement, and at once assumed the
offensive. This was what Glenning wished. It would have been degrading
to knock down and batter about some one who made no resistance. The men
presented an interesting contrast as they stood on guard. Glenning wore
a white negligee shirt, and gray trousers, neatly creased. He was clean
shaven and his straight black hair fell over his forehead as he leaned
forward, alert and vigilant. One could see now the broad expanse of his
back and his wonderful breadth of shoulders. Marston at home was not the
Marston in town. He wore a sort of gray flannel shirt, carelessly
buttoned, shapeless corduroy trousers and rusty shoes. His thick neck
was corded and hairy, and there were dry, red veins in his cheeks caused
by the excessive use of liquor. He came at his opponent carefully, in
spite of his anger, and delivered his first blow so swiftly that
Glenning only partially succeeded in parrying it. The big fist slid off
his arm and caught him on the shoulder, turning him half way around. He
responded at once with a side swing, which Marston avoided. He was
remarkably quick on his feet for so heavy a man. Then they circled,
warily. Suddenly Glenning let drive from the shoulder. It was an
unexpected move, and caught Marston unprepared. A row of hard knuckles
lodged against his chin and sent him reeling. The trunk of a cedar tree
intervened, and he did not fall. His face was awful as he came on again;
enough to unnerve the strongest man. But Glenning had found himself. He
was calm now, and confident, Marston was raging, blind mad. He struck
out wildly, trusting to brute strength. Again Glenning's long arm
straightened, and for a moment the breath left the chest of his
antagonist. He staggered, and dropped his guard, but Glenning did not
follow up. Marston, with an inarticulate cry of rage, sought to close.
He no longer attempted to fight as boxers do, but came with outstretched
hands, feeling blindly for his foe. There was no mercy in the heart of
the iron-faced man fronting him. A third time Glenning struck, and his
fist caught Marston over the eye, crumpling him on the grass like a
thing of reed. He did not move. John knelt and leaned over him. His eyes
were shut, but he was breathing, spasmodically. Glenning arose.
"This is for the pain you caused her, and for the lies you told on me!"
he muttered. He walked to the spot where he had thrown his clothing and
put the various articles on. As he finished this he saw a negro in the
side yard. "Come here!" he called.
The negro obeyed.
"There's your master. He's hurt, but not badly. Carry him in and pour
water on his face and give him some whiskey."
Glenning wheeled, picked up the pearl-handled revolver as he passed, and
went on towards the road.