VII

After the theatre Mr. Gorham devoted himself to some late despatches

which required immediate attention, so Alice and Eleanor found

themselves in the apartment alone. The latter wore a more serious

expression than her face had shown earlier in the evening, and the girl

was quick to notice it.

"You are not feeling well," she said, more in the form of a statement

than as a question, looking at her anxiously. "What can I do for you?"

Mrs. Gorham smiled quietly as she impulsively drew Alice to her and

kissed her.

"There's nothing the matter, dear," she answered, pleased with the

intuition which prompted the anxiety; "there was something about the

play which brought back old memories and they hurt me--that is all."

"Dear heart," was all the girl replied, yet the words brought grateful

tears to Eleanor's eyes.

"Are you tired?" she asked, suddenly, with an appeal which caused Alice

to look at her inquiringly, but she did not wait for the unnecessary

negative. "Then come into my room and let us have a little talk before

we go to bed."

As Eleanor sat down Alice threw herself on the floor at her feet, and

resting her elbows upon the convenient knees, with her face upon her

hands, she looked up expectantly.

"I love these cozy talks," she said. "There is something about this

particular hour of the night which makes anything which happens in it of

the greatest importance. How beautiful you are! I love just to look at

you--no wonder father worships you!"

"You are a sweet child, Alice," Eleanor said, stroking the soft hair

affectionately, while unfastening the loose coils until they fell over

her shoulders in masses of rippling gold. "You have no idea how much you

have done to make my life as happy as it is now. What has your father

ever told you about me?"

"Nothing, dear, except that you had suffered much before he met you, and

that it was our privilege to try to make you forget the past."

"Was that all?"

"All about you. He told me how happy you had made him, so of course I

loved you at once."

"And you never asked any questions?"

Alice looked surprised. "Why, no; if father had wished to tell me any

more he would have done so without my asking."

"I am glad," Eleanor said, simply. "It is better for me to tell you

myself."

Mrs. Gorham paused, and Alice realized that this was not the time to

interrupt. Eleanor seemed to be bracing herself as for an ordeal, yet

when she spoke the words came with perfect calmness.

"You were ten years old when your mother died," she said.

The girl's face saddened. "Yes, just Pat's age now; and the next four

years were so lonely until you came. I try never to think of them. Pat

was too young to give me any companionship, so I was virtually alone

with my governess. Father never realized my unhappiness. He was so busy

with his own matters that, young as I was, I knew that he must not have

mine to worry about."

"Those were the years in which I suffered, too," Eleanor replied,

quietly. "Perhaps that is what drew us so closely together from the

first. Four years of torture!" she continued, more to herself than to

the girl before her.

"Why do you speak of them?" Alice begged. "Why not forget them, as I

have tried to do?"

"I do try, dear, but the play to-night brought everything back to me.

How strange that we should happen on that particular one so soon after

your father and I had spoken of those years! The 'Great Divide'--God

only knows the human agony and truth those words contain!"

Eleanor controlled herself before she continued.

"It is a story which I have told only once before, and I had not thought

to take any one except your father into its sad confidences; but you

should know it, dear. My father's health broke down after mother died,

and he was ordered West in the hope of prolonging his life. I was

sixteen then, two years younger than you are now. We went to Colorado,

on a ranch which father had bought upon the recommendation of a friend.

How well I remember the first impressions I received of that glorious

country: the exhilaration of that wonderful air, the inspiration of

those towering mountains, the novelty of the strange new conditions! I

rejoiced in the largeness of everything, and it seemed to me, those

first few days, as though life amid these surroundings could but

reflect the richness with which nature itself overflowed."

Alice's eyes were fixed upon Eleanor's face with intense interest. The

girl sensed even in these preliminary words the importance of what was

to follow, and was unwilling to lose a single syllable. Eleanor caught

the interest and sympathy of the girl's face as she paused for a moment,

and it gave her strength.

"Were you quite alone there?" Alice asked.

"Practically alone--the nearest ranch was four miles from ours.

Naturally, we saw few people, the most constant visitor at this time

being a young man who owned the ranch next to ours, who, during the

year, had ridden over to see us with increasing frequency. His name was

Ralph Buckner, and he seemed to us to be a characteristic product of the

West--with his large frame, bluff manners, and frank, open countenance.

We all liked him, and the fact that he differed so much from the Eastern

men I had known perhaps caused me to show a greater interest in him than

I really felt. At all events, no girl was ever more genuinely surprised

by an offer of marriage than I was, when it came unexpectedly one day,

with that determination back of it to secure what he desired which was a

part of the man himself. I did manage to collect my senses long enough

to insist that I have time to think the matter over--for I had no idea

of marrying him; but, much to my surprise, father approved the idea from

the moment I told him of the proposal. Then it developed that Ralph had

already approached him on the subject. Father, poor dear, thought only

of my future and what he believed would be my happiness. It was so

evident that I held in my hands the solution of his most serious problem

that he never knew the misgivings I felt from the first. He could live

on at the ranch for the present, busying himself with the work which

kept him out-of-doors; then later, if he preferred, he could come and

live with us."

"Couldn't he see what a sacrifice it meant to you?" Alice asked.

"No, dear; you must remember that, in his way, Ralph was an attractive

fellow. He had been successful with his ranch; he was agreeable and

intelligent; his Western boldness, as it seemed to me, was at times

tempered with a certain gentleness hardly to be expected in a man of his

nature; and, all in all, he was a man to whom any girl could at least

give respect, and affection might come later. It meant settling down in

the West for the rest of my life, but this was inevitable, anyway. I

must forget the old friends and the old associations, and could I not do

this better with a husband's help than alone? I asked myself a thousand

questions and ended by deciding that I would marry him.

"It was a short courtship--delay was a word not found in Ralph Buckner's

vocabulary. We were married and began our life at his ranch, which, as I

say, was near enough to my father so that we could be in frequent

communication. He had been much concerned about me, having discovered

more of my homesickness for the East than I had realized, so to see me

well settled and apparently happy relieved him of a heavy load."

"But you weren't happy even at first," Alice insisted. "How could you

be?"

"I say 'apparently happy,' dear, for that was all it was. Ralph did what

he could for me in his own way, so at first it was perhaps my fault

that we were not more congenial; but his ways were not my ways, and I

kept looking for what was not there. He was well-born, but his life on

the ranch for so many years had dulled his appreciation of those finer,

innate qualities which every wife craves--he had forgotten how to be the

gentleman. Don't think that I expected the impossible, or anything

incongruous to the life we were leading; but there are little

attentions, thoughtful considerations and other things in a husband's

relation to his wife, trivial perhaps in themselves, which the wife

expects and misses if she does not receive--the more so, if she has

deluded herself into believing that the instincts for them are inborn,

and only require her suggestion to develop and bring them to fruition.

These qualities he had seemed to show before we were married, but they

proved to be only a veneer which soon wore off."

"Why do you bring this all back now ?" Alice asked, sympathetically,

seeing the lines deepen in Eleanor's face.

"I must tell it to you, dear--we have grown so close that I feel this is

all that remains between us. When you know this, we shall be sisters

indeed."

"We are that already and more," Alice urged. "Only think how near of an

age we really are."

"In years, yes; but sometimes I feel as if I had already lived

centuries."

"Will the telling of this take a few of those centuries from you?" the

girl inquired, smiling.

"I hope so; and that is one reason why I am asking you to share the

burden with me. All that I have told you so far has been unimportant

compared with what followed. Had it simply been a difference in

temperament, I have no doubt that I should have become accustomed to

the absence of these things I craved, and have adjusted my life to meet

the new conditions. But other and more serious difficulties soon arose.

With Ralph Buckner possession seemed to be enough. I have seen him

scheme for months to secure some high-bred horse or a fancy breed of

cattle, and after they became his property hardly care whether he ever

saw them again. So it was with his wife. Within six months he resumed

his fortnightly visits to Colorado Springs on alleged business, from

which he always returned worn out and ill-tempered. Until we were

married, I had no idea that his life on the ranch and his life in

Colorado Springs were so distinctly apart, but I was soon to learn it

with bitter clearness."

As the story progressed Alice could feel the increasing tenseness.

Eleanor had herself well in hand, but the occasional break in her voice

evidenced the strain.

"There was a so-called club in Colorado Springs whose members included

the wildest young men of the town and several of the younger ranchmen

who were able to stand the pace. In this Ralph was a leading spirit,

drinking and gambling with that abandon which was his dominant

characteristic. 'Buckner is a poor gambler but a good loser,' one of

them is reported to have said, but that only meant that Ralph succeeded

in concealing his real feelings until he reached home; for it was his

wife who received the full force of the reaction as his brain cleared

from the fumes of the liquor and he came to a realization of his

losses."

She paused and looked at her companion, and encouraged by Alice's rapt

attention continued:

"Our baby was born a year after we were married--"

"I never knew of that," the girl said, quietly.

"Don't," was the reply; "I can't go on if you weaken me by your

sympathy."

"Forgive me, dear Eleanor," Alice murmured.

"By that time every remnant of a tie which held us together had

disappeared. The child, however, was a real link, and for a little while

gave us something to think of besides ourselves. For a year, perhaps,

Ralph went less frequently to Colorado Springs, and I came to think that

we might possibly be able to continue our lives together for the child's

sake. But the novelty wore off from this new plaything, as it had from

the others, though it lasted longer than anything else ever had, and

then Ralph's absences from the ranch became more and more frequent and

of longer duration. I cared little for this, as it enabled me to take

Carina to my father's ranch, where I forgot for the time being the

emptiness of the home to which we must sooner or later return."

Alice glanced up tenderly. "Poor dear Eleanor," she said, softly; but

Mrs. Gorham went on without heeding:

"One day, when little Carina was three years old, we were visiting at my

father's. It was late in the afternoon, and we were playing some child's

game together when the door was suddenly thrown open and Ralph glowered

in at us, his face purple with drunken anger. Even the four-mile ride

had failed to sober him, and he leaned against the framework of the door

to steady himself. The child, startled by the sudden interruption and

terrified by the expression on her father's face, ran to me for

protection, burying her little face in my lap.

"'That's right,' he leered at her; 'that's what they teach you to do

here--make you hate your father, don't they? I'll give you a chance to

get acquainted with me.'

"Then he crossed the room and tore the child from my arms, in spite of

her shrieks of fear and our joint efforts to stop him. Even my father,

who did all he could, was helpless against the man's almost superhuman

strength. In a moment he had mounted his horse with Carina in front of

him, and was galloping at breakneck speed down the long trail which led

to our ranch. Father rushed to the barn, but I was there before him.

Between us we saddled the mare I had ridden so many times before I was

married, and I urged her forward to make up as much as possible for the

lost time. But I had not far to go--"

The recital proved too much for Eleanor, in spite of her efforts to

control herself. Her eyes filled with tears, and her body was convulsed

with emotion as she bent her head until it rested against her

companion's face.

"Don't, dear," urged Alice; "tell me the rest some other time."

"No, no!" Mrs. Gorham cried; "you must know it all, and then we need not

speak of it again. I had gone over less than half the distance when I

came upon them both lying in the trail. I never knew how it happened. He

told some one afterward that the horse stumbled. It may have been that;

it may have been anything with him in that condition. He had fallen at

the side of the trail and was conscious before I left him, but Carina

was--dead."

"Don't, don't go on--I can't stand it!" cried Alice.

Eleanor paused as if in response to Alice's appeal, but a glance at her

face showed that an emotion stronger than even the words had expressed

was holding her in its grip.

"Father was dead, too, when I returned," she said at last, her eyes

still gazing into space.

"The excitement killed him?" Alice asked, breathlessly, still further

shocked by the double tragedy.

"That and his anxiety over my unexplained absence."

"Your absence?" queried the girl, mystified by Eleanor's apparent

incoherency. "Didn't you just say that he was dead when you returned?"

Mrs. Gorham started violently. "What am I saying!" she cried,

involuntarily. In a moment she was herself again. "Yes, dear, of course

I returned; but not as soon as he expected, and the shock of it all

killed him. You understand, don't you? I was very ill, and a friend

helped me to a hospital in Denver."

"But you said you had no friends except the man you married," Alice

urged, trying to follow the narrative.

"Yes, dear, you are right," Eleanor replied somewhat confused; "but one

always finds friends when in trouble, you know. It was so with me, and

after I recovered my strength I lived on there in Denver with the small

legacy my father left me, supplemented later by a little more from the

sale of the ranch. A year after Carina's death I applied for a divorce,

on the ground of desertion. My lawyer found Ralph somewhere to serve the

summons on him, and reported him as having already become a professional

gambler and a confirmed drunkard. He made no defence at the trial, and I

have never seen him since."

"But it's all over now, Eleanor dear," Alice said, soothingly. "Daddy

and I will try to make up to you for what you have been through. You

must let us do that."

"You have done it already," Eleanor replied, feelingly, her temporary

obsession having passed. "You and darling little Patricia have become a

real part of my life, and my one prayer has been that I could do as much

for you. Your father restored my lost faith in men almost the first time

I met him in my lawyer's office in Denver."

"Yes." Alice accepted the tribute to her father as a matter of fact. "He

nearly killed himself in Pittsburgh before he gave up his business

there, and he went out West two or three times to get back his health.

And the last time he brought you back, too. I have always loved the West

for that."

Mrs. Gorham smiled as she continued: "I learned of his work from others

and from himself, and rejoiced to find a man with real ideals, in

business and in his every-day life, actually lived up to. I had no

notion of what that first chance meeting would lead to, of the home that

it would give me among my girlhood friends, filled with the love and

sympathy which my heart had always craved. Now you know the whole story,

Alice dear--now you know why the tears come sometimes to my eyes as I

press to my heart that quaint, precious little sister of yours, so near

the age Carina would have been, who softens the memory of the sweet dead

face by giving to it a living reality."

"I understand," the girl cried, throwing her arms about Eleanor's neck

and embracing her warmly. "I can't say the right thing now I am so

unstrung, but I love you even more than ever because you've let me

share it with you."

So they separated for the night--the woman's heart bleeding from the

reopening of the former wound, yet happier that her accepted confidante

had become acquainted with that part of her life which was consecrated

to a memory; the girl made older by the sudden drawing of the curtain

from one of life's daily yet unheralded tragedies.