HER LORD AND MASTER
Ann watched him go, an apprehensive mood coming upon her. He shacked off
on the pinto horse while Abe, left alone in the corral, trotted about
and nickered and pawed to show his displeasure at being left behind. For
a long time the girl stood there, not moving, breathing slowly; then she
looked about her, turned and walked into Bruce's room, roamed around,
examining the books, the pictures, the furniture, touching things with
her finger tips gently, lovingly, hearing his voice again as it told her
of them. For her each article in that room now held a particular
interest. She stared at the photograph of the girl he had selected as a
sister, at Whistler's fine, capped old lady, opened the "French
Revolution" and riffled the leaves he had thumbed and soiled and torn,
and laughed deep in her throat as she saw the curtains hanging
irregularly from their six-penny nails ... laughed, though her eyes were
damp.
A step sounded in the kitchen and the woman became rigid as she
listened.
"... hotter ..."
Just the one word of the muttered sentence was distinguishable, but she
knew it was not Bayard's voice; knew, then, whose it must be.
Very quietly she walked to the doorway of the bedroom and stood there.
Ned Lytton had halted a step from the kitchen entry and was wiping his
face with a black silk kerchief. He completed the operation, removed his
hat, tossed it to a chair, unbuttoned the neck of his shirt ... and
ceased all movements.
For each the wordless, soundless period that followed seemed to be an
age. The woman looked at the man with a slight feeling of giddiness, a
sensation that was at once relief and horror, for he was as her worst
fears would have it; his face, in spite of his weeks of good living, was
the color of suet, purple sacks under the eyes, lips hard and cruel, and
from chin to brow were the indelible marks of wasting, of debauchery.
"Ann!" he exclaimed.
Surprise, dread, a mingling of many emotions was in the tone, and he
waited at high tension for her to answer. His wife, a woman he had not
seen in three years, standing there before him in the garb of this new
country, beautiful, desirable, come as though from thin air! He thought
this might be merely an hallucination, that it might be some uncanny
creation of his unstable mind.
"Yes, Ned; it is I," she answered, with a catch in her voice.
On her words he stepped quickly forward, fear gone, eagerness about him.
He took her hands in his, fondling them nervously, and had she not
swayed back from him to the slightest noticeable degree, he would have
followed out his prompting to take her lips with as much
matter-of-factness as he had clutched her hands.
"Ann, where did you come from?" he cried. "Why, I thought maybe you were
a ... a ghost or something! Oh, I'm glad to see you!"
"Are you, Ned?"--almost plaintively, stroking the back of one of his
hands as she looked into his lighted eyes, reading sadly the desire
behind that shallow joy at sight of her. "Are you really glad?"
"Of course I'm glad! Who wouldn't be? Gad, Ann, you're in fine
shape!"--stepping back from her, still holding her hands, and looking
her up and down, greedily. "Oh, you're good to look at!"
He went close to her again and reached out one arm quickly to slip it
about her waist, but she turned away from him quite casually and he
stopped, disconcerted, hurt, humiliated, but covering the fact as well
as he could.
An awkward fraction of a minute followed, which he broke by asking:
"But where did you come from, Ann? How did you get here? How did you
know? What brought you?"
She smiled wanly.
"One at a time, Ned. You brought me. You should know that. I came out
here to find you, to see what was happening, to help you if I could."
She allowed him to take her hands again and looked wistfully into his
face as she talked. A change came into his expression with her words and
his gaze shifted from hers while a show of petulance appeared in his
slightly drawn brows.
"Well, I've needed help in one way," he muttered.
"You've been very ill, I know."
"You know?"--in surprise.
"Yes; I have been here through it all."
He dropped her hand and tilted his head incredulously.
"Through it all! What do you mean?"
"I've been here for a month."
"A month! You've been here a month and this is the first time you've
come to see me?"
"I didn't think it best to come before."
"You've been here while I've been passing through hell itself? You've
known about me, known how I've suffered? Have you?"
"Oh, Ned, I have...."
"And you didn't come to me when I needed help most! You've not even
taken the trouble to find out about me--"
"You're wrong there," Ann broke in simply. With the return of his old,
petulant, irritating manner, the wistfulness slipped from her and a
little show of independence, of resentment, came over the woman. "I
have known about you; I've kept track of you; I've waited and prayed for
the time when it would be best for me to see you...."
He folded his arms theatrically and swung one leg over the corner of the
table. Ann stopped talking on that, for his attitude was one of open
challenge.
"You've come out here to spy on me! Isn't that it? You've come to help
me, you said, and yet you wouldn't even let me know you were here? Isn't
it the same old game? Isn't it?"
She did not answer.
"Isn't it a fact that you've been waiting to see what I'd do when I got
well? I suppose you've come out here to-day with a prayer-book and a lot
of soft words, a lot of cant, to try to reform me?" He thrust his face
close to hers as he asked the last.
"Is this the way you're going to greet me?" she asked. "Haven't you
anything but the same old suspicion, the same old denunciation for me?"
He looked away from her and shrugged his shoulders.
"How have you known about me when you haven't been to see me?" he asked,
evasively.
"Mr. Bayard has kept me informed."
He looked at her through a moment of silence, and she looked back as
steadily, as intently as he.
"Bayard?" he asked. "Bayard? He's been telling you ... about me?"
"He's been as kind to me as he has to you, Ned,"--with a feeling of
misgiving even as she uttered the words. "He has ... ridden to Yavapai
many times just to tell me about you."
He looked at her again, and she saw the puzzlement in his face. He
started as though to speak, checked himself and looked past her into
Bayard's room.
"Where is he now?"
"He's gone to town; he left a few moments after I came. He asked me
to--"
"Did he show you into that room?"
"Yes,"--turning to look. "He told me to use it."
Her husband eyed her calculatingly and rested his weight on the table
once more. It was as though he had settled some important question for
himself.
"Why haven't you been out before, Ann?" he asked her, eyes holding on
her face to detect its slightest change of expression.
She felt herself flushing at that; her conscience again!
"You were in an awful condition, Ned," she forced herself to say. "I saw
you in Yavapai, the night I arrived. I--I helped Mr. Bayard fix your
arm; I knew how ill you would be when you came to yourself. We
agreed--Mr. Bayard and I--that it would needlessly excite you, if I were
to come here, so I stayed away. I stayed as long as I could,"--with
deadly honesty--"I had to come to-day."
"You and Bayard.... You both thought it best for me to stay here
without knowing my wife was in Arizona?"
His attitude had become that of a cross-examiner.
"Yes, Ned. You were in fearful shape. You know that for days after
you--"
"And you've relied on him to give you news of me?"
He stood erect and moved nearer, watching her face closely as her eyes
became less certain, her cheeks a deeper color.
"Yes, Ned. Don't get worked up. It's been all right. I'm sure the weeks
you put in here have given...."
"Given what?" he broke in, brows gathering, thrusting out his chin,
glaring at her and drawing back his lips to bare the gap left by the
broken and missing teeth.
The woman recoiled.
"Give what?" he demanded again, trembling from knee to fingers. "To give
him a chance to come and see you, that's what you've given!"
"Ned Ly--"--crouching, a hand to one cheek, Ann backed into Bayard's
room quickly as her husband, fists clenched and raised, lurched toward
her.
"Don't talk to me!" he cried thickly, face dark, voice unnatural. "Don't
talk to me,"--looking not at her eyes but at her heaving breast. "I
know. I know now what I should have known weeks ago! I know now why he's
been shaving his pretty face every day, why he's been dolling up every
time he left for town, putting on his gay scarfs, changing his shirts
like a gentleman, instead of a dirty hound that would steal a man's wife
as soon as he would steal a neighbor's calf! I know why he's held me
here and lied to me and played the hypocrite,"--words running together
under the intensity of his raving.
"I see it now! I see why he's admitted that there was a woman bothering
him. I see why he's tried to ring in that hotel waitress to make me
think she was the one he went to see. I see it all; I see what a fool
I've been, what a lying pup Bayard is with all his smug talk about
helping me! Helping me ... when he's been helping himself to my wife!"
"Ned!"
"A month, eh?" he went on. "You've been here a month, have you? And he's
known it; he's kept me here, by God, through fear, that's all. I confess
it to you! I'd have been gone long ago but I was afraid of him! He's
intimidated me on the pretext of doing it for my own good while he could
steal my wife ... my wife ... you-u-u...."
He advanced slowly, reasonless eyes on hers now, and Ann backed swiftly,
putting the table between them, watching him with fear stamped on her
features.
"Ugh! The snake! The poison, lying, grovelling--"
"Ned!"
The sharpness of her cry, the way she straightened and stamped her foot
and vibrated with indignation broke through his rage, even, and he
stopped.
"You don't know what you're saying." Her voice quivered. "You're
accusing the best man friend you've ever had; you're cursing one of the
best men that ever walked ground, and you're doing it without reason!"
"Without reason, am I?" he parried, quieter, breathing hard, but
controlling his voice. "It's without reason when he lives with me a
month, seeing my wife day after day, knowing I've not seen her in years
and then never breathing a word about it? It's without reason when he
opens this room to you ... a room he's never let me look into, and tells
you to use it? It's no reason when he runs away to town rather than face
me here in your presence? Can you argue against that?
"And it's without reason when you stand there flushed to your hair, you
guilty woman?"
He thumped the table with his fist. "You guilty woman," he repeated,
just above a whisper. "You guilty--My wife, conspiring with your lover
while he keeps me here by force, by brute force. Can you argue against
that ... against that?"
It was the great moment of Ann Lytton's life. It seemed as though the
inner conflict was causing congestion in her chest, stilling her heart,
clogging her breathing, making her blind and powerless to move or speak
or think. It was the last struggle against her old manner of thought,
against the old Ann, the strangling for once and for all that narrow
conscience, the wiping out of that false conception of morality, for she
emerged from her moment of doubt, of torment, a beautiful, brave
creature. Her great sacrifice had been offered; it had been repulsed
with contempt and now she stood free, ready to fight for her spiritual
honor, her self-respect, in the face of a world's disapproval, if that
should become necessary.
"Yes, I can argue against that," she cried, closing her eyes and smiling
in fine confidence. "I can, Ned Lytton. I can, because he is my lover,
because the love he bears for me is pure, is good, is true holiness!"
She leaned toward him across the table, still smiling and letting her
voice drop to its normal tone, yet losing none of its triumphant
resonance.
"And you can say that," he jeered, "after he's been ... after you've
been letting him keep you a month!"
"Oh, you can't hurt me with your insults, Ned, for they won't go home.
You know that statement isn't true; you know me too well for that. I'm
your wife by law, Ned, but beyond that I'm as free as I was five years
ago, before I ever saw you. Emancipating myself wasn't easy. I came out
here hampered by tradition and terms and prejudice, but I've learned the
truth from this country, these people, from ... you. I've learned that
without love, without sympathy, without understanding or the effort,
the desire, to understand, no marriage is a marriage; that without them
it is only ugly, hideous.
"I've had to fight it all out and think it all out for myself.
Circumstances and people have helped me make my decision. I owed you
something, I still thought, and I came here to-day to fulfill my duty,
to give you another chance. If you had met me with even friendliness,
I'd have shut my eyes, my ears, my heart to Bruce Bayard in spite of all
he means to me. I'd have gone with you, thinking that I might take up
the work of regeneration where he left off and give my life to making a
man of you, foregoing anything greater, better for myself, in the hope
that some day, some time you and I might approach halfway to happiness.
"But what did you do; what did I find? In the first moments hate of me
came into your face; you jeered at me for coming, mocked me. That's what
happened. Then you suspect me, suspect Bayard, who has kept you alive,
who has given you another chance at everything ... including me."
"Suspect him? Of course I suspect him! You've admitted your guilt, you
damned--"
"Don't go on that way, Ned. It's only a waste of time. I told you what
would have happened, if you had greeted me in another way. You've had
your chance ... you've had your thousand chances in these last five
years. It's all over now. It's over between us, Ned. It's been a bitter,
dreary failure and the sooner we end it all, the better. Don't think
I'm going to transgress what you call morality," she pleaded, smiling
weakly. "You deserted me, Ned, after you'd abused me. You've refused to
support me, you've been unfaithful in every way. I don't think the law
that made me your wife will refuse to release me now--"
"You're forgetting something," he broke in, rallying his assurance with
an effort. "You're forgetting that while you were conspiring to keep me
here, your lover, Bruce Bayard,"--drawling the words--"was meeting you
secretly. What do you think your law will say to that?"
"I'll trust to it, Ned," she answered, in splendid composure. "I will
trust to other men to judge between us--"
"Then, I won't!" he screamed, stepping quickly around the table,
grasping for her arm. She retreated quickly and he lunged for her again
and again missed.
Then, with a choking oath, he threw the table aside and the lamp went
crashing to the floor.
"Then, I won't, damn you! You're my wife, to do as I please with; the
law gave you to me, and it hasn't taken you from me yet!"
He advanced menacingly toward her as she backed into a corner, paling
with actual fear now; his elbows stuck stiffly out from his sides, his
hands were clenched at his hips, face thrust forward, feet carrying him
to her with slow uncertainty.
"Ned--" Her voice quavered. "Ned, what are you going to do?"
"Maybe I'll ... strangle you!" he said.
She looked quickly from side to side and one hand clutched at her breast
convulsively, clutched the cloth ... and something that was resting
within her waist. She started and with a quick movement unbuttoned the
garment at her bosom, reached in and drew out an automatic pistol.
"Ned, don't force me!" she said, slowly, voice unsteady.
The man halted, hesitated, backed away, both hands half raised.
"Ann, you wouldn't shoot me!" he whispered.
"You said ... you'd strangle me, Ned,"--leaning against the wall for
support, because weakness had swept over her.
Lytton drew a hand across his eyes. He trembled visibly.
"But ... I was mad, Ann," he stammered. "I was crazy; I wouldn't...."
Her hands dropped to her sides and she turned her face from him,
shutting her eyes and frowning at the helplessness that came over her
with the excitement and the fear of a physical encounter. She could
brave any moral clash, but her body was a woman's body, her strength a
woman's strength, and now, when she faced disaster, her muscles failed
her.
Ned comprehended. He stepped quickly to her side, reached to the hand
that held the weapon, fastened on it and with a wrench, jerked it free
from her limp grasp.
"You would, would you?" he muttered, his old malevolence returning with
assurance that the woman could no longer defend herself. "This! Where
did you get it?"--surveying the weapon.
"It's Bayard's."
"He gave it to you to use on me?"--with a short laugh.
The woman shook her head wearily.
"You refuse to understand anything," she responded. "He gave it to me to
protect you from himself."
He stood looking at her, revolving that assertion quickly in his mind,
feeling for the first time that his command over the situation was good
only so long as they were alone. Before his suddenly rising fear of
Bruce Bayard his bitterness retreated.
"Well, we'll quit this place," he said with a swagger. "We'll clear out,
you and I.... I've had enough of this damned treachery; trying to steal
you, my wife. I might have known. I told him his foot would slip!"
Ann scarcely heard. She was possessed by a queer lethargy. She wanted to
rest, to be quiet, to be left alone, yet she knew that much remained to
be endured. She had never rebelled before; she had always compromised
and she felt that after her great demonstration of self-sufficiency
nothing could matter a great deal. Ned had said that they would quit
this place. She had no idea of resisting, of even arguing. It was easier
to go, to delay a further break, for their journey would not be far, she
felt, nor would she be with her husband long. Bayard would come somehow;
he had come when she was in danger before, and now that which menaced
her was of much less consequence. Why fear?
She stooped to pick up a book that had been thrown to the floor when the
table overturned.
"Leave that alone!" he ordered.
She straightened mechanically, the listlessness that was upon her making
it far easier to obey than to summon the show of strength necessary to
resist.
"We'll quit this place," Ned repeated again. "And you'll go with me ..."
He turned to face the doorway. The bent reading lamp lay at his feet,
shade and chimney wrecked, oil gurgling from it. He kicked the thing
viciously, sending it crashing against the wall.
"The damned snake!" he muttered. "He brought you in here, did he? Into
this place.... Bah!"
He seized a volume from the bookcase and flung it at the ruined lamp.
"Ned, don't!" she pleaded.
"You keep quiet; you'll have enough to think about coming with me. Come
on, now!"
Mechanically she responded and with unreal, heavy movements put on her
hat as he told her to do, crossed the kitchen floor and emerged into the
afternoon sunlight. Her husband's horse, still saddled, stood in the
shade of the ash tree.
"He's left only that damn stallion," she heard Ned say. "Well, we'll
take him."
"What for, Ned?" she asked dully, walking after him as he strode toward
the corral and catching his sleeve, shaking it for his attention. "Why
are you taking him?"
"To take you away on," he snapped.
"That's stealing."
"He didn't think of that when he tried to steal my wife; I'll steal two
of his horses for a while ... just like he had you ... for a while."
Her strength of wit had been spent in the furious scene within the house
and she attempted no answer, just stood outside while Lytton entered the
corral, bridled the curious stallion and turned to lead him out. Abe
would not move. He would not even turn about and the man's strength was
not sufficient to do more than pull his head around.
"Come along, you----"
He took off his hat and swung it to strike the horse's nose sharply, but
Abe only threw up his head and blinked rapidly. The ears were flat and
he switched his tail when Lytton again tried to drag him out. He would
not respond; just braced backward and resisted.
Ann forced her mind to function with some degree of alertness.
"Let me take him, Ned," she said, white faced and quiet. "I can't see
you abuse him."
She took the reins from her husband who relinquished his grip on them
reluctantly; then she spoke a low word to the sorrel. He sniffed her
garments and moved his nostrils in silent token of recognition. This was
the woman Bayard had put on his back, the only person besides his master
who had ever straddled him, so it must be all right. He turned and
followed her from the corral while Lytton swore under his breath.
Ten minutes later, the woman mounted on the stallion, they rode through
the gate. Ann was silent, scarcely comprehending what happened.
They did not turn to the left and take the road toward Yavapai; instead,
Ned followed a course that held straight eastward, gradually taking them
away from the wagon tracks, out into the great expanse of valley.
"Where are you taking me, Ned?" Ann finally rallied her wits enough to
ask.
"Back to my castle!" he mocked. "Back to the mine, where nobody'll come
to get you!"
On that, Bayard's unexplained warning occurred to the girl and she felt
her heart leap.
"Not that!" she said, dully. "Oh, Ned, not that. Something awful ...
will happen if you go back there."
He looked at her, suspecting that this was a ruse.
"What makes you think that?"
"I was warned never to let you go back there."
"Did Bayard warn you?"--leaning low in his saddle that he might see her
face better. She answered with a nod. "And why didn't he want me to go
back there?"
"I don't know, Ned. But--Take my word, I beg of you!"
He rose in his stirrups and shook his fist at her.
"He steals my wife and tries to frighten me away from my property, does
he? What's his interest in the Sunset mine? Do you know? No? Well, we'll
find out by to-morrow night, damn him!"
He slapped his coat pocket where the automatic rested and lifted his
quirt to cut the hindquarters of the slow moving stallion.
* * * * *
It was late night when they halted at a ranch, and the house was in
darkness.
"We'll put up here," Ned growled. "We'll make on before daylight ... if
we can get this damned horse to move!"
He drew back a fist as though he would strike the stallion, for the
sorrel had retarded them, insisting on turning and trying to start back
toward the Circle A ranch, refusing to increase his pace beyond a
crawling walk, held to that only by Ann's coaxing, for she knew that if
she gave the animal his head and let him turn back, her husband would
be angered to a point where he might abuse the beast.
She feared no special thing now. She wanted to reach some destination,
some place where she could rest and think. This being led away seemed as
only some process of transition; it was unpleasant, but great happiness
was not far off. Of that she was certain.
But she could not let Ned go on to his mine. Danger of some sort waited
there and it was impossible for her to allow him to walk into it. She
had planned while they rode that afternoon just how she would make the
first move to prevent his reaching the Sunset and as her husband
hammered on the door of the house to rouse the occupants she drew a pin
from her hat, shoved herself back in the saddle, and, while he was
parleying with the roused rancher, scratched swiftly and nervously on
the smooth leather.