The shadows that had gathered around Elijah during the night were not
dispelled with the dawn of the following day. On his way to the office,
he was anticipating Helen's criticism of his act in taking the money
from the bank in the face of her strong opposition. He found on arrival,
that the devil had a way of his own in making smooth the path of his
disciples, for a time at least.
Helen greeted him as usual.
"My last night's advice was unnecessary, wasn't it?"
"How so?"
"I went around by the bank this morning. It was a sight, I can tell you.
I didn't see you in the line." There was an indirect question in Helen's
eyes.
"I wasn't in line." Elijah could not restrain a sigh of relief as he
spoke the half-truth.
"They say the line was begun before ten o'clock last night."
"I know it was, and it was kept too." Elijah turned to his desk and
became absorbed in his work.
Whether or not Helen grasped the fact that her indirect question of
Elijah remained unanswered, she pursued it no farther.
Toward noon, Elijah went to the safe which stood in the back of the
office. He opened the door, took from his pocket a bunch of keys and
unlocked his private box. Helen's back was towards him. Without taking
his eyes from her, he drew from his pocket a small package and slipped
it beneath a pile of papers. Then he closed and locked the door and
returned the keys to his pocket. He reseated himself, swinging his chair
from his desk.
"Are you busy, Helen?"
"Not very."
"What do you think this business means?"
"What, the run on the Pacific?"
"Yes."
"It's the beginning of the end, and I'm glad it's come." Helen spoke
with decision.
"The end of everything?"
"No; only a weeding out. It was bound to come, only I didn't think it
would be so soon."
"I don't feel so sure that anything will be left."
"Things that are worth while, will be."
Elijah made no immediate reply. He could not get away from the thought
of the thing that he had done; the thing that Helen had almost commanded
him not to do. He knew what she would think could she know of the packet
which he had stealthily slipped into his private box. He raised his
eyes, to meet Helen's looking frankly into his own, or--was it his
imagination? Was there an anxious questioning, born of a half suspicion?
He put the thought from him.
"Ysleta was worth while," he ventured.
"In itself, it was." Helen's face was firm with conviction. "But these
scheming rascals have made it not worth while for a long time. There
will be room for Ysleta if Las Cruces is managed right."
"It's going to be." Elijah spoke with no less conviction.
"Yes, it's going to be just so long as you keep clear of boomers'
methods. Not one of the boomers has cared a snap of his fingers for
Ysleta's future. Every one has wanted all he could get, now."
"Now?" Elijah repeated.
"Yes, now; but we have to _wait_ for things that are worth while."
"Good Heavens, Helen! Haven't I waited?"
"Wait a little longer." Her voice was eager, almost pleading.
"About the Pico ranch?"
"Just that, Elijah." Helen made no attempt to restrain the sigh of
relief that escaped her.
"I can't wait, Helen. You saw where that ditch line was going. Others
will see it. You saw that only a hill lay between it and Pico's ranch.
Others will see it. A tunnel suggested itself to you. It will suggest
itself to others. We were the first to see these things, why should we
not take advantage of them?"
"But Seymour and Ralph, Elijah. It isn't fair to them."
"I have given them enough."
"Yes, but--"
Elijah interrupted her.
"I want to do things. You want to do things." He was striding back and
forth across the floor of the office in growing excitement. "I don't
care for money. You don't care for money. Look!" He laid his hand on her
arm and pointed to the dusty street. "'Except the Lord build the house,
they labor in vain that build it.' Because of this, it is falling!
falling! But one can breathe the breath of life into these dry bones. It
shall rise from its ashes. Deliver these lands from the hands of them
who have wrought this,"--he flung his hand toward the street,--"from
them and their kind, and Ysleta shall yet live. It shall look forth upon
waters of plenty flowing from the mountains, upon green hillsides, and
upon valleys standing out with fatness." He paused, his voice dropped
almost to a whisper, but vibrating with intense emotion. "The vision of
the future came to me. I was alone and I waited. Then you came into my
life. What I lack, you have; patience, sympathy. You don't know what it
means to me."
Helen's eyes were not frank and fearless now. They were shrinking,
questioning, doubting; but they could not drop from Elijah's. She felt
rather than knew her feet were trembling on the brink, but she could not
turn back. The old fascination was yet strong upon her, but she felt its
strength as a whole. Of its elemental compounds she was ignorant; the
religious fanaticism that with frenzied kisses wears smooth a block of
worthless stone; the merciless vanity that comes to one who is fixed in
the belief that he is God's elect; the human element that demands love,
sympathy and unswerving devotion to the idols he worships, whatever the
cost to others. These were strong elements and Helen felt their power
even as Ralph and others had felt it. There was in Elijah an unshaken,
unshakable belief in himself. His work appealed to others as it had
appealed to Helen. Others selected with unclouded judgment the grains of
Elijah's enthusiasm from the chaff of his fanaticism. Others had not a
woman's heart; Helen had. She was not conscious of it, of how it was
blinding her judgment, of where it was leading her. This consciousness
was dimly suggesting itself to her, not from herself but from Elijah.
Let him arouse that consciousness to active life, then she would know,
then she would act!
Helen drew a deep, inspiring breath, looking up again. Her eyes were
fiercely questioning.
No! This zealous passion that strode sure-footed on the brink of
destruction, could not be assumed, was not assumed. Helen was quick to
judge and quick to decide when she saw clearly. She was clean of heart
and pure of mind. She could not know that a human soul, lashed to frenzy
by the stings of an outraged conscience, can yet clothe itself in robes
that might be worn by an angel of light.
"Then I saw in my dream that there was a way to hell, even from the
gates of heaven, as well as from the city of destruction."