“Yes, you’re right, Sid; in these days of multi-millionaires, nothing
that is written with less than eight figures is considered ‘wealth.’
Yet, even so, I count this something more than a ‘tidy little sum’
you’ve cleaned up--even if you do not. And now tell me, what are you
going to do with it?”
The man sitting at the uncovered pine table in the center of the room
opened his lips to answer, checked himself as if doubtful of the
reception of what he might say, and then went on nervously sorting and
rearranging the handful of papers and letters which he held. However,
the light that came into his eyes at Keith’s question, and the smile
that played around his weak lips, showed without a doubt that the “tidy
little sum” promised to him at least the fulfillment of unspoken dreams.
He was a handsome man of thirty--a man of feminine beauty rather than
that which is masculine. And though dressed in rough corduroys and
flannels, like his companion, they added to, rather than detracted
from his picturesque charm. Slightly--almost delicately proportioned,
he seemed to be taller than he really was. In spite of his great
beauty, however, his face was not a satisfying one under the scrutiny
of a close observer, for it lacked character. There was refinement
and a certain sweetness of temperament there, but the ensemble was
essentially weak--it was the face of a man of whom one felt it would
not be well for any believing, loving woman to pin her faith to.
Keith, sitting with his long legs crossed and his big, strong hands
thrust deep into his trousers’ pockets, watched the younger man
curiously, wondering what manner of woman she could have been who had
chosen Sidney Williston for her lord and master.
“Poor little neglected woman,” thought Keith, with that tender and
compassionate feeling he had for every feminine and helpless thing;
“poor little patiently waiting wife! Will he ever go back to her, I
wonder? I doubt it. And now to think of all this money!”
Williston had said but little to Keith about his wife. In fact, all
reference to her very existence had been avoided when possible. Keith
even doubted if his friend would ever again recognize the marriage
tie between them unless the deserted one should unexpectedly present
herself in person and claim her rights. Williston--vacillating,
unstable--was the kind of a man in whom loyalty depends on the presence
of its object as a continual reminder of obligations. Keith was sure,
however, that the woman, whoever she might be, was more than deserving
of pity.
“Sidney means well,” thought Keith trying to find excuse for him, “but
he is weak--lamentably so--and sadly lacking in moral balance.” And
never had Williston been so easily lead, so subservient to the will of
another as now, since “that cursed Howard woman” (as Keith called her
under his breath) had got him into her toils.
Lovesick as any boy he was befooled to his heart’s content, wilfully
blind to the fact that it was the old pitiful story of a woman’s greed,
and that her white hands had caresses and her lips kisses for his
gold--not for himself. Her arms were eager to hold in their clasp--not
him, but--the great wealth which was his, the gold which had come
from the fabulously rich strike he had cleaned up on the bedrock of
the claim, where a cross reef had held it hidden a thousand years and
more. Her red lips were athirst to lay kisses---- On his mouth? Nay!
on the piles of minted gold that had lain in the bank vault since he
had sold his mine. The Twentieth Century Aspasia has a hundred arts
her sister of old knew naught of; and Williston was not the first man
who has unwittingly played the part of proxy to another, or blissfully
believed in the lying lips whose kisses sting like the sting of wild
bees--those honey-sweet kisses that stab one’s soul with needles of
passionate pain. All these were for the gold-god, not him; he was but
the unconscious proxy.
Keith mused on the situation as he sat in the flickering candle-light
blown by the night wind that--coming in through the open
window--brought with it the pungent odor of sagebrush-covered hills.
“Strange,” he thought, “how a woman of that particular stamp gets a
hold on some fellows! And with a whole world full of other women,
too--sweet, good women who are ready to give a man the right sort
of love and allegiance, if he’s a half-way decent sort of a fellow
with anything at all worthy to give in exchange; God bless ’em!--and
confound him! He makes me angry; why can’t he pull himself together
and be a man!”
Bayard Keith was no saint. Far from it. Yet, for all his drifting about
the world, he had kept a pretty clean and wholesome moral tone. Women
of the Gloria Howard class did not appeal to his taste; that was all
there was about it. But he knew men a-plenty who, for her sake, would
have committed almost any crime in the calendar if she set it for them
to do. There were men who would have faced the decree of judge and jury
without a tremor, if the deed was done for her sake. He himself could
not understand such things. Not that he felt himself better or stronger
than his fellows; it was simply that he was made of a different sort of
stuff.
Yet, in spite of his manifest indifference to the charm of her large,
splendid beauty--dazzling as the sun at noon-day--and that marked
personality which all others who ever came within the circle of her
presence seemed to feel, Keith knew he could have this woman’s love
for the asking--the love of a woman who, ’twas said, won love from
all, yet giving love to none. Nay, but he knew it was already his. His
very indifference had fanned a flame in her breast; a flame which had
been lit as her eyes were first lifted to his own and she beheld her
master, and burning steadily it had become the consuming passion of
this strange creature’s existence. Hopeless, she knew it was; yet it
was stronger than her love of life. Even stronger than her inordinate
love of money was this passion for the man whose heart she had utterly
failed to touch.
That he must know it to be so, was but an added pain for her fierce
nature to bear. Keith wondered if Williston had ever suspected, as she
played her part, the woman’s passionate and genuine attachment to
himself. He hoped not, for the two men had been good comrades, though
without the closer bond of a fine sympathy; and Keith’s wish was that
their comradeship should continue, while he hoped the woman’s love, in
time, would wear itself out. To Williston he had once tried to give a
word of advice.
“Drop it, Keith,” came the quick answer to his warning, “I love her.”
“Granted that you do, why should you so completely enslave yourself to
a woman of that type?”
“What do you mean by ‘that type?’ Take care! take care, Keith! I tell
you I love her! Were I not already a married man I would make Mrs.
Howard my wife.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t,” Keith answered quietly. “Howard refuses to get
a divorce, and you know very well she cannot. Besides, Sid, it would be
sheer madness for you to do such a thing, even were she free.”
“It makes no difference; I love her,” was again the reply, and said
with the childish persistence of those with whom reiteration takes the
place of argument.
Keith said no more, though he felt the shame of it that Sidney
Williston’s fortune should be squandered on another woman,
while--somewhere off there in the East--his wife waited for him to send
for her. Keith’s shoulders shrugged with impatience over the whole
pitiful affair. He was disgusted at Williston’s lack of principle and
angered by his disregard of public censure. However, he reflected,
trying to banish all thoughts of it, it was none of his business; he
was not elected to be his brother’s keeper in this affair surely.
As for himself, he believed the only love worth having was that upon
which the foundation of the hearthstone was laid. He believed, too,
that to no man do the gods bring this priceless treasure more than
once. When a man like Keith believes this, it becomes his religion.
Through the gateway to his big, honest heart, one summer in the years
gone by, love had entered, and--finding it the dwelling of honor and
truth--it abided there still.
Thinking of Williston’s infatuation for Gloria Howard, he could but
compare it to his own entire, endless love for Kathryn Verrill. He
recalled a day that would always stand out in bold relief from all
others in memory’s gallery.
In fancy now he could see the wide veranda built around one of
the loveliest summer homes of the beautiful Thousand Islands.
Cushions--soft and silken--lay tossed about on easy chairs and divans
that were scattered about here and there among tubs of palms and potted
plants. On little tables up and down the veranda’s length were summer
novels open and face downward as their readers had left them, or dainty
and neglected bits of fancy-work. Cooling drinks and dishes of luscious
fruits had been placed there within their reach. Keith closed his eyes
with a sigh, as the memory of it all came back to him. Here, amid the
sage and desert sands, it was like a dream of lost Paradise.
It had been a day of opalescent lights, and through its translucence
they (he and--she) could see the rest of the party on the sparkling
waters, among the pleasure craft from other wooded islands, full of
charm, near by. Only these two--he and she--were here on the broad
veranda. The echo of distant laughter came to them, but here was a
languorous silence. Even the yellow-feathered warblers in the gilded
cages above them had, for the time, hushed their songs.
Kathryn Verrill was swinging slowly back and forth in one of the
hammocks swung along the veranda, the sunlight filtering through the
slats of the lowered blinds streaking with gold her filmy draperies
as they swept backward and forward on the polished floor. Her fingers
had ceased their play on the mandolin strings, and there was now no
sound about them louder than the hum of the big and gorgeous bumble-bee
buzzing above their heads. Summer sweetness anywhere, and she the
sweetest of it all! Then----
Ah, well! He had asked her to marry him, and the pained look that came
into her face was his answer even before he heard her say that for two
years she had been another’s--a secretly-wedded wife. Why she should
now tell her carefully guarded secret to him she herself could hardly
have told. No one else knew. Her husband had asked that it should
be their dear secret until he could send for her to come to him out
in the land of the setting sun, where he had gone alone in the hope
that he would find enough of the yellow metal grains so that he could
provide her with a fitting home. Her guardian had not liked the man
of her choice--had made objections to his attentions. Then there was
the clandestine marriage. And then he had gone away to make a home
for her. But she loved him; oh, yes! he was her choice of all the
world, her hero always--her husband now. She was glad to have done as
she did--there was nothing to regret, except the enforced separation.
So she was keeping their secret while feeding her soul with the hope
of reunion that his rare letters brought. But she had faith. Some
day--some day he would win the fortune that would pave the way to him;
then he would send for her. Some day. And she was waiting. And she
loved him; loved him. That was all.
All, except that she was sorry for Keith, as all good women are
sorry to hurt any human creature. No loyal, earnest, loving man ever
offers his whole heart to any true and womanly woman (it matters not
how little her own affections are moved by his appeal, or if they be
stirred at all) that she does not feel touched and honored by the
proffered gift. Womanly sympathy looked out of her gentle eyes, but she
had for him no slightest feeling of other attraction. Keith gravely
accepted his fate; but he knew that Love (that beautiful child born of
Friendship--begot by Passion) would live forever in the inner chamber
of his heart. To him, Kathryn Verrill would always be the one woman in
all the world.
He went out of her life and back to the business routine of his own. In
work he would try to forget his wounds. Later there were investments
that turned out badly, and he lost heavily--lost all.
Then he came West. Here, in the Nevada mountains, he had found
companionship in Sidney Williston who, like himself, was a seeker for
gold. A general similarity of tastes brought about by their former ways
of living (for Williston, too, was an eastern man) had been the one
reason for each choosing the companionship of the other. So, here in
the paintless pine cabin in Porcupine Gulch, each working his separate
claim, they had been living under the same roof for nearly two years;
but Fate, that sees fit to play us strange tricks sometimes, had laid a
fortune in Williston’s hands, while Keith’s were yet empty.
Sidney Williston’s silence, when asked what he would do with his
wealth, was answer enough. It would be for Gloria Howard. There he sat
now, thinking of her--planning for her.
Millers, red-winged moths and flying ants fluttered around the candle,
blindly batting at the burning wick and falling with singed wings on
the table. The wind was rising again, and the blaze at times was nearly
snuffed out, moth-beaten and blown by the strong breeze.
All the morning the sun had laid its hot hand heavily on the earth
between the places where dense white clouds hung without a motion in
the breathless sky. The clouds had spread great dark shadows on the
cliffs below, where they clung to the rocks like time-blackened and
century-old lichens. But in the shadowless spots the sun’s rays were
intensely hot, as they so often are before a coming storm; while the
fierce heat for the time prostrated plant-life, and sent the many tiny
animals of the hills to those places where the darkest shadows lay.
Flowers were wilting where they grew. White primroses growing in the
sandy soil near the cabin had but the night before lifted their pale,
sweet faces to the moon’s soft light--lovely evening primroses growing
straight and strong. Noonday saw them drooping weakly on their stalks,
blushing a rosy, shamed pink; kissed into color by the amorous caresses
of that rough lover, the Sun. Night would find them faded and unlovely,
their purity and sweetness ruthlessly wrested from them forever.
As the sun climbed to the zenith, there was not the slightest wind
stirring; the terrible heat lay, fold on fold, upon the palpitating
earth. But noon came and brought a breeze from out of the south.
Stronger and stronger it swept toward the blue mountains lying away to
the northward. It gathered up sand particles and dust, and shook them
out into the air till the sunlight was dulled, and the great valley
below showed through a mist of gold. All the afternoon the atmosphere
was oppressively hot, while the wind hurried over valley and upland and
mountain. All the afternoon the dust storm in billowy clouds hurried
on, blowing--blowing--blowing. A whistling wind it was, keeping up its
mournful song in the cracks of the unpainted cabin, and whipping the
burlap awning over the door into ragged shreds at the edges. The dark
green window shades flapped and rattled their length, carried out level
from their fastenings by the force of the hot in-blowing wind.
Then with the down-going of the sun the wind died down also. When
twilight came, the heavens were overcast with rain-clouds that told of
a hastening storm which would leave the world fresh and cool when it
had passed. The horizon line was brightened now and again by zigzags of
lightning. Inside the cabin the close air was full of dust particles.
Sidney Williston tossed a photograph across the table, as he gathered
his papers together preparatory to putting them away.
“There’s my wife’s picture, Keith,” he said; “I don’t think I ever
showed it to you, did I?”
Keith got up--six feet, and more, of magnificent manhood; tall, he was,
and straight as a pine, and holding his head in kingly wise. Leisurely
he walked across the bare floor, which echoed loudly to his tread;
leisurely he picked it up.
It was the pictured face of Kathryn Verrill!
* * * * *
He did not say anything; neither did he move.... If you come to think
of it, those who sustain great shocks seldom do anything unusual
except in novels. In real life people cry out and exclaim over trifles;
but let a really stupendous thing happen, and you may be very sure that
they will be proportionately silent. The mind, incapable of instantly
grasping the magnitude of what has happened, makes one to stand
immovable and in silence.
Keith said nothing. His breathing was quite as regular as usual, and
his grasp on the picture was firm--untrembling. Yet in that instant
of time he had received the greatest shock of his life, and myriad
thoughts were running through his brain with the swiftness of the
waters in the mining sluice. He held the bit of pasteboard so long that
Williston at last looked up at him inquiringly.
When he handed it back his mind was made up. He knew what must be done.
He knew what he must do--at once--for her sake.
When two or three hours later he heard Williston’s regular breathing
coming from the bed across the room, he stole out in the darkness to
the shed where the horses and buckboard were. It was their one vehicle
of any sort, and the only means they had of reaching the valley. With
the team gone, Williston would practically be a prisoner for several
days. Keith had no hesitation in deciding which way his duty lay. It
was thirty miles to the nearest town; to the telegraph; to Gloria
Howard; to the railroad!
As he pulled the buckboard out of the shed and put the horses before
it, the first raindrops began to fall. Big splashing drops they were,
puncturing the parched dust as they beat down upon it. Flashes of
lightning split the heavens, and each flash made the earth--for the
instant--noon-bright. When he had buckled the last strap his hands
tightened on the reins, and he swung himself up to the seat as the
thunder’s batteries were turned loose on the earth in a tremendous
volley that set the very ground trembling. The frightened horses,
crouching, swerved aside an instant, and then leaped forward into the
darkness. Along the winding road they swept, like part of the wild
storm, toward the town that lay off in the darkness of the valley below.
It was past midnight, and thirty miles lay between him and the
railroad. There was no time to spare. He drove the horses at a pace
which kept time with his whirlwind thoughts and his pulses.
He had been cool and his thoughts had been collected when under
another’s possible scrutiny. Now, alone, with the midnight storm about
him, his brain was whirling, and a like storm was coursing through his
veins.
The crashing thunder that had seemed like an avalanche of boulders
shattered and flung earthward by the fury of the storm, began to
spend itself, and close following on the peals and flashes came the
earth-scent of rain-wetted dust as the big drops came down. By and by
the thunder died away in distant grumbling, and the fiery zigzags went
out. There was the sound of splashing hoofs pounding along the road;
and the warm, wet smell of horses’ steaming hides, blown back by the
night wind.
Fifteen miles--ten--five miles yet to go. Not once had Keith slackened
speed.
When at length he found himself on the low levels bordering the river,
the storm had passed over, and ere he reached the town the rain had
ceased falling. A dim light was breaking through the darkness in
places, and scudding clouds left rifts between which brilliant stars
were beginning to shine.
As he drove across the bridge and into the lower town, he woke the
echoes of a watch-dog’s barking; otherwise, the town was still. At
the livery stable he roused the sleeping boy, who took his team; and
flinging aside the water-soaked great-coat he wore, he walked rapidly
toward the railroad station at the upper end of the town. The message
he wrote was given to the telegraph operator with orders to “rush.” It
read:
“I have found the fortune. Now I want my wife. Come.”
He signed it with Sidney Williston’s name.
“Is Number Two on time?” he asked.
“An hour late. It’ll be here about 4:10,” was the reply.
Leaving the office, he went back to the lower town. Down the hill and
past the pleasant cottages half hidden under their thick poplar shade,
and surrounded by neat, close-trimmed lawns. Leaf and grass-blade
had been freshened by the summer storm; and the odor of sweet garden
flowers--verbenas, mignonette and pinks--was wafted strongly to his
nostrils on the night air. They were homes. He turned away from all
the fragrance and sighed--the sigh of renunciation. Crickets were
beginning to trill their night songs. Past the court-house he went,
where it stood ghostly and still in the darkness; past the business
buildings farther down, glistening with wet. He turned into a side
street to the house where he had been told Gloria Howard lived. At the
gate he hesitated a moment, then opening it, went inside. Stepping off
the graveled walk, his feet pressed noiselessly into the rain-soaked
turf as he turned a corner of the cottage, and--going to a side
window--rapped on the casing.
There was silence, absolute and deep. Again he rapped. Sharply this
time; and he softly called her name twice. He heard a startled movement
in the room, then a pause, as though she were listening. A moment later
her white gown gleamed against the darkness of the bedchamber, and she
stood at the open window under its thick awning of green hop vines. Her
face was on a level with his own. Her hair exhaled the odor of violets.
He could hear her breathing.
“Gloria,”----he began, softly.
“Who are you----what is it?” Then, “Keith! You!” she exclaimed; and in
a moment more flung wide the wire screen that had divided them.
“Sh!”----he whispered. “I want to speak to you. But----hark! listen!”
He laid his hand lightly on her lips.
She caught it quickly between both her own, and laid a hot cheek
against it for an instant; then she pressed it tightly against her
heart.
The night watchman patrolling the streets was passing; and they
stood--he and she together--without movement, in the moist, dusky
warmth of the rain-washed summer night, until the footsteps echoed
faintly on the wet boards half a block away; the sound mingling with
the croaking of the river frogs. Keith could feel the fast beating of
her heart. The wet hop leaves shook down a shower of drops as they were
touched by a passing breeze.
“Gloria,”----he spoke rapidly, but scarcely above his breath----“I am
going away tonight----(he felt her start) away from this part of the
country forever; and I have come to ask you to go with me. Will you?
Tell me, Gloria, will you go?”
She did not reply, but laying a hand on his still damp coat-sleeve,
tried to draw him closer, leaning her face towards his, and striving to
read in his own face the truth of his words.
Had there been light enough for him to see, he would have marvelled
at the varying expressions that followed in quick succession across
her face. Surprise, incredulity, wonderment, a dawning of the real
meaning of his words, triumph as she heard, and then--finally--a look
of fierce, absorbing, tigerish love. For whatever else there might be
to her discredit, her love for him was no lie in her life. She had for
this man a passion as strong as her nature was intense.
“Gloria, Gloria, tell me! Will you leave all--everything and
everybody--and go away with me?” he demanded impatiently. “Number Two
is late--an hour late tonight, and you will have time to make yourself
ready if you hasten. Come, Gloria, come!”
“Do----you----mean----it, Bayard Keith?” she breathed.
“I mean it. Yes.”
She knew his yea was yea; still she missed a certain quality in what he
said--a certain something (she could not say what) in his tone.
She inhaled a long breath as she drew away from him.
“You are a strange man--a very, very strange man. Do you know it? All
these many months you have shunned me; yet now you ask me to cast my
lot with yours. Why?”
“Because I find I want you--at last.”
His answer seemed to satisfy her.
“For how long?” she asked.
Just for the imperceptible part of a second he hesitated. His answer
would be another unbreakable link in the chain he was forging for
himself. Only the fraction of a second, though, he paused. Then his
reply came, firm and decided:
“Forever, Gloria, if you will have it so.”
For answer she dropped her head on her folded arms while a dry, hard
sob forced its way through her lips. It struck upon the chord within
him that always thrilled to the sight or sound of anything, even
remotely, touching grief. This sudden, unexpected joy of hers was so
near akin to sorrow--ay, and she had had much sorrow, God knows! in her
misspent life--it was cause enough for calling forth the gentle touch
he laid upon her bowed head.
“Don’t, Gloria, girl! Don’t! It isn’t worth this, believe me. Yet, if
you come, you shall never have cause for regret, if there’s anything
left in a man’s honor.”
He stroked her hair silently a moment before he said:
“There are some things yet to be done before train time; so I must go
now. Will you be there--at the station?”
“Yes.”
So it was that the thing was settled; and Keith accepted his fate in
silence.
An evil thing done? Perhaps. Evil, that good might come of it. And he
himself to be the sole sufferer. He was removing this woman beyond
Sidney Williston’s reach forever. When the weak, erring husband should
find himself free once more from the toils which had held him, his love
(if love it was) would return to the neglected wife; and she, dear,
faithful, loving woman that she was, would never, thank heaven! guess
his unfaithfulness.
Bayard Keith did not feel himself to be a hero. Such men as he are
never vainglorious; and Keith had no thought of questioning Life’s way
of spelling “duty” as he saw it written. He was being loyal for the
sake of loyalty, a sacrifice for love’s own sake than which no man can
make greater, for he knew that his martyrdom would be in forever being
misjudged by the woman for whose dear sake it was done. He would be
misjudged, of course, by Sidney Williston, and by all the world, for
that matter; but for them he did not care. He was simply doing what
he thought was right that he himself should do--for Kathryn Verrill’s
sake. Her love had been denied him. Now he must even forfeit her
respect. All for love’s sake. None must ever know why he had done this
hideous thing. They must be made to think that he--like others--had
yielded to a mad love for the bad, beautiful woman. In his very silence
under condemnation lay security for Kathryn Verrill’s happiness. Only
he himself would ever know how great would be his agony in bearing the
load he had undertaken. Oh, if there might be some other way than this!
If there could be but some still unthought-of means of escape whereby
he could serve his dear lady, and yet be freed from yoking his life
with a woman from whom his whole being would revolt. How would he be
able through all the years to come--years upon years--to bear his life,
with her?
As he walked past the darkened buildings he breathed heavily, each
breath indrawn with a sibilant sound, like a badger at bay. Yet he had
no thought of turning aside from his self-imposed immolation.
No one was astir in the lower town, save himself and the night
watchman. Now and then he passed a dim light burning--here a low-turned
burner in store or bank building; there the brighter glow of lamps
behind the ground glass of some saloon door. Halfway up the long street
leading to the upper town he heard the rumble of an incoming train. Was
Number Two on time, after all? Was a pitying Fate taking matters away
from him, and into its own hands? Was escape being offered him?
If he hurried--if he ran--he could reach the station in time,
but--alone! There would be no time to go back for Gloria Howard. He
almost yielded for a moment to the coward’s impulse to shrink from
responsibility, but the thought of Kathryn Verrill, waiting by the
eastern sea for a message to come from the man she loved, roused him to
his better self. He resolutely slackened his pace till the minutes had
gone by wherein he could have become a deserter; then he went on up to
the station.
“No, that was a freight train that just pulled out,” said the telegraph
operator. “Number Two will be here pretty soon, though. Less’n half an
hour. She’s made up a little time now.”
Keith went to the office counter and began to write. It was not a long
letter, but it told all there was to say:
“Sid: I have wired to your wife to come to you, and I have signed your
name. By the time this reaches you she will be on her way here. It will
be wiser, of course, for you to assume the sending of the message, and
to give her the welcome she will expect. It will be wiser, too--if I
may offer suggestions--to travel about with her for a while; to go away
from this place, where she certainly would hear of your unfaithfulness
should she remain. Then go back with her to your friends, and live out
the balance of your life, in the old home, as you ought. I know you
will feel I am not a fit one to preach, for I myself am going away
tonight, taking Gloria Howard with me. I know, too, how you will look
at what I am doing; but I have neither excuses nor explanations to
offer.
Bayard Keith.”
That was all.
When he had sealed and directed it, he went to the livery stable and
waked up Pete Dudley.
“See here, Pete,” he said, “I want you to do something for me.”
“Sure, Mr. Keith!” said Pete, rubbing his eyes.
“Here’s a letter for Mr. Williston out at our camp in Porcupine Gulch.
I want you to take it to him, and take the buckboard, too.”
“All right, I’ll go in the morning.”
“No, no! Listen! Not till day after tomorrow. Wait, let me think----
You’d better wait a day longer----go the next day. Do you understand?”
“I guess I savvy. Not till Friday. Take the letter and the buckboard.
Is that the racket?”
“Yes, that’s what I want, Pete. Here! Take them to him without fail on
Friday. Good-night, Pete. Good bye!”
Keith walked back to the station and went in the waiting-room, where
he sat down. His heart felt as heavy as lead. He had burned all his
bridges behind him, and it made his soul sick to contemplate the long
vista of the coming years.
As he sat there, the coward hope that she--Gloria--might not come, shot
up in his heart, trying to make of him a traitor. He said to himself:
“If----if----” Presently he heard the train whistle. He got up and went
to the door. He felt he was choking. Daylight was coming fast; day-dawn
in the eastern sky. The town, rain-cleansed and freshened, would soon
awake and lift its face to the greeting of another morn.
The ticket-office window was shoved up. It was nearing train time.
“Hello, Mr. Keith, going away?”
“Yes, I want a----” he hesitated.
“Where to?”
But Keith did not answer. A ticket? One, or two? If she should not
come---- Was Fate----? What was he to do? But, no! Yet he hesitated,
while the man at the window waited his reply. Two tickets, or only one?
Or not any? Nay, but he must go; and there must be two.
Then the train thundered into the station, and almost at the same
moment he heard, through the sound made by the clanging bell, the
rustle of a woman’s rich garments. He turned. Gloria Howard stood
there, beautiful and eager, panting from her hurried walk.
“Where to?” repeated the man at the window.
“San Francisco--two tickets,” said Keith.
“‘Two,’ did you say?” asked the man, looking up quickly at him and then
glancing sideways at the radiant, laughing woman who had taken her
place so confidently at Keith’s side.
Keith’s voice did not falter, nor did his eyes fall:
“Two.”
But the telegraph operator smiled to himself as he shoved the tickets
across the window sill. To him, Keith was simply “Another one!” So,
too, would the world judge him after he was gone.
* * * * *
Bayard Keith was no saint; but as he crossed to the cars in the
waxing light of day-dawn, his countenance was transfigured by an
indescribable look we do not expect to see--ever--on the face of mortal
man.
“For her dear sake!” he whispered softly to himself, as he looked away
to the reddening East--to the eastward where “she” was. “For the sake
of the woman I love.”
And “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends.”
[Illustration]