The men did not hear her. They saw no one, heard no one. They were
facing each other in utter disregard of time or place.
Bailey's tone grew sad and tender, but he did not move: "All right, Jim.
If you want to go to hell as the murderer of your best friend, as well
as for stealing another man's wife, do it. But you sha'n't go out of
this door with that woman _while I live_. Now, that's final." His voice
was low, and his words came slowly, but not from weakness.
For a moment hell looked from the other man's eyes. He was like a tiger
intercepted in his leap upon his prey. The laugh had vanished from his
hazel eyes--they were gray and cold and savage, but there was something
equally forceful in Bailey's gaze.
Rivers could not shoot. He was infuriate, but he was not insane. He
turned away, cursing his luck. His face, twitching and white, was
terrible to look upon, but the crisis was over.
Bailey's eyes lightened. "Come, old man, you can't afford to do this. Go
out and put up the team, and to-morrow we'll take Mrs. Burke home--I'll
explain that she came over after the mail and couldn't get back."
Rivers turned on him again with a sneer. "You cussed fool, can't you see
that she _can't_ go back to Burke? I've made her mine--you understand?"
Bailey's hands fell slack. He suddenly remembered something. He brushed
his hand over his brow as if to clear his vision:
"Jim, Jim, I--good God!--how could you do such a thing?" He was
helpless as a boy, in face of this hideous complication.
Rivers pushed his advantage. He developed a species of swagger:
"Never mind about that. It's done. Now what are you going to do? Can you
fix up such a thing as that?" Bailey was still silent. "It simply means
that I'm her husband from this time on. Sit down, Blanche--I'm going to
put up the team, but to-morrow morning we go. We couldn't make it now,
anyway," he added. "There's nothing for it but to stay here all night."
Bailey stood aside to let him go out, then went to the stove and
mechanically stirred it up and put some water heating. This finished, he
sat down and leaned his head in his hands in confused thought.
To his clear sense his partner's act seemed monstrous. He had been
brought up to respect the marriage bond, and to protect and honor
women. The illicit was impossible to his candid soul. All the men he had
associated with had been respecters of marriage, though some of them
were obscene--thoughtlessly, he always believed--and now Jim, his chum,
had come between a man and his wife! With Estelle in his mind as the
type of purity, he could not understand how a wife could be the
faithless creature Blanche Burke seemed. Her weakness opened a new world
to him. He could not trust himself to speak to her.
The bubbling of the kettle aroused him, and he rose and went about
getting supper. After a few moments he felt able to ask, with formal
politeness:
"Won't you lay off your things, Mrs. Burke?"
She made no reply, but sat like an old gypsy, crouched low, with
brooding face. She, too, was wordless. She had made the curious mistake
of looking to Bailey for justification. She had felt that he would
understand and pity her, and his accusing eyes hurt her sorely. "If I
could only speak? If I could only find words to tell him my thought, he
would at least not despise me," she thought. Her face turned toward him
piteously, but she dared not lift her eyes to his. He typified the world
to her, and, furthermore, he was kindly and just; and yet he was about
to condemn her because she could not make him understand.
Trained to laugh when she should weep, how could she plead overmastering
desire, the pressure of loneliness and poverty, and, last of all, the
power of a man who stood, in her fancy, among the most brilliant of her
world. She felt herself in the grasp of forces as vast, as impersonal,
and as illimitable as the wind and the sky, but, reduced to words, her
poor plea for mercy would have been, "I could not help it."
Her maternity, which should have been her glory and her pride, was at
this hour an insupportable shame. She had experienced her moments of
emotional exaltation wherein she was lifted above self-abasement, but
now she crouched in the lowest depths of self-suspicion. The rising
storm seemed the approach of the remorseless judgment-day, the howl of
the wind, the voice of devils, exulting in her fall.
She did not trouble herself about her husband. At times she flamed out
in anger against his weakness, his business failures, his boyish
gullibility. Sometimes she pitied him, sometimes she hated him.
She watched Bailey furtively. The firm lines of his face, his sturdy
figure, and his frank, brusque manner were as familiar to her as the
face of Rivers, and almost as dear--but she could not speak!
At last she gave up all thought of speaking, and drew her shawl about
her with an air of final reserve. She resembled an old crone as she
crouched there.
Rivers returned soon and took off his overcoat without looking at
Bailey, who bustled about getting the supper, his resolute cheerfulness
once more aglow.
Rivers sat down beside Blanche. "It would be death to attempt Wheatland
to-night," he said. "I could make it all right, but it would be the end
of you."
Bailey could not hear the words she spoke in reply. "Supper's ready,"
said he. "We all have to eat, no matter what comes."
Something in his voice and manner affected Blanche deeply. She buried
her face in her hands and wept while Rivers sat helplessly looking at
her. She could not rise and walk before him yet. The shame of her sin
weighed her down.
Bailey poured some tea and gave it to Rivers.
"Take this to her while I toast her some bread."
She drank the tea but refused food, and Rivers sat down again still
wearing an air of defiance, though Bailey did not appear to notice it.
He ate a hearty supper, making a commonplace remark now and again.