THE Governor walked gravely down the long platform at El Paso, looking
up at the windows of the Pullmans, wondering, rather indistinctly, how
he should be able to recognize the irridescent princess of his romantic
youth. A negro porter touched him on the arm and inquired if he was
Governor Randal. The Executive replied that he was, whereupon the negro
with much profound obeisance announced that Miss Lanmar was waiting in
the drawing-room of the opposite Pullman.
The Governor sprang up the steps of the coach. As he entered, a young
woman, wearing a dark travelling dress, came forward to meet him. She
was of medium height, with heavy brown hair, fine eyes, arched brows,
and quite a faultless nose. But the great charm of the woman was her
splendid bearing, and her instinctive culture.
Just how this meeting began Alfred Randal could never afterwards quite
recall. He could remember in vivid details the first picture of this
superb woman as she arose to greet him, but then, just then, the love
of his youth that had seemed to sleep under an anaesthetic for so many
years, suddenly woke into glorious life, and gushed into his heart
and overran his senses with its marvellous vitality. What transpired
thereafter was provokingly indistinct. He remembered being presented to
the aunt, Mrs. Beaufort, and her astonishment, and her incredulous
query as to whether he lived in this “terrible country” to which he had
replied that he could not be said to live, but that it was his part to
exist in this rather primitive land. He remembered that the three sat
together in the drawing-room of the coach and talked of his return to
New York, of his ultimate success, and his assured future. He remembered
also that for the time he had forgotten the grave difficulty in the way
of such a future and his stern decision made but a few minutes before.
He remembered also that through it all he had been very foolish and very
confident and idiotically happy, and how at the parting he had kissed
Miss Lanmar's hand and blushed like a school-girl, and then jumped down
from the moving train at the peril of his life.
The Governor stood upon the platform and watched the great train as
it thundered away in the distance. The interview which had just ended,
although a thing apparently unreal, had swept him out from under the
influence of an illusion that had served to make his life in the great
Southwest bearable, even happy. From this time forth it could never
be what it had been. The man felt like one who, having been so long a
captive in a dungeon that he was half content, and his memories of
the world had become vague and unreal, is suddenly and without warning
lifted into the sunshine of the great glorious world and held there
until his heart is filled to drunkenness with the beauty of it all, and
then, ruthlessly and on the instant, is thrust back into the rayless
gloom of his dungeon.
Randal stood for a time looking at the rows of dim lights scattered
about the station like dismal fireflies. Then he crossed to the freight
train upon which he was to return and climbed up into the cab with the
driver.
“What time shall we get in?” he asked.
“By the top of the night, Governor, if we have luck,” answered the
driver, pulling open the throttle.
The engine snorted and pounded along in the dark like some huge beast.
The Governor sat in the cab window and looked out. The night air was
sweet and cool, his face was hot. Two hours before he had decided what
he should do, and dismissed the matter; but new and powerful elements
had arisen and ordered him to rehear and decide anew.
Ambercrombie Hergan had lost and wasted the money of the State. There
was now a deficit in his accounts of some fifty thousand dollars. There
was no way by which this loss could be met unless Randal should pay it,
and to do this would take everything he had on earth. It would mean the
sacrifice of his mining stock, which, if held, promised great returns.
It would be ruin, utter ruin, to make good the loss; yet the gambler,
although a gambler, was his friend, and two hours before he had not
hesitated at all.
Motives, mighty, selfish motives, which until this hour he had beaten
back, now leaped up clamoring to be heard, howling for time against his
decision, time to show the right of their cause, the wisdom of it, the
ultimate justice of it. Something asked him roughly what right had he to
jeopardize the future of this woman who loved him. What right had he to
deceive, to sacrifice her? Who was Hergan that he should be considered
against this woman? Who, but a reckless and improvident adventurer? It
was not his own happiness urged the something; that would be a matter of
little moment. It was the happiness of another, and that other was true,
innocent of wrong, superlatively just. What contrast could be drawn
between the woman and this gambler? Duty? What duty could he owe to
the irresponsible Hergan that could approach in the slightest part the
measure of the duty which he owed to the woman who had trusted him for
so many years, and waited, and loved him?
Yet against all this, certain pictures came up from the past,--vivid,
proclaiming a mighty truth, a truth which the man knew and acknowledged
in his heart, the truth that if these positions were reversed, Hergan,
gambler though he was, would not hesitate for a moment. Had he hesitated
that morning in the Rio Grande when Randal's horse had fallen and
was being swept down with the current, carrying his master under him,
tangled in the stirrup strap? Had he hesitated when it became necessary
deliberately to steal and burn the bogus ballots in Garfield County,
when to do so seemed little less than deliberate suicide? Had he
hesitated that terrible day on the Rio Sonora, when there was no time
for warning, but time only to spring forward and take the knife in his
shoulder? Had this man ever hesitated when the welfare of Randal was
at stake? Would he not gladly, and without comment, give up his life
to-morrow if the Governor should ask it of him?
The Governor passed his hand across his forehead and closed his eyes.
When he opened them he had decided, and against this second decision
there should be now no appeal and no rehearing.