THE BREAKING POINT
Eve and Will were at supper. The girl's brown eyes had lost their old
gentle smile. Their soft depths no longer contained that well of
girlish hope, that trusting joy of life. It seemed as if the curtain
of romance had been torn aside, and the mouldering skeleton of life
had been laid bare to her. There was trouble and pain in her look,
there was fear, too; nor was it quite plain the nature of her fear. It
may have been that fear of the future which comes to natures where
love is the mainspring of responsibility. It may have been the fear of
the weaker vessel, where harshness and brutality are threatened. It
may have been a fear inspired by health already undermined by anxiety
and worry. The old happy light was utterly gone from her eyes as she
silently partook of the frugal supper her own hands had prepared.
Will Henderson moodily devoured his food at the opposite end of the
table. The third of their household was not there. Elia rarely took
his meals with them. He preferred them by himself, for he hated and
dreaded Will's tongue, which, though held in some check when he was
sober, never failed to sting the boy when Silas Rocket's whiskey had
done its work.
The meal was nearly finished, and husband and wife had exchanged not a
single word. Eve wished to talk; there was so much she wanted to say
to him. The flame of her love still burned in her gentle bosom, but it
was a flame sorely blown about by the storm winds of their brief
married life. But somehow she could not utter the words she wanted to.
There was no encouragement. There was a definite but intangible bar to
their expression. The brutal silence of the man chilled her, and
frightened her.
Finally it was he who spoke, and he made some sort of effort to hide
the determination lying behind his words.
"How much money have you got, Eve?" he demanded, pushing his plate
away with a movement which belied his tone. It was a question which
had a familiar ring to the ears of the troubled girl.
"Thirty dollars," she said patiently. Then she sighed.
The man promptly threw aside all further mask.
"For God's sake don't sigh like that! You'll be sniveling directly.
One would think I was doin' you an injury asking you a simple
question."
"It's not that, Will. I'm thinking of what's going to happen when
that's gone. It's got to last us a month. Then I get my money from
Carrie Horsley and Mrs. Crombie. They owe me seventy dollars between
them for their summer suits. I've got several orders, but folks are
tight here for money, and it's always a matter of waiting."
"Can't you get an advance from 'em?"
That frightened look suddenly leaped again into the girl's eyes.
"Oh, Will!"
"Oh, don't start that game!" the man retorted savagely. "We've got to
live, I s'pose. You'll earn the money. That sort of thing is done in
every business. You make me sick." He lit his pipe and blew great
clouds of smoke across the table. "I tell you what it is, we can't
afford to keep your brother doing nothing all the time. If you insist
on keeping him you must find the money--somewhere. It's no use being
proud. We're hard up, and if people owe you money, well--dun 'em for
it. I don't know how it is, but this darned business of yours seems to
have gone to pieces."
"It's not gone to pieces, Will," Eve protested. "I've made more money
this last four months than ever before." The girl's manner had a
patience in it that came from her brief but bitter experiences.
"Then what's become of the money?"
But Eve's patience had its limits. The cruel injustice of his sneering
question drove her beyond endurance.
"Oh, Will," she cried, "and you can sit there and ask such a
question! Where has it gone?" She laughed without any mirth. "It's
gone with the rest, down at the saloon, where you've gambled it
away. It's gone because I've been a weak fool and listened to your
talk of gambling schemes which have never once come off. Oh, Will, I
don't want to throw this all up at you. Indeed, indeed, I don't. But
you drive me to it with your unkindness, which--which I can't
understand. Don't you see, dear, that I want to make you happy,
that I want to help you? You must see it, and yet you treat me
worse--oh, worse than a nigger! Why is it? What have I done? God
knows you can have all, everything I possess in the world. I would do
anything for you, but--but--you---- Sometimes I think you have
learned to hate me. Sometimes I think the very sight of me rouses
all that is worst in you. What is it, dear? What is it that has
come between us? What have I done to make you like this?"
She paused, her eyes full of that pain and misery which her tongue
could never adequately express. She wanted to open her heart to him,
to let him see all the gold of her feelings for him, but his moody
unresponsiveness set her tongue faltering and left her groping blindly
for the cause of the trouble between them.
It was some moments before Will answered her. He sat glaring at the
table, the smoke of his pipe clouding the still air of the neat
kitchen. He knew he was facing a critical moment in their lives. He
saw dimly that he had, for his own interests, gone a shade too far.
Eve was not a weakling, she was a woman of distinct character, and
even in his dull, besotted way he detected at last that note of
rebellion underlying her appeal. Suddenly he looked up and smiled.
But it was not altogether a pleasant smile. It was against his
inclination, and was ready to vanish on the smallest provocation.
"You're taking things wrong, Eve," he said, and the strain of
attempting a conciliatory attitude made the words come sharply. "What
do I want your money for, but to try and make more with it? Do you
think I want you to keep me? I haven't come to that yet." His tone was
rapidly losing its veneer of restraint. "Guess I can work all right.
No, no, my girl, you haven't got to keep me yet. But money gets money,
and you ought to realize it. I admit my luck at 'draw' has been
bad--rotten!" He violently knocked his pipe out on a plate. "But it's
got to change. I can play with the best of 'em, an' they play a
straight game. What's losing a few nights, if, in the end, I get a big
stake? Why Restless helped himself to a hundred dollars last night.
And I'm going to to-night."
[Illustration: He sat glaring at the table, the smoke of his pipe
clouding the still air of the neat kitchen.]
"But, Will, you've said that every night for the last month. Why not
be fair with yourself? Your luck is out; give it up. Will, give up the
saloon for--for my sake. Do, dear." Eve rose and went round to the
man's side, and laid a tenderly persuasive hand upon his shoulder. She
was only waiting for a fraction of encouragement. But that fraction
was not forthcoming. Instead he shook her off. But he tried to do it
pleasantly.
"Here, sit you down, Eve, and listen to me. I'm going to tell you
something that I hadn't intended to, only--only you're bothering such
a hell of a lot."
His language passed. She was used to it now. And she sat shrinking at
his rebuff, but curious and half fearful at what he might have to tell
her.
"I'm going to have a flutter to-night, no matter what comes, make your
mind up to that. And, win or lose, it's my last. Get that? But I've
got a definite reason for it. You see I haven't been as idle as you
think. I've been hunting around on the trail of Peter Blunt. Folks all
think him a fool, and cranky some. I never did. He's been a gold
prospector most of his life. And it's not likely he don't know. Well,
I'm not giving you a long yarn, and to cut it short, I'm right on to a
big find. At least I've got color in a placer up at the head waters,
and to-morrow I go out to work it for all it's worth. No, I'm not
going to tell even you where it is. You see it's a placer, and anybody
could work it, and I'd be cut clean out if others got to know where it
was. You savvee?"
Eve nodded, but without conviction. The man detected her lack of
belief, and that brutal light which was so often in his eyes now
suddenly flamed up. But after a moment of effort he banished it, and
resorted to an imitation of jocularity.
"So now, old girl, hand over that thirty dollars. I'm going to make a
'coup,' and to-morrow begins a period of--gold. I give you my word you
shall get it--sure as I'm a living man. I'm not talking foolish. The
shining yellow stuff is there for the taking. And so easy, too."
He waited with a grin of cunning on his lips. He was intoxicated with
his own surety. And, curiously, well as Eve knew him, that certainty
communicated itself to her in spite of her reason. But the matter of
handing over the thirty dollars was different.
A hard light crept into her eyes as she looked down at him from where
she stood. Though he did not know it, he was rapidly killing all the
love she had for him. Eve was one of those women who can love with
every throb of their being. Self had no place in her. The man she
loved was, as a natural consequence, her all. Kill her love and she
could be as cold and indifferent as marble. At one time in their brief
married life those dollars would never have been considered. They
would have been his without the asking. Now----
She shook her head decidedly.
"You can't have them," she said firmly. "They've got to keep us for a
month. If you depend on them for a game, you had better wait till you
get the gold from your placer." She moved away, talking as she went.
"There's not only ourselves to consider. There's Elia. I----"
But she got no further. The mention of her brother's name suddenly
infuriated the man.
"Don't talk to me of that little devil!" he cried. "I want those
thirty dollars, d'you understand?" He crashed his fist on the table
and set the supper things clattering. "You talk to me of Elia! That
devil's imp has been in the way ever since we got married. And d'you
think I'm going to stand for him now?" He sprang to his feet, his eyes
blazing with that fury which of late he rarely took the trouble to
keep in check. "See here," he cried, "you've preached to me enough for
one night, and, fool-like, I've listened to you. I listen to no more.
So, just get busy and hand over those dollars."
But if he was in a fury, he had contrived to stir Eve as he had never
stirred her before.
"You'll not get a cent of them," she cried, her eyes lighting with
sudden cold anger.
For a moment they stood eyeing each other. There was no flinching in
Eve now, no appeal, no fear. And the man's fury was driving him
whither it would. He was gathering himself for a final outburst, and
when it came it was evident he had lost all control of himself.
"You ----! I'll have those dollars if I have to take 'em!"
"You shall not!"
Will flung his pipe to the ground and dashed at Eve like a madman. He
caught her by the shoulders, and gripped the warm rounded flesh until
the pain made her writhe under his clutch.
"Where are they?" he demanded, with another furious oath. "I'm going
to have 'em. Speak! Speak, you ---- or I'll----"
But Eve was obdurate. Her courage was greater than her strength. He
shook her violently, clutching at her shoulders as though to squeeze
the information he needed out of her. But he got no answer, and, in a
sudden access of demoniacal rage, he swung her round and hurled her
across the room with all his strength. She fell with a thud, and
beyond a low moan lay quite still. Her head had struck the sharp angle
of the coal box.
In a moment the man had passed into the bedroom in search of the
money. Nor did he have to search far. Eve kept her money in one place
always, and he knew where it was. Having possessed himself of the roll
of bills he came out into the kitchen. He looked about him, and his
furious eyes fell upon the prostrate form of his wife. She was lying
beside the coal box in the attitude in which she had fallen. He went
over to her, and stood for a second gazing down at the result of his
handiwork.
But there was neither pity nor remorse in his heart. For the time at
least he hated her. She had dared to defy him, she had twitted him
with his gaming, she had refused him--in favor of Elia. He told
himself all this, and, as he looked down at the still figure, he told
himself it served her right, and that she would know better in the
future. But he waited until he detected the feeble rise and fall of
her bosom. Then he went out, conscious of a certain feeling of relief
in spite of his rage.