It was late at night, and Miss Schuyler, sitting alone in Hetty's room,
found the time pass very heavily. She had raised her voice in warning when
the cow-boys mounted the night Grant had ridden away with Hetty, and had
seen the fugitives vanish into the darkness, but since then she had had no
news of them, for while Breckenridge had arrived at Cedar the next day, in
custody of two mounted men, nobody would tell him what had really
happened. Her first impulse had been to ask for an escort to the depot and
take the cars for New York, but she was intensely anxious to discover
whether Hetty had evaded pursuit, and her pride forbade her slipping away
without announcing her intention to Torrance, who had not yet come back to
the Range. She felt that something was due to him, especially as she had
not regained the house unnoticed when the pursuit commenced.
Rising, she moved restlessly up and down the room; but that in no way
lessened the suspense, and sitting down again she resolutely took up a
book, but she listened instead of reading it. There was, however, no sound
from the prairie, and the house seemed exasperatingly still.
"You will have to shake this nervousness off or you will make a fool of
yourself before that man," she muttered.
She felt that she had sat there a very long while, though the clock showed
that scarcely an hour had passed, when at last there was a rattle of
wheels and a trampling of hoofs outside. The great door opened, and after
that there was an apparently interminable silence, until Hetty's maid came
in.
"If it is convenient, Mr. Torrance would like to speak to you," she said.
Flora Schuyler rose and followed the girl down the corridor; but her heart
beat faster than usual when the door of Torrance's room closed behind her.
The stove was no longer lighted, and Torrance stood beside the hearth,
which was littered with half-consumed papers, and Miss Schuyler, who knew
his precision in dress, noticed that he still wore the bespattered
garments he had ridden in. But it was the grimness of his face, and the
weariness in his pose, which seized her attention and aroused a curious
sympathy for him. He glanced at her sharply, with stern, dark eyes.
"I have to thank you for coming, but I am going to talk plainly," he said.
"You connived at the meetings between my daughter and the rascally
adventurer who has married her?"
"They are married?" exclaimed Miss Schuyler in her eagerness, and the next
moment felt the blood rise to her face as she realized that she had
blundered in admitting any doubt upon the subject. "I mean, of course,
that I wondered whether Mr. Grant could have arranged it so soon."
"You seem to attach a good deal of importance to the ceremony," Torrance
said, with a bitter smile. "Marriage is quite easy in this country."
Miss Schuyler was not deficient in courage of one kind, and she looked at
him steadily. "I came down to speak to you because it seemed your due,"
she said, "but I have no intention of listening to any jibes at my
friends."
Torrance made her a little half-respectful and half-ironical inclination.
"Then will you be good enough to answer my question?"
"Though most of the few meetings were accidental, I went with Hetty
intentionally on two occasions because it seemed fitting."
"It seemed fitting that a girl should betray her father to the man who
wanted to ruin him, supply him with the dollars that helped him in his
scheme, and, more than all, warn him of each move we made! Well, my
standard is not very high, but the most cruel blow I have had to bear was
the discovery that my daughter had fallen so far."
The hoarseness of his voice, and the sight of the damp upon his forehead,
had a calming effect upon Miss Schuyler. Her anger against the old man had
given place to pity, for she decided that what had passed would have
excited most men's suspicions, and it was not in Hetty's defence alone she
made an effort to undeceive him.
"I am going to answer you plainly, and I think an examination of Hetty's
cheque-book and the money she left behind will bear me out," she said.
"Once only did Hetty give Mr. Grant any dollars--fifty of them, I think,
to feed some hungry children. He would not take them until she assured him
that they were a part of a small annuity left her by her mother, and that
not one of them came from you. I also know that Mr. Grant allowed his
friends to suspect him of being bribed by you sooner than tell them where
he obtained the dollars in question. The adventurer dealt most honourably
with you. Your daughter twice disclosed your plans, once when Clavering
had plotted Grant's arrest, and again when had she not done so it would
most assuredly have led to the destruction of the cattle-train. Mr.
Clavering came near making a horrible blunder on that occasion, and but
for Hetty's warning not a head of your stock would have reached Omaha."
Her tone carried conviction with it, as did the flash in her eyes, but
Torrance's smile was sardonic. "You would try to persuade me Larry saved
the train out of goodwill to us?"
"He did it, knowing what it was going to cost him, to prevent the men he
led starting on a course of outrage and lawlessness."
"And they have paid him for it!"
"I fancy that is outside the question," said Miss Schuyler. "Twice, when
every good impulse that is in our kind laid her under compulsion, Hetty
warned the man she loved, but at no other time did a word to your
prejudice pass her lips; and if she had spoken it Grant would not have
listened. Hetty was loyal, and he treated you with a fairness that none of
you merited. You sent the Sheriff a bribe and an order for his arrest, and
by inadvertence it fell into his hands. He brought it back here unopened
at his peril."
Torrance looked at her in astonishment. "He brought back my letter to the
Sheriff?"
"Yes. There was nothing else a man of that kind could have done."
Torrance stood silent for a space, and then, stooping, picked up a
half-burnt paper from the hearth, glanced at it with a curious expression,
and flung it into the embers. When it had charred away he turned to Miss
Schuyler.
"You have shown yourself a good friend," he said gravely. "Still, you may
understand the other side of the question if you listen to me."
He turned and pointed to an empty tin case, and the charred papers in the
hearth. "That is the end of the plans of half a lifetime--and they were
all for Hetty. I had no one else after her mother was taken from me, and I
scraped the dollars together for her, that she should have what her heart
could wish for, and the enjoyments her parents had never known; and while
I did so I and the others built up the prosperity of the cattle country.
We fed the railroads and built the towns, and when we would have rested,
Larry and his friends took hold. You see what they have made of it--a
great industry ruined, the country under martial law, its commerce
crippled, and the proclamation that can only mean disaster to us hung out
everywhere. My daughter turned against me--and nothing left me but to go
out, a wanderer! Larry has done his work thoroughly, and you would have me
make friends with him?"
Miss Schuyler made a little sympathetic gesture, for he seemed very jaded
and weary. "No," she said. "One could not expect too much, but Hetty is
your daughter, the only one you have, and for her mother's sake you will
at least do nothing that would embitter her life."
Torrance looked at her with a curious smile. "There is nothing I could do.
Larry and the rabble are our masters now; but I will see her once before I
go away. Is there any other thing--that would be a little easier--I could
do to please you?"
"Yes. You could release Mr. Breckenridge."
Torrance turned and struck a bell. "I had almost forgotten him. Will you
wait and see me do what you have asked me?"
In a few minutes more Breckenridge was ushered in. He smiled at Miss
Schuyler, and made Torrance a slight, dignified salutation. Torrance
acknowledged it courteously.
"You have yourself to blame for any inconvenience you have been put to,
Mr. Breckenridge," he said. "You conspired to assist your partner in an
undertaking you could not expect me to forgive."
"No," said Breckenridge. "I offered to ride with Larry, and he would not
have me. I went without him knowing it and made my plans myself?"
"This is the truth?"
Breckenridge straightened himself and looked at Torrance with a little
flash in his eye. "You must take my word--I shall not substantiate it. If
you had had an army corps of cut-throats ready to do what you told them
that night, Larry would have gone alone."
Torrance nodded gravely. "It is taken. At least, you bluffed us into
following you."
"Yes," and Breckenridge smiled, "I did. I also prevented my companion
shooting one of your friends, as he seemed quite anxious to do. I don't
wish to hurt your feelings, sir, but I have not the least regret for
anything I did that night."
"Then, you are still very bitter against me?"
Breckenridge considered. "No, sir. The one man I am bitter against is
Clavering. Now, it may sound presumptuous, and not come very well from me,
but I believe that Clavering, for his own purposes, forced your hand, and
I had a certain respect for you, if only because of your thoroughness. You
see, one can't help realizing that you can look at every question quite
differently."
Torrance smiled drily. "Then if you are not too proud to be my guest
to-night, I should be glad of your company and will find you a horse to
take you back to Fremont when it suits you."
Breckenridge, for some reason that was not very apparent, seemed pleased
to agree, but a faint smile just showed in Torrance's eyes when he went
out again. Then, he turned to Miss Schuyler.
"I wonder what Mr. Clavering has done to win everybody's dislike," he
said. "You do not seem anxious to plead for him."
Flora Schuyler's face grew almost vindictive. "No," she said, "I don't. I
can, however, mention one thing I find it difficult to forgive him. When
you promised him Hetty he had found favour with her maid, and made the
most of the fact. It was not flattering to your daughter or my friend. He
may not have told you that he promised to marry her."
Torrance stared at her a moment, a dark flush rising to his forehead. "You
are quite sure?"
"Ask the girl," said Flora Schuyler.
Torrance struck the bell again, and waited until the maid came in. "I
understand Mr. Clavering promised to marry you," he said very quietly.
"You would be willing to take him?"
The girl's face grew a trifle pale, and she glanced at Miss Schuyler who
nodded encouragingly.
"Yes," she said.
Torrance smiled, but Miss Schuyler did not like the glint in his eyes.
"Then," he said with incisive distinctness, "if you are in the same mind
in another week, he shall."
The girl went out, and Torrance, who had watched her face, turned to Miss
Schuyler. "I guess that young woman will be quite equal to him," he said.
"Well, I am putting my house in order, and I will ride over once and see
Hetty before I leave Cedar. You will stay here until she comes back to
Fremont, any way."
Miss Schuyler promised to do so, and stayed two days, as did Breckenridge,
who eventually rode to Fremont with her. He was very quiet during the
journey, and somewhat astonished his companion by gravely swinging off his
broad hat when they pulled upon the crest of a rise.
"I wonder if you would listen to something I wish to tell you," he said.
"The trouble is that it requires an explanation."
Flora Schuyler glanced at him thoughtfully, for she recognized the
symptoms now. Breckenridge appeared unusually grave, and there was a
little flush on his forehead, and a diffidence she had not hitherto seen
there, in his eyes.
"I can decide about the rest when I have heard the explanation," she
answered.
"Well," said Breckenridge slowly, "I came out West, so to speak, because I
was under a cloud. Now, I had never done anything distinctly bad, but my
one ability seemed to consist in spending money, and when I had got
through a good deal of it my friends sent me here, which was perhaps a
little rough on your country. Well, as it happened, I fell in with men and
women of the right kind--Larry, and somebody else who did more for me.
That made a difference; and while I was realizing how very little I had
got for the time and dollars I had wasted, affairs began to happen in the
old country, and I should have the responsibility of handling a good many
of them if I went back there now. It sounds abominably egotistical, but
you see what it is leading to?"
Miss Schuyler, who had no difficulty on that point, regarded him
thoughtfully. Breckenridge was a handsome young Englishman and she had
liked him from the first. Larry had fallen to another, and that perhaps
counted for more than a little to Breckenridge; but she had seen more than
one friend of hers contented with the second best. Still, she sighed
before she met his gaze.
"I think you must make it a little plainer," she said.
"Well," said Breckenridge quietly, "it is just this. You have done a good
deal for me already, and I almost dare to fancy I could be a credit to you
if you would do a little more, while it would carry conviction to my most
doubting relatives if you went back to the old country with me. They would
only have to see you."