Part 18 (1/2)

The ex-convict was not accustomed to thought. In its stead, he had subst.i.tuted brooding. Thought is hard and tinged with torture for the brain that has not been reflective. Yet now he must think.

Minerva had been to the college. She yearned for even a greater degree of education. He had built this room because he understood how she shrank from the squalid and unclean life of the mountain cabin--and in all the mountains was no more squalid creature than himself. She despised the idea of blood-reprisal, and to forego that would, by his standards, mean a baser surrender than for a priest to repudiate his cloth.

He was ignorant, penniless, vindictive. She was, to his thinking, learned, fastidious and pledged to the new ”fotched-on” order.

Should he tell her that he loved her, provided he could imagine his stoic lips shaping such phrases, she could only be offended and distressed. He must not tell her. That one thing seemed certain, and, as he stood there, masking the storm in his thin breast under a scowling visage of tightly compressed lips and drawn brow, he was being racked by a yearning greater than he had ever known or imagined.

How long he remained rigid and silent he did not know, but at last he heard her voice, speaking very softly:

”Newty, you have been very good to me. You did all this for me--and yet even you don't know how much it means to me.”

”Hit warn't nothin',” he answered in a dead voice. Then, having resolved not to betray himself, he found himself crying out to his own surprise, in a tumult of fierce and pa.s.sionate feeling: ”I'd go plumb down inter h.e.l.l, fer ye, M'nervy.”

The girl looked up, then she rose unsteadily, and laid a hand on his arm. Her eyes were gazing very fixedly into his, and she spoke eagerly:

”You say you'd do that--for me. Do something else, Newty. Come--out of a life that's not much better than h.e.l.l--for me.”

He spoke quietly again, though under her finger-touch his arm shook as if it were suddenly palsied:

”I don't jest plumb understand ye.”

”Give it all up, Newty.” She was talking excitedly, and her words came fast. ”Give up this idea of vengeance. It's all wrong and mistaken--and wicked. It hurts you most of all. You said out there to-night that this was the only life you ever knew--”

”This an' ther penitenshery,” he corrected her; and a harsh note stole into the words as he uttered them.

”There are other lives you can know. Can't you forego this idea of vengeance? Can't you forget it?”

The man gave a short and hollow laugh.

”I reckon so,” he answered. Then, as his eyes flashed wildly, his utterance rose and snapped out the remainder of his response. ”When Henry Falkins is dead an' buried--d.a.m.n him!”

Minerva stood looking into the face that was close to her own. It was a face branded and stamped with so fierce a vindictiveness that she realized the hopelessness of argument. It would have been as easy to persuade a maniac to become sane by asking him to lay aside his lunacy.

She turned and dropped into her chair, then, looking straight ahead at the blazing logs, she went on, holding her voice steady and even:

”When you were in jail, Newty--at Jackson--I tried to see you. But they--they wouldn't let me.”

The bitterness left his eyes, and he bent suddenly forward.

”Ye tried ter see me--in ther jail-house? What fer did ye do thet?”

”I wanted to tell you, I was sorry--and to beg you to give up--your idea. I didn't know until that day that you were nursing a grudge--against Mr. Falkins.”

For a while, Newt stood silent. Finally, he said curtly:

”I'm obleeged ter ye.”

”But that isn't all, Newt.” Minerva's hands were clasped in her lap, and the fingers twined themselves nervously and tightened as she went on.

”I've got to tell you all of it. I heard that morning--what you aimed to do--and I went to Jackson--to warn him.”