Part 17 (1/2)
Which, being translated into English, signified that no one was at home.
Graham felt as if a flood of cold water had been dashed into his face.
He s.h.i.+vered, as he turned from the door and descended the steps; and yet before he had walked two miles in the familiar road which led to his tower, he gave a profound sigh of relief. It was better so! The exercise had cooled his fevered blood; the crisp forest air had brought reason back to his pa.s.sion-tossed breast. It was better that he had not seen her. Something of the fatalist was there about this strong-brained rationalist. He half fancied that it was not chance alone which had decreed that Millicent should be absent from the Ranch that day. But he sang no more as he had done on his way to the house; and his serious face lost that smile of hope which had lighted the eyes and touched the mouth into an unaccustomed softness. If he was silent, the wild birds were melodious, and he walked between choirs of invisible songsters; while the whirring of a partridge, the fleet step of a wild fox in the thicket, gave him the a.s.surance that he was not alone in the mysterious wood. At last the distance was accomplished; and at high noon, when the shadows had all shrunk back into the tall trees before the ardent heat of the sun, he reached the ruin of the old church. He leaned against the fragment of a pillar which stood at the foot of the staircase, and looked up at the square gray tower with its close-clinging pall of moss and yellow lichens. From a rift in the wall burst a blaze of color,--a clump of wallflowers stretching its flame of blossoms upward toward his window. He noticed that the cas.e.m.e.nt was open; and as he looked he saw the fluttering of a bit of drapery over the edge of the sill. It must have been the curtain, of course; but the sight of it gave him a strange sensation, not unlike one that he had experienced before on that spot, when he had been tricked by the moonlight into fancying that there was a woman straying in the aisles of the old church. He remembered that night and what it had revealed to him; and at the black thought the sky seemed to have darkened over his head. He had stood dreaming at the tower foot for fifteen minutes, and in that time the sky had become overcast, a cold wind had sprung up and now blew into his face, carrying a host of big drops with it. The rain had come at last! After the long spring and summer unmarred by clouded skies or rude gusts, the first rain had come. With a rough tenderness it dashed itself against the parched land and shook the tall trees till they murmured a delighted welcome. The dusty ferns growing low down about the knees of the great trees caught the happy news, and uncurled their tender fernlings that they might feel the welcome touch of the rain-drops, as they filtered through the greedy leaves and raced down the straight stems to reach the myriads of thirsty mouths yearning for their balm. The rain had come; and the languid stream, which had pined and shrunk to a pitiful thread of water, leaped joyously down its rocky bed. It would grow strong and young and beautiful again; its banks would bloom with flowers; its course would no longer run painfully over heated stones, between seared brown edges,--the rain had come!
On the narrow stairway Graham paused, near the top. Something s.h.i.+ning lay on the step before him. The object proved to be a small silver arrow, tipped with a feather of brilliants. He picked up the jewelled toy, which he had once before held in his hand,--one evening when he had withdrawn it from the soft tresses which it caught together behind a small white ear. His hand trembled as he remembered the soft rus.h.i.+ng of silken curls over his arm, the fragrance which had floated about him, the look of loving reproach which had punished his audacity. Wondering how the arrow had found its way to the threshold of his tower, Graham tried to open the heavy door with his key. To his surprise it refused to yield; the bolt was drawn on the inside. Some one was in his tower.
Thinking that the Frenchman, in whose care his room had been left, might be at work, he lifted the heavy bra.s.s dolphin which served for a knocker, and rapped loudly. There was no answer. The rain by this time was falling in torrents. He was entirely without shelter; and he knocked a second time, calling out to know who was inside the room. He heard a light step approach the door, and a hand was laid upon the lock.
The old wood-cutter could never have walked with that musical footstep; the soft rustle of garments could not have been made by him. Graham's heart leaped from its quiet beating into a very tumult of pulsations, as the bolt was gradually drawn and the heavy door swung slowly open. On the threshold of his lonely tower stood Millicent, with downcast eyes and pale face. For a moment he was silent, looking at her, doubting his own vision; fearing to move lest she should vanish from before his eager eyes as she did in his dreams. Could this beautiful, colorless creature, with marble cheeks and fallen lids, with sombre garments and nerveless, pallid hands crossed upon the breast, be Millicent Almsford?
He stepped nearer with outstretched hands to touch her, to feel that it was in verity the woman who had lain weeping at his feet that night among the roses. He would have folded her to his breast, but the white lids flashed open, the sad, tear-worn eyes looked into his own with an expression which made him draw back; and the girl, without a word, pa.s.sed out of the doorway and stood unprotected in the driving storm.
Before her mute grief, his pa.s.sionate longing was turned to a great and holy pity. He stood beside her and said gently,--
”Millicent, you will not leave me without a word? You must not go out into the storm; I will leave you here alone, if you wish, until the rain is over. Do not be so cruel as to doubt me, dear one.”
He stopped, for his words had made her tremble. She feared him no longer, and with a little sigh laid her hand in his and suffered him to lead her into the room. The artist placed his visitor in a great chair, and busied himself in making a fire on his cold hearth.
”Now this is more cheerful, fair lady, is it not?” he cried, in a pleasant voice. ”And pray tell me what brought you to my lonely dwelling.”
”I had always wanted to see your tower, Graham; and this morning they all went to San Francisco for the day, and I thought I would ride over and look at it from the outside. I found old John airing the room, and accepted his invitation to rest here for half an hour before riding home. He came up just now to tell me that it was going to rain, but as he thought it would be only a shower he had put my horse under shelter.
This is how I came here; and now tell me what brought you so unexpectedly from town.”
”I cannot tell, white one. Your will, perhaps.”
”Nay, friend, that has never swayed thee one hair's-breadth from thine appointed course.”
He shook his head sadly, and looked out of the window. She did not know--it was better for her perhaps that she never should know--how great an influence she had wielded over his life. She did not know that for her, faith and youth had bloomed in his heart when he had thought them dead. Her untruth was killing them, and their death-agony had shaken and worn him cruelly. She thought him hard and relentless. It might be easier for her to dull the pain in her heart, with this consciousness of injury received. He would never tell her of the irreparable wrong she had done him. If he was not forgiving he was magnanimous. No word of reproach should pa.s.s his lips.
Outside the rain was pouring down, but less steadily; the patter of the drops sounded more and more lightly on the window-panes. The shower would not long continue. Graham took note of the clearing sky, and sighed heavily. With all her faults he loved her; the tower would be lonelier than ever when she had flitted from it like a sprite of the rain-storm. The great trees outside lifted up their branches with a mighty wailing, echoing his sigh; and Millicent, as if conscious that love was pleading against pride in that strong heart which had never learned the lesson of forgiveness, turned her white, appealing face towards him. The man's being had been swept that day with fiery impulses from the first moment of consciousness. Pa.s.sionate love, pity, scorn, and anger had in turn written their impress on his mobile face.
He came close to her side, and taking both her hands in his, knelt at her side:
”O Millicent, Millicent! could he not have spared you? We could have loved each other so truly! Poor child, poor child! What fiend was he to have betrayed you! But now it can never be, never, never, never!”
The words rang out drearily, the death-knell of all that had made life beautiful to them both. The pale girl sat motionless, speechless, her eyes dark with horror, her hands nerveless in his pa.s.sionate grasp.
Tears fell upon those white fingers which he had so often kissed,--cruel tears wrung from the bruised heart of the man she loved; tears that she had no power to check, tears that had their source in her own sin. In that hour of agony, if remorse may in aught atone for error, Millicent must have been forgiven of the angels. The proud man knew how to suffer, but he could not forgive. He arose and dashed the tears from his eyes; they had cost him mortal pain.
The rain was over, the gray sky had cleared; and Millicent, like a gray shadow, slipped from the tower, leaving her lover alone, with the mocking sunlight s.h.i.+ning on his dark, tear-stained face.
CHAPTER XVII.
”Our bread was such as captives' tears Have moistened many a thousand years, Since man first pent his brother men Like brutes within an iron den.”
It was a long chase that brought Hal Deering and Maurice Galbraith face to face with the ruffian, whom Hal readily identified. They found him with a group of new-found friends in the chief liquor saloon of a small, rather disreputable town, fifty miles from the Ranch. When the two young men entered the place, the man they were looking for asked them to join in the ”all-round drink” he was about to ”stand treat for,” which invitation was promptly declined by Hal Deering. After a whispered word, Galbraith had left the shop; and Hal, seating himself at a table, awaited the return of his friend, quietly enduring the insulting remarks which the offended Horton heaped upon him. The loafers in the shop had a kindly feeling toward the man who had treated them, and did not discourage him in his attempts to force the new-comer into a quarrel.
But Hal was imperturbable, and answered neither with look nor word.
Stimulated by the whiskey he had imbibed, and the admiring attention of his friends, the rowdy finally called out in a brutal voice,--
”If you think yerself too good to drink with this yere crowd, p'raps yer would n't mind amusing 'em by showing 'em the last style of dancing down in 'Frisco. 'T would raley please us to see you step out.”
As he spoke he drew his pistol from his belt and pointed it at Deering.