Part 16 (1/2)
Sorenson made an angry gesture at what he considered an evasion.
”Janet, listen. He said he saw you at the edge of town, that you were both bare-headed, standing close together, arms locked. Good heavens, can't you imagine my feelings on hearing what he had to say! He stopped me on the street and drew me aside to put me on my guard, he said. Burkhardt wouldn't just make up a yarn like that against you, and he's a good friend of mine. He didn't say half what he suggested.”
The girl turned her face towards the house, shut her eyes for an instant. She could picture the rider's brutal leering face and unspoken insinuations; and her brain also placed in the scene her lover greedily if angrily drinking in the tale. Harkening to it instead of knocking the man down, that was the worst of it.
Harkening--and believing.
”I'll not deign to resent your remark of meeting Mr. Weir 'on the quiet',” said she, quietly. ”I met him on the road accidentally.”
”Don't you think I'm ent.i.tled to know something about it?” he asked, with an edged tone.
”What is it you desire to know?”
Nearly an oath of wrath escaped his mouth, but he kept his control.
”Janet, you know what kind of a man he is,” he said. ”You know what I feel against him, and father, and all our friends, and the town. And the whole town, too, will probably hear of this, with a lot of gossip added that isn't true.”
”But I met him accidentally.”
”You didn't have to chat with him like an old friend.”
Janet Hosmer gave him a slow, meditative look.
”How do you know how I talked with him?”
”You talked with him. That in itself was too much.”
”I don't view it in that light,” she responded. ”He was perfectly civil. Whatever public opinion may be regarding the shooting, I know he killed the man in self-defence. So that's nothing against him. You would have done the same in his place.”
Ed Sorenson leaned towards her.
”You were mistaken, Janet. I've said before that I feared you were, but the prosecuting attorney has witnesses to the gun-play that he's dug up. Martinez saw nothing; how could he from inside the office? And remember that you're only a girl, Janet; in the darkness and with the excitement you were confused. I haven't a doubt this scoundrel Weir made you believe you saw what never occurred, when you appeared in Martinez' office. When you've thought it over, you'll realize that yourself. These new witnesses tell just the reverse of what you fancied happened. I'm going to see that you're away from San Mateo when the man's tried, as he will be.”
No reply coming from her, he continued:
”He deceived you then and he'll endeavor to poison your mind right along. You're too trustful. Now, I was angry at first, but if there was anything in this meeting to-night that was out of the way, it was his doing, I know. If he got familiar with you, as Burkhardt hinted----”
”Well?”
”I'll kill the dog with my own hands!”
”You may rest easy. His conduct was irreproachable, Mr. Burkhardt to the contrary.”
Sorenson regarded her in perplexity, divided between anger and doubts.
Too, a new feeling unaccountably sprang into his breast--jealousy. In the end apprehension all at once filled his mind, darkening his face and bringing down his brows.
Uneasy as at first he had been after the row in the restaurant, he had eventually dismissed the matter from his mind, for no rumor of it had reached San Mateo. Neither Weir nor Johnson, the girl's father, had blabbed of it, so his alarm pa.s.sed; they didn't want to talk of it for the girl's sake, any more than he wished it known, was his grinning conclusion. The deuce would have been to pay if Janet had got wind of the business. But now his fears came winging back a hundred-fold as he stared at her.
”What did he say to you?” he asked, in a tense voice.