"Travellers, or a party camped for the night," he said interestedly, as if the presence of other human beings must be welcomed gladly. He rode out toward the sound of that tinkling bell, and in a moment he was guided more certainly by the blaze of a camp-fire.

Harboro and Sylvia followed, and presently they were quite near to two quaint old carts, heaped high with mesquite fagots destined for the humbler hearths of Eagle Pass. Donkeys were tethered near by, and two Mexicans, quite old and docile in appearance, came forward to greet the intruders.

Valdez exchanged greetings with them. He knew something of the loneliness of these people's lives, and the only religion he had was a belief that one must be friendly to travellers. He produced a flask and invited the old men to drink; and each did so with much nice formality and thoroughly comprehensive toasts to Harboro and Sylvia.

Then Valdez replaced his flask in his pocket.

"God go with you!" he called as he went away, and "God go with you!" came back the placid, kindly echo.

And Sylvia realized suddenly that it was a very good thing indeed to be riding along that golden road through the desert.



CHAPTER XIX

Harboro became aware that some one was staring almost insolently at Sylvia.

They were seated on one of the benches disposed around the side of the stockade, and there was a great deal of noise all about them. In the open space of the stockade a score or more of young men and women were dancing to the music of violins and flutes and 'cellos. Nearly all who were not dancing were talking or laughing. People who did not see one another for months at a time were meeting and expressing their pleasure in staccato showers of words.

There were other noises in the near-by corral, in which Valdez had put their horses away with the other horses; and in still another place the work of barbecuing large quantities of meat had begun. A pleasant odor from the fire and the meat floated fitfully over the stockade. There was still an almost singular absence of wind, and the night was warm for a midwinter night.

Valdez was remaining for the time being with his guests, and he was making friendly comments upon the scene.

"It's chiefly the young people who are dancing now," he observed. "But you'll notice men and women of all ages around in the seats. They will become intoxicated with the joy of it all—and maybe with other things—later in the night, and then the dancing will begin in earnest."

For the moment an old type of fandango was being danced—a dance not wholly unlike a quadrille, in that it admitted a number of persons to the set and afforded opportunity for certain individual exhibitions of skill.

And then Harboro, glancing beyond Valdez, observed that a man of mature years—a Mexican—was regarding Sylvia fixedly. He could not help believing that there was something of insolence, too, in the man's gaze.

He lowered his voice and spoke to Valdez: "That man sitting by himself over there, the fourth—the fifth—from us. Do you know him?"

Valdez turned casually and seemed to be taking in the general scene. He brought his glance back to Harboro without seeming to have noticed anything in particular.

"That's one of your most—er—conspicuous citizens," he said with a smile. "His name is Mendoza—Jesus Mendoza. I'm surprised you've never met him."

"I never have," replied Harboro. He got up and took a new position so that he sat between Sylvia and Mendoza, cutting off the view of her.

She had caught the name. She glanced interestedly at the man called Jesus Mendoza. She could not remember ever to have seen him before; but she was curious to know something about the man whose wife had been kind to her, and whose life seemed somehow tragically lonely.

Mendoza made no sign of recognition of Harboro's displeasure. He arose with a purposeless air and went farther along the stockade wall. Sylvia's glance followed him. She had not taken in the fact that the man's presence, or anything that he had done, had annoyed Harboro. She was wondering what kind of man it was who had captivated and held the woman who had filled her boudoir with passionate music, and who knew how to keep an expressionless mask in place so skilfully that no one on the border really knew her.

The fandango came to an end, and the smooth earth which constituted the floor of the enclosure was vacated for an instant. Then the musicians began a favorite Mexican waltz, and there was a scurrying of young men and women for places. There was an eager movement along the rows of seats by young fellows who sought partners for the waltz. Custom permitted any man to seek any disengaged woman and invite her to dance with him.

"We ought to find Wayne and pay our respects," suggested Valdez. "He will want to meet Mrs. Harboro, too, of course. Shall we look for him?"

They skirted the dancing space, leaving Sylvia with the assurance that they would soon return. Harboro was noting, with a relief which he could scarcely understand, that he was among strangers. The people of Eagle Pass were almost wholly unrepresented as yet. The few Americans present seemed to be casual sightseers or ranchmen neighbors of the bridegroom.

Left alone, Sylvia looked eagerly and a little wistfully toward the dancers. Her muscles were yielding to the call of the violins. She was being caught by the spirit of the occasion. Here she would have been wholly in her element but for a vague fear that Harboro would not like her to yield unrestrainedly to the prevailing mood. She wished some one would ask her to dance. The waltz was wonderful, and there was plenty of room.

And then she looked up as a figure paused before her, and felt a thrill of interest as she met the steady, inquiring gaze of Jesus Mendoza.

"Mrs. Harboro, I believe?" he asked. The voice was musical and the English was perfect. He shrewdly read the glance she gave him and then held out his hand.

"I heard you spoken of as Mr. Mendoza," she replied. "Your wife has been very kind to me." She did not offer to make room for him on the seat beside her. She had been relieved of her riding-habit, and she held Antonia's rebozo across her knees. She had decided not to use it just yet. The night was still comfortably warm and she did not like to cover up the pretty Chinese silk frock she was wearing. But as Mendoza glanced down at her she placed the rebozo over one arm as if she expected to rise.

Mendoza must have noted the movement. A gleam of satisfaction shone in his inscrutable eyes—as when a current of air removes some of the ash from above a live coal. "Will you dance with me?" he asked. "When the young fellows overlook so charming a partner, surely an old man may become bold."

She arose with warm responsiveness, yet with undefined misgivings. He had an arm about her firmly in an instant, and when they had caught step with the music he held her close to him. He was an excellent dancer. Sylvia was instantly transported away from the world of petty discretions into a realm of faultless harmony, of singing rhythm.

Her color was heightened, her eyes were sparking, when they returned to their place. "It was nice," she said, releasing her partner's arm and drawing apart. A purple-and-gold Chinese lantern glowed just above her head. And then she realized that Harboro and Valdez had returned. There was a stranger with them.

Harboro regarded her with unmistakable disapproval; but only for an instant. When something of the childlike glory of her face departed under the severe expression of his eyes, he relented immediately. "Are you enjoying yourself, Sylvia?" he inquired gently, and then: "I want you to meet our host."

Wayne shook hands with her heartily. "You're a very kind lady to get right into our merrymaking," he said, "though I hope you'll save a dance for me a little later."

They all went to see the bride-to-be then. She was hidden away in one of the adobe houses of the settlement near by, receiving congratulations from friends. She was a dark little creature, nicely demure and almost boisterously joyous by turns.

But later Sylvia danced with Wayne, and he thought of a dozen, a score, of young fellows who would wish to meet her. He brought them singly and in groups, and they all asked to dance with her. She was immediately popular. Happiness radiated from her, and she added to the warmth of every heart that came within her influence.

Harboro watched her with wonder. She was like a flame; but he saw her as a sacred flame.



CHAPTER XX

Sylvia was resting. She had not danced to her heart's content, but she had become weary, and she threw Antonia's rebozo over her shoulders and leaned back in her seat. For the moment Harboro and Valdez and Wayne were grouped near her, standing. The girl Wayne was to marry the next day had made her formal appearance now and was the centre of attention. She was dancing with one after another, equally gracious toward all.

Then Sylvia heard Valdez and Wayne cry out simultaneously:

"Runyon!"

And then both men hurried away toward the entrance to the stockade.

Sylvia drew her wrap more snugly about her. "Runyon!" she repeated to herself. She closed her eyes as if she were pondering—or recuperating. And she knew that from the beginning she had hoped that Runyon would appear.

"It's that inspector fellow," explained Harboro, without looking at her. His tone was not at all contemptuous, though there was a note of amusement in it. "He seems a sort of Prince Charming that everybody takes a liking to." Wayne and Valdez were already returning, with Runyon between them. They pretended to lead him captive and his face radiated merriment and good nature. He walked with the elasticity of a feline creature; he carried his body as if it were the depository of precious jewels. Never was there a man to whom nature had been kinder—nor any man who was more graciously proud of what nature had done for him. For the occasion he was dressed in a suit of fawn-colored corduroy which fitted him as the rind fits the apple.

"Just a little too much so," Harboro was thinking, ambiguously enough, certainly, as Runyon was brought before him and Sylvia. Runyon acknowledged the introduction with a cheerful urbanity which was quite without discrimination as between Harboro and Sylvia. Quite impartially he bestowed a flashing smile upon both the man and the woman. And Harboro began vaguely to understand. Runyon was popular, not because he was a particularly good fellow, but because he was so supremely cheerful. And he seemed entirely harmless, despite the glamour of him. After all, he was not a mere male coquette. He was in love with the world, with life.

Wayne was reproaching him for not having come sooner. He should have been there for the beginning, he said.

And Runyon's response was characteristic enough, perhaps: "Everything is always beginning."

There was gay laughter at this, though the meaning of it must have been obscure to all save Sylvia. The words sounded like a song to her. It was a song she had wished to sing herself. But she was reflecting, despite her joy in the saying: "No, everything is always ending."

Runyon was borne away like a conqueror. He mingled with this group and that. His presence was like a stimulant. His musical voice penetrated everywhere; his laughter arose now and again. He did not look back toward Sylvia. She had the strange feeling that even yet they had not met—they had not met, yet had known each other always. He ignored her, she felt, as one ignores the best friend, the oldest associate, on the ground that no explanations are necessary, no misunderstanding possible.

Harboro sat down beside Sylvia. When he spoke there was a note of easy raillery in his voice. "They're getting him to sing," he said, and Sylvia, bringing her thoughts back from immeasurable distances, realized that the dancing space had been cleared, and that the musicians had stopped playing and were engaged in a low-spoken conference with Runyon. He nodded toward them approvingly and then stepped out into the open, a little distance from them.

The very sky listened; the desert became dumb. The orchestra played a prelude and then Runyon began to sing. The words came clear and resonant:

"By the blue Alsatian mountains Dwelt a maiden young and fair...."

Runyon sang marvellously. Although he was accustomed to the confines of drawing-rooms with low ceilings, he seemed quite at home on this earthen floor of the desert, with the moon sinking regretfully beyond the top of the stockade. He was perfectly at ease. His hands hung so naturally by his sides that they seemed invisible.

"But the blue Alsatian mountains Seem to watch and wait alway."

The song of a woman alone, and then another, "A Warrior Bold," and then "Alice, Where Art Thou?" And finally "Juanita." They were songs his audience would appreciate. And all those four songs of tragedy he sang without banishing the beaming smile from his eyes. He might have been relating the woes of marionettes.

He passed from the scene to the sound of clapping hands, and when he returned almost immediately after that agreeable theatrical exit, he began to dance. He danced with the bride-to-be, and then with the bridesmaids. He found obscure girls who seemed to have been forgotten—who might be said to have had no existence before he found them—and danced with them with natural gallantry. He came finally to Sylvia, and she drifted away with him, her hand resting on his shoulder like a kiss.

"I thought you would never come to me," she said in a lifeless voice.

"You knew I would," was the response.

Her lips said nothing more. But her heart was beating against him; it was speaking to him with clarity, with eloquence.



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PART V

A WIND FROM THE NORTH

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CHAPTER XXI

Harboro and Sylvia were taking leave of Wayne and Valdez. Their horses had been brought and they were in their saddles, their horses' heads already in the direction of Eagle Pass. Valdez was adding final instructions touching the road.

"If you're not quite sure of the way I'll get some one to ride in with you," said Wayne; but Harboro would not listen to this.

"I'll not lose the way," he declared; though there remained in his mind a slight dubiousness on this point. The moon would be down before the ride was finished, and there were not a few roads leading away from the main thoroughfare.

Then, much to Harboro's surprise, Runyon appeared, riding away from the corral on his beautiful dun horse. He overheard the conference between Harboro and the others, and he made himself one of the group with pleasant familiarity.

"Ah, Harboro, must you be going, too?" he inquired genially; and then: "If you don't mind, I'll ride with you. It's rather a lonely road at this hour, and I've an idea I know the way better than you."

Harboro's eyes certainly brightened with relief. "It's good of you to offer," he declared heartily. "By all means, ride with us." He turned toward Sylvia, plainly expecting her to second the invitation.

"It will be much pleasanter," she said; though it seemed to Harboro that her words lacked heartiness. She was busying herself with the little package at her pommel—old Antonia's rebozo.

"And you must all remember that there's one more latch-string out here at the Quemado," said Wayne, "whenever you feel inclined to ride this way."

They were off then. The sound of violins and the shuffle of feet became faint, and the last gay voice died in the distance. Only now and then, when the horses' feet fell in unison, there drifted after them the note of a violin—like a wind at night in an old casement. And then the three riders were presently aware of being quite alone on a windless waste, with a sentinel yucca standing on a distant height here and there between them and the descending moon, and distant groups of mesquite wreathing themselves in the silver mist of early morning. It had been a little past midnight when they left the Quemado.

Sylvia, riding between the two men, was so obviously under some sort of constraint that Harboro sought to arouse her. "I'm afraid you overtaxed yourself, Sylvia," he suggested. "It's all been pleasant, but rather—heroic." It was an effort for him to speak lightly and cheerfully. The long ride out to the Quemado was a thing to which he was not accustomed, and the merrymaking had seemed to him quite monotonous after an hour or two. Even the midnight supper had not seemed a particularly gay thing to him. He was not quite a youth any more, and he had never been young, it seemed to him, in the way in which these desert folk were young. Joy seemed to them a kind of intoxication—as if it were not to be indulged in save at long intervals.

"I didn't overtax myself," replied Sylvia. "The ending of things is never very cheerful. I suppose that's what I feel just now—as if, at the end, things don't seem quite worth while, after all."

Harboro held to his point. "You are tired," he insisted.

Runyon interposed cheerfully. "And there are always the beginnings," he said. "We're just beginning a new day and a fine ride." He looked at Harboro as if inviting support and added, in a lower tone: "And I'd like to think we were beginning a pleasant acquaintance."

Harboro nodded and his dark eyes beamed with pleasure. It had seemed to him that this final clause was the obvious thing for Runyon to say, and he had waited to see if he would say it. He did not suppose that he and Sylvia would see a great deal of Runyon in Eagle Pass, where they were not invited to entertainments of any kind, but there might be occasional excursions into the country, and Runyon seemed to be invited everywhere.

But Sylvia refused to respond to this. The pagan in her nature reasserted itself, and she felt resentful of Runyon's affable attitude toward Harboro. The attraction which she and Runyon exerted toward each other was not a thing to be brought within the scope of a conventionally friendly relationship. Its essence was of the things furtive and forbidden. It should be fought savagely and kept within bounds, even if it could never be conquered, or it should be acknowledged and given way to in secret. Two were company and three a crowd in this case. She might have derived a great deal of tumultuous joy from Runyon's friendship for her if it could have been manifested in secret, but she could feel only a sense of duplicity and shame if his friendship included Harboro, too. The wolf does not curry favor with the sheep-dog when it hungers for a lamb. Such was her creed. In brief, Sylvia had received her training in none of the social schools. She was a daughter of the desert—a bit of that jetsam which the Rio Grande leaves upon its arid banks as it journeys stealthily to the sea.

They were riding along in silence half an hour later, their horses at a walk, when the stillness of the night was rudely shattered by the sound of iron wheels grinding on stone, and in an instant a carriage could be seen ascending a branch road which arose out of a near-by arroyo.

The riders checked their horses and waited: not from curiosity, but in response to the prompting of a neighborly instinct. Travellers in the desert are never strangers to one another.

The approaching carriage proved to be an impressively elegant affair, the locality considered, drawn by two horses which were clearly not of the range variety. And then further things were revealed: a coachman sat on the front seat, and a man who wore an air of authority about him like a kingly robe sat alone on the back seat. Then to Harboro, sitting high with the last rays of the moon touching his face, came the hearty hail: "Harboro! How are you, Harboro?"

It was the voice of the General Manager.

Harboro turned his horse so that he stood alongside the open carriage. He leaned over the wheel and shook hands with the General Manager. The encounter seemed to him to add the one desirable touch of familiarity to the night ride. He explained his presence away out on the Quemado Road; and the General Manager also explained. He had been spending the evening with friends on a near-by ranch. His family were remaining for the night, but it had been necessary for him to return to Piedras Negras.

Harboro looked about for his companions, intending to introduce them. But they were a little too far away to be included comfortably in such a ceremony. For some reason Runyon had chosen to ride on a few steps.

"How many are you?" inquired the General Manager, with a note of purposefulness in his voice. "Three? That's good. You get in with me. Tie your horse behind. Two can ride abreast more comfortably than three, and you and I can talk. I've never felt so lonesome in my life." He moved over to one side of the seat, and looked back as if he expected to help in getting Harboro's horse tied behind the carriage. His invitation did not seem at all like a command, but it did seem to imply that a refusal would be out of the question.

The arrangement seemed quite simple and desirable to Harboro. He was not a practised horseman, and he was beginning to feel the effect of saddle strain. Moreover, he had realized a dozen times during the past hour that two could ride easily side by side on the desert road, while a third rider was continually getting in the way.

He called to Runyon cheerfully: "You two go on ahead—I'm going to ride the rest of the way in."

"Fine!" called back Runyon. To Runyon everything always seemed precisely ideal—or at least such was the impression he created.

It became a little cavalcade now, the riders leading the way. Riders and carriage kept close together for a time. Sylvia remained silent, but she felt the presence of her companion as a deliciously palpable thing. Harboro and the General Manager were talking, Harboro's heavy tones alternating at unequal intervals with the crisp, penetrating voice of the General Manager—a voice dry with years, but vital nevertheless.

After a time the horses in the carriage broke into a rhythmic trot. In the darkness Runyon's eyes gleamed with satisfaction. "We'll have to have a little canter, or we'll get run over," he said gayly, and he and Sylvia gave rein to their horses.

In a very few minutes they had put a distance of more than a hundred yards between them and the occupants of the carriage.

"This is more like it!" exclaimed Runyon exultantly. Tone and words alike implied all too strongly his satisfaction at being rid of Harboro—and Sylvia perversely resented the disloyalty of it, the implication of intrigue carried on behind a mask.

And then she forgot her scruples. The boy who had chosen her horse for her had known what he was doing, after all. The animal galloped with a dashing yet easy movement which was delightful. She became exhilarated by a number of things. The freedom of movement, the occasional touch of her knee against Runyon's, the mysterious vagueness of the road, now that the moon had gone down.

Perhaps they both forgot themselves for a time, and then Sylvia checked her horse with a laugh in which there was a sound of dismay. "We ought to wait for them to catch up," she said.

Runyon was all solicitude immediately. "We seem to have outdistanced them completely," he said. They turned their horses about so that they faced the north. "I can't even hear them," he added. Then, with the irrepressible optimism which was his outstanding quality, he added laughingly: "They'll be along in a few minutes. But wasn't it a fine ride?"

She had not framed an answer to this question when her mind was diverted swiftly into another channel. She held her head high and her body became slightly rigid. She glanced apprehensively at Runyon and realized that he, too, was listening intently.

A faint roar which seemed to come from nowhere fell on their ears. The darkness swiftly deepened, so that the man and the woman were almost invisible to each other. That sinister roaring sound came closer, as if mighty waters were rolling toward them far away. The northern sky became black, as if a sable curtain had been let down.

And then upon Sylvia's startled senses the first breath of the norther broke. The little winds, running ahead as an advance-guard of the tempest, flung themselves upon her and caught at her hair and her riding-habit. They chilled her.

"A norther!" she exclaimed, and Runyon called back through the whistle of the winds: "It's coming!"

His voice had the quality of a battle-cry, joined to the shouts of the descending storm.



CHAPTER XXII

Fortunately, Runyon knew what to do in that hour of earth's desolation and his own and Sylvia's peril.

He sprang from his horse and drew his bridle-rein over his arm; and then he laid a firm hand on the bridle of Sylvia's horse. His own animal he could trust in such an emergency; but the other had seemed to lose in height and he knew that it was trembling. It might make a bolt for it at any moment.

"Keep your seat," he shouted to Sylvia, and she realized that he was leading both horses away from the road. She caught glimpses of his wraith-like figure as the whirling dust-cloud that enveloped them thinned occasionally.

She knew that he had found a clump of mesquite after a faltering progress of perhaps fifty yards. Their progress was checked, then, and she knew he was at the hitching straps, and that he was tethering the animals to the trees. The powdered dust and sand were stinging her face, and the cold wind was chilling her; yet she felt a strange elation as she realized that she was here alone with Runyon, and that he was managing the situation with deftness and assurance.

She felt his hand groping for her then, and, leaning forward, she was borne to the ground. He guided her to a little depression and made her understand that she was to sit down. He had removed his saddle-blanket and spread it on the earth, forming a rug for her. "The rebozo?" he cried in her ear.

"It's fastened to the pommel," she called back.

She could neither see nor hear him; but soon he was touching her on the shoulders. The rebozo was flung out on the wind so that it unfolded, and he was spreading it about her.

She caught his hand and drew him close so that she could make herself heard. "There's room under it for two," she said. She did not release his hand until he had sat down by her. Together they drew the rebozo about them like a little tent.

Immediately they were transformed into two sheltered and undismayed Arabs. The rebozo was pinioned behind them and under their feet. The finest dust could not penetrate its warp and woof. The wind was as a mighty hand, intent upon bearing them to earth, but it could not harm them.

Sylvia heard Runyon's musical laugh. He bent his head close to hers. "We're all right now," he said.

He had his arm across her shoulder and was drawing her close. "It's going to be cold," he said, as if in explanation. He seemed as joyous as a boy—as innocent as a boy. She inclined her head until it rested on his shoulder, so that both occupied little more than the space of one. The storm made this intimacy seem almost natural; it made it advantageous, too.

And so the infinite sands swarmed over them, and the norther shrieked in their ears, and the earth's blackness swallowed them up until they seemed alone as a man and a woman never had been alone before.

The rebozo sagged about them at intervals, weighted down with the dust; but again it rippled like a sail when an eccentric gust swept away the accumulated sediment.

The desert was a thing of blank darkness. A protected torch would have been invisible to one staring toward it a dozen steps away. A temporary death had invaded the world. There was neither movement nor sound save the frenzied dance of dust and the whistle of winds which seemed shunted southward from the north star.

Runyon's hand travelled soothingly from Sylvia's shoulder to her cheek. He held her to him with a tender, eloquent pressure. He was the man, whose duty it was to protect; and she was the woman, in need of protection.

And Sylvia thought darkly of the ingenuities of Destiny which set at naught the petty steps which the proprieties have taken—as if the gods were never so diverted as when they were setting the stage for tragedy, or as if the struggles and defeats of all humankind were to them but a proper comedy.

But Runyon was thinking how rare a thing it is for a man and a woman to be quite alone in the world; how the walls of houses listen, and windows are as eyes which look in as well as out; how highways forever hold their malicious gossips to note the movements of every pair who do not walk sedately; how you may mount the stairway of a strange house—and encounter one who knows you at the top, and who laughs in his sleeve; how you may emerge from the house in which you have felt safe from espionage—only to encounter a familiar talebearer at the door.

But here indeed were he and Sylvia alone.



CHAPTER XXIII

Before the next spring came two entirely irreconcilable discoveries were made in Eagle Pass.

The first of these was made by certain cronies of the town who found their beer flat if there was not a bit of gossip to go with it, and it was to the effect that the affair between Sylvia and Runyon was sure to end disastrously if it did not immediately end otherwise.

The other discovery was made by Harboro, and it was to the effect that Sylvia had at last blossomed out as a perfectly ideal wife.

A certain listlessness had fallen from her like a shadow. Late in the winter—it was about the time of the ride to the Quemado, Harboro thought it must have been—a change had come over her. There was a glad tranquillity about her now which was as a tonic to him. She was no longer given to dark utterances which he could not understand. She was devoted to him in a gentle, almost maternal fashion—studying his needs and moods alertly and affectionately. Something of the old tempestuous ardor was gone, but that, of course, was natural. Harboro did not know the phrases of old Antonia or he would have said: "It is the time of embers." She was softly solicitous for him; still a little wistful at times, to be sure; but then that was the natural Sylvia. It was the quality which made her more wonderful than any other woman in the world.

And Sylvia? Sylvia had found a new avenue of escape from that tedium which the Sylvias of the world have never been able to endure.

Not long after that ride to the Quemado a horse had been brought to her front gate during a forenoon when Harboro was over the river at work. Unassisted she had mounted it and ridden away out the Quemado Road. A mile out she had turned toward the Rio Grande, and had kept to an indistinct trail until she came to a hidden adobe hut, presided over by an ancient Mexican.

To this isolated place had come, too, Runyon—Runyon, whose dappled horse had been left hidden in the mesquite down by the river, where the man's duties lay.

And here, in undisturbed seclusion, they had continued that intimacy which had begun on the night of the norther. They were like two children, forbidden the companionship of each other, who find something particularly delicious in an unguessed rendezvous. All that is delightful in a temporary escape from the sense of responsibility was theirs. Their encounters were as gay and light as that of two poppies in the sun, flung together by a friendly breeze. They were not conscious of wronging any one—not more than a little, at least—though the ancient genius of the place, a Mexican who had lost an eye in a jealous fight in his youth, used to shake his head sombrely when he went away from his hut, leaving them alone; and there was anxiety in the glance of that one remaining eye as he kept a lookout over the trail, that his two guests might not be taken by surprise.

Sometimes they remained in the hut throughout the entire noon-hour, and on these occasions their finely discreet and taciturn old host placed food before them. Goat's milk was brought from an earthenware vessel having its place on a wooden hook under the eaves of the house; and there was a delicious stew of dried goat's flesh, served with a sauce which contained just a faint flavor of peppers and garlic and herbs. And there was pan, as delicate as wafers, and coffee.

Time and again, throughout the winter, the same horse made its appearance at Sylvia's gate at the same hour, and Sylvia mounted and rode away out the Quemado Road and disappeared, returning early in the afternoon.

If you had asked old Antonia about these movements of her mistress she would have said: "Does not the senora need the air?" And she would have added: "She is young." And finally she would have said: "I know nothing."

It is a matter of knowledge that occasionally Sylvia would meet the boy from the stable when he arrived at the gate and instruct him gently to take the horse away, as she would not require it that day; and I am not sure she was not trying still to fight the battle which she had already lost; but this, of course, is mere surmise.

And then a little cog in the machine slipped.

A ranchman who lived out on the north road happened to be in Eagle Pass one evening as Harboro was passing through the town on his way home from work. The ranchman's remark was entirely innocent, but rather unfortunate. "A very excellent horsewoman, Mrs. Harboro," he remarked, among other things.

Harboro did not understand.

"I met her riding out the road this forenoon," explained the ranchman.

"Oh, yes!" said Harboro. "Yes, she enjoys riding. I'm sorry, on her account, that I haven't more liking for it myself."

He went on up the hill, pondering. It was strange that Sylvia had not told him that she meant to go for a ride. She usually went into minute details touching her outings.

He expected her to mention the matter when he got home, but she did not do so. She seemed disposed not to confide in him throughout the entire evening, and finally he remarked with an air of suddenly remembering: "And so you went riding to-day?"

She frowned and lowered her eyes. She seemed to be trying to remember. "Why, yes," she said, after a moment's silence. "Yes, I felt rather dull this morning. You know I enjoy riding."

"I know you do," he responded cordially. "I'd like you to go often, if you'll be careful not to take any chances." He smiled at the recollection of the outcome of that ride of theirs to the Quemado, and of the excitement with which they compared experiences when they got back home. Sylvia and Runyon had made a run for it and had got home before the worst of it came, she had said. But Harboro and the General Manager had waited until the storm had spent itself, both sitting in the carriage with their handkerchiefs pressed to their nostrils, and their coats drawn up about their heads. He remembered, too, how the dust-fog had lingered in the air until well into the next day, like a ghost which could not be laid.

He brought himself back from the recollection of that night. "If you like, I'll have the horse sent every day—or, better still, you shall have a horse of your own."

"No," replied Sylvia, "I might not care to go often." She had let her hair down and was brushing it thoughtfully. "The things which are ordered for you in advance are always half spoiled," she added. "It's better to think of things all of a sudden, and do them."

He looked at her in perplexity. That wasn't his way, certainly; but then she was still occasionally something of an enigma to him. He tried to dismiss the matter from his mind. He was provoked that it came back again and again, as if there were something extraordinary about it, something mysterious. "She only went for a ride," he said to himself late at night, as if he were defending her.



CHAPTER XXIV

A month later Harboro came home one afternoon to find an envelope addressed to him on the table in the front hall.

He was glad afterward that Sylvia was engaged with Antonia in the dining-room, and did not have a chance to observe him as he examined the thing which that envelope contained.

It was a statement from one of the stables of the town, and it set forth the fact that Harboro was indebted to the stable for horse-hire. There were items, showing that on seven occasions during the past month a horse had been placed at the disposal of Mrs. Harboro.

Harboro was almost foolishly bewildered. Sylvia had gone riding seven times during the month, and she had not even mentioned the matter to him! Clearly here was a mystery. Her days were not sufficiently full of events to make seven outings a matter of little consequence to her. She was not given to reticence, even touching very little things. She had some reason for not wishing him to know of these movements of hers.

But this conclusion was absurd, of course. She would understand that the bill for services rendered would eventually come to him. He was relieved when that conclusion came to him. No, she was not seeking to make a mystery out of the matter. Still, the question recurred: Why had she avoided even the most casual mention of these outings?

He replaced the statement in the envelope thoughtfully and put it away in his pocket. He was trying to banish the look of dark introspection from his eyes when Sylvia came in from the kitchen and gave a little cry of joy at sight of him. She was happy at the sight of him—Harboro knew it. Yet the cloud did not lift from his brow as he drew her to him and kissed her slowly. She was keeping a secret from him. The conclusion was inescapable.

His impulse was to face the thing frankly, affectionately. He had only to ask her to explain and the thing would be cleared up. But for the first time he found it difficult to be frank with her. If the thing he felt was not a sense of injury, it was at least a sense of mystery: of resentment, too. He could not deny that he felt resentful. At the foundation of his consciousness there was, perhaps, the belief and the hope that she would explain voluntarily. He felt that something precious would be saved to him if she confided in him without prompting, without urging. If he waited, perhaps she would do so. His sense of delicacy forbade him to inquire needlessly into her personal affairs. Surely she was being actuated by some good reason. That she was committed to an evil course was a suspicion which he would have rejected as monstrous. Such a suspicion did not occur to him.

It did not occur to him until the next day, when a bolt fell.

He received another communication from the stable. It was an apology for an error that had been made. The stableman found that he had no account against Mr. Harboro, but that one which should have been made out against Mr. Runyon had been sent to him by mistake.

Quite illogically, perhaps, Harboro jumped to the conclusion that the service had really been rendered to Sylvia, as the original statement had said, and that for some obscure reason it was to be charged against Runyon. But even now it was not a light that he saw. Rather, he was enveloped in darkness. He heard the envelope crackle in his clinched hand. He turned and climbed the stairs heavily, so that he need not encounter Sylvia until he had had time to think, until he could understand.

Sylvia was taking rides, and Runyon was paying for them. That was to say, Runyon was the moving factor in the arrangement. Therefore, Runyon was deriving a pleasure from these rides of Sylvia's. How? Why, he must be riding with her. They must be meeting by secret appointment.

Harboro shook his head fiercely, like a bull that is being tortured and bewildered by the matadors. No, no! That wasn't the way the matter was to be explained. That could indicate only one thing—a thing that was impossible.

He began at the beginning again. The whole thing had been an error. Sylvia had been rendered no services at all. Runyon had engaged a horse for his own use, and the bill had simply been sent to the wrong place. That was the rational explanation. It was a clear and sufficient explanation.

Harboro held his head high, as if his problem had been solved. He held himself erect, as if a burden had been removed. He had been almost at the point of making a fool of himself, he reflected. Reason asserted itself victoriously. But something which speaks in a softer, more insistent voice than reason kept whispering to him: "Runyon and Sylvia! Runyon and Sylvia!"

He faced her almost gayly at supper. He had resolved to play the role of a happy man with whom all is well. But old Antonia looked at him darkly. Her old woman's sense told her that he was acting a part, and that he was overacting it. From the depths of the kitchen she regarded him as he sat at the table. She lifted her eyes like one who hears a signal-cry when he said casually:

"Have you gone riding any more since that other time, Sylvia?"

Sylvia hesitated. "'That other time'" she repeated vaguely.... "Oh, yes, once since then—once or twice. Why?"

"I believe you haven't mentioned going."

"Haven't I? It doesn't seem a very important thing. I suppose I've thought you wouldn't be interested. I don't believe you and I look at a horseback-ride alike. I think perhaps you regard it as quite an event."

He pondered that deliberately. "You're right," he said. "And ... about paying for the horse. I'm afraid your allowance isn't liberal enough to cover such things. I must increase it next month. Have you been paying out of your own pocket?"

"Yes—yes, of course. It amounts to very little."

His sombre glance travelled across the table to her. She was looking at her plate. She had the appearance of a child encountering a small obstacle in the way of a coveted pleasure. There was neither guilt nor alarm in her bearing, but only an irksome discomfort.

But old Antonia withdrew farther within the kitchen. She took her place under a picture of the Virgin and murmured a little prayer.



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PART VI

THE GUEST-CHAMBER

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CHAPTER XXV

It was remarked in the offices of the Mexican International Railroad about this time that something had gone wrong with Harboro. He made mistakes in his work. He answered questions at random—or he did not answer them at all. He passed people in the office and on the street without seeing them. But worse than all this, he was to be observed occasionally staring darkly into the faces of his associates, as if he would read something that had been concealed from him. He came into one room or another abruptly, as if he expected to hear his name spoken.

His associates spoke of his strange behavior—being careful only to wait until he had closed his desk for the day. They were men of different minds from Harboro's. He considered their social positions matters which concerned them only; but they had duly noted the fact that he had been taken up in high places and then dropped without ceremony. They knew of his marriage. Certain rumors touching it had reached them from the American side.

They were rather thrilled at the prospect of a denouement to the story of Harboro's eccentricity. They used no harsher word than that. They liked him and they would have deplored anything in the nature of a misfortune overtaking him. But human beings are all very much alike in one respect—they find life a tedious thing as a rule and they derive a stimulus from the tale of downfall, even of their friends. They are not pleased that such things happen; they are merely interested, and they welcome the break in the monotony of events.

As for Harboro, he was a far more deeply changed man than they suspected. He was making a heroic effort in those days to maintain a normal bearing. It was only the little interstices of forgetfulness which enabled any one to read even a part of what was taking place in his thoughts.

He seemed unchanged to Sylvia, save that he admitted being tired or having a headache, when she sought to enliven him, to draw him up to her own plane of merriment. He was reminding himself every hour of the night and day that he must make no irretrievable blunder, that he must do nothing to injure his wife needlessly. Appearances were against her, but possibly that was all.

Yet revelations were being made to him. Facts were arraying themselves and marching before him for review. Suspicion was pounding at him like a body blow that is repeated accurately and relentlessly in the same vulnerable spot.

Why had Sylvia prevented him from knowing anything about her home life? Why had she kept him and her father apart? Why had Eagle Pass ceased to know him, immediately after his marriage? And Peterson, that day they had gone across the river together—why had Peterson behaved so clownishly, following his familiar greeting of Sylvia? Peterson hadn't behaved like himself at all. And why had she been so reluctant to tell him about the thing that had happened in her father's house? Was that the course an innocent woman would have pursued?

What was the explanation of these things? Was the world cruel by choice to a girl against whom nothing more serious could be charged than that she was obscure and poor?

These reflections seemed to rob Harboro of the very marrow in his bones. He would have fought uncomplainingly to the end against injustice. He would cheerfully have watched the whole world depart from him, if he had had the consciousness of righting in a good cause. He had thought scornfully of the people who had betrayed their littleness by ignoring him. But what if they had been right, and his had been the offense against them?

He found it almost unbearably difficult to walk through the streets of Eagle Pass and on across the river. What had been his strength was now his weakness. His loyalty to a good woman had been his armor; but what would right-thinking people say of his loyalty to a woman who had deceived him, and who felt no shame in continuing to deceive him, despite his efforts to surround her with protection and love?

And yet ... what did he know against Sylvia? She had gone riding—that was all. That, and the fact that she had made a secret of the matter, and had perhaps given him a false account of the manner in which she had paid for her outings.

He must make sure of much more than he already knew. Again and again he clinched his hands in the office and on the street. He would not wrong the woman he loved. He would not accept the verdict of other people. He would have positive knowledge of his own before he acted.



CHAPTER XXVI

Harboro had admitted a drop of poison to his veins and it was rapidly spreading to every fibre of his being. He was losing the power to think clearly where Sylvia was concerned. Even the most innocent acts of hers assumed new aspects; and countless circumstances which in the past had seemed merely puzzling to him arose before him now charged with deadly significance.

His days became a torture to him. He could not lose himself in a crowd, and draw something of recuperation from a sense of obscurity, a feeling that he was not observed. He seemed now to be cruelly visible to every man and woman on both sides of the river. Strangers who gave more than the most indifferent glance to his massive strength and romantic, swarthy face, with its fine dark eyes and strong lines and the luxuriant black mustache, became to him furtive witnesses to his shame—secret commentators upon his weakness. He recalled pictures of men held in pillories for communities to gibe at—and he felt that his position was not unlike theirs. He had at times a frantic realization that he had unconquerable strength, but that by some ironic circumstance he could not use it.

If his days were sapping his vigor and driving him to the verge of madness, his nights were periods of a far more destructive torture. He had resolved that Sylvia should see no change in him; he was trying to persuade himself that there was no change in him. Yet at every tenderly inquiring glance of hers he felt that the blood must start forth on his forehead, that body and skull must burst from the tumult going on within them.

It was she who brought matters to a climax.

"Harboro, you're not well," she said one evening when her hand about his neck had won no response beyond a heavy, despairing gesture of his arm. His eyes were fixed on vacancy and were not to be won away from their unseeing stare.

"You're right, Sylvia," he said, trying to arouse himself. "I've been trying to fight against it, but I'm all out of sorts."

"You must go away for a while," she said. She climbed on his knee and assumed a prettily tyrannical manner. "You've been working too hard. They must give you a vacation, and you must go entirely away. For two weeks at least."

The insidious poison that was destroying him spread still further with a swift rush at that suggestion. She would be glad to have him out of the way for a while. Were not unfaithful wives always eager to send their husbands away? He closed his eyes resolutely and his hands gripped the arms of his chair. Then a plan which he had been vaguely shaping took definite form. She was really helping him to do the thing he felt he must do.

He turned to her heavily like a man under the influence of a drug. "Yes, I'll go away for a while," he agreed. "I'll make arrangements right away—to-morrow."

"And I'll go with you," she said with decision, "and help to drive the evil hours away." She had his face between her hands and was smiling encouragingly.

The words were like a dagger thrust. Surely, they were proof of fidelity, of affection, and in his heart he had condemned her.

"Would you like to go with me, Sylvia?" he asked. His voice had become husky.

She drew back from him as if she were performing a little rite. Her eyes filled with tears. "Harboro!" she cried, "do you need to ask me that?" Her fingers sought his face and traveled with ineffable tenderness from line to line. It was as if she were playing a little love-lyric of her own upon a beautiful harp. And then she fell upon his breast and pressed her cheek to his. "Harboro!" she cried again. She had seen only the suffering in his eyes.

He held her in his arms and leaned back with closed eyes. A hymn of praise was singing through all his being. She loved him! she loved him! And then that hymn of praise sank to pianissimo notes and was transformed by some sort of evil magic to something shockingly different. It was as if a skillful yet unscrupulous musician were constructing a revolting medley, placing the sacred song in juxtaposition with the obscene ditty. And the words of the revolting thing were "Runyon and Sylvia! Runyon and Sylvia!"

He opened his eyes resolutely. "We're making too much over a little matter," he said with an obvious briskness which hid the cunning in his mind. "I suppose I've been sticking to things too close. I'll take a run down the line and hunt up some of the old fellows—down as far as Torreon at least. I'll rough it a little. I suspect things have been a little too soft for me here. Maybe some of the old-timers will let me climb up into a cab and run an engine again. That's the career for a man—with the distance rushing upon you, and your engine swaying like a bird in the air! That will fix me!"

He got up with an air of vigor, helping Sylvia to her feet. "It wouldn't be the sort of experience a woman could share," he added. "You'll stay here at home and get a little rest yourself. I must have been spoiling things for you, too." He looked at her shrewdly.

"Oh, no," she said honestly. "I'm only sorry I didn't realize earlier that you need to get away."

She went out of the room with something of the regal industry of the queen bee, as if she were the natural source of those agencies which sustain and heal. He heard her as she busied herself in their bedroom. He knew that she was already making preparations for that journey of his. She was singing a soft, wordless song in her throat as she worked.

And Harboro, with an effect of listening with his eyes, stood in his place for a long interval, and then shook his head slowly.

He could not believe in her; he would not believe in her. At least he would not believe in her until she had been put to the test and met the test triumphantly. He could not believe in her; and yet it seemed equally impossible for him to hold with assurance to his unbelief.



CHAPTER XXVII

Returning from the office the next forenoon, Harboro stopped at the head of the short street on which the chief stable of Eagle Pass was situated.

He had had no difficulty in obtaining a leave of absence, which was to be for one week with the privilege of having it extended to twice that time if he felt he needed it. In truth, his immediate superior had heartily approved of the plan of his going for an outing. He had noticed, he admitted, that Harboro hadn't been altogether fit of late. He was glad he had decided to go away for a few days. He good-naturedly insisted upon the leave of absence taking effect immediately.

And Harboro had turned back toward Eagle Pass pondering darkly.

He scanned the street in the direction of the stable. A stable-boy was exercising a young horse in the street, leading it back and forth, but otherwise the thoroughfare seemed somnolently quiet.

He sauntered along until he came to the stable entrance. He had the thought of entering into a casual conversation with the proprietor. He would try to get at the actual facts touching that mistake the stable people had made. He would not question them too pointedly. He would not betray the fact that he believed something was wrong. He would put his questions casually, innocently.

The boy was just turning in with the horse he had been exercising. He regarded Harboro expectantly. He was the boy who had brought the horses on the night of that ride to the Quemado.

"I didn't want anything," said Harboro; "that is, nothing in particular. I'll be likely to need a horse in a day or two, that's all."

He walked leisurely into the shady, cool place of pungent odors. He had just ascertained that the proprietor was out when his attention was attracted by a dog which lay with perfect complacency under a rather good-looking horse.

"A pretty dangerous place, isn't it?" he asked of the stable-boy.

"You would think so, wouldn't you? But it isn't. They're friends. You'll always find them together when they can get together. When Prince—that's the horse—is out anywhere, we have to pen old Mose up to keep him from following. Once when a fellow hired Prince to make a trip over to Spofford, old Mose got out, two or three hours later, and followed him all the way over. He came back with him the next day, grinning as if he'd done something great. We never could figure out how old Mose knew where he had gone. Might have smelled out his trail. Or he might have heard them talking about going to Spofford, and understood. The more you know about dogs the less you know about them—same as humans."

He went back farther into the stable and busied himself with a harness that needed mending.

Harboro was looking after him with peculiar intensity. He looked at the horse, which stood sentinel-like, above the drowsing dog. Then he engaged the stable-boy in further conversation.

"A pretty good-looking horse, too," he said. And when the boy nodded without enthusiasm, he added: "By the way, I suppose it's usually your job to get horses ready when people want them?"

"Yes, mostly."

Harboro put a new note of purposefulness into his voice. "I believe you send a horse around for Mrs. Harboro occasionally?"

"Oh, yes; every week or so, or oftener."

Harboro walked to the boy's side and drew his wallet from his pocket deliberately. "I wish," he said, "that the next time Mrs. Harboro needs a horse you'd send this fine animal to her. I have an idea it would please her. Will you remember?" He produced a bank-note and placed it slowly in the boy's hand.

The boy looked up at him dubiously, and then understood. "I'll remember," he said.

Harboro turned away, but at the entrance he stopped. "You'd understand, of course, that the dog wouldn't be allowed to go along," he called back.

"Oh, yes. Old Mose would be penned up. I'd see to it."

"And I suppose," said Harboro finally, "that if I'd telephone to you any day it wouldn't take you long to get a horse ready for me, would it? I've been thinking of using a horse a little myself."

He was paying little attention to the boy's assurances as he went away. His step had become a little firmer as he turned toward home. He seemed more like himself when he entered the house and smiled into his wife's alertly questioning eyes.

"It's all right, I'm to get away," he explained. "I'm away now, strictly speaking. I want to pack up a few things some time to-day and get the early morning train for Torreon."

She seemed quite gleeful over this cheerful information. She helped him make selection of the things he would need, and she was ready with many helpful suggestions. It seemed that his train left the Eagle Pass station at five o'clock in the morning—a rather awkward hour; but he did not mind, he said.

They spent the day together without any restraints, seemingly. There were a good many things to do, and Sylvia was happy in the thought of serving him. If he regarded her now and again with an expression of smouldering fire in his eyes she was unaware of the fact. She sang as she worked, interrupting her song at frequent intervals to admonish him against this forgetfulness or that.

* * * * *

She seemed to be asleep when, an hour before daybreak, he stirred and left her side. But she was awake immediately.

"Is it time to go?" she asked sleepily.

"I hoped I needn't disturb you," he said. "Yes, I ought to be getting on my way to the station."

She lay as if she were under a spell while he dressed and made ready to go out. Her eyes were wide open, though she seemed to see nothing. Perhaps she was merely stupid as a result of being awakened; or it may be that indefinable, foreboding thoughts filled her mind.

When he came to say good-by to her she put her arms around his neck. "Try to have a good time," she said, "and come back to me your old self again."

She felt fearfully alone as she heard him descend the stairs. She held her head away from the pillow until she heard the sharp closing of the street-door. "He's gone," she said. She shivered a little and drew the covers more closely about her.



CHAPTER XXVIII

Runyon rode out past Harboro's house that afternoon.

Sylvia, in her place by the window, watched him come. In the distance he assumed a new aspect in her eyes. She thought of him impersonally—as a thrilling picture. She rejoiced in the sight of him as one may in the spectacle of an army marching with banners and music.

And then he became to her a glorious troubadour, having no relationship with prosaic affairs and common standards, but a care-free creature to be loved and praised because of his song; to be heard gladly and sped on his way with a sigh.

The golden notes of his songs out at the Quemado echoed in her ears like the mournful sound of bells across lonely fields. Her heart ached again at the beauty of the songs he had sung.

... She went down-stairs and stood by the gate, waiting for him.

They talked for a little while, Runyon bending down toward her. She thought of him as an incomparably gay and happy creature. His musical powers gave him a mystic quality to her. She caressed his horse's mane and thrilled as she touched it, as if she were caressing the man—as if he were some new and splendid type of centaur. And Runyon seemed to read her mind. His face became more ruddy with delight. His flashing eyes suggested sound rather than color—they were laughing.

Their conference ended and Runyon rode on up the hill. Sylvia carried herself circumspectly enough as she went back into the house, but she was almost giddy with joy over the final words of that conference. Runyon had lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and had spoken with intensity as one sometimes speaks to children.

She did not ride that afternoon. It appeared that all her interests for the time being were indoors. She spent much of her time among the things which reminded her most strongly of Harboro; she sought out little services she could perform for him, to delight him when he returned. She talked with more than common interest with Antonia, following the old woman from kitchen to dining-room and back again. She seemed particularly in need of human companionship, of sympathy. She trusted the old servant without reserve. She knew that here was a woman who would neither see nor speak nor hear evil where either she or Harboro was concerned. Not that her fidelity to either of them was particular; it was the home itself that was sacred. The flame that warmed the house and made the pot boil was the thing to be guarded at any cost. Any winds that caused this flame to waver were evil winds and must not be permitted to blow. The old woman was covertly discerning; but she had the discretion common to those who know that homes are built only by a slow and patient process—though they may be destroyed easily.

When it came time to light the lamps Sylvia went up into her boudoir. She liberated the imprisoned currents up in the little mediaeval lanterns. She drew the blinds so that she should feel quite alone. She had put on one of the dresses which made her look specially slim and soft and childlike. She knew the garment became her, because it always brought a tender expression to Harboro's eyes.

And then she sat down and waited.

At eight o'clock Runyon came. So faint was his summons at the door that it might have been a lost bird fluttering in the dark. But Sylvia heard it. She descended and opened the door for him. In the dimly lighted hall she whispered: "Are you sure nobody saw you come?"

He took both her hands into his and replied: "Nobody!"

They mounted the steps like two children, playing a slightly hazardous game. "The cat's away," she said, her eyes beaming with joy.

He did not respond in words but his eyes completed the old saying.

They went up into the boudoir, and he put away his coat and hat.

They tried to talk, each seeking to create the impression that what was being said was quite important. But neither heard what the other said. They were like people talking in a storm or in a house that is burning down.

He took his place at the piano after a while. It seemed that he had promised to sing for her—for her alone. He glanced apprehensively toward the windows, as if to estimate the distance which separated him from the highway. It was no part of their plan that he should be heard singing in Sylvia's room by casual passers-by on the Quemado Road.

He touched the keys lightly and when he sang his voice seemed scarcely to carry across the room. There was a rapid passage on the keyboard, like the patter of a pony's hoofs in the distance, and then the words came:

"From the desert I come to thee On my Arab shod with fire...."

It was a work of art in miniature. The crescendo passages were sung relatively with that introductory golden whisper as a standard. For the moment Sylvia forgot that the singer's shoulders were beautifully compact and vigorous. She was visualizing the Bedouin who came on his horse to declare his passion.

"And I faint in thy disdain!..."

She stood near him, spellbound by the animation of his face, the seeming reality of his plea. He was not a singer; he was the Bedouin lover.

There was a fanatic ardor in the last phrase:

"Till the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!"

He turned lightly away from the piano. He was smiling radiantly. He threw out his arms with an air of inviting approval; but the gesture was to her an invitation, a call. She was instantly on her knees beside him, drawing his face down to hers. His low laughter rippled against her face as he put his arms around her and drew her closer to him.

They were rejoicing in an atmosphere of dusky gold. The light from the mediaeval lanterns fell on her hair and on his laughing face which glowed as with a kind of universal good-will. A cloud of delicate incense seemed to envelop them as their lips met.

And then the shadow fell. It fell when the door opened quietly and Harboro came into the room.

He closed the door behind him and regarded them strangely—as if his face had died, but as if his eyes retained the power of seeing.

Sylvia drew away from Runyon, not spasmodically, but as if she were moving in her sleep. She left one hand on Runyon's sleeve. She was regarding Harboro with an expression of hopeless bewilderment. She seemed incapable of speaking. You would not have said she was frightened. You would have thought: "She has been slain."

Harboro's lips were moving, but he seemed unable to speak immediately.

It was Sylvia who broke the silence.

"You shouldn't have tricked me, Harboro!" she said. Her voice had the mournful quality of a dove's.

He seemed bewildered anew by that. The monstrous inadequacy of it was too much for him. He had tricked her, certainly, and that wasn't a manly thing to do. He seemed to be trying to get his faculties adjusted. Yet the words he uttered finally were pathetically irrelevant, it would have seemed. He addressed Runyon.

"Are you the sort of man who would talk about—about this sort of thing?" he asked.

Runyon had not ceased to regard him alertly with an expression which can be described only as one of infinite distaste—with the acute discomfort of an irrepressible creature who shrinks from serious things.

"I am not," he said, as if his integrity were being unwarrantably questioned.

Harboro's voice had been strained like that of a man who is dying of thirst. He went on with a disconcerting change of tone. He was trying to speak more vigorously, more firmly; but the result was like some talking mechanism uttering words without shading them properly. "I suppose you are willing to marry her?" he asked.

It was Sylvia who answered this. "He does not wish to marry me," she said.

Harboro seemed staggered again. "I want his answer to that," he insisted.

"Well, then, I don't want to marry him," continued Sylvia.

Harboro ignored her. "What do you say, Runyon?"

"In view of her unwillingness, and the fact that she is already married——"

"Runyon!" The word was pronounced almost like a snarl. Runyon had adopted a facetious tone which had stirred Harboro's fury.

Something of the resiliency of Runyon's being vanished at that tone in the other man's voice. He looked at Harboro ponderingly, as a child may look at an unreasoning parent. And then he became alert again as Harboro threw at him contemptuously: "Go on; get out!"



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PART VII

SYLVIA

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CHAPTER XXIX

Sylvia did not look at Runyon as he picked up his coat and hat and vanished. She did not realize that he had achieved a perfect middle ground between an undignified escape and a too deliberate going. She was regarding Harboro wanly. "You shouldn't have come back," she said. She had not moved.

"I didn't go away," said Harboro.

Her features went all awry. "You mean——"

"I've spent the day in the guest-chamber. I had to find out. I had to make sure."

"Oh, Harboro!" she moaned; and then with an almost ludicrously swift return to habitual, petty concerns: "You've had no food all day."

The bewildered expression returned to his eyes. "Food!" he cried. He stared at her as if she had gone insane. "Food!" he repeated.

She groped about as if she were in the dark. When her fingers came into contact with a chair she drew it toward her and sat down.

Harboro took a step forward. He meant to take a chair, too; but his eyes were not removed from hers, and she shrank back with a soft cry of terror.

"You needn't be afraid," he assured her. He sat down opposite her, slowly, as very ill people sit down.

As if she were still holding to some thought that had been in her mind, she asked: "What do you mean to do, then?"

He was breathing heavily. "What does a man do in such a case?" he said—to himself rather than to her, it might have seemed. "I shall go away," he said at length. "I shall clear out." He brought his hands down upon the arms of his chair heavily—not in wrath, but as if surrendering all hope of seeing clearly. "Though it isn't a very simple thing to do," he added slowly. "You see, you're a part of me. At least, that's what I've come to feel. And how can a man go away from himself? How can a part of a man go away and leave the other part?" He lifted his fists and smote his breast until his whole body shook. And then he leaned forward, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his hands clasped before him. He was staring into vacancy. He aroused himself after a time. "Of course, I'll have to go," he said. He seemed to have become clear on that one point. And then he flung himself back in his chair and thrust his arms out before him. "What were you driving at, Sylvia?" he asked.

"Driving at...?"

"I hadn't done you any harm. Why did you marry me, if you didn't love me?"

"I do love you!" She spoke with an intensity which disturbed him.

"Ah, you mean—you did?"

"I mean I do!"

He arose dejectedly with the air of a man who finds it useless to make any further effort. "We'll not talk about it, then," he said. He turned toward the door.

"I do love you," she repeated. She arose and took a step toward him, though her limbs were trembling so that they seemed unable to sustain her weight. "Harboro!" she called as he laid his hand on the door. "Harboro! I want you to listen to me." She sank back into her chair, and Harboro turned and faced her again wonderingly.

"If you'd try to understand," she pleaded. "I'm not going to ask you to stay. I only want you to understand." She would not permit her emotions to escape bounds. Something that was courageous and honorable in her forbade her to appeal to his pity alone; something that was shrewd in her warned her that such a course would be of no avail.

"You see, I was what people call a bad woman when you first met me. Perhaps you know that now?"

"Go on," he said.

"But that's such a silly phrase—a bad woman. Do you suppose I ever felt like a bad woman—until now? Even now I can't realize that the words belong to me, though I know that according to the rules I've done you a bad turn, Harboro."

She rocked in silence while she gained control over her voice.

"What you don't know," she said finally, "is how things began for me, in those days back in San Antonio, when I was growing up. It's been bad luck with me always; or if you don't believe in luck, then everything has been a kind of trick played on me from the beginning. Not by anybody—I don't mean that. But by something bigger. There's the word Destiny...." She began to wring her hands nervously. "It seems like telling an idle tale. When you frame the sentences they seem to have existed in just that form always. I mean, losing my mother when I was twelve; and the dreadful poverty of our home and its dulness, and the way my father sat in the sun and seemed unable to do anything. I don't believe he was able to do anything. There's the word Destiny again. We lived in what's called the Mexican section, where everybody was poor. What's the meaning of it; there being whole neighborhoods of people who are hungry half the time?

"I was still nothing but a child when I began to notice how others escaped from poverty a little—the Mexican girls and women I lived among. It seemed to be expected of them. They didn't think anything of it at all. It didn't make any difference in their real selves, so far as you could see. They went on going to church and doing what little tasks they could find to do—just like other women. The only precaution they took when a man came was to turn the picture of the Virgin to the wall...."

Harboro had sat down again and was regarding her darkly.

"I don't mean that I felt about it just as they did when I got older. You see, they had their religion to help them. They had been taught to call the thing they did a sin, and to believe that a sin was forgiven if they went and confessed to the priest. It seemed to make it quite simple. But I couldn't think of it as a sin. I couldn't clearly understand what sin meant, but I thought it must be the thing the happy people were guilty of who didn't give my father something to do, so that we could have a decent place to live in. You must remember how young I was! And so what the other girls called a sin seemed to me ... oh, something that was untidy—that wasn't nice."

Harboro broke in upon her narrative when she paused.

"I'm afraid you've always been very fastidious."

She grasped at that straw gratefully. "Yes, I have been. There isn't one man in a hundred who appeals to me, even now." And then something, as if it were the atmosphere about her, clarified her vision for the moment, and she looked at Harboro in alarm. She knew, then, that he had spoken sarcastically, and that she had fallen into the trap he had set for her. "Oh, Harboro! You!" she cried. She had not known that he could be unkind. Her eyes swam in tears and she looked at him in agony. And in that moment it seemed to him that his heart must break. It was as if he looked on while Sylvia drowned, and could not put forth a hand to save her.

She conquered her emotion. She only hoped that Harboro would hear her to the end. She resumed: "And when I began to see that people are expected to shape their own lives, mine had already been shaped. I couldn't begin at a beginning, really; I had to begin in the middle. I had to go on weaving the threads that were already in my hands—the soiled threads. I met nice women after a while—women from the San Antonio missions, I think they were; and they were kind to me and gave me books to read. One of them took me to the chapel—where the clock ticked. But they couldn't really help me. I think they did influence me more than I realized, possibly; for my father began to tell them I wasn't at home ... and he brought me out here to Eagle Pass soon after they began to befriend me."

Harboro was staring at her with a vast incredulity. "And then—?" he asked.

"And then it went on out here—though it seemed different out here. I had the feeling of being shut out, here. In a little town people know. Life in a little town is like just one checker-board, with a game going on; but the big towns are like a lot of checkerboards, with the men on some of them in disorder, and not being watched at all."

Harboro was shaking his head slowly, and she made an effort to wipe some of the blackness from the picture. "You needn't believe I didn't have standards that I kept to. Some women of my kind would have lied or stolen, or they would have made mischief for people. And then there were the young fellows, the mere boys.... It's a real injury to them to find that a girl they like is—is not nice. They're so wonderfully ignorant. A woman is either entirely good or entirely bad in their eyes. You couldn't really do anything to destroy their faith, even when they pretended to be rather rough and wicked. I wasn't that kind of a bad woman, at least."

Harboro's brow had become furrowed, with impatience, seemingly. "But your marriage to me, Sylvia?" He put the question accusingly.

"I thought you knew—at first. I thought you must know. There are men who will marry the kind of woman I was. And it isn't just the little or worthless men, either. Sometimes it is the big men, who can understand and be generous. Up to the time of our marriage I thought you knew and that you were forgiving everything. And at last I couldn't bear to tell you. Not alone from fear of losing you, but I knew it would hurt you horribly, and I hoped ... I had made up my mind ... I was truly loyal to you, Harboro, until they tricked me in my father's house."

Harboro continued to regard her, a judge unmoved. "And Runyon, Sylvia—Runyon?" he asked accusingly.

"I know that's the thing you couldn't possibly forgive, and yet that seems the slightest thing of all to me. You can't know what it is to be humbled, and so many innocent pleasures taken away from you. When Fectnor came back ... oh, it seemed to me that life itself mocked me and warned me coldly that I needn't expect to be any other than the old Sylvia, clear to the end. I had begun to have a little pride, and to have foolish dreams. And then I went back to my father's house. It wasn't my father; it wasn't even Fectnor. It was Life itself whipping me back into my place again.

"... And then Runyon came. He meant pleasure to me—nothing more. He seemed such a gay, shining creature!" She looked at him in the agony of utter despair. "I know how it appears to you; but if you could only see how it seemed to me!"

"I'm trying," said Harboro, unmoved.

"If I'd been a little field of grass for the sheep to graze on, do you suppose I shouldn't have been happy if the birds passed by, or that I shouldn't have been ready for the sheep when they came? If I'd been a little pool in the desert, do you suppose I wouldn't have been happier for the sunlight, and just as ready for the rains when they came?"

He frowned. "But you're neither grass nor water," he said.

"Ah, I think I am just that—grass and water. I think that is what we all are—with something of mystery added."

He seized upon that one tangible thought. "There you have it, that something of mystery," he said. "That's the thing that makes the world move—that keeps people clean."

"Yes," she conceded dully, "or makes people set up standards of their own and compel other people to accept them whether they understand them or believe in them or not."

When he again regarded her with dark disapproval she went on:

"What I wanted to tell you, Harboro, is that my heart has been like a brimming cup for you always. It was only that which ran over that I gave to another. Runyon never could have robbed the cup—a thousand Runyons couldn't. He was only like a flower to wear in my hair, a ribbon to put on for an outing. But you ... you were the hearth for me to sit down before at night, a wall to keep the wind away. What was it you said once about a man and woman becoming one? You have been my very body to me, Harboro; and any other could only have been a friendly wind to stir me for a moment and then pass on."

Harboro's face darkened. "I was the favorite lover," he said.

"You won't understand," she said despairingly. And then as he arose and turned toward the door again she went to him abjectly, appealingly. "Harboro!" she cried, "I know I haven't explained it right, but I want you to believe me! It is you I love, really; it is you I am grateful to and proud of. You're everything to me that you've thought of being. I couldn't live without you!" She sank to her knees and covered her eyes with one hand while with the other she reached out to him: "Harboro!" Her face was wet with tears, now; her body was shaken with sobs.

He looked down at her for an instant, his brows furrowed, his eyes filled with horror. He drew farther away, so that she could not touch him. "Great God!" he cried at last, and then she knew that he had gone, closing the door sharply after him.

She did not try to call him back. Some stoic quality in her stayed her. It would be useless to call him; it would only tear her own wounds wider open, it would distress him without moving him otherwise. It would alarm old Antonia.

If he willed to come back, he would come of his own accord. If he could reconcile the things she had done with any hope of future happiness he would come back to her again.

But she scarcely hoped for his return. She had always had a vague comprehension of those pragmatic qualities in his nature which placed him miles above her, or beneath her, or beyond her. She had drunk of the cup which had been offered her, and she must not rebel because a bitter sediment lay on her lips. She had always faintly realized that the hours she spent with Runyon might some day have to be paid for in loneliness and despair.

Yet now that Harboro was gone she stood at the closed door and stared at it as if it could never open again save to permit her to pass out upon ways of darkness. She leaned against it and laid her face against her arm and wept softly. And then she turned away and knelt by the chair he had occupied and hid her face in her hands.

She knew he would no longer be visible when she went to the window. She had spared herself the sight of him on his way out of her life. But now she took her place and began, with subconscious hope, the long vigil she was to keep. She stared out on the road over which he had passed. If he came back he would be visible from this place by the window.

Hours passed and her face became blank, as the desert became blank. The light seemed to die everywhere. The little home beacons abroad in the desert were blotted out one by one. Eagle Pass became a ghostly group of houses from which the last vestiges of life vanished. She became stiff and inert as she sat in her place with her eyes held dully on the road. Once she dozed lightly, to awaken with an intensified sense of tragedy. Had Harboro returned during that brief interval of unconsciousness? She knew he had not. But until the dawn came she sat by her place, steadfastly waiting.



CHAPTER XXX

When Harboro went down the stairs and out of the house he had a purposeful air which vanished as soon as his feet were set on the highway. Where was he going? Where could he go? That beginning he had made usually ended in the offices across the river. But he could not go to his office now. There was nothing there for him to do. And even if he were able to get in, and to find some unfinished task to which he could turn, his problem would not be solved. He could not go on working always. A man must have some interests other than his work.

He pulled himself together and set off down the road. He realized that his appearance must be such that he would attract attention and occasion comment. The foundations of his pride stiffened, as they had always done when he was required to face extraordinary difficulties. He must not allow casual passers-by to perceive that things were not right with him. They would know that he and Sylvia were having difficulties. Doubtless they had been expecting something of the sort from the beginning.

He seemed quite himself but for a marked self-concentration as he walked through the town. Dunwoodie, emerging from the Maverick bar, hailed him as he passed. He did not hear—or he was not immediately conscious of hearing. But half a dozen steps farther on he checked himself. Some one had spoken to him. He turned around. "Ah, Dunwoodie—good evening!" he said. But he did not go back, and Dunwoodie looked after him meditatively and then went back into the bar, shaking his head. He had always meant to make a friend of Harboro, but the thing evidently was not to be done.

Harboro was scarcely conscious of the fact that he crossed the river. If he encountered any one whom he knew—or any one at all—he passed without noticing. And this realization troubled him. The customs guard, who was an old acquaintance, must have been in his place on the bridge. He tried to arouse himself anew. Surely his conduct must seem strange to those who chanced to observe him.

With an air of briskness he went into the Internacional dining-room. He had had nothing to eat all day. He would order supper and then he would feel more like himself. He did not realize what it was that made his situation seem like a period of suspense, which kept in his mind the subconscious thought that he would come out of the dark into a clearing if he persevered.

The fact was that something of what Sylvia had said to him had touched his conscience, if it had not affected his sense of logic. She really could not be quite what she seemed to be—that was the unshaped thought in the back of his brain. There were explanations to make which had not yet been made. If he told himself that he had solved the problem by leaving the house, he knew in reality that he had not done so. He was benumbed, bewildered. He must get back his reasoning faculties, and then he would see more clearly, both as to what had been done and what he must set about doing.

He had an idea that he could now understand the sensations of people who had indulged too freely in some sort of drug. He had temporarily lost the power to feel. Here was Sylvia, a self-confessed wanton—and yet here was Sylvia as deeply intrenched in his heart as ever. This was a monstrous contradiction. One of these things must be a fact, the other a fantastic hallucination.

The waiter brought food which he looked at with distaste. It was a typical frontier meal—stereotyped, uninviting. There were meat and eggs and coffee, and various heavy little dishes containing dabs of things which were never eaten. He drank the coffee and realized that he had been almost perishing from thirst. He called for a second cup; and then he tried to eat the meat and eggs; but they were like dust—it seemed they might choke him. He tried the grapes which had got hidden under the cruet, and the acid of these pleased him for an instant, but the pulp was tasteless, unpalatable.

He finished the second cup of coffee and sat listlessly regarding the things he had not touched. He had hoped he might prolong the supper hour, since he could think of nothing else to engage his attention. But he was through, and he had consumed only a few minutes.

His glance wandered to a railroad poster in the dining-room, and this interested him for an instant. Attractive names caught his eye: Torreon, Tampico, Vera Cruz, the City, Durango. They were all waiting for him, the old towns. There was the old work to be done, the old life to resume.... Yes, but there was Sylvia. Sylvia, who had said with the intentness of a child, "I love you," and again, "I love you." She did not want Runyon. She wanted him, Harboro. And he wanted her—good God, how he wanted her! Had he been mad to wander away from her? His problem lay with her, not elsewhere.

And then he jerked his head in denial of that conclusion. No, he did not want her. She had laid a path of pitch for his feet, and the things he might have grasped with his hands, to draw himself out of the path which befouled his feet—they too were smeared with pitch. She did not love him, certainly. He clung tenaciously to that one clear point. There lay the whole situation, perfectly plain. She did not love him. She had betrayed him, had turned the face of the whole community against him, had permitted him to affront the gentle people who had unselfishly aided him and given him their affection.

He wandered about the streets until nearly midnight, and then he engaged a room in the Internacional and assured himself that it was time to go to bed. He needed a good rest. To-morrow he would know what to do.

But the sight of the room assigned to him surprised him in some odd way—as if every article of furniture in it were mocking him. It was not a room really to be used, he thought. At least, it was not a room for him to use. He did not belong in that bed; he had a bed of his own, in the house he had built on the Quemado Road. And then he remembered the time when he had been able to hang his hat anywhere and consider himself at home, and how he had always been grateful for a comfortable bed, no matter where. That was the feeling which he must get back again. He must get used to the strangeness of things, so that such a room as this would seem his natural resting-place, and that other house which had been destroyed for him would seem a place of shame, to be avoided and forgotten.

He slept fitfully. The movements of trains in the night comforted him in a mournful fashion. They reminded him of that other life, which might be his again. But even in his waking moments he reached out to the space beside him to find Sylvia, and the returning full realization of all that had happened brought a groan to his throat.

He dressed in the morning with a feeling of guilt, mingled with a sense of relief. He had slept where he had had no business to sleep. He had been idle at a time when he should have been active. He had done nothing, and there was much to be done. He had not even rested.

He put on an air of briskness, as one will don a garment, as he ordered coffee and rolls in the dining-room. There were things to be attended to. He must go over to the offices and write out his resignation. He must see the General Manager and ask him for work on the road elsewhere. He must transfer his holdings—his house and bank-account—to Sylvia. He had no need of house or money, and she would need them badly now. And then ... then he must begin life anew.

It was all plain; yet his feet refused to bear him in the direction of the railroad offices; his mind refused to grapple with the details of the task of transferring to Sylvia the things he owned. Something constructive, static, in the man's nature stayed him.

He wandered away from the town during the day, an aimless impulse carrying him quite out into the desert. He paused to inspect little irrigated spots where humble gardens grew. He paused at mean adobe huts and talked to old people and to children. Again and again he came into contact with conditions which annoyed and bewildered him. People were all bearing their crosses. Some were hopelessly ill, waiting for death to relieve them, or they were old and quite useless. And all were horribly poor, casting about for meagre food and simple clothing which seemed beyond their reach. They were lonely, overburdened, despondent, darkly philosophical.

What was the meaning of human life, he wondered? Were men and women created to suffer, to bear crosses which were not of their own making, to suffer injustices which seemed pointless?...

Late in the afternoon he was back in Piedras Negras again. He had eaten nothing save a handful of figs which an old woman had given him, together with a bowl of goat's milk. He had wished to pay for them, but the old woman had shaken her head and turned away.

He encountered a tourist in clerical garb—a thin-chested man with a colorless face, but with sad, benevolent eyes—sitting in the plaza near the sinister old cuartel. He sat down and asked abruptly in a voice strangely high-pitched for his own:

"Is a man ever justified in leaving his wife?"

The tourist looked startled; but he was a man of tact and wisdom, evidently, and he quickly adjusted himself to what was plainly a special need, an extraordinary condition. "Ah, that's a very old question," he replied gently. "It's been asked often, and there have been many answers."

"But is he?" persisted Harboro.

"There are various conditions. If a man and a woman do not love each other, wouldn't it seem wiser for them to rectify the mistake they had made in marrying? But if they love each other ... it seems to me quite a simple matter then. I should say that under no circumstances should they part."

"But if the wife has sinned?"

"My dear man ... sinned; it's a difficult word. Let us try to define it. Let us say that a sin is an act deliberately committed with the primary intention of inflicting an injury upon some one. It becomes an ugly matter. Very few people sin, if you accept my definition."

Harboro was regarding him with dark intentness.

"The trouble is," resumed the other man, "we often use the word sin when we mean only a weakness. And a weakness in an individual should make us cleave fast to him, so that he may not be wholly lost. I can't think of anything so cruel as to desert one who has stumbled through weakness. The desertion would be the real sin. Weaknesses are a sort of illness—and even a pigeon will sit beside its mate and mourn, when its mate is ill. It is a beautiful lesson in fidelity. A soldier doesn't desert his wounded comrade in battle. He bears him to safety—or both perish together. And by such deeds is the consciousness of God established in us."

"Wait!" commanded Harboro. He clinched his fists. A phrase had clung to him: "He bears him to safety or both perish together!"

He arose from the seat he had taken and staggered away half a dozen steps, his hands still clinched. Then, as if remembering, he turned about so that he faced the man who had talked to him. Beyond loomed the ancient church in which Sylvia had said it would seem possible to find God. Was He there in reality, and was this one of His angels, strayed a little distance from His side? It was not the world's wisdom that this man spoke, and yet how eternally true his words had been! A flock of pigeons flew over the plaza and disappeared in the western glow where the sun was setting. "Even a pigeon will sit by its mate and mourn...."

Harboro gazed at the man on the bench. His face moved strangely, as a dark pool will stir from the action of an undercurrent. He could not speak for a moment, and then he called back in a voice like a cry: "I thank you."

"You are welcome—brother!" was the response. The man on the bench was smiling. He coughed a little, and wondered if the open-air treatment the physician had prescribed might not prove a bit heroic. When he looked about him again his late companion was gone.

Harboro was hurrying down toward the Rio Grande bridge. He was trying to put a curb on his emotions, on his movements. It would never do for him to hurry through the streets of Eagle Pass like a madman. He must walk circumspectly.

He was planning for the future. He would take Sylvia away—anywhere. They would begin their married life anew. He would take her beyond the ordinary temptations. They would live in a tent, an igloo, in the face of a cliff. He would take her beyond the reach of the old evil influences, where he could guide her back to the paths she had lost. He would search out some place where there was never a dun horse with golden dapples, and a rider who carried himself like a crier of God, carrying glad tidings across the world.

Yet he was never conscious of the manner in which he made that trying journey. He was recalled to self when he reached his own door. He realized that he was somewhat out of breath. The night had fallen and the house revealed but little light from the front. Through the door he could see that the dining-room was lighted. He tried the door stealthily and entered with caution. It would not do to startle Sylvia.

Ah—that was her voice in the dining-room. The telephone bell had sounded, just as he opened the door, and she was responding to the call.

Her voice seemed cold at first: "I didn't catch the name." And then it turned to a caress: "Oh, Mendoza—I didn't hear at first. Of course, I want to see you." There was now a note of perplexity in her tone, and then: "No, don't come here. It would be better for me to see you at my father's. In the afternoon."

Harboro found himself leaning against the wall, his head in his hands. Mendoza! The town's notorious philanderer, who had regarded Sylvia with insolent eyes that night out at the Quemado! Yes, and she had danced with him the minute his back was turned; danced with him with unconcealed joy. Mendoza....

He climbed the stairs slowly. He heard Sylvia's footsteps as she moved away; into the kitchen, probably. He climbed stealthily, like a thief. He mustn't permit Sylvia to hear him. He couldn't see her now.



CHAPTER XXXI

Sylvia had spent the entire day by her window, looking down the road. She had refused the food that old Antonia had brought, and the comforting words that came with it. Something that was not a part of herself argued with her that Harboro would come back, though all that she was by training and experiences warned her that she must not look for him.

At nightfall she turned wearily when Antonia tapped at her door.

"Nina!" The troubled old woman held out a beseeching hand. "You must have food. I have prepared it for you, again. There are very good eggs, and a glass of milk, and coffee—coffee with a flavor! Come, there will be another day, and another. Sorrows pass in the good God's time; and even a blind sheep will find its blade of grass." Her hand was still extended.

Sylvia went to her and kissed her withered cheek. "I will try," she said with docility.

And they went down the stairs as if they were four; the young woman walking with Despair, the old woman moving side by side with Knowledge.

It was then that the telephone rang and Sylvia went to the instrument and took down the receiver with trembling fingers. If it were only Harboro!... But it was a woman's voice, and the hope within her died. She could scarcely attend, after she realized that it was a woman who spoke to her. The name "Mrs. Mendoza" meant nothing to her for an instant. And then she aroused herself. She must not be ungracious. "Oh, Mendoza," she said; "I didn't hear at first." She felt as if a breath of cold air had enveloped her, but she shook off the conviction. From habit she spoke cordially; with gratitude to the one woman in Eagle Pass who had befriended her she spoke with tenderness. The wife of Jesus Mendoza wanted to call on her.

But Sylvia had planned the one great event of her life, and it occurred to her that she ought not to permit this unfortunate woman to come to the house on the morrow. It would be an unforgivable cruelty. And then she thought of her father's house, and suggested that her visitor come to see her there.

She hung up the receiver listlessly and went into the kitchen, where Antonia was eagerly getting a meal ready for her. She looked at these affectionate preparations indulgently, as she might have looked at a child who assured her that a wholly imaginary thing was a real thing.

She ate dutifully, and then she took a bit of husk from Antonia's store and made a cigarette. It was the first time she had smoked since her marriage. "He's not coming back," she said in a voice like that of a helpless old woman. She leaned her elbows on the table and smoked. Her attitude did not suggest grief, but rather a leave-taking.

Then with returning briskness she got up and found street apparel and left the house.

She went down into the town almost gayly—like the Sylvia of old. In the drug-store she told an exciting little story to the clerk. There had been a nest of scorpions ... would he believe it? In the kitchen! She had been given such a start when the servant had found them. The servant had screamed; quite naturally, too. She had been told that a weak solution, sprinkled on the floor, would drive them away. What was it?... Yes, that was it. She had forgotten.

THE END