Most of the guests at Valley House went to church, to give thanks for the fairy-like Easter eggs they had received. Annesley had a headache, however, and no one was surprised that her husband should choose to stop at home to look after her.

His adoring devotion for the girl was no secret. People laughed at it, but admired it, too, and some women envied Annesley. They imagined him spending the morning with his wife, but as a matter of fact he did not go near her. He feared to speak lest she might change her decision and refuse to travel to America with him.

His one hope—a desperate hope—lay in her going. He decided not to see her alone again until Monday evening, after the arrival of the cable from America.

In order to insure the coming of this message, and to make it realistic, he motored into Torquay and sent a long telegram, partly in cipher. Returning, he had a conversation with Charrington, the butler, and Char, the chauffeur, a conversation which left the brothers grave and subdued. Later Char went off in the car again, though it poured with rain, and was gone until late at night.

Between twelve and one o'clock Knight, strolling toward the garage, heard the automobile return, and stopped in the blaze of the acetylene for the motor to slow down.

"Is it all right?" he inquired.

"It's all right," Char answered, somewhat sullenly, yet with a certain reluctant respect. "Nothing will happen here Monday night."

"Good!" his master answered, and smiled at the thought of Madalena's malicious prophecy which would not be fulfilled. It was not a pleasant smile, yet, as he had said to Annesley, he planned no revenge against the tigress—the woman whose claws had ripped his heart open.

Tigress or no, she was a woman, and he knew that, as far as she was capable of caring, she had cared for him.

Perhaps it had been partly his fault. She was handsome, and had been years younger when he had met her first. She was married then to an old man, jealous and suspicious, knowing that his money had won the beautiful wild creature for him. It was at Buenos Aires, and the husband had found Madalena out in an intrigue; partly political, partly mercenary, and partly passionate. He had turned her from his house without a penny, and Knight—not personally concerned in the intrigue, but interested—had been flush enough at the time to lend her a thousand dollars, enough to go away with. It had been called a loan, but he had not expected to get the money back, and never did get it.

In California she had set herself up as a palmist and had become successful, a success she duplicated in New York; and she had gladly made herself useful in many ways to "Don" and those with whom he "worked."

One way was to find out the number and worth of her rich clients' jewels, and where they were kept. Through her crystal gazing she was able to conjure women's secrets without their realizing that they, not she, gave them to the light. And aboard the Monarchic was not by any means the first time that Madalena had been invaluable in diverting suspicion by throwing it upon the wrong track.

Knight had consulted her, praised her, and flattered her from time to time. Now he told himself that he was paying for his thoughtlessness. He had taken Madalena for granted, regarding her as a machine rather than a woman; and though he owed to her the loss of his happiness, that happiness had been undeserved and, as he expressed it to himself, walking the wet paths at midnight, he had "stood to lose it anyhow."

He would frighten Madalena so that she would never dare to try her tricks again, and he would let her understand that because of what she had done their partnership had come to an end once and forever. Otherwise she should feel herself safe from him.

Bad he might be, and was, as he knew; but he didn't think it was in his make-up, somehow, to strike a woman.

He did not go back to the house, after his short talk with Char, until after he had heard the stable clock strike four. It was easier to think and see things clearly out of doors than in his room adjoining Annesley's—that closed room, forbidden to him now, where she was perhaps crying, and surely hating him. As for the long nightmare day he had lived through, it had been too full for much deliberate thinking; and he wanted to plan for the future: how to begin again, and how to keep the woman who had come to mean more for him than anything else had ever meant—more, he knew, than anything else could mean.

He was not sure whether the love in his heart was a punishment or a blessing, but there it was. It had come to stay.

"This woman to this man!"

He found himself repeating the words he remembered best in the marriage service, not bitterly as he had repeated them to Annesley, but yearningly, clingingly, groping after some promise of hope in them.

"She gave herself to me. I'm the same man she loved, after all, though she says I'm not," he told himself. "God! What's the good of being a man at all, if I can't get her back?"

As he wandered through one winter-saddened garden after another—the Italian garden, the Dutch garden, the rose garden—he searched his soul, asking it how much more he should have to tell the girl about his past. In a kind of desperate resignation he persuaded himself that there was nothing he would not be willing to tell her now, if it were for her good, and if she wished to hear.

But something within him said that she would wish to hear no more. She would deign to put no questions to him, even if she felt curiosity. She would doubtless refuse to listen if he volunteered a further confession. He was instinctively sure of his ground there; and in his bitterness of spirit there was a faint gleam of comfort; certain details of his degradation (she would think it that) might be kept decently hidden.

For instance, he would not have to tell her how, as a boy in Chicago, he had learned to make strange use of those clever, nervous hands of his, which she had lovingly praised as "sensitive and artistic." He could almost see the girl shudder and grow pale at hearing how proud he had been at sixteen of being admitted to friendship with a "swell mobsman" fascinating as any "Raffles" of fiction; how it had amused the fellow to teach him a deft and delicate touch, beginning his lessons with the game of jack-straws, in which he was given prizes if he could separate the whole stack, one straw from another, without disturbing the balance of the pile.

It would gain him no credit in Annesley's eyes if he should assure her that, though he knew how to pick pockets—none better—he had somehow never cared to put his skill in practice, but had always preferred, leaving that part of the industry to others. No excuse could help him with her, and he was glad she need not know all the ways in which he had served the eccentric friend and employer with whose interests he had been associated more or less since his twenty-fifth year.

How disgusting would seem to Anita the inside history of the Monarchic episode, upon which he had rather prided himself until love for her had begun making subtle changes in his view of life. He and old Paul Van Vreck had laughed together at the patent lock on which the agent depended—a lock invented by the retired member of the firm himself, and followed by a second invention, even more clever: a little instrument designed to open a door in spite of it.

There had been the drug, too, which leaving no odour behind, had the same effect as chloroform, and "took" even more quickly. Paul Van Vreck had read of certain experiments made by a professor of chemistry in Tours, had gone to France to see the man, had bought the formula, which had not yet proved itself entirely successful; had added an ingredient on his own account, and triumphed.

These parts of the complicated and well-fitting scheme had seemed deliciously amusing to Knight in those days; that Van Vreck should use his secret skill against his own brothers and nephews in the business he had made; that the great expert should add to his fortune by stealing from his own firm, or rather, from the great insurance company who would repay their losses; that in such ways, with such money, he could add treasures to his famous collection, practically at no expense to himself, and have besides the exquisite pleasure of laughing in his sleeve at the world.

It had all added zest to the work. And Knight had been pleased with some small inventions of his own, praised by Van Vreck: a smart hiding-place in the heel of a boot, almost impossible to detect, and another equally convenient and invisible in the jet standard of Madalena de Santiago's famous crystal. He had enjoyed the excitement when he and Madalena and their two assistants, among the other passengers on board ship, had consented to be searched for the missing jewels. And he had laughed sneeringly at the credulity of those who believed in Madalena's trumped-up vision "of the small fair man," the lighted life-preserver dropped into the sea at night, and the yacht which sent out a boat to pick it up.

For that other vision her crystal had supplied after the robbery in Portman Square he was not responsible; but it was he who had suggested the "pictures" for her to see on shipboard.

He hated the recollection now. Even Annesley could not think it more contemptible than he did.

Still worse was the remembrance of Mrs. Ellsworth's latchkey, the keeping of which had been accidental at first. Afterward he had gaily regarded its possession as a gift from Providence. The way to Ruthven Smith's house was made clear by it; and better still, through it the dragon could be punished for years of cruelty to the captive princess. "Char" had been the man to whom fell the honour of bestowing the punishment, and leaving a missive from the princess's rescuer.

Knight writhed in spirit as he wondered whether the princess guessed the fate of the key.

He wondered also if she asked herself what part he had had in the disappearance of the Valley House heirlooms. She would loathe him more intensely, if possible, could she know how her presence with him on that public "show day" had helped to cloak with respectability his secret mission. How mean he had been in distracting her attention from the two Fragonards and from the cabinets containing the miniatures and the carved Chinese gods of jade while he "marked" the prizes for the eyes of his two assistants. How unsuspicious and happy the girl had been, trusting him utterly, while behind her back he manipulated the diamond—the useful diamond—he always carried for such purposes!

Even then he had the grace to be ashamed of himself for disloyalty, though not for dishonesty, as deftly the diamond cut the glass faces of the cabinets directly opposite the miniatures and the Buddha meant to enrich Paul Van Vreck's secret collection. He had been glad to hurry his wife away, and let the eager pair of "tourists" crowding on his heels finish the work he had begun.

It seemed to Knight, as his thoughts travelled heavily along the past, that no other woman but Annesley Grayle, this fragile white rose that had freely given its sweetness, could have turned him from the vow of vengeance for his parents' fate which as a boy he had sworn against the world. Day by day, week by week, month by month, the fragrance of the white rose had so changed him that looking back at himself, he saw a stranger.

Had it not been for certain engagements made with Paul Van Vreck and others—engagements which had to be kept because there is honour among thieves—that "den" of his in Portman Square would long ago have been shut to his "at home" day visitors. No more "business" would have been done on those or any premises; this party of Easter guests would not have been invited to Valley House; and the Malindore diamond, sleeping away its secret on Annesley's breast, would still be guarding his secret, too.

While the others were at church she had sent him the diamond by Parker—the blue diamond, and the rose sapphire; her engagement ring also; the pearls he had given her the day before their marriage, and all his other gifts (except the wedding ring), which had not been stolen on the night when the Annesley-Setons' silver went.

It had been a blow to open the box brought to his room by the maid without a word of explanation—no lighter because it was deserved. It was only less severe than had the wedding ring been with the rest.

And perhaps, Knight reflected, it would have been there had Annesley known of another trick played upon her: those cleverly "reconstructed" pearls, gleaming ropes of them, and paste diamonds added to her collection only for the purpose of disappearing in the "burglary." A hateful trick, but he had believed it necessary at the time, while despising it.

Well, he was punished for everything at last—everything vile he had done and thought in his whole life; even those things the White Rose did not know!

He was young still, but he felt old—old in sin and old in hopelessness; for youth cannot exist in a heart deprived of hope. It seemed to Knight that his heart had been deprived of hope for years, yet suddenly he recalled the fact that a few moments before—up to the time when he had begun counting his sins one by one, like the devil's rosary—he had been thinking with something akin to hope of the future.

"What if, after all——" he began to ask himself.

But stumbling unseeingly from avenue to path, and path to lawn, he had wandered near the house.

By what seemed to him a strange coincidence he had come to a standstill almost on the spot where he had stood last night when Annesley, at her window, called him in.

She had loved him then! She had called him in to be forgiven. But her forgiveness, divine as it was, white and wide-winged as the flight of a dove—had not been wide enough to cover his guilt.

What a ghastly difference between last night and this! It was right that the face of the moon, so bright then, should be veiled with ragged black clouds. And yet, what if——

The man's eyes strained through the darkness of that dark hour before the dawn.

"If her window is uncurtained, I'll take it as a good omen," he said.

Noiselessly his feet trod the short, wet grass, going nearer to the shadowed loggia to make sure....

The curtains were drawn closely, and the window was shut.



CHAPTER XXII

DESTINY AND THE WALDOS

After the cablegram came, calling them to America, it took the Nelson Smiths an incredibly short time to wind up their affairs and to break the ties—many and intricate as the clinging tendrils of a vine—which attached them to England.

Of course, as their friends pointed out, it wasn't as if they had had a home of their own. Luckily for them—unluckily for the Annesley-Setons—they had taken the Portman Square house only month by month. And in Devonshire they had been but paying—dearly paying!—guests, as the world surmised.

Everyone protested that they would be dreadfully missed, and begged to know their plans, and whether Mr. Nelson Smith's business on the other side (something to do with mines, wasn't it?) would not be finished, so that they might come back in time for Henley and Cowes?

But the American millionaire's answers were vague. He couldn't tell. He could only hope. And his manner, unflatteringly, was indifferent. It was Mrs. Nelson Smith who seemed depressed; "a changed girl," Constance said, "from the moment that cable message arrived at Valley House."

Connie thought, and mentioned her thought to others: very likely the truth was that Nelson Smith had lost money. In contradiction to this theory he was known to have given generously to charities just before starting; not those queer, new-fangled societies he had tried to bolster up while he was in London, but hospitals and orphan asylums, and organizations of that sort which opened their mouths wide.

Still, nobody could say for a certainty how much he gave, and it was argued that Lady Annesley-Seton was sure to know more than most people about Nelson Smith's private affairs. The story of possible money losses ran about and grew rapidly, healing regrets for his absence. Soon the pair dropped out of their late friends' conversation as a subject of living interest.

It was much the same with the Countess de Santiago. Whether her plans were affected by those of the Nelson Smiths, nobody knew; and she said that they were not. But about the time that their departure for America was decided upon, Madalena had a sharp illness. It was, she wrote Constance (who made inquiries, fearing something contagious), an unusual form of neuralgia, from which she had suffered before. The only doctor who had ever been able to relieve her pain lived in San Francisco, and in San Francisco she must seek him.

She had at first an idea of sailing on the same ship with the Nelson Smiths; but for a reason which she did not explain, she changed her mind the day after making it up, and engaged a cabin on a boat which started a week earlier.

She was missed, also, for a while. But then it was remembered that the crystal visions had been mysteriously more favourable for those who included the Countess in their nicest parties than for those who asked her to their second best. Little malicious digs which she had given were recalled, and those who had thought her wonderful when in their midst began to doubt her powers.

"Rather theatrical, don't you think?" said the Duchess of Peebles. "It's more satisfactory to go to a woman you can pay with money and not invitations."

So Madalena was not mourned for long; and the Annesley-Setons were fortunate enough to replace their lost American millionaire with one from Australia. He was old, and his wife was fat; but you can't have everything.

* * * * *

The Nelson Smiths took passage not on one of the great floating palaces patronized by millionaires, but on an obscure, cheap little ship, which bore out the gossip about the man's losses. As a matter of fact, however, they chose that way of going by Annesley's desire. It would have been Knight's way to vanish in a blaze of glory, as the setting sun plunges behind the horizon after a gorgeous day.

"I want to go on a ship," she said, "which none of the people we know have ever heard of. I couldn't bear to come across anyone I ever met before."

But, as it turned out, she was forced to bear what she had thought unbearable. At the top of the gangway as she went on board, a slightly shrill voice called out, "Why, how do you do! Who would ever have thought of meeting you two expensive creatures on board this tub?"

With a sinking heart Annesley recognized a Mrs. Waldo, an American woman (there was a husband in attendance) whom she and Knight had met during their honeymoon at the Knowle Hotel. The pair had been so friendly and kind that the Nelson Smiths had asked them to Portman Square more than once during the three gay months which followed.

But it was cruel, thought Annesley, that fate should bring them together again now, just when she and the man she had married were at the parting of the ways.

Little had the girl dreamed when she first conceived a mild fancy for the pretty, smiling woman and her silent, humorous husband, that the pair were destined to decide her future—decide it in a way precisely opposite to that in which she had decided it herself. But so it was to be.

Mr. and Mrs. Waldo were returning to New York in its waning season because the decorating of a house they had bought was just completed. They begged Annesley and Knight to be their first visitors, and the invitation was given so unexpectedly that Annesley, taken unawares, found herself at a loss.

"But I—I mean my husband—is going straight to Texas," she stammered.

"All the more reason, if he has to run off so far on business, and leaves you in New York, that you should stay with us, instead of in a hotel," argued Mrs. Waldo.

Annesley blushed, and for the first time since Easter eve looked for help to Knight. But he was silent, and she blundered on, not daring to pause lest the firm-willed little lady should seal her to a promise in spite of herself.

"You're very kind, and it would be delightful," she hurried along, "but I didn't mean that I was to stop in New York. I——"

"Oh, you are going together!" Mrs. Waldo caught her up. "I didn't understand. Well, I'm sorry for our sakes. But couldn't you spare us two or three days before you start?"

"I—am afraid we must wait for another time," said Annesley. "My husband has business. He can't waste a day——"

"Surely you won't turn your back on New York the day you arrive, the first time you've ever seen it!" cried the New York woman. "Why, it's sacrilege! You must stay with us one night. If you could see the darling new room we'll put you in: old rose and pearl gray, and Cupids holding up the bed curtains!"

In desperation the girl stuck to her point, no longer daring to look at Knight.

"Indeed we mustn't stay, even for one night. If there's a train the same afternoon——"

"There's a lovely train," Mrs. Waldo admitted, unable to resist praising the American railway system. "We call it the 'Limited.' You can have a beautiful stateroom, and run right through to Chicago without changing. If they must go, we'll see them off, won't we, Steve?" with a glance for the silent husband, "and bring them books and chocolates and flowers?"

What was left for Annesley to say? Short of informing the kindly couple that they were not wanted and had better mind their own business, and refusing to decide upon a train, she could do nothing except thank Mrs. Waldo.

"Perhaps," she thought, "they will forget, and things will settle themselves between now and then. Or else I shall patch up some excuse."

When the invitation was given, the Minnewanda was still four days distant from New York; but the four days, though seeming long, were not long enough to produce the prayed-for inspiration. Mrs. Waldo referred to the journey whenever she saw Annesley, so there was no hope of her scheme being forgotten; and the nearer loomed the new world, the more clearly the girl was forced to see the thing to which a few hasty words had committed her.

She and Knight had staterooms adjoining, with a door between. That was to save appearances, and it was no one's business that the door was never opened. In reality, they might as well have had the length of the ship between their cabins.

Annesley kept to her own quarters as constantly as her jangled nerves would allow; but the sea was provokingly smooth, and she proved to be a good sailor. She felt as if she might become hysterical, and perhaps do something foolish, if she tried the experiment of shutting herself up from morning to night. She paced the deck, therefore, and was dimly grateful to Knight because he seemed always to be in the smoking room when she took her walks.

At meals, however, unless she ate in her stateroom, they could not avoid each other; and again she felt cause for gratitude because Knight had accepted the Waldos' suggestion that they should take a table for four. In spite of the Waldos' unwelcome attentions, their society was preferable—infinitely preferable—to a duet with Knight.

They talked on such occasions; and the sharpest-eared scandal mongers could have guessed at nothing strange from their manner. But, save at these luncheons and these dinners, they scarcely spoke to each other.

Knight took his cue from Annesley. After the night when he had knelt at her feet and begged her forgiveness he had never forced himself upon his wife. He seemed to have a dread of being thought an intruder, and even withdrew his eyes guiltily if the girl caught him looking at her with the old wistful gaze to whose mystery she had now a tragic clue.

Annesley hoped that, before they landed, Knight might make some opportunity to discuss ways and means of getting out of the dilemma created by the Waldos. But he never attempted to begin a conversation with her, and she put off the evil moment from day to day, telling herself that there was time yet, and he had probably solved the problem—he, who was a specialist in solving problems.

Loving the man no longer, her heart seeming to die anew whenever she even thought of him, there remained still a ghost of her old trust; an almost resentful confidence that he who was so clever, so hideously clever, would be capable of overcoming any difficulty.

"I told him that I'd go with him on the ship, and that then we must part," she assured herself, lying awake at night, wondering feverishly what was to happen in New York. "He said we'd see about all that later, but he must know by the way I act that I haven't changed my mind. He will have to get me out of the trouble about the train."

The girl, in mapping the future, had thought of herself as being a governess for American children. She did not know many things which governesses ought to know, but if the children were small enough, she did not see why she mightn't do very well.

She could sing and play as nine girls out of ten could. She had been told that she had quite a Parisian accent in French; and as for arithmetic and geography and other alarming things which children ought to know and grown-up people forget, one could teach them with the proper books.

Besides, she had heard that Americans liked to have English governesses for their children; it was considered "smart."

She would go to an agent, and it ought to be easy to find a place in the country or suburbs. It must not be New York, for fear of some chance meeting with the Waldos. But if worst came to worst, and because of those everlasting Waldos she had to get into the train with Knight, she would get out again at the first good-sized place where it stopped. There must be agencies for governesses and companions in every large town. One would serve as well as another.

As for money, she knew that she must have some to go on with until she could begin to earn. So far she had been forced to let Knight pay her way, as he said, out of the "good" fund. Her coming with him had been for his sake, and to spare him from gossip. For herself, she was in no mood to care what people said.

But now, in sailing to America as his wife, she had done all that she had ever promised to do. He would have to arrange things as best he could.

Somehow the right time did not come to ask him what he intended to do; for at the table, or if occasionally they were on deck together, they were never alone.

The ship docked late in the morning, and Knight was busy with the custom-house men. It was noon when their luggage had been examined and could be sent away; and the Waldos, under letter "W," were released at the same moment that the Nelson Smiths, under "S," were able to escape.

"Let's have lunch at the dear old Waldorf, our pet place and almost namesake," proposed Mrs. Waldo. "You owe us that, after all the times you entertained us in London; and you really see New York in the restaurant. You've nothing to do till your train goes this afternoon, and your husband can get your reservations right there in the hotel."

Annesley's eyes went doubtfully to Knight's, and met a steady look which seemed to say that he had made up his mind to some course.

"Very well, we shall be delighted," she said, resignedly. "Shall we meet at the—Waldorf—is it?—at luncheon time?"

"Oh, my, no!" exclaimed the older woman, radiant in the joy of home coming. "It'll be lunch time in an hour. You must taxi up to Sixty-first Street with us, and just glance at the house, or we shall be so hurt. Then we'll spin you down to the hotel again in no time. I wish we could feed you at home, but nothing will be in shape there till to-night."

There was still no chance for Annesley to ask Knight the long-delayed question. They saw and duly admired the Waldos' house, and took another taxi to the hotel, the Nelson Smiths' luggage having been "expressed" to the Grand Central, to await them. Steve Waldo tried to engage his favourite table, and Mrs. Waldo suggested that it would be a good moment to get the reservations.

Again Annesley's startled glance turned to Knight. Again his eyes answered with decision. This time there was no longer any doubt in the girl's mind. The Waldos, persistent to the last, would compel her to leave New York with her husband.

But whatever happened she would part with him forever before darkness fell. "At the first big town," she told herself once more.

They were at the desired table, which Steve had secured, when Knight rejoined them, announcing that he had his tickets.

"I hope you were able to get a nice stateroom?" fussed Mrs. Waldo. "Such a long journey, and Mrs. Smith's first day in our country!"

"Yes. Everything satisfactory," said Knight, in the calm way which Annesley had once admired.

Mrs. Waldo would have asked more questions if at that moment her eyes had not lighted upon a couple at an adjacent table.

"Well, of all things!" she cried, jumping up to meet a pretty girl and a spruce young man, who had also jumped up. "George and Kitty Mason! What a coincidence!"

There were kissings and handshakings. Then Mr. and Mrs. Mason were introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith. They, it seemed, had been married in the early winter, just as Knight and Annesley had been. And to add to the strangeness of the coincidence, which drew birdlike exclamations from Jean Waldo, George and Kitty were starting for Kansas City that afternoon. They were going by the same train in which the Nelson Smiths would travel.

"Why, you'll be together for two days!" shrieked Jean. "For goodness' sake, look at your reservations, and see if you're in the same car!"

George Mason pulled out his tickets. "We're in a boudoir car all the way," he said. "We start in one called 'Elena.' After Chicago we're in 'Alvarado.'" Knight followed suit, not ungraciously, though without enthusiasm. Annesley's heart was tapping like a hammer in her breast. She felt giddy. There was a mist before her eyes; yet she saw clearly enough to see that there were two railway tickets, alike in every way, even to what seemed their extraordinary length. A flashing glance gave her the name of the last station, at the end. It was in Texas.

And their two staterooms were also in "Elena" and "Alvarado."



CHAPTER XXIII

THE THIN WALL

"How dared he buy a ticket for me all the way to Texas!" Annesley asked herself. "But I might have known how it would be," she thought. "Why expect a man like him to keep a promise?"

Yet she had expected it. She constantly found herself expecting to find truth and greatness in the man who was a thief—who had been a thief for half his life. It was strange. But everything about him was strange; and stranger than the rest was his silent power over all who came near him, even over herself, who knew now what he was. It would have seemed that after his confession there would be no further room for disappointment concerning his character; yet she was disappointed that his "plan," on which she had been counting, had been nothing more original than to break his word and "see what she would do."

After luncheon, when the Waldos and Masons became absorbed for a few minutes in talk, she turned a look on her husband. "I saw the tickets," she said.

"Did you?" he returned, pretending—as she thought—not to understand.

"You bought one for me to Texas."

"Of course. Did you think I wouldn't? That would have been poor economy in the game we've been playing."

It was her turn to show that she was puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"You never cared to talk things over. I saw you didn't want to, so I didn't press. And when this complication about the Waldos came up, I thought—perhaps I was mistaken—that you—trusted me to do the best I could."

"Yes. That's why I expected you not to get me a ticket to Texas."

"How far did you expect me to get it?"

"I—don't know."

"That's just it. Neither did I know. I got the whole ticket, so you might choose your stopping-place."

"Oh!" Annesley was ashamed, though she was sure she had no need to be. "That was why!"

"That was why. Things being as they are, it was well I had your ticket to show with mine, wasn't it?"

"I—suppose so. But—what am I to do?"

"We'll talk of that in the train. There won't be time before, because of these people, and because I must leave you for two hours before the train goes."

"Leave me!" Annesley echoed the words blankly, then hoped that he had not noticed the dismay in her tone.

"You will be all right with the Waldos and their friends. I'll explain to them. There's no time to lose. I must go off at once."

Annesley was pricked with curiosity to know why and where he must go. She would not ask. But while he was away and she was being whirled through the park and along Riverside Drive at lightning speed, "to see New York in a hurry," her thoughts were with her husband, imagining fantastic things.

"My mind is like a ghost," she thought, bitterly, "haunting what once it loved. It seems doomed to follow wherever he goes, whatever he does. But it will be different when we're parted. I shall escape in soul and body. I shall have my own life to live."

"That wonderful Italian house," Mrs. Waldo was saying, as the taxi slowed down for one of her lectures, "is Paul Van Vreck's New York home. They say it's a museum from garret to cellar (not that there is a garret!), and I believe it's a copy of some palazzo in Venice. It's shut up now; perhaps he's in Florida, or Egypt, where he—but look, somebody's coming out—why, Mrs. Nelson Smith, it's your husband! Shall we stop——"

"No, let's drive on," Annesley begged, anxiously. "My husband knows Mr. Van Vreck. They have business together. He won't want us."

The taxi was allowed to go on to the next place of interest. Annesley had flung herself back in the seat, but she was not sure that Knight hadn't seen her. She knew what powers of observation his quiet almost lazy manner could hide.

This chance meeting took place on the way to the Grand Central Station, where they met the Masons, and were joined almost at the last moment by Knight, just as Annesley had begun to wonder if, after all, he were not coming.

He was as calm as though there were no haste, and said he had been delayed in collecting the luggage from the ship. He had a good deal to say about that luggage; and what with thanks to the Waldos for books and flowers and chocolates, and their kindness to Annesley, Mrs. Waldo (with the best intentions) found no chance to mention Paul Van Vreck.

Annesley had not meant to refer to him, though seeing Knight come out of his shut-up house had given her a shivering sense of mystery; but when the train had started, Knight came to the door of her stateroom.

"There are one or two things I should like to speak to you about, if you don't mind," he said, in the kind yet distant manner which had replaced the old lover-like way when they were alone together.

"Come in," she replied, and added, lowering her voice: "Mr. and Mrs. Mason are next door."

"They are too much in love to be thinking about us, or listening," he answered; and Annesley imagined a ring of bitterness in his tone. "I've come to talk over plans, but before we begin I want to explain something. Once you made a guess in connection with Paul Van Vreck. Probably you think that what you saw confirms it. Of course, the Waldos were telling you whose house it was; and as luck would have it, I came out at that instant.

"Whether there was anything in your guess or not doesn't matter. You're too sensible to mention it to any one except me. But I can't have you torturing yourself with the idea that such dealings as you imagine with Van Vreck are still going on, if they ever did go on. Because I have faith in your discretion, and because I owe it to you, I'm going to explain why I went to Van Vreck's house this afternoon—why I was obliged to go. I knew he would have got back from Florida. I hear from him sometimes, and I had to tell him that any business I'd ever done for him was done for the last time, because—I was going to settle down to ranch life in Texas.

"Also I handed to him the Malindore diamond. His firm lost it. His firm has by this time been paid the insurance. It's up to him how to dispose of the property.

"That's all I have to say about Van Vreck. I thought in fairness you ought to know that I didn't keep the diamond. And I thought I might tell you that my call at Van Vreck's didn't mean entering any new deal."

"Thank you," Annesley said, stiffly. "I am glad."

She was glad, yet she wished the man to understand how impersonal was her gladness; how impossible it was that any atonement could bring them together again in spirit; how dead was the past which he had slain. And he did understand as clearly from her few words as if she had preached him an hour's sermon.

"Now, for what you are to do," he went on, crisply. "Although you and I never discussed the situation on board ship, I realized what the Waldos were letting you in for. I supposed you'd feel that your staying in New York was out of the question. I bought our tickets to Texas. At the same time I got a map and a guide-book which gives information about places on the way and beyond.

"The Masons being on the train to Kansas City was a new complication. But it wasn't my fault. And it only means that the game of keeping up appearances must be played a little farther.

"Would you like to go to California? If you want to take back your maiden name and be Miss Grayle—or if you care to have a new name to begin a new life with, a quite respectable fellow called Michael Donaldson could introduce you to a few influential people in Los Angeles. No danger of meeting Madalena de Santiago there, though it's only a day's journey from San Francisco, where she's very likely arrived by this time. She has reasons for not liking Los Angeles. In her early days she had some—er-financial troubles there, and she wouldn't enjoy being reminded of them."

"Is Los Angeles farther than El Paso?" Annesley inquired, keeping her voice steady, though there was a sickly chill in her heart.

"A good way farther," Knight went on, in the same businesslike tone which separated him thousands of miles from the Knight she used to know. "Here, I'll show you how the land lies."

Opening a map of a western railroad, he drew a little closer to her on the seat, and pointed out place after place along the black line; told her when they would arrive at Kansas City, and how they would go on without change to Albuquerque.

There, he said, he must take another train for El Paso, and from El Paso he must go a distance of twenty miles to the ranch, which lay close to the border of Mexico, on the Rio Grande.

"But you," he said, quietly, "you can keep straight along in the train we'll get into at Chicago till you come to Los Angeles. There'll be time in Chicago to buy your ticket to California, and I can write letters of introduction. They'll be to good people. You needn't be afraid."

Yet Annesley was afraid, deathly afraid. Not that Knight's friends would not be "good people," but of going on alone to an unknown place in an unknown country. It would not have been so terrible, she thought, to have stayed in New York—if only the Waldos hadn't interfered. But to have this man—who, after all, was her one link with the old world—get out of the train which was hurling them through space and leave her to go on alone!

That was a fearful thing. She could not face the thought—at least not yet. Perhaps she would feel more courageous to-morrow. On the ship she had slept little. Her nerves felt like violin strings stretched too tight—stretched to the point of breaking.

"Does that plan suit you—as well as any other?" Knight was asking.

"I—can't decide yet," the girl answered; and to keep tears back seemed the most important thing just then. "It doesn't matter, does it, as I must go on past Kansas City?"

"No, it doesn't matter," Knight agreed. "You've plenty of time. I suppose you'd like me to leave you now, to rest till dinner time? Here's the guide-book. You might care to look it over."

But when he had gone Annesley let the book lie unopened on the seat. She was very tired. She could not think far ahead. Her mind would occupy itself with the features of the journey, not with her own affairs.

Everything was strange and new. Even the train was wonderful. She had thought, in the immense station, that the cars looked like a procession of splendidly built bungalows each painted a different colour and having brightly polished metal balconies at the end. And inside, the car was still like a bungalow, or perhaps a houseboat, with neat little panelled rooms opening all the way down a long aisle.

The coffee-coloured porter and maid were delightful. They smiled at her kindly, and when they smiled it seemed sadder than ever not to be happy.

The Masons' talk at dinner was disconcerting. They took it for granted that she and Knight were an adoring newly married couple, like themselves. Annesley was thankful to escape, and to go to bed in her little panelled room.

"To-morrow, when I'm rested, things will be easier," she told herself.

But to-morrow came and she was not rested; for again she had not slept.

In Chicago there were hours to wait before train time. The Masons proposed taking a motor-car to see the sights, and lunching together at a famous Chinese restaurant.

At a sign from her, Knight consented. It was better to be with the Masons than with him alone. After luncheon, however, Knight drew her aside.

"What about Los Angeles?" he inquired. "Have you decided?"

Annesley felt incapable of deciding anything, and her unhappy face betrayed her state of mind.

"If you'd rather think it over longer," he said, "I can buy your ticket at Albuquerque."

"Very well," Annesley replied. She did not remember where Albuquerque was, though Knight had pointed it out on the map; and she did not care to remember. All she wanted was not to decide then.

Knight turned away without speaking. But there was a look almost of hope in his eyes. Things could not be what they had been; yet they were better than they might be.

At Kansas City the Masons bade the Nelson Smiths good-bye. And from that moment the Nelson Smiths ceased to exist. There were no initials on their luggage.

The man kept to his own stateroom. Annesley, alone next door, had plenty of books to read, parting gifts from the Waldos; but the most engrossing novel ever written could not have held her attention. The landscape changed kaleidoscopically. She wondered when they would arrive at Albuquerque, wondered, yet did not want to know.

"Would you rather go to the dining car alone, or have me take you?" Knight came to ask.

"It's better to go together, or people may think it strange," she said. Even as she spoke she wondered at herself. The Masons having gone, the other travellers—strangers whom they would not meet again—were not of much importance. Yet she let her words pass. And at dinner that evening she forced herself to ask, "Do we get to Albuquerque to-night?"

"Not till to-morrow forenoon," Knight informed her casually. He feared for a moment that she might say she could not wait so long before making up her mind; but she only looked startled, opened her lips as if to speak, and closed them again.

Next day there were no more apple orchards and flat or rolling meadow lands. The train had brought them into another world, a world unlike anything that Annesley had seen before. At the stations were flat-faced, half-breed Indians and Mexicans; some poorly clad, others gaily dressed, with big straw hats painted with flowers, and green leggings laced with faded gold. In the distance were hills and mountains, and the train ran through stretches of red desert sprinkled with rough grass, or cleft with river-beds, where golden sands played over by winds were ruffled into little waves.

Toward noon Knight showed himself at the open door of the stateroom.

"We'll be in Albuquerque before long now," he announced. "That's where I change, you know, for Texas. The train stops for a while, and I can get your ticket for Los Angeles. Those letters of introduction I told you about are ready. I've left a blank for your name. I suppose you've made up your mind what you want to do?"

Some people with handbags pushed past, and Knight had to step into the room to avoid them. The moment, long delayed, was upon her!

Annesley remembered how she had put off deciding whether or not to sail for America with Knight. Now a still more formidable decision was before her and had to be faced. She glanced up at the tall, standing figure. Knight was not looking at her. His eyes were on the desert landscape flying past the windows.

"What I want to do!" she echoed. "There's nothing in this world that I want to do."

"Then"—and Knight did not take his eyes from the window—"why not drift?"

"Drift?"

"Yes. To Texas. Oh, I know! I asked you that before, and you said you wouldn't. But hasn't destiny decided? Would it have sent you these thousands of miles with me unless it meant you to fight it out on those lines? You've travelled far enough, side by side with me, to learn that a man and a woman with only a thin wall between them can be as far apart as if they were separated by a continent.

"Now, this minute, you've got to decide. It isn't I who tell you so. It's fate. Will you go on alone from the place we're coming to, or—will you try the thin wall?"



CHAPTER XXIV

THE ANNIVERSARY

The girl felt as if some great flood were sweeping her off her feet. She clutched mechanically at anything to save herself. Knight was there. He stood between her and desolation; but if he had spoken then—if he had said he wanted her, and begged her to stay, she would have chosen desolation.

Instead, he was silent, his eyes not on her, but on the desert.

"You—swear you will let me live my own life?" she faltered.

"I swear I will let you live your own life."

He repeated her words, as he had repeated the words of the clergyman who had, according to the law of God, given "this woman to this man."

The train was stopping.

Annesley knew that she could not go on alone.

"I will try—Texas," she said in final decision.

* * * * *

Las Cruces Ranch was named, not after the New Mexico town thirty or forty miles away, but in honour of the Holy Crosses which had rested there one night, centuries ago, while on a sacred pilgrimage.

It was a lonely ranch, as far from El Paso in Texas as it was from the namesake town in New Mexico. Even the nearest village, a huddled collection of low adobe houses and wooden shacks on the Rio Grande ("Furious River," as the Indians called it), was ten miles distant. Only the river was near, as the word "near" is used in that land of vast spaces. At night, if a great wind blew, Annesley fancied she could hear the voice of the rushing water.

When she first saw the place where she had bound herself to live, her heart sank. It seemed that she would not be able to support the loneliness; for it would be desperately lonely to live there, lacking the companionship of someone dearly loved. But afterward—afterward she could no more analyze her feeling for the country than for the man who had brought her to it.

Lonely as she was, she was never homesick. Indeed, she had no home to long for, no one whose love called her back to the old world. And she was glad that there were no neighbours to come, to call her "Mrs. Donaldson" and ask questions about England.

She had nobody except the Mexican servant woman and the cowboys who stayed with the new rancher when the old one went away.

Knight had suggested that she should wait in El Paso until he had seen whether the house was habitable for her, and had made it so, if it were not already. But Annesley had chosen to begin her new life without delay, for she was in a mood where hardships seemed of no importance. It was only when she had to face them in their sordid nakedness that she shrank.

Yet, after all, what did it matter? If she had stepped into the most luxurious surroundings she would have been no less unhappy.

The low house was of adobe, plastered white, but stained and battered where the walls were not hidden by rank-growing creepers, convolvulus, and Madeira vines. If the girl had read its description in some book—the veranda, formed by the steep-sloping roof of the one-story building; the patio, walled mysteriously in with a high, flower-draped barrier; the long windows with green shutters—she would have imagined it to be picturesque.

But it was not picturesque. It was only shabby and uninviting; at least that was her impression when she arrived, toward evening, after a long, jolting drive in a hired motor-car.

The paintless wooden balustrade and flooring of the veranda were broken. So also were the faded green shutters. The patio was but a little square of dust and stringy grass. A few dilapidated chairs stood about, homemade looking chairs with concave seats of worn cowskin.

Inside the house there was little furniture, and what there was struck Annesley as hideous. Nothing was whole. Everything was falling to pieces. Illustrations cut out of newspapers were pasted on the dirty, whitewashed walls.

The slatternly servant, who could speak only "Mex," had got no supper ready. Knight would let Annesley do nothing, but he deftly helped the woman to fry some eggs and make coffee. He tried to find dishes which were not cracked or broken, and could not.

If he and Annesley had loved each other, or had even been friends, they would have laughed and enjoyed the adventure. But Annesley had no heart for laughter. She could only smile a frozen, polite little smile, and say that it "did not matter. Everything would do very well." She would soon get used to the place, and learn how to get on.

When she had to speak to Knight she called him "you." There was no other name which she could bear to use. He had had too many names in the past!

As time went on, however, the girl surprised herself by not being able to hate her home. She found mysteriously lovely colours in the yellow-gray desert; shadows blue as lupines and purple as Russian violets; high lights of shimmering, pale gold.

Spanish bayonets, straight and sharp as enchanted swords which had magically flowered, lilied the desert stretches, and there were strange red blossoms like drops of blood clinging to the points of long daggers. Bird of Paradise plants were there, too, well named for their plumy splendour of crimson, white, and yellow; and as the spring advanced the China trees brought memories of English lilacs.

The air was sweet with the scent of locust blossoms, and along the clear horizon fantastically formed mountains seemed to float like changing cloud-shapes.

The cattle, which Knight had bought from the departing rancher, had their corrals and scanty pastures far from the house, but the cowboys' quarters were near, and Annesley never tired of seeing the laughing young men mount and ride their slim, nervous horses.

This fact they got to know, and performed incredible antics to excite her admiration. They thought her beautiful, and wondered if she had lost someone whom she loved, that she should look so cold and sad.

These men, though she seldom spoke to any, were a comfort to Annesley. Without their shouts and rough jokes and laughter the place would have been gloomy as a grave.

There was a colony of prairie dogs which she could visit by taking a long walk, and they, too, were comforting. It was Knight who told her of the creatures and where to seek them; but he did not show her the way.

If things had been well between them, the man's anxiety to please her would have been adorable to Annesley. As soon as he saw the deficiencies of the house, he went himself to El Paso to choose furniture and pretty simple chintzes, old-fashioned china and delicate glass, bedroom and table damask. He ordered books also, and subscribed for magazines and papers.

Returning, he said nothing of what he had done, for he hoped that the surprise might prick the girl to interest, rousing her from the lethargy which had settled over her like a fog. But her gratitude was perfunctory. She was always polite, but the pretty things seemed to give her no real pleasure.

Knight had to realize that she was one of those people who, when inwardly unhappy, are almost incapable of feeling small joys. Such as she had were found in getting away from him as far as possible.

She practically lived out of doors in the summertime, taking pains to go where he would not pass on his rounds of the ranch; and even after the sitting room had been made "liveable" with the new carpet laid by Knight and the chintz curtains he put up with his own hands, she fled to her room for sanctuary.

Knight's search for capable servants was vain until he picked up a Chinaman from over the Mexican border, illegal but valuable as a household asset. Under the new regime there was good food, and Annesley had no work save the hopeless task of finding happiness.

It was easy to see from the white, set look of her face as the monotonous months dragged on that she was no nearer to accomplishing that task than on the day of her arrival. Nothing that Knight could do made any difference. When an upright cottage piano appeared one day, the girl seemed distressed rather than pleased.

"You shouldn't spend money on me," she said in the gentle, weary way that was becoming habitual.

"It's the 'good fund' money," Knight explained, hastily and almost humbly. "It's growing, you know. I've struck some fine investments. And I'm going to do well with this ranch. We don't need to economize. I thought you'd enjoy a piano."

"Thank you. You're very kind," she answered, as if he had been a stranger. "But I'm out of practice. I hardly feel energy to take it up again."

His hopes of what Texas might do for her faded slowly; and even when their fire had died under cooling ashes, his silent, unobtrusive care never relaxed.

Only the deepest love—such love as can remake a man's whole nature—could have been strong enough to bear the strain.

But Annesley, blinded by the anguish which never ceased to ache, did not see that it was possible for such a nature to change. She who had believed passionately in her hero of romance was stripped of all belief in him now, as a young tree in blossom is stripped of its delicate bloom by an icy wind. Not believing in him, neither did she believe in his love.

She thought that he was sorry for her, that he was grateful for what she had done to help him; that perhaps for the time being he intended to "turn over a new leaf," not really for her sake, but because he had been in danger of being found out.

Scornfully she told herself that this pretence at ranching was one of the many adventures dotted along his career; one act in the melodrama of which he delighted to be the leading actor. His own love of luxury and charming surroundings was enough to account for the improvements he hastened to make at the ranchhouse.

Anxiously she put away the thought that all he did was for her. She did not wish to accept it. She did not want the obligation of gratitude. It even seemed puerile that he should attempt to make up for spoiling her life by supplying a few easy chairs and pictures and a Chinese cook.

"He likes the things himself and can't live without them," she insisted. And it was to show him that he could not atone in such childish ways that she lived out of doors or hid in her own room.

At first she locked the door of that room when she entered, thinking of it defiantly as her fortress which must be defended. But when weeks grew into months and the enemy never attacked the fortress her vigilance relaxed. She forgot to lock the door.

Summer passed. Autumn and then winter came. Knight was a good deal away, for he had bought an interest in a newly opened copper mine in the Organ Mountains, and was interested in the development which might mean fortune. At night, however, he came back in the second-hand motor-car which he had got at a bargain price in El Paso, and drove himself.

Annesley never failed to hear him return, though she gave no sign. And sometimes she would peep through the slats of her green shutters on one side of the patio at the windows of his bedroom and "office," which were opposite. It was seldom that his light did not burn late, and Annesley went to bed thinking hard thoughts, asking herself what schemes of new adventure he might be plotting for the day when he should tire of the ranch.

Often she wondered that her life was not more hateful than it was; for somehow it was not hateful. Texas, with its vast spaces and blowing gusts of ozone, had begun to mean more for her than her cold reserve let Knight guess, more than she herself could understand.

* * * * *

On Christmas morning, when she opened her bedroom door, she almost stumbled over a covered Mexican basket of woven coloured straws. Something inside it moved and sighed.

She stooped, lifted the cover, and saw, curled up on a bit of red blanketing, a miniature Chihuahua dog. It had a body as slight and shivering as a tendril of grapevine; a tiny pointed face, with a high forehead and immense, almost human eyes.

At sight of her a thread of tail wagged, and Annesley felt a warm impulse of affection toward the little creature. Of course it was a present from Knight, though there was no word to tell her so; and if the dog had not looked at her with an offer of all its love and self she would perhaps have refused to accept it rather than encourage the giving of gifts.

But after that look she could not let the animal go. Its possession made life warmer; and it was good to see it lying in front of her open fire of mesquite roots.

She had no Christmas gift for Knight.

He had made, soon after their coming to the ranch, a cactus fence round the house enclosure; and seeing the dry ugliness of the long, straight sticks placed close together, Annesley disliked and wondered at it. At last she questioned Knight, and complained that the bristly barrier was an eyesore. She wished it might be taken down.

"Wait till spring," he answered. "It isn't a barrier; it's an allegory. Maybe when you see what happens you'll understand. Maybe you won't. It depends on your own feelings."

Annesley said no more, but she did not forget. She thought, if her understanding of the allegory meant any change of feeling which the man might be looking for in her, she would never understand. She hated to look at the line of stark, naked sticks, but they, and the "allegory" they represented, constantly recurred to her mind.

One day in spring she noticed that the sticks looked less dry. Knob-like buds had broken out upon them, the first sign that they were living things. It happened to be Easter eve, and she was restless, full of strange thoughts as the yellow-flowering grease-wood bushes were full of rushing sap.

A year ago that night her love for her husband had died its sudden, tragic death. In the very act of forgiveness, forgiveness had been killed.

Knight had gone off early that morning in his motor-car, the poor car which was a pathetic contrast to the glories of last year in England. He had gone before she was up, and had mentioned to the Chinese cook that he might not be back until late.

"That means after midnight," she told herself; and since she was free as air, she decided to take a long walk in the afternoon, as far as the river. It seemed that if she stayed in the house the thought of life as it might have been and life as it was would kill her on this day of all other days.

"I wish I could die!" she said. "But not here. Somewhere a long way off from everyone—and from him."

As she passed the cactus fence the buds were big.

Across the river, where the water flowed high and wide just then, lay Mexico. Annesley had never been there, though she could easily have gone, had she wished, from the ranch to El Paso, and from El Paso to the queer old historic town of Juarez. But she could not have gone without Knight, and there was no pleasure in travelling with him.

Besides, there was trouble across the border, and fierce fighting now and then. There had been some thievish raids made by Mexicans upon ranches along the river not many miles away, and that reminded her how Knight had remarked some weeks ago that she had better not go alone as far as the river bank.

"It isn't likely that anything would happen by day," he said, "but you might be shot at from the other side." Annesley was not afraid, and there was a faint stirring of pleasure in the thought that she was doing something against his wish on this anniversary. Deliberately, she sat alone by the river, waiting for the pageant of sunset to pass; and when she reached home the moon was up, a great white moon that turned the waving waste of pale, sparse grasses to a silver sea.

She had taken sandwiches and fruit with her, telling the cook that she would want no dinner when she came back. Away in the cow-punchers' quarters there was music, and she flung herself into a hammock on the veranda, to rest and listen.

There was a soft yet cool wind from the south, bringing the fragrance of creosote blossoms, and it seemed to the girl that never had she seen such white floods of moonlight, not even that night a year ago at Valley House.

Even the sky was milk-white. There were no black shadows anywhere, only dove-gray ones, except under the veranda roof. Her hammock was screened from the light by one dark shadow, like a straight-hung curtain. Save for the music of a fiddle and men's voices, the silver-white world lay silent in enchanted sleep.

Then suddenly something moved. A tall, dark figure was coming to the veranda. It paused at the cactus fence.

Could it be Knight, home already and on foot? No, it was a woman.

She walked straight and fast and unhesitating to the veranda, where she sat down on the steps.

Annesley raised herself on her elbow, and peered out of the concealing shadow. Who could the woman be? It was on the tip of her tongue to call, "Who are you?" when a sudden lifting of the bent face under a drooping hat brought it beneath the searchlight of the moon.

The woman was the Countess de Santiago, and the moon's radiance so lit her dark eyes that she seemed to look straight at Annesley in her hammock. The girl's heart gave a leap of some emotion like fear, yet not fear. She did not stop to analyze it, but she knew that she wished to escape from the woman; and an instant's reflection told her that she could not be seen if she kept still.

She began to think quickly, and her thoughts, confused at first, straightened themselves out like threads disentangled from a knot.

The woman had marched up to the veranda with such unfaltering certainty that it seemed she must have been there before. Perhaps she had arrived while the mistress of the house was out, and had been walking about the place, to pass away the time.

"But she hasn't come to see me," the girl in the hammock thought. "She has come to see Knight. It's for him she is waiting."

Anger stirred in Annesley's heart, anger against Knight as well as against Madalena.

"Has he written and told her to come?" she asked herself. "Does she think she can stay in this house? No, she shall not! I won't have her here!"

She was half-minded to rise abruptly and surprise the Countess, as the Countess had surprised her; to ask why she had come, and to show that she was not welcome. But if Madalena were here at Knight's invitation she would stay. There would be a scene perhaps. The thought was revolting. Annesley lay still; and in the distance she heard the throbbing of a motor.



CHAPTER XXV

THE ALLEGORY

Annesley knew that Knight was in the habit of coming home that way, in order not to disturb her with the noise of the car if she had gone to bed. If he were bringing parcels from the little mining town, he drove to the house, left the packets, and ran the auto to a shanty he had rigged up for a garage.

A few seconds later the small open car came into sight, and Madalena sprang up, waving a dark veil she had snatched off her hat. She feared, no doubt, that the man might take another direction and perhaps get into the house by some door she did not know before she could intercept him. From a little distance the tall figure standing on the veranda steps must have been silhouetted black against the white wall of the house, clearly to be seen from the advancing motor.

Quick as a bird in flight the car sped along the road, wheeled on to the stiff grass, and drew up close to the veranda steps.

"Good heavens, Madalena!" Annesley heard her husband exclaim. "I thought it was my wife, and that something had gone wrong."

The surprise sharpening his tone did away with the doubt in the mind of the hidden listener. She had said to herself that the woman was here by appointment, and that this hour had been chosen because the meeting was to be secret.

"I wanted you to think so, and to come straight to this place," returned the once familiar voice. "Don, I've travelled from San Francisco to see you. Do say you are glad!"

"I can't," the man answered. "I'm not glad. You tried to ruin me. You tried in a coward's way. You struck me in the back. I hoped never to see you again. How did you find me?"

"I've known for a long time that you were in Texas," said Madalena. "Lady Annesley-Seton and I kept up a correspondence for months after you—sent me away so cruelly, in such a hurry, believing hateful things, though you had no proof. She wrote that 'Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Smith' would probably never come back to England to settle, as she'd heard from a Mrs. Waldo that they'd gone to live in Texas. She asked if I knew whether 'Nelson Smith' had lost his money. I forgot to answer that question when I answered the letter. But when she said 'Texas' I felt sure you must be somewhere in this part. I remembered your telling me about the ranch that consumptive gambler left to you on the Mexican frontier."

"What a fool I was to tell you!" Knight exclaimed, roughly.

The words and his way of flinging them at her were like a box on the ear; and Annesley, lying in her hammock, heard with a thrill of pleasure. She was ashamed of the thrill, and ashamed (because suddenly awakened to the realization) that she was eavesdropping.

But it seemed impossible that she should break in upon this talk and reveal her presence. She felt that she could not do it; though, searching her conscience, she was not sure whether she clung to silence because it was the lesser of two evils or because she longed with a terrible longing to know whether these two would patch up their old partnership.

"If you knew why I have come all these miles, maybe you would not be so hard," Madalena pleaded.

"That I can't tell until I do hear," said Knight, dryly.

"I am going to explain," she tried to soothe him. "A great thing has happened. I can be rich and live easily all the rest of my years if I choose. But—I wanted to see you before deciding.

"I arrived in El Paso yesterday, and went to the Paso del Norte Hotel, to inquire about you. I was almost certain you would have taken back your own name, because I knew you used to be known by it when you stayed in Texas. I soon found out that I'd guessed right. I heard you'd stopped at that hotel last year on the way to your ranch. I hired a motor-car and came here to-day; but I didn't let the man bring me to the house. I didn't want to dash up and advertise myself.

"I questioned some of your cowmen. They said you'd gone off, and would be getting back at night in your automobile, not earlier than ten and maybe a good deal later. So I waited. The car I hired is a covered one, and I sat in it, a long way from the house out of sight behind a little rising of the land. Perhaps you call it a hill."

"We do," said Knight.

"I brought some food and wine. The chauffeur's there with the car now. He has cigarettes, and doesn't mind if we stay all night."

"I mind," Knight cut her short. "You can't stay all night. The road's good enough with such a moon for you to get back to El Paso. You'd better start so as to reach there before she sets."

"Wait till you hear why I've come before you advise me to hurry!" the Countess protested. "There's no danger of our being disturbed, is there? Where is your wife?"

"In bed and asleep, I trust."

"I'm glad. Then will you sit on the top of these steps in this heavenly moonlight and let me tell you things that are important to me? Perhaps you may think they are important to you as well. Who knows?"

"I know. Nothing you can have to say will be important to me. I won't sit down, thank you. I've been sitting in my car for hours. I prefer to stand."

"Very well. But—how hard you are! Even now, you won't believe I was innocent of that thing you accused me of doing?"

"I think now what I thought then. You were not innocent, but guilty. You were just a plain, ordinary sneak, Madalena, because you were jealous and spiteful."

"It is not true! Spiteful against you! It was never in my heart to lie. Jealous, perhaps. But that is not to say I wrote the letter you believe I wrote. You didn't give me time to try and prove I did not write the letter. You accused me brutally. You ordered me out of England, with threats. I obeyed because I was heartbroken, not because I was afraid."

"Why trouble to excuse yourself?" he asked. "It's not worth the time it takes. If you've come to tell me anything in particular, tell it, and let's make an end."

"I have an offer of marriage from a millionaire," the Countess announced in a clear, triumphant tone.

"Which no doubt you accepted, not to say snapped at."

"Not yet. I put him off, because I wanted to see you before I answered."

"You flatter me!" Knight laughed, not pleasantly. "If you've come from San Francisco to get my advice on that subject, I can give it while you count three. Make sure of the unfortunate wretch before he changes his mind."

"Ah, if I could think that your harshness comes from just a little—ever so little, jealousy!" Madalena sighed. "He won't change his mind. There is no danger. He is old, and I seem a young girl to him. He adores me. He is on his knees!"

"Bad for rheumatism!"

"He thinks I am the most wonderful creature who ever lived. I met him through my work. He came from a friend of his who told him about my crystal, and about me, too."

"You are still working the crystal?"

"But, of course! It has always given me the path to success. If I marry this man I shall be able to rest."

"On your laurels—such as they are!"

"On his money. He can't live many years."

"You are an affectionate fiancee!"

"I am not a fiancee yet. Not till I give my answer. And that depends on you.... Oh, Don, surely you must be sick of this—this existence, for it is not life! I know you are angry with me, but you can't hate me really. It is not possible for a man with blood in his body to hate a woman who loves him as I love you.

"I have tried to get over it. At first I thought I was succeeding. But no, when the reaction came, I found that I cared more than ever. We were born for each other. It must be so, for without you I am only half alive. I haven't come for your advice, Don, but to make you an offer. Oh, not an offer of myself. I should not dare, as you feel now. And it is not an offer from me only; it is from a great person who has something to give which is worth your accepting, even if my love is not!"

"You've got in touch with him, have you?" Knight broke into the rushing torrent of her words as a man might take a plunge into a cataract.

"Why not?" she answered. "I didn't seek him out. It was he who sought me."

"You don't know how to speak the truth, Madalena! You said you found me through Lady Annesley-Seton hearing from Mrs. Waldo, whereas you wrote to Paul Van Vreck."

"You do me injustice—always! I did hear from Constance. Then I—merely ventured to write and ask Mr. Van Vreck if he kept up communication with you, and——"

"You said in your letter to him that you knew where I was, and gave him to understand that we were in touch with each other, or he would have let out nothing."

"He has written and told you this!" She spoke breathlessly, as if in fear.

"Ah, you give yourself away! No, I haven't heard from Van Vreck since I saw him in New York, and thought I convinced him that my working days for him were over. I simply guessed—knowing you—what you would do."

"I may have mentioned Texas," Madalena admitted. "I supposed he knew where you were. I couldn't have told him, because I didn't know. But he wrote and suggested I should use my influence with you to reconsider your decision. Those were his words."

"How much has he paid you for coming here?"

"Nothing. As if I would take money for coming to you!"

"You have taken it for some queer things, and will again if you don't settle down to private life with your millionaire.... It's no use, Madalena. Go back to San Francisco. Send in your bill to Van Vreck. Tell him there's nothing doing. And make up your mind to marriage."

"But, Don, you haven't heard what he offers."

"It can't be more than he offered me himself when I saw him in New York——"

"It is more. He says that particularly. He raises the offer from last time. It is three times higher! Think what that means. Oh, Don, it means life, real life, not stagnation! I would give up safety and a million to be with you—as your partner again, your humble partner.

"Here, on this bleak ranch, it is like death—a death of dullness. I know what you must be suffering because you are obstinate, because you have taken a resolve, and are determined not to break it. You are afraid it will be weakness to break it. There can be no other reason.

"I have asked questions about your life here. I have learned things. I know she is cold as ice. If you stay you will degenerate. You will become a clod.

"Leave this hideous gray place. Leave that woman who treats you like a dog. Let the ranch be hers. Send her money. You will have it to spare. She can divorce you, and you will be freed forever from the one great mistake you ever made. As for me——"

"As for you—be silent!" The command struck like a whiplash. "You are not worthy to speak of 'that woman,' as you call her. If I did what you deserve, I'd send you off without another word—turn my back on you and let you go. But—" he drew in his breath sharply, then went on as if he had taken some tonic decision—"I want you to understand why, if Paul Van Vreck offered me all his money, and you offered me the love of all the women on earth with your own, I shouldn't be tempted to accept.

"It's because of 'that woman'—who is my wife. It may be true that she treats me like a dog, for she wouldn't be cruel to the meanest cur. But I'd rather be her dog than any other woman's master.

"So you see now. It's come to that with me. I won her love and married her for my own advantage. I lost her love because she found me out—through you. Mild justice that, perhaps! But all the same, getting her for mine has been for my advantage. In a different way from what I planned, but ten thousand times greater. Though she's taken her love from me, she's given me back my soul. Nothing can rob me of that so long as I run straight.

"And I tell you, Madalena, this ranch, where I'm working out some kind of expiation and maybe redemption, is God's earth for me. Now do you understand?"

For an instant the woman was silent. Then she broke into loud sobbing, which she did not try to check.

"You are a fool, Don!" she wept. "A fool!"

"Maybe. But I'm not the devil's fool as I used to be. Don't cry. You might be heard. Come. It's time to go. We've said all we have to say to each other except good-bye—if that's not mockery."

Madalena dried her tears, still sobbing under her breath.

"At least take me to the automobile," she said. "Don't send me off alone in the night. I am afraid."

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Knight answered, the flame of his fierceness burnt down. "But I'll go with you, and put you on the way back to El Paso. Come along!"

As he spoke, he started, and Madalena was forced to go with him, forced to keep up with his long strides if she would not be left behind.

When they had gone Annesley lay motionless, as though she were under a spell. The man's words to the other woman wove the spell which bound her, listening as they repeated themselves in her mind. Again and again she heard them, as they had fallen from his lips.

His expiation—perhaps his redemption—here on his bit of "God's earth" ... "It may be true that she treats me like a dog.... But I'd rather be her dog than any other woman's master...." And this was Easter eve, a year to the night since his martyrdom began!

Something seemed to seize Annesley by the hand and break the bonds that had held her, something strong although invisible. She sat up with a faint cry, as of one awakened from a dream, and slipped out of the hammock. There was a dim idea in her mind that she must go along the road where they had gone, so as to meet Knight on his way back. She did not know what she should say to him, or whether she could say anything at all; but the something which had taken her hand and snatched her out of the hammock dragged her on and on.

At first she obeyed the force blindly.

"I must see him! I must see him!" The words spoke themselves in her head. But when she had hurried out of the enclosure walled in by the cactus hedge, the brilliant moonlight seemed to pierce her brain, and make a cold, calm appeal to her reason.

"You can't tell him what you have heard," it said. "He would be humiliated. Or"—the thought was sharp as a gimlet—"what if he saw you, and knew you were listening? What if he talked just for effect? He is so clever! He is subtle enough for that. And wouldn't it be more like the man, than to say what he said sincerely?"

She stopped, and was thankful not to see her husband returning. There was time to go back if she hurried. And she must hurry! If he had seen her in her hammock, and made that theatrical attempt to play upon her feelings, he would laugh at his own success if she followed him. And if he had not seen her, and were in earnest, it would be best—indeed the only right way—not to let him guess that the scene on the veranda steps had had a witness.

Annesley turned to fly back faster than she had come. But passing the cactus hedge her dress caught. It was as if the hedge sentiently took hold of her.

She bent down to free the thin white material; and suddenly colour blazed up to her eyes in the rain of silver moonlight. The buds had opened since she noticed them last.

No longer was the hedge a grim barricade of stiff, dark sticks. Each stalk had turned into a tall, straight flame of lambent rose. From a dead thing of dreary ugliness it had become a thing of living beauty.

Knight's allegory!

He had said, perhaps she might understand when the time came; and perhaps not.

She did understand. But she had not faith to believe that the miracle could repeat itself in life—her life and Knight's. She shut her eyes to the thought, and when she had freed her dress ran very fast to the house.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE THREE WORDS

Knight was generally far away long before Annesley was up in the morning, and often he did not come in till evening. She thought that on Easter Day, however, he would perhaps not go far. She half expected that he would linger about the house or sit reading on the veranda; and she could not resist the temptation to put on one of the dresses he had liked in England.

It was a little passe and old-fashioned, but he would not know this. What he might remember was that she had worn it at Valley House.

And the wish to say something, as if accidentally, about the flaming miracle of the cactus hedge was as persistent in her heart as the desire of a crocus to push through the earth to the sunshine on a spring morning. She did not know whether the wish would survive the meeting with her husband. She thought that would depend as much upon him as upon her mood.

But luncheon time came and Knight did not appear.

Annesley lunched alone, in her gray frock. Even on days when Knight was with her, and they sat through their meals formally, it was the same as if she were alone, for they spoke little, and each was in the habit of bringing a book to the table.

But she had not meant it to be so on this Easter Day. Even if she did not speak of the blossoming of the cactus, she had planned to show Knight that she was willing to begin a conversation. To talk at meals would be a way out of "treating him like a dog."

The pretty frock and the good intention were wasted. Late in the afternoon she heard from one of the line riders whom she happened to see that something had gone wrong with a windmill which gave water to the pumps for the cattle, and that her husband was attending to it.

"He's a natural born engineer," said the man, whose business as "line rider" was to keep up the wire fencing from one end of the ranch to the other. "I don't know how much he knows, but I know what he can do. Queer thing, ma'am! There don't seem to be much that Mike Donaldson can't do!"

Annesley smiled to hear Knight called "Mike" by one of his employees. She knew that he was popular, but never before had she felt personal pleasure in the men's tributes of affection.

To-day she felt a thrill. Her heart was warm with the spring and the miracle of the cactus hedge, and memories of impetuous—seemingly impetuous—words of last night.

If she could have seen Knight she would have spoken of his allegory; and that small opening might have let sunlight into their darkness. But he did not come even to dinner; and tired of waiting, and weary from a sleepless night, she went to bed.

Next morning a man arrived who wished to buy a bunch of Donaldson's cattle, which were beginning to be famous. He stayed several days; and when he left Knight had business at the copper mine—business that concerned the sinking of a new shaft, which took him back and forth nearly every day for a week. By and by the cactus flowers began to fade, and Annesley had never found an opportunity of mentioning them, or what they might signify.

When she met Knight his manner was as usual: kind, unobtrusive, slightly stiff, as though he were embarrassed—though he never showed signs of embarrassment with any one else. She could hardly believe that she had not dreamed those words overheard in the moonlight.

Week after week slipped away. The one excitement at Las Cruces Ranch was the fighting across the border; the great "scare" at El Paso, and the stories of small yet sometimes tragic raids made by bands of cattle stealers upon American ranches which touched the Rio Grande. The water was low. This made private marauding expeditions easier, and the men of Las Cruces Ranch were prepared for anything.

* * * * *

One night in May there was a sandstorm, which as usual played strange tricks with Annesley's nerves. She could never grow used to these storms, and the moaning of the hot wind seemed to her a voice that wailed for coming trouble. Knight had been away on one of his motoring expeditions to the Organ Mountains, and though he had told the Chinese boy that he would be back for dinner, he did not come. Doors and windows were closed against the blowing sand, but they could not shut out the voice of the wind.

After dinner Annesley tried to read a new book from the library at El Paso, but between her eyes and the printed page would float the picture of a small, open automobile and its driver lost in clouds of yellow sand.