CHAPTER XVIII

Roxie Kester had ridden up here this evening sitting behind Bud and holding to the man’s big shoulders to keep from falling. Bud had kept the mare to a walk and they had journeyed in silence. She had not been afraid. This was not altogether because of her reliance on the long-bladed kitchen knife which she had slipped from her bundle and hidden in her bosom, although this had helped to steady her. But the deeper reason was that even on that long wild ride she had thought less of herself than of some one else. She had eliminated herself--as far as her future was concerned--the moment she left the house and joined this other. She had made her decision. She had made her sacrifice. Twice her Prince had risked his life for her and now she was risking her own for him. She was doing even more. There was a certainty here. A man may clash with another man--may clash even with a chestnut-oak--and escape. He is risking only his life. But a woman may not place herself in such a position as she was now in and avoid the consequences. However she protected herself until morning, it made the next step inevitable. Not to marry Bud the next day would be to stand disgraced. The only explanation she could give that would justify her conduct, she must not give. The toothless old gossips would roll the story around their tongues like snuff. A girl does not spend the night in a mountain shack unless she chooses.

Yet Roxie was neither afraid nor depressed. She was in a state of exaltation paralleled only by religious ecstasy. Love--such romantic love as hers--is heroic. Heroism is nothing but complete and utter unselfishness. Her joy came in giving, not in asking. If she could not give herself to him she would give herself for him.

The wonder is not that the young are inspired to such idealistic heights; the wonder comes to the old and sophisticated. Men and women are born poets--women more often than men. And poets are a simple people living outside themselves, in touch with the singing stars. Only as they turn wise and think of themselves do they grow blunt and blind and are forced to grope their way on the surface of the earth.

Roxie could allow her thoughts to wander at will on that ride up the mountain-side. She could permit them to take flight where they would. She had given all that she had to give and so was entitled to take all that remained for her to take. There was no need of repressions. She had won the complete freedom that only love can give.

So she thought of Allston as she chose--calling him Ned as in her very secret heart she had long called him. Aye, she could kiss his hair now and his white forehead and his lips. Throwing back her head, the rain beat down upon her face and each drop was like a kiss back from him. There were thousands of them, but not too many. How her heart leaped at the thought! How it sang! A thousand, ten thousand were not enough to satisfy her hungry heart.

A man may carry a lady off on horseback without carrying her heart at all. A man may take a lady into the black forest and have none of the best of her. A man may shut a lady up in the fastness of his shack and wonder what has become of her.

Bud dimly realized that much an hour later. It did not discourage him, but it puzzled him. He had looked for protest and outcry and he was met by an uncanny silence. Once, when he tried to take her hand, he was warned off, but even then so quietly that he was dazed. At the end of another hour he was staring at her with a new eagerness and growing passion that might have made him dangerous--when the back door had swung open admitting the tempest.

The presence of Ned Allston was in reality fraught with more tragic consequences to Roxie than to Childers. The latter had been thrown and tied, and that was the end of him. But Roxie had been set free--and that was not the end of her. She had been released from the end. She was forced to face a new fight--a fight made more intense by the leeway she had so recently given herself. It is one thing to stay within bounds and another to move out of bounds and return again.

Allston in the last few hours had become more distinctly personal to her than before. He had stepped into reality: so much so that when he stood before her in the flesh she was half ashamed to face him. She remembered the rain and her upturned mouth. It was because of that she had allowed herself to speak of Wilmer.

He had not denied the story Bud had told of what he saw in the cove. Then it was true. She was sitting on the floor, Turk fashion, and Allston was still in his chair studying her with his puzzled blue eyes. To herself she repeated over and over again the question she had asked of him, “What fer had he come?”

All he was doing now was to take away her dreams--the one thing that had saved her. He was not changing other conditions in the slightest. He was making them even worse. Did he think she wanted to go back to Miss Wilmer’s and watch him hold her hand?

She felt the venomous sting of a new emotion--of jealousy. The poison works swiftly in such natures as hers.

In the meanwhile Allston had come to some realization of the problem he faced. Another man might have been quicker, but another man would not have been Allston. That the girl had her romantic moments he was aware--every one, man or woman, has those; but that she had carried them as far as this he had never suspected. His mind had been far too occupied in another direction. Even on his way up here when, under the stress of the struggle, he had sensed something of the significance of her act and that in a way it involved him, he had not associated it with love. Rather had it seemed like a magnificently impersonal poetic idea. For two years, in France, he had been in touch often with just this sort of thing. Again and again he had seen it govern the fine acts of men and women--of young men and women. Under the spell of it he had seen them make sacrifices that staggered the imagination. Sometimes it was in the name of country; sometimes in the name of duty; sometimes in the name of honor; sometimes in the name of gratitude--but always it was utterly impersonal.

To him Roxie from the beginning had seemed of this type. She reminded him in many ways of those extraordinary young peasant women with whom he had come into such fleeting contact--the women with the liquid black eyes so quick to respond to elemental emotions, but so steady withal as one saw them in their mothers and grandmothers. Somehow Allston had always understood them enough to respect them, which could not be said of some of his fellow officers. He had glimpsed the finer stuff that lay below the tempting smiles, and understood, too, something of the abnormal conditions under which they were living.

Roxie had been just such another, though under no such tension. She was as good to look upon as a mountain flower. She possessed much of the same natural beauty and many of the same natural imperfections. And she fitted well into her own surroundings, appearing best in the woods, under sun or moon. She was at her best here to-night in this mountain shack where the wind and the rain were more companions than enemies. In the glow of the firelight her hair shone like spun gold, and her skin, tanned and even freckled in places, was as beautiful as the spotted ochre of a tiger lily. One did not ask here for peaches and cream. And her eyes of light blue were as shallow and as deep as the sky at noontime. Her nose and mouth, a trifle pinched, but wonderfully alert--like the nose and mouth of little forest things dependent for their lives on smell and taste--held him where more perfect features had often left him indifferent. Her perfect little body, both strong and light, had its own beauty. Rightly she should have been barefooted. He had a notion she had as shapely a foot as Trilby’s.

Back of these physical attributes there was an undoubted personality, and here again he was forced for comparison to the forest creatures--the gentler ones like the doe and squirrel. Naïvely wondering and trustful he saw her, ready to respond to affection, quick to start at danger. It is flattering to any man to have such a personality come to him without fear. As a result of it a man may feel better than he is.

It is always dangerous to compare a woman with anything but a woman. It is dangerous to compare them, anyway. Each one must be taken by herself no matter how much like all others she turns out to be in the end.

Allston, in reviewing swiftly his few points of contact with Roxie, could find nothing on his part that suggested indiscretion. He might justly take a certain amount of satisfaction in that, but it did not alter facts--if what he was beginning to suspect was a fact. He was by no means sure of that even now. He meant to avoid being sure if that were possible. The best way to accomplish this was to get Roxie out of here at once and back to normal conditions.

Allston reached for his boots. They were still wet, but he forced them on and laced them. Then he took his automatic and stepped out into the hall to make sure Bud was safely tied. He found the man silent and motionless, and without speaking to him returned to the sitting-room. His plan was to notify one of the neighbors on his way down the mountain road and have him come up and free the fellow.

Roxie had watched from the corners of her eyes every move Allston made. And she realized that every step he took forced her that much nearer a final decision. It was evident that he meant to go back and intended to take her with him. But it was impossible for her to go back--impossible for many reasons. And yet of them all she could not tell him one.

It was impossible because she could no longer remain in the same house with him and Miss Wilmer--and yet to tell him why would be to tell him all and she had told him too much already.

It was impossible because even if Miss Wilmer accepted her, the valley folk would not. Yet, if she told him that, his next question would be to ask why, then, had she come? To answer that would be to tell him all.

It was impossible finally because it was utterly impossible. If ever she left this house with him, Bud remaining behind alive, it would mean his death more surely than as though she had not come at all. She knew how Bud felt out there. She knew it with a keen realization of the anguish he was suffering, which amounted at moments almost to pity. Bud--he deserved it. He had brought it on himself. And yet it was cruel hard. She did not enjoy seeing any one suffer. When she saw a man kick a vicious dog, she was sorry for the dog. And Bud--he had his bad points, but he was not a dog. Had Allston killed the man outright, fighting for his own life as he had a right to do, she would have felt no regret. Obliged to choose between the two men, she would not have hesitated to choose for Allston. And she realized that all Allston had done to Bud, after coming here, was necessary. Only he should not have come.

That was the pity of it. His coming left her with no alternative--and without her dreams. Bud could not be allowed to starve to death out there. Some one would free him. Once free, he would kill. There would be no hand left to stop him. It was doubtful if now even she could stop him. But she must try.

To do that she must remain behind with him. She must give her life--anything Bud asked for--to buy him off from his revenge. He would ask all. There was no doubt about that. Perhaps in the end she might not have enough. And yet if he wanted much she would have much to give. The more he wanted, the more she would be able to give. So in the end she must make him want--must whet his appetite. Here was a grim test for a woman.

But that was all to come later. For the present she was concerned alone with Allston. He must go and she must stay. The sooner this happened, the better it would be for both. And this drove her quickly and definitely to her final sacrifice. There was just one way in which she could bring this about; one clear, logical way that would answer for all time his every question and send him home safe and happy to Wilmer. It came to her, as he reëntered the room with his jaws set so firmly, that she was half afraid of him. As she thought of her plan, she sprang to her feet and faced him with a nervous tremor. Most of the color had gone from her cheeks on the instant.

“Roxie.”

He spoke sharply--incisively. She had never heard his voice like that.

“Yes, sir,” she answered.

“Put on your hat and coat.”

“What fer?”

“We’re going now.”

“Goin’ now? No, sir, I ain’t goin’ now.”

“Don’t delay,” he ordered. “And don’t be foolish.”

She braced herself--holding her feet a little apart as though steadying for a blow.

“I ain’t goin’ now. I ain’t goin’ no time.”

Unconsciously she had fallen back into the vernacular both in words and voice. There was a drawling softness to it that Allston noticed. It made for tenderness. It was difficult for him to maintain his rigid sternness in the face of it. Yet that was the only safe thing to do.

He seized her arm.

“Quick!” he commanded.

She shook herself free with a semblance of indignation. Most women are born actresses, given the occasion. And Roxie had the occasion. Her heart and soul were in the stand she was taking. Certainly the stake was big enough--his life and nothing less. She was playing for a larger salary than most real actresses receive.

“Don’ tech me!” she cried.

His brows came together.

“Good Lord--do you want me to throw you over my back?”

“Do I want ye ter throw me over your back?”

Her blue eyes flamed. Had it not been for the cost to him, that is just what she would have liked. But the cost to him was what made it impossible.

“Damn it, I’ll do it if you don’t come _now_,” he threatened.

(Out in the hall alone, Bud was clawing, clawing, clawing. He had been clawing all this time. The tips of his fingers were bleeding, but the rope was fuzzing deeper and deeper. Every now and then he stopped to strain at it. Gawd A’mighty, if he should get free--!)

“Put on your hat and coat or I’ll do it for you,” insisted Allston.

The words she was trying to utter stuck in her throat. This acting business was not so easy after all. Yet she found her voice when Allston almost roughly seized her arm again. The touch of him gave the inspiration she needed.

“I’m goin’ ter stay hyar. I’m goin’ ter stay with Bud,” she trembled.

“You what?”

“I come hyar with Bud. Ain’t I got a right?”

“But _why_ did you come?”

“I come because I wanted. He asked me ter marry him an’ I said I would. Ain’t I got a right?”

“You mean you love him?”

Here was a direct question. It demanded a direct answer. She turned her eyes around the shack like a frightened animal. The man before her followed her gaze. She could not get away from him. So finally--

“Yes,” she answered.

“You came here of your own free will?”

“Yes.”

“And the note you wrote was simply to throw Miss Wilmer off the track?”

“I--I hed ter tell her somethin’,” she pleaded.

“Lord!” he broke out. “What a farce! What a farce!”

She did not know the meaning of his words, but she saw something like a smile below his frown and she did not like that.

“If folks would only leave other folks alone!” she cried.

Allston started.

“There’s real philosophy in that,” he nodded. “If folks would only leave other folks alone!”

(Bud was still clawing, clawing, clawing. It hurt. It hurt like the devil now. He writhed under a new torture. He paused for breath as he heard their voices in long-continued conversation. They gave him a new incentive. He gathered himself together and throwing into the effort every ounce of his strength he strained once again at the weakened strands.)

Allston turned from the girl and paced the room once across and back. The story she had just told came like a shock. It hurt, in a way, his pride. It was a blow at his ideals. If at first it did not sound plausible, it sounded upon second thought more plausible than the original interpretation he had given. Natives, after all, were natives in whatever part of the country they lived and however good to look upon they were. It was perfectly normal for her to fall in love with one of her own. And this man Bud, if no better than most of his fellows hereabouts, was not much worse as far as his observation of the last few weeks went. He was a little more autocratic and domineering than some, but he liked him for that. Howe had spoken of him as “bad,” but without much concrete evidence except for the story that he had once killed a man. To Allston that did not sound as significant as it might have done a few years back. He himself had killed his man. In battle, to be sure, but so was Bud probably in a battle of his own.

Allston came back to his original position before Roxie. It was as though she had grown older in the last few minutes. She did not stand as straight. And so he suddenly saw her as fitting almost perfectly into these surroundings.

“So that is it, Roxie,” he said more gently. “You came because you wanted to come. And you’re here because you want to be here. But--you aren’t married yet?”

The girl trembled at that.

“No, sir. I ain’t married yet. But Bud--he said to-morrer he’d marry me.”

“And you believe him?”

“Yes, sir, I believe him. Oh--I gotter believe him.”

“Then you ought to have waited until to-morrow.”

“But I didn’.”

“You were afraid Miss Wilmer might object?”

“Yes, I was ’fraid o’ Miss Wilmer.”

“I think most likely she _would_ have objected. And yet if you love the man--”

Why did she cringe at that?

“And yet if you love him--why, there isn’t any answer. Love is seldom--intelligent.”

“I dunno,” she answered vaguely.

She wished that he would not talk any more. She wished that he would go. Every second he remained was making it more difficult for her.

“You know the man and what they say of him?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And of course you believe he loves you or you wouldn’t have come. And that is the important thing; if he loves you, little girl. You’ll have him at your mercy--if he loves you as he ought to love you.”

In her bewildered brain that suggestion of his seemed to fasten. It was being loved, he said, not loving that was important. “You will have him at your mercy,” ran his phrase. If only that proved true, then Allston was safe.

“Why don’t ye go now?” she questioned.

Suddenly the lamp flickered. The flame flared up, then down, then up again, smoking the chimney as a gust of wind swept down the hall and into the room. Allston’s hand flew back to his automatic. Clutching it he ran out into the empty hall. At the same moment Roxie ran to the table and extinguished the light.