Part 16

He was so accustomed to seeing her perform resolutely whatever she undertook--this strange, determined child of his--that he felt that he could not thwart her will, and so he began, in a helpless, entreating fashion, to try to alter it.

“Oh, Clementina, please don’t go!” he said. “Come home with me--please do! I’ll do anything you want if you’ll only come home with me now.”

“Not until I have seen that lady,” said the child, an expression of indomitable purpose making her little face look strangely old.

Poor Clem was almost in tears. He felt that he had not the power to resist her, and he felt, at the same time, that if she carried her point his case was lost with the Tarara. He had hoped to win her consent to marry him, and he had meant to conceal the child’s existence until the marriage should be over, and then to confess it, throwing himself upon her mercy, and offering to put the child in some school or asylum where she should be kindly treated and yet be out of the way.

But if Clementina persisted, now, all would be lost. He resolved upon a subterfuge and a lie. The child’s purpose must be frustrated at all costs.

“If you will come with me now,” he said, “I will take you to see her to-morrow. Come, Clementina, please.”

“To-morrow will not do,” the child began, in that same tone of resolution, but at this instant a boy came up to them, and delivered a message to Clem. This message was a summons to him to come at once to the Tarara’s room, and to bring the child.

With a last effort at resistance he was beginning to frame an excuse, when, in the very midst of his speech, Clementina said, decisively, speaking to the boy:

“I am coming. Show me the way,” and the poor old father was scarcely surprised when he found the messenger ignoring him entirely, and obeying the words of the child.

She had already started after him, and Clem could only follow them, in feeble wretchedness and disappointment.

The boy led the way through various dusty and dimly-lighted passages, and presently paused before a door at which he rapped sharply, and then walked away.

A voice said: “Come in!”

Clementina turned the knob, and entered, her father following, and taking care to close the door behind him.

Instead of finding the popular dancer flung in picturesque abandonment on the lounge, drinking iced champagne or smoking a cigarette (which was what Rhodes expected) he saw her seated before her dressing-table, on which were scattered a disorderly collection of wigs, masks, powder-puffs, curling-irons, rouge-pots, and various other paraphernalia of her profession. Her elbows were crushing some artificial flowers, as she sat with her chin in her hands and her gaze fixed solemnly upon her own reflection in the mirror.

As she turned toward them, the child ran forward and flung her arms around the dancer’s bare neck, lifting her face to be kissed.

The Tarara gave a little cry, and sprang to her feet, and then, the next instant, crouched down again, and made a motion as if she would cover, with her short tarletan skirts, the exposure of plump legs cased in thin flesh-colored tights. What had come over her? Those shapely limbs were usually her pride. When had she felt any sense of modesty about them before?

But the child was not looking at them. Neither did she look at the false hair, the rouge, the powder, the painted eyebrows, and _bistré_ lids. She had clasped her arms around the dancer’s neck again, and was looking straight into her eyes.

The feeling which came to the Tarara as she met that look was that one creature saw her soul, at last.

“I love you. You are kind, and sweet, and good,” the child said, softly, still regarding her with that deep, penetrating gaze, and with intense conviction in her tone.

The Tarara’s painted face began to quiver, and great tear-drops brimmed her eyes, as she caught the little creature to her, crushing to irremediable flatness her diaphanous tarletan skirts. She strained the small creature to her breast a moment, and then seated her on her lap. She had caught up a rich plush cape from a chair, and had thrown it over the tights and dancing-shoes.

Rhodes, meanwhile, stood looking on, in a state of stupefaction. They had both forgotten him, as they clung to each other, with close kisses and embraces.

A deep emotion was evident in both of them, but its character was different. The woman was stirred to a passionate excitement; her breaths came in deep, catching sobs; her face worked with a nervous strain; and her cheeks flushed hotly under their rouge. The child, on the other hand, was deeply calm and grave. She lay with utter contentment in that bedizened creature’s arms, and looked up at her as trustingly and unquestioningly as though she had been a Madonna. This long, deep, concentrated look was undisturbed, as she said with a wondering seriousness:

“Are you my mother?”

“No, darling, no,” the dancer said, bending above her with a mother’s tenderness, while the tears ran down her cheeks, making a pitiable daub of black and white and red there.

“My mother died,” the child went on, looking only at the gentle eyes of the woman, and speaking in a grave and placid tone.

“And my little baby died,” the dancer said. “She would have been as old as you. She died before she ever knew her mother’s face, and my heart has been empty, ever since.”

“I love you,” said the child.

The strong, spasmodic movement with which the dancer crushed her to her heart, as she said these words, must have been physically painful, but if it was, the child gave no sign, except a radiant smile of joy. There was a look of almost holy calm upon the little pallid face. She put up one small hand, and patted lovingly the smeared face that bent above her.

“You are good,” she said.

“Am I, darling? Oh, I should like to be! If my little baby had lived perhaps I should have been, though everybody has been bad to me. No one has ever loved me, as you do, before.”

“Your little child loves you,” was the quiet answer, still with that look and tone of knowledge.

“Oh, do you think she does, and that I will some time have her again?”

“Yes,” said the child, with a certainty that seemed to make doubt unreasonable. Then looking around, as if in sudden recollection, she said, “Clem--Boy--come here.”

At these words a lingering hope sprang up in Rhodes’s heart. This strange mode of addressing him might enable him to keep his secret still. If he could only get the child away now, and to-morrow contrive some way of accounting for her! With this end in view he came forward, the child turning on him, as he did so, the fond, penetrating look he knew so well.

The dancer glanced quickly from one to the other, but it was the child she questioned, and not the man.

“Is he your father?” she said.

“Yes,” said Clementina. “My mother died when I was very little. He has been so good to me.”

But what was the matter with Clementina’s voice, and why was her breath suddenly so short and difficult? Rhodes was conscious of this, even in that moment when he realized that his secret was revealed, and his hopes of the Tarara blasted. She was conscious of it, too, and her face took on a sudden look of terror.

Rhodes dropped upon his knees beside the two, who still clung to one another in that close embrace. Over the child’s drooped head the man and the woman exchanged a quick, scared look. Then both looked at the child.

The gaze that answered their excited ones was so calm, so strong, so full of knowledge and assured content, that outwardly, at least, they were quieted. One thin, little arm lay still around the dancer’s neck, and with evident effort she lifted the other and laid it around the neck of her frightened, childish old father.

Almost instantly it fell back heavily. There was a little twitch of the thin body, a stifled breath, one more sweet glance of love, and the child lay dead between them.

In a moment all was excitement and confusion. The alarm was given. People thronged the room. Doctors were summoned, but one look assured them that all was over with the child.

The Tarara, with trembling limbs and chattering teeth, threw on some clothes and drove home in the carriage with Rhodes, holding the dead child all the way close pressed against her heart.

Only once did the woman speak to him. It was when, between them, they had got the little body up to the tiny room, which had been its home in life, and had laid it upon one of the folding-beds, which had been so neatly made a few hours back. Then the Tarara, glancing around the poor place, so purely clean and orderly, taking in the details here and there--the child’s slate and lesson books, and her little work-basket, with its half-used spools of thread and small brass thimble--and contrasting it with her own sumptuous rooms and luxurious living, turned her gaze upon the man who stood helpless and miserable in the midst of this poverty-stricken home, and said:

“I would have married you for this child. You should have let me know.”

Once More

Once More

In the days when the great West was still the wild West, many a strange scene took place before the eye of the gazer, who had the advantage of two points of view, and who could get the whole zest of these primitive conditions, by the process of contrasting them with a foregone civilization.

Such a one was the man, who had once been known in the fashionable circles of an eastern city as William Wilmerding, but who now, in the mining-camp, went by the more convenient name of Bill Will.

He had been a tender-foot when he first came to the camp, but it was not long before he hardened to the necessary state of roughness and toughness, to make him acceptable to his companions and approved mining standards, and at last he became a prime favorite with the spirited and desperate fellows, who knew but the savage and seamy side of life, but who yet had something in them which responded to the charm of education and refinement, when properly repudiated and concealed.

For Bill, in his dress and in his daring deeds, was as tough and wild as any of them; indeed, there was a spirit of desperation in the man, which more than once had roused the admiration of the camp, in times of danger, and which had its source in a certain feeling in William Wilmerding’s heart, which was his life secret--a secret which he had come to bury in this strange new existence. Nothing but despair of his heart’s desire would have brought and kept him here.

Every camp in those days had its own pet pursuit, and in this one it was horse-racing. Their track was not as smooth as civilization would have made it, but for that very reason better horses and better riders were required. Every spring and autumn they had a grand race-day, and the purses put up were so large, and the private betting was so reckless, that big sums of money were exchanged, and often the rich became poor, and the poor rich. These men had no families dependent upon them, and when once their blood was up, they did not hesitate to risk their last cent.

On the occasion of one of the spring races, the bustle and excitement were at their very height, and the most important race of the day was about to be run, when there drove into the field a wagon, in which were seated two such strange and alien-looking figures, that even the exciting demands of the present moment gave place, for a little while, to this new influence. The cart was driven by a hale and hearty old man, who looked impressively proud of his mission, and who was lifted so far above mining etiquette as to take off his hat to the assembled horse racers, as he brought his cart to a standstill. It was probably, however, reverence for his passengers that led to this “break.”

The passengers were two gray-clad, white-bonneted sisters of charity, who looked about them, on this alien scene, with mild-eyed wonder. One of them was stout, middle-aged, and homely, with energy and resolution written on every line of her face. The other was small, and young, and fair.

As the cart halted, the old man got up and announced that the sisters had come up from the mission, two hundred miles away, to ask for contributions toward the building of an orphanage, of which there was pressing need.

His speech was listened to with the politest attention by the crowd, a few men, here and there, being so far affected as to take off their hats in a shame-faced sort of way, and then confusedly to put them on again. The two sisters said nothing, but their mere presence there, looking about them with placid kindly faces that carried a message of pure goodness to every heart, so impressed the camp that, for the moment, the zest about the coming race seemed in danger of eclipse.

This peril was perceived by one of the crowd, a tough and wiry little old man known as Jerry, who had great influence in the camp, and he now pushed his way to the front, and jumping on an upturned box, addressed the assemblage in lusty tones. Jerry was not altogether temperate in his habits, and his face and manner, to-day, indicated an ardor and excitement not wholly to be attributed to the coming great race. He was in the highest good humor, however, and his face fairly kindled, as he said:

“Time for the race, boys! Clear the track! Never you mind, old girl,” to the elder of the sisters. “You’re all right. Pull off to one side there, driver, and let the sisters watch the race; and if Whirlwind wins it, we’ll give the old girl a send-off that’ll make her heart jump out of her body.”

The crowd answered with a cheer, and the current of interest was again turned toward the race track, down which Whirlwind, ridden by Bill Will, was now returning from a gentle preliminary canter. Bill Will had been at the other side of the course when the sisters had arrived, and now, as he rode up to the starting-point, his eyes rested on these strange figures for the first time.

As they did so, he turned deadly white, and his body swayed in the light saddle, so that he almost lost his balance--a fact noticed, perhaps, by but one being in all that crowd, for, to the miners, a man amounted to little, beside a horse, on this day, and they were all gazing eagerly at Whirlwind to see if he looked in condition.

The person who saw only the man, and who had no consciousness of the horse, was the younger of the two sisters. Her face had turned as white as his, and now, while the attention of all the rest was fixed upon the horse, her glance met that of the rider, with a gaze of mutual consciousness.

She saw him struggle to right himself, and to regain his self control, and she heard him say faintly that his throat was dry. A dozen flasks were hurriedly jerked from pockets, and held out to him.

“No,” he said, “water!” and, at the sound of his voice, the little sister turned from white to burning red.

A man ran quickly and brought him some water in a tin cup. Before he took it, he removed his cap, and as he bent to drink, he looked again into the little sister’s eyes, as if he pledged her thus, in silence.

Then, with a powerful rallying of his forces, he drew in Whirlwind’s reins, and settled himself in his saddle, and with a low bow that might have graced a knight at a tournament, but which no one here noticed, or would have comprehended, he took his place with the other horses at the starting-point.

There was mad riding that day. The camp had hitherto seen nothing like it. The men from neighboring camps, who had entered fine horses upon which they had staked all their earthly possessions, had gone in to win, and were resolved that Whirlwind should not have this race, if grit in man and beast could prevent it. Every horse was strained to its extremest powers, and every rider rode with a conscious risk of neck and limb, but if the others did the utmost possible, it seemed as though Whirlwind and his rider did the impossible.

Every eye was so strained upon that break-neck rush around the course, that a spectator was very sure of escaping observation; so no one saw the little sister’s face. Even the motherly old creature at her side was peering eagerly through her steel-rimmed spectacles, not in any absorption in the race, but in dire anxiety for the life and limbs of those reckless men.

One man, in truth, was thrown and stunned, one noble horse out-strained himself and broke a blood-vessel, but Whirlwind’s rider, who had been the boldest there, came in unscathed, and Whirlwind won the race.

And then began a whooping and cheering that made the place a pandemonium, which even the unwonted feminine presence in their midst could not keep in abeyance. Gold and silver, flowing like water, passed from hand to hand, making some rich, and others poor; for in the camp such indebtednesses were settled on the instant, and no man shirked.

When accounts were apparently squared, Jerry, wild with enthusiasm, sprang up in front of the cart in which the sisters sat, and shouted lustily:

“Our horse has won the race! Hurrah for Whirlwind and Bill Will!”

When the cheer had been repeated to the echo, Jerry, taking fresh breath, went on:

“And hurrah for the sisters and the orphans, too, I say! March up here, every mother’s son of you, and ante up half your winnin’s for the orphans! Here you are, old girl,” he said, throwing a big handful of gold into her lap. “That’s half of my pile, and if ever you tackle an orphan o’ mine, teach it to bet its last dollar on the winnin’ horse! Come ahead, boys! Every last one o’ you throw in half your pile, and the devil take the one that refuses!”

For the next five minutes, the gold and silver coins fell like pouring hailstones into the old sister’s ample lap, and while this was going on, Bill Will, with quiet, stealthy footsteps, approached the cart from the other side, and poured his contribution into the lap of the younger sister. Those who noticed it were not aware that it was not the half, but the whole of his winnings, of which he so disposed. Nor did they notice that, among the coins, was a little woodland flower, which he had stooped and gathered.

This small and worthless offering was not wholly overlooked, however, for before she turned over her rich tribute of gold to her companion, the little sister took the flower and hid it in the folds of her gray gown--an action that was clearly seen by one.

Presently the old man stirred up his drowsy horse, and the cart began to move. He had thanked the crowd for their generous charity, in the name of the sisters, whose order did not permit them such public speech.

The men stood watching the departure of the cart with a certain wistfulness. The sight of these good women had roused them to unwonted musings. But of the tragedy taking place beneath their eyes, they had no imagination--for in that moment, a man and a woman who had loved with the supreme passion of their hearts, and who had been separated by an inexorable fate, had looked their last into each other’s eyes.

PRINTED AT THE LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO FOR HERBERT S. STONE & CO. MDCCCXCVI

October, 1896. _Established May, 1896._ Number 1.

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