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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Argonauts of North Liberty, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Argonauts of North Liberty
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2703]
+Last Updated: March 5, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just ceased
+ringing. North Liberty, Connecticut, never on any day a cheerful town,
+was always bleaker and more cheerless on the seventh, when the Sabbath
+sun, after vainly trying to coax a smile of reciprocal kindliness from
+the drawn curtains and half-closed shutters of the austere dwellings and
+the equally sealed and hard-set churchgoing faces of the people, at last
+settled down into a blank stare of stony astonishment. On this chilly
+March evening of the year 1850, that stare had kindled into an offended
+sunset and an angry night that furiously spat sleet and hail in the
+faces of the worshippers, and made them fight their way to the church,
+step by step, with bent heads and fiercely compressed lips, until they
+seemed to be carrying its forbidding portals at the point of their
+umbrellas.
+
+Within that sacred but graceless edifice, the rigors of the hour and
+occasion reached their climax. The shivering gas-jets lit up the austere
+pallor of the bare walls, and the hollow, shell-like sweep of colorless
+vacuity behind the cold communion table. The chill of despair and
+hopeless renunciation was in the air, untempered by any glow from
+the sealed air-tight stove that seemed only to bring out a lukewarm
+exhalation of wet clothes and cheaply dyed umbrellas. Nor did the
+presence of the worshippers themselves impart any life to the dreary
+apartment. Scattered throughout the white pews, in dull, shapeless,
+neutral blotches, rigidly separated from each other, they seemed only
+to accent the colorless church and the emptiness of all things. A few
+children, who had huddled together for warmth in one of the back
+benches and who had became glutinous and adherent through moisture, were
+laboriously drawn out and painfully picked apart by a watchful deacon.
+
+The dry, monotonous disturbance of the bell had given way to the strain
+of a bass viol, that had been apparently pitched to the key of the east
+wind without, and the crude complaint of a new harmonium that seemed to
+bewail its limited prospect of ever becoming seasoned or mellowed in its
+earthly tabernacle, and then the singing began. Here and there a human
+voice soared and struggled above the narrow text and the monotonous
+cadence with a cry of individual longing, but was borne down by the
+dull, trampling precision of the others' formal chant. This and
+a certain muffled raking of the stove by the sexton brought the
+temperature down still lower. A sermon, in keeping with the previous
+performance, in which the chill east wind of doctrine was not tempered
+to any shorn lamb within that dreary fold, followed. A spark of human
+and vulgar interest was momentarily kindled by the collection and the
+simultaneous movement of reluctant hands towards their owners' pockets;
+but the coins fell on the baize-covered plates with a dull thud, like
+clods on a coffin, and the dreariness returned. Then there was another
+hymn and a prolonged moan from the harmonium, to which mysterious
+suggestion the congregation rose and began slowly to file into the
+aisle. For a moment they mingled; there was the silent grasping of damp
+woollen mittens and cold black gloves, and the whispered interchange
+of each other's names with the prefix of “Brother” or “Sister,” and
+an utter absence of fraternal geniality, and then the meeting slowly
+dispersed.
+
+The few who had waited until the minister had resumed his hat, overcoat,
+and overshoes, and accompanied him to the door, had already passed out;
+the sexton was turning out the flickering gas jets one by one, when the
+cold and austere silence was broken by a sound--the unmistakable echo of
+a kiss of human passion.
+
+As the horror-stricken official turned angrily, the figure of a man
+glided from the shadow of the stairs below the organ loft, and vanished
+through the open door. Before the sexton could follow, the figure of a
+woman slipped out of the same portal and with a hurried glance after the
+first retreating figure, turned in the opposite direction and was lost
+in the darkness. By the time the indignant and scandalized custodian had
+reached the portal, they had both melted in the troubled sea of
+tossing umbrellas already to the right and left of him, and pursuit and
+recognition were hopeless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The male figure, however, after mingling with his fellow-worshippers
+to the corner of the block, stopped a moment under the lamp-post as if
+uncertain as to the turning, but really to cast a long, scrutinizing
+look towards the scattered umbrellas now almost lost in the opposite
+direction. He was still gazing and apparently hesitating whether to
+retrace his steps, when a horse and buggy rapidly driven down the side
+street passed him. In a brief glance he evidently recognized the driver,
+and stepping over the curbstone called in a brief authoritative voice:
+
+“Ned!”
+
+The occupant of the vehicle pulled up suddenly, leaned from the buggy,
+and said in an astonished tone:
+
+“Dick Demorest! Well! I declare! hold on, and I'll drive up to the
+curb.”
+
+“No; stay where you are.”
+
+The speaker approached the buggy, jumped in beside the occupant,
+refastened the apron, and coolly taking the reins from his companion's
+hand, started the horse forward. The action was that of an habitually
+imperious man; and the only recognition he made of the other's ownership
+was the question:
+
+“Where were you going?”
+
+“Home--to see Joan,” replied the other. “Just drove over from Warensboro
+Station. But what on earth are YOU doing here?”
+
+Without answering the question, Demorest turned to his companion with
+the same good-natured, half humorous authority. “Let your wife wait;
+take a drive with me. I want to talk to you. She'll be just as glad to
+see you an hour later, and it's her fault if I can't come home with you
+now.”
+
+“I know it,” returned his companion, in a tone of half-annoyed apology.
+“She still sticks to her old compact when we first married, that she
+shouldn't be obliged to receive my old worldly friends. And, see here,
+Dick, I thought I'd talked her out of it as regards YOU at least, but
+Parson Thomas has been raking up all the old stories about you--you
+know that affair of the Fall River widow, and that breaking off of Garry
+Spofferth's match--and about your horse-racing--until--you know, she's
+more set than ever against knowing you.”
+
+“That's not a bad sort of horse you've got there,” interrupted Demorest,
+who usually conducted conversation without reference to alien topics
+suggested by others. “Where did you get him? He's good yet for a spin
+down the turnpike and over the bridge. We'll do it, and I'll bring you
+home safely to Mrs. Blandford inside the hour.”
+
+Blandford knew little of horseflesh, but like all men he was not
+superior to this implied compliment to his knowledge. He resigned
+himself to his companion as he had been in the habit of doing, and
+Demorest hurried the horse at a rapid gait down the street until they
+left the lamps behind, and were fully on the dark turnpike. The sleet
+rattled against the hood and leathern apron of the buggy, gusts of
+fierce wind filled the vehicle and seemed to hold it back, but Demorest
+did not appear to mind it. Blandford thrust his hands deeply into
+his pockets for warmth, and contracted his shoulders as if in dogged
+patience. Yet, in spite of the fact that he was tired, cold, and anxious
+to see his wife, he was conscious of a secret satisfaction in submitting
+to the caprices of this old friend of his boyhood. After all, Dick
+Demorest knew what he was about, and had never led him astray by his
+autocratic will. It was safe to let Dick have his way. It was true it
+was generally Dick's own way--but he made others think it was theirs
+too--or would have been theirs had they had the will and the knowledge
+to project it. He looked up comfortably at the handsome, resolute
+profile of the man who had taken selfish possession of him. Many women
+had done the same.
+
+“Suppose if you were to tell your wife I was going to reform,” said
+Demorest, “it might be different, eh? She'd want to take me into the
+church--'another sinner saved,' and all that, eh?”
+
+“No,” said Blandford, earnestly. “Joan isn't as rigid as all that, Dick.
+What she's got against you is the common report of your free way of
+living, and that--come now, you know yourself, Dick, that isn't exactly
+the thing a woman brought up in her style can stand. Why, she thinks
+I'm unregenerate, and--well, a man can't carry on business always like a
+class meeting. But are you thinking of reforming?” he continued, trying
+to get a glimpse of his companion's eyes.
+
+“Perhaps. It depends. Now--there's a woman I know--”
+
+“What, another? and you call this going to reform?” interrupted
+Blandford, yet not without a certain curiosity in his manner.
+
+“Yes; that's just why I think of reforming. For this one isn't exactly
+like any other--at least as far as I know.”
+
+“That means you don't know anything about her.”
+
+“Wait, and I'll tell you.” He drew the reins tightly to accelerate the
+horse's speed, and, half turning to his companion, without, however,
+moving his eyes from the darkness before him, spoke quickly between the
+blasts: “I've seen her only half a dozen times. Met her first in 6.40
+train out from Boston last fall. She sat next to me. Covered up with
+wraps and veils; never looked twice at her. She spoke first--kind of
+half bold, half frightened way. Then got more comfortable and unwound
+herself, you know, and I saw she was young and not bad-looking.
+Thought she was some school-girl out for a lark--but rather new at it.
+Inexperienced, you know, but quite able to take care of herself, by
+George! and although she looked and acted as if she'd never spoken to
+a stranger all her life, didn't mind the kind of stuff I talked to her.
+Rather encouraged it; and laughed--such a pretty little odd laugh, as
+if laughing wasn't in her usual line, either, and she didn't know how to
+manage it. Well, it ended in her slipping out at one end of the car when
+we arrived, while I was looking out for a cab for her at the other.” He
+stopped to recover from a stronger gust of wind. “I--I thought it a good
+joke on me, and let the thing drop out of my mind, although, mind you,
+she'd promised to meet me a month afterwards at the same time and place.
+Well, when the day came I happened to be in Boston, and went to the
+station. Don't know why I went, for I didn't for a moment think she'd
+keep her appointment. First, I couldn't find her in the train, but after
+we'd started she came along out of some seat in the corner, prettier
+than ever, holding out her hand.” He drew a long inspiration. “You can
+bet your life, Ned, I didn't let go that little hand the rest of the
+journey.”
+
+His passion, or what passed for it, seemed to impart its warmth to the
+vehicle, and even stirred the chilled pulses of the man beside him.
+
+“Well, who and what was she?”
+
+“Didn't find out; don't know now. For the first thing she made me
+promise was not to follow her, nor to try to know her name. In return
+she said she would meet me again on another train near Hartford. She
+did--and again and again--but always on the train for about an hour,
+going or coming. Then she missed an appointment. I was regularly cut up,
+I tell you, and swore as she hadn't kept her word, I wouldn't keep mine,
+and began to hunt for her. In the midst of it I saw her accidentally; no
+matter where; I followed her to--well, that's no matter to you, either.
+Enough that I saw her again--and, well, Ned, such is the influence of
+that girl over me that, by George! she made me make the same promise
+again!”
+
+Blandford, a little disappointed at his friend's dogmatic suppression of
+certain material facts, shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“If that's all your story,” he said, “I must say I see no prospect of
+your reforming. It's the old thing over again, only this time you are
+evidently the victim. She's some designing creature who will have you if
+she hasn't already got you completely in her power.”
+
+“You don't know what you're talking about, Ned, and you'd better quit,”
+ returned Demorest, with cheerful authoritativeness. “I tell you that
+that's the sort of girl I'm going to marry, if I can, and settle down
+upon. You can make a memorandum of that, old man, if you like.”
+
+“Then I don't really see why you want to talk to ME about it. And if you
+are thinking that such a story would go down for a moment with Joan as
+an evidence of your reformation, you're completely out, Dick. Was that
+your idea?”
+
+“Yes--and I can tell you, you're wrong again, Ned. You don't know
+anything about women. You do just as I say--do you understand?--and
+don't interfere with your own wrong-headed opinions of what other people
+will think, and I'll take the risks of Mrs. Blandford giving me good
+advice. Your wife has got a heap more sense on these subjects than you
+have, you bet. You just tell her that I want to marry the girl and want
+her to help me--that I mean business, this time--and you'll see how
+quick she'll come down. That's all I want of you. Will you or won't
+you?”
+
+With an outward expression of sceptical consideration and an inward
+suspicion of the peculiar force of this man's dogmatic insight,
+Blandford assented, with, I fear, the mental reservation of telling
+the story to his wife in his own way. He was surprised when his friend
+suddenly drew the horse up sharply, and after a moment's pause began
+to back him, cramp the wheels of the buggy and then skilfully, in the
+almost profound darkness, turn the vehicle and horse completely round to
+the opposite direction.
+
+“Then you are not going over the bridge?” said Blandford.
+
+Demorest made an imperative gesture of silence. The tumultuous rush
+and roar of swollen and rapid water came from the darkness behind them.
+“There's been another break-out somewhere, and I reckon the bridge has
+got all it can do to-night to keep itself out of water without taking us
+over. At least, as I promised to set you down at your wife's door inside
+of the hour, I don't propose to try.” As the horse now travelled more
+easily with the wind behind him, Demorest, dismissing abruptly all other
+subjects, laid his hand with brusque familiarity on his companion's
+knee, and as if the hour for social and confidential greeting had only
+just then arrived, said: “Well, Neddy, old boy, how are you getting on?”
+
+“So, so,” said Blandford, dubiously. “You see,” he began,
+argumentatively, “in my business there's a good deal of competition, and
+I was only saying this morning--”
+
+But either Demorest was already familiar with his friend's arguments,
+or had as usual exhausted his topic, for without paying the slightest
+attention to him, he again demanded abruptly, “Why don't you go to
+California? Here everything's played out. That's the country for a young
+man like you--just starting into life, and without incumbrances. If I
+was free and fixed in my family affairs like you I'd go to-morrow.”
+
+There was such an occult positivism in Demorest's manner that for an
+instant Blandford, who had been married two years, and was transacting
+a steady and fairly profitable manufacturing business in the adjacent
+town, actually believed he was more fitted for adventurous speculation
+than the grimly erratic man of energetic impulses and pleasures beside
+him. He managed to stammer hesitatingly:
+
+“But there's Joan--she--”
+
+“Nonsense! Let her stay with her mother; you sell out your interest
+in the business, put the money into an assorted cargo, and clap it and
+yourself into the first ship out of Boston--and there you are. You've
+been married going on two years now, and a little separation until
+you've built up a business out there, won't do either of you any harm.”
+
+Blandford, who was very much in love with his wife, was not, however,
+above putting the onus of embarrassing affection upon HER. “You don't
+know, Joan, Dick,” he replied. “She'd never consent to a separation,
+even for a short time.”
+
+“Try her. She's a sensible woman--a deuced sight more than you are. You
+don't understand women, Ned. That's what's the matter with you.”
+
+It required all of Blandford's fond memories of his wife's conservative
+habits, Puritan practicality, religious domesticity, and strong family
+attachments, to withstand Demorest's dogmatic convictions. He smiled,
+however, with a certain complacency, as he also recalled the previous
+autumn when the first news of the California gold discovery had
+penetrated North Liberty, and he had expressed to her his belief that it
+would offer an outlet to Demorest's adventurous energy. She had received
+it with ill-disguised satisfaction, and the remark that if this exodus
+of Mammon cleared the community of the godless and unregenerate it would
+only be another proof of God's mysterious providence.
+
+With the tumultuous wind at their backs it was not long before the
+buggy rattled once more over the cobble-stones of the town. Under the
+direction of his friend, Demorest, who still retained possession of the
+reins, drove briskly down a side street of more pretentious dwellings,
+where Blandford lived. One or two wayfarers looked up.
+
+“Not so fast, Dick.”
+
+“Why? I want to bring you up to your door in style.”
+
+“Yes--but--it's Sunday. That's my house, the corner one.”
+
+They had stopped before a square, two-storied brick house, with an
+equally square wooden porch supported by two plain, rigid wooden
+columns, and a hollow sweep of dull concavity above the door, evidently
+of the same architectural order as the church. There was no corner or
+projection to break the force of the wind that swept its smooth glacial
+surface; there was no indication of light or warmth behind its six
+closed windows.
+
+“There seems to be nobody at home,” said Demorest, briefly. “Come along
+with me to the hotel.”
+
+“Joan sits in the back parlor, Sundays,” explained the husband.
+
+“Shall I drive round to the barn and leave the horse and buggy there
+while you go in?” continued Demorest, good-humoredly, pointing to the
+stable gate at the side.
+
+“No, thank you,” returned Blandford, “it's locked, and I'll have to open
+it from the other side after I go in. The horse will stand until then.
+I think I'll have to say good-night, now,” he added, with a sudden
+half-ashamed consciousness of the forbidding aspect of the house, and
+his own inhospitality. “I'm sorry I can't ask you in--but you understand
+why.”
+
+“All right,” returned Demorest, stoutly, turning up his coat-collar, and
+unfurling his umbrella. “The hotel is only four blocks away--you'll find
+me there to-morrow morning if you call. But mind you tell your wife just
+what I told you--and no meandering of your own--you hear! She'll strike
+out some idea with her woman's wits, you bet. Good-night, old man!” He
+reached out his hand, pressed Blandford's strongly and potentially, and
+strode down the street.
+
+Blandford hitched his steaming horse to a sleet-covered horse block
+with a quick sigh of impatient sympathy over the animal and himself, and
+after fumbling in his pocket for a latchkey, opened the front door.
+A vista of well-ordered obscurity with shadowy trestle-like objects
+against the walls, and an odor of chill decorum, as if of a damp but
+respectable funeral, greeted him on entering. A faint light, like a cold
+dawn, broke through the glass pane of a door leading to the kitchen.
+Blandford paused in the mid-darkness and hesitated. Should he first go
+to his wife in the back parlor, or pass silently through the kitchen,
+open the back gate, and mercifully bestow his sweating beast in the
+stable? With the reflection that an immediate conjugal greeting, while
+his horse was still exposed to the fury of the blast in the street,
+would necessarily be curtailed and limited, he compromised by quickly
+passing through the kitchen into the stable yard, opening the gate,
+and driving horse and vehicle under the shed to await later and more
+thorough ministration. As he entered the back door, a faint hope that
+his wife might have heard him and would be waiting for him in the hall
+for an instant thrilled him; but he remembered it was Sunday, and that
+she was probably engaged in some devotional reading or exercise.
+He hesitatingly opened the back-parlor door with a consciousness of
+committing some unreasonable trespass, and entered.
+
+She was there, sitting quietly before a large, round, shining
+centre-table, whose sterile emptiness was relieved only by a shaded lamp
+and a large black and gilt open volume. A single picture on the
+opposite wall--the portrait of an elderly gentleman stiffened over a
+corresponding volume, which he held in invincible mortmain in his rigid
+hand, and apparently defied posterity to take from him--seemed to offer
+a not uncongenial companionship. Yet the greenish light of the shade
+fell upon a young and pretty face, despite the color it extracted from
+it, and the hand that supported her low white forehead over which
+her full hair was simply parted, like a brown curtain, was slim and
+gentle-womanly. In spite of her plain lustreless silk dress, in spite of
+the formal frame of sombre heavy horsehair and mahogany furniture that
+seemed to set her off, she diffused an atmosphere of cleanly grace and
+prim refinement through the apartment. The priestess of this ascetic
+temple, the femininity of her closely covered arms, her pink ears, and
+a little serviceable morocco house-shoe that was visible lower down,
+resting on the carved lion's paw that upheld the centre-table, appeared
+to be only the more accented. And the precisely rounded but softly
+heaving bosom, that was pressed upon the edges of the open book of
+sermons before her, seemed to assert itself triumphantly over the rigors
+of the volume.
+
+At least so her husband and lover thought, as he moved tenderly
+towards her. She met his first kiss on her forehead; the second, a
+supererogatory one, based on some supposed inefficiency in the first,
+fell upon a shining band of her hair, beside her neck. She reached up
+her slim hands, caught his wrists firmly, and, slightly putting him
+aside, said:
+
+“There, Edward?”
+
+“I drove out from Warensboro, so as to get here to-night, as I have to
+return to the city on Tuesday. I thought it would give me a little
+more time with you, Joan,” he said, looking around him, and, at last,
+hesitatingly drawing an apparently reluctant chair from its formal
+position at the window. The remembrance that he had ever dared to occupy
+the same chair with her, now seemed hardly possible of credence.
+
+“If it was a question of your travelling on the Lord's Day, Edward, I
+would rather you should have waited until to-morrow,” she said, with
+slow precision.
+
+“But--I--I thought I'd get here in time for the meeting,” he said,
+weakly.
+
+“And instead, you have driven through the town, I suppose, where
+everybody will see you and talk about it. But,” she added, raising her
+dark eyes suddenly to his, “where else have you been? The train gets
+into Warensboro at six, and it's only half an hour's drive from there.
+What have you been doing, Edward?”
+
+It was scarcely a felicitous moment for the introduction of Demorest's
+name, and he would have avoided it. But he reflected that he had been
+seen, and he was naturally truthful. “I met Dick Demorest near the
+church, and as he had something to tell me, we drove down the turnpike a
+little way--so as to be out of the town, you know, Joan--and--and--”
+
+He stopped. Her face had taken upon itself that appalling and
+exasperating calmness of very good people who never get angry, but drive
+others to frenzy by the simple occlusion of an adamantine veil between
+their own feelings and their opponents'. “I'll tell you all about it
+after I've put up the horse,” he said hurriedly, glad to escape until
+the veil was lifted again. “I suppose the hired man is out.”
+
+“I should hope he was in church, Edward, but I trust YOU won't delay
+taking care of that poor dumb brute who has been obliged to minister to
+your and Mr. Demorest's Sabbath pleasures.”
+
+Blandford did not wait for a further suggestion. When the door had
+closed behind him, Mrs. Blandford went to the mantel-shelf, where a
+grimly allegorical clock cut down the hours and minutes of men with a
+scythe, and consulted it with a slight knitting of her pretty eyebrows.
+Then she fell into a vague abstraction, standing before the open book
+on the centre-table. Then she closed it with a snap, and methodically
+putting it exactly in the middle of the top of a black cabinet in the
+corner, lifted the shaded lamp in her hand and passed slowly with it up
+the stairs to her bedroom, where her light steps were heard moving to
+and fro. In a few moments she reappeared, stopping for a moment in the
+hall with the lighted lamp as if to watch and listen for her husband's
+return. Seen in that favorable light, her cheeks had caught a delicate
+color, and her dark eyes shone softly. Putting the lamp down in exactly
+the same place as before, she returned to the cabinet for the book,
+brought it again to the table, opened it at the page where she had
+placed her perforated cardboard book-marker, sat down beside it, and
+with her hands in her lap and her eyes on the page began abstractedly to
+tear a small piece of paper into tiny fragments. When she had reduced it
+to the smallest shreds, she scraped the pieces out of her silk lap and
+again collected them in the pink hollow of her little hand, kneeling
+down on the scrupulously well-swept carpet to peck up with a bird-like
+action of her thumb and forefinger an escaped atom here and there. These
+and the contents of her hand she poured into the chilly cavity of a
+sepulchral-looking alabaster vase that stood on the etagere. Returning
+to her old seat, and making a nest for her clasped fingers in the lap
+of her dress, she remained in that attitude, her shoulders a little
+narrowed and bent forward, until her husband returned.
+
+“I've lit the fire in the bedroom for you to change your clothes by,”
+ she said, as he entered; then evading the caress which this wifely
+attention provoked, by bending still more primly over her book, she
+added, “Go at once. You're making everything quite damp here.”
+
+He returned in a few moments in his slippers and jacket, but evidently
+found the same difficulty in securing a conjugal and confidential
+contiguity to his wife. There was no apparent social centre or nucleus
+of comfort in the apartment; its fireplace, sealed by an iron ornament
+like a monumental tablet over dead ashes, had its functions superseded
+by an air-tight drum in the corner, warmed at second-hand from the
+dining-room below, and offered no attractive seclusion; the sofa against
+the wall was immovable and formally repellent. He was obliged to draw
+a chair beside the table, whose every curve seemed to facilitate his
+wife's easy withdrawal from side-by-side familiarity.
+
+“Demorest has been urging me very strongly to go to California, but, of
+course, I spoke of you,” he said, stealing his hand into his wife's lap,
+and possessing himself of her fingers.
+
+Mrs. Blandford slowly lifted her fingers enclosed in his clasping hand
+and placed them in shameless publicity on the volume before her. This
+implied desecration was too much for Blandford; he withdrew his hand.
+
+“Does that man propose to go with you?” asked Mrs. Blandford, coldly.
+
+“No; he's preoccupied with other matters that he wanted me to talk to
+you about,” said her husband, hesitatingly. “He is--”
+
+“Because”--continued Mrs. Blandford in the same measured tone, “if he
+does not add his own evil company to his advice, it is the best he has
+ever given yet. I think he might have taken another day than the Lord's
+to talk about it, but we must not despise the means nor the hour whence
+the truth comes. Father wanted me to take some reasonable moment to
+prepare you to consider it seriously, and I thought of talking to you
+about it to-morrow. He thinks it would be a very judicious plan. Even
+Deacon Truesdail--”
+
+“Having sold his invoice of damaged sugar kettles for mining purposes,
+is converted,” said Blandford, goaded into momentary testiness by his
+wife's unexpected acquiescence and a sudden recollection of Demorest's
+prophecy. “You have changed your opinion, Joan, since last fall, when
+you couldn't bear to think of my leaving you,” he added reproachfully.
+
+“I couldn't bear to think of your joining the mob of lawless and sinful
+men who use that as an excuse for leaving their wives and families. As
+for my own feelings, Edward, I have never allowed them to stand between
+me and what I believed best for our home and your Christian welfare.
+Though I have no cause to admire the influence that I find this man,
+Demorest, still holds over you, I am willing to acquiesce, as you see,
+in what he advises for your good. You can hardly reproach ME, Edward,
+for worldly or selfish motives.”
+
+Blandford felt keenly the bitter truth of his wife's speech. For the
+moment he would gladly have exchanged it for a more illogical and
+selfish affection, but he reflected that he had married this religious
+girl for the security of an affection which he felt was not subject to
+the temptations of the world--or even its own weakness--as was too often
+the case with the giddy maidens whom he had known through Demorest's
+companionship. It was, therefore, more with a sense of recalling this
+distinctive quality of his wife than any loyalty to Demorest that he
+suddenly resolved to confide to her the latter's fatuous folly.
+
+“I know it, dear,” he said, apologetically, “and we'll talk it over
+to-morrow, and it may be possible to arrange it so that you shall go
+with me. But, speaking of Demorest, I think you don't quite do HIM
+justice. He really respects YOUR feelings and your knowledge of right
+and wrong more than you imagine. I actually believe he came here
+to-night merely to get me to interest you in an extraordinary love
+affair of his. I mean, Joan,” he added hastily, seeing the same look of
+dull repression come over her face, “I mean, Joan--that is, you know,
+from all I can judge--it is something really serious this time. He
+intends to reform. And this is because he has become violently smitten
+with a young woman whom he has only seen half a dozen times, at long
+intervals, whom he first met in a railway train, and whose name and
+residence he don't even know.”
+
+There was an ominous silence--so hushed that the ticking of the
+allegorical clock came like a grim monitor. “Then,” said Mrs. Blandford,
+in a hard, dry voice that her alarmed husband scarcely recognized,
+“he proposed to insult your wife by taking her into his shameful
+confidence.”
+
+“Good heavens! Joan, no--you don't understand. At the worst, this is
+some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be intending
+only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and
+deeply in love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick Demorest,
+and if ever there was a man honestly in love, it is he.”
+
+“Then you mean to say that this man--an utter stranger to me--a man
+whom I've never laid my eyes on--whom I wouldn't know if I met in the
+street--expects me to advise him--to--to--” She stopped. Blandford could
+scarcely believe his senses. There were tears in her eyes--this woman
+who never cried; her voice trembled--she who had always controlled her
+emotions.
+
+He took advantage of this odd but opportune melting. He placed his
+arm around her shoulders. She tried to escape it, but with a coy, shy
+movement, half hysterical, half girlish, unlike her usual stony, moral
+precision. “Yes, Joan,” he repeated, laughingly, “but whose fault is it?
+Not HIS, remember! And I firmly believe he thinks you can do him good.”
+
+“But he has never seen me,” she continued, with a nervous little laugh,
+“and probably considers me some old Gorgon--like--like--Sister Jemima
+Skerret.”
+
+Blandford smiled with the complacency of far-reaching masculine
+intuition. Ah! that shrewd fellow, Demorest, was right. Joan, dear Joan,
+was only a woman after all.
+
+“Then he'll be the more agreeably astonished,” he returned, gayly, “and
+I think YOU will, too, Joan. For Dick isn't a bad-looking fellow; most
+women like him. It's true,” he continued, much amused at the novelty
+of the perfectly natural toss and grimace with which Mrs. Blandford
+received this statement.
+
+“I think he's been pointed out to me somewhere,” she said, thoughtfully;
+“he's a tall, dark, dissipated-looking man.”
+
+“Nothing of the kind,” laughed her husband. “He's middle-sized and as
+blond as your cousin Joe, only he's got a long yellow moustache, and
+has a quick, abrupt way of talking. He isn't at all fancy-looking; you'd
+take him for an energetic business man or a doctor, if you didn't know
+him. So you see, Joan, this correct little wife of mine has been a
+little, just a little, prejudiced.”
+
+He drew her again gently backwards and nearer his seat, but she caught
+his wrists in her slim hands, and rising from the chair at the same
+moment, dexterously slipped from his embrace with her back towards him.
+“I do not know why I should be unprejudiced by anything you've told me,”
+ she said, sharply closing the book of sermons, and, with her back still
+to her husband, reinstating it formally in its place on the cabinet.
+“It's probably one of his many scandalous pursuits of defenceless and
+believing women, and he, no doubt, goes off to Boston, laughing at you
+for thinking him in earnest; and as ready to tell his story to anybody
+else and boast of his double deceit.” Her voice had a touch of human
+asperity in it now, which he had never before noticed, but recognizing,
+as he thought, the human cause, it was far from exciting his
+displeasure.
+
+“Wrong again, Joan; he's waiting here at the Independence House for me
+to see him to-morrow,” he returned, cheerfully. “And I believe him so
+much in earnest that I would be ready to swear that not another person
+will ever know the story but you and I and he. No, it is a real thing
+with him; he's dead in love, and it's your duty as a Christian to help
+him.”
+
+There was a moment of silence. Mrs. Blandford remained by the cabinet,
+methodically arranging some small articles displaced by the return of
+the book. “Well,” she said, suddenly, “you don't tell me what mother had
+to say. Of course, as you came home earlier than you expected, you had
+time to stop THERE--only four doors from this house.”
+
+“Well, no, Joan,” replied Blandford, in awkward discomfiture. “You see I
+met Dick first, and then--then I hurried here to you--and--and--I clean
+forgot it. I'm very sorry,” he added, dejectedly.
+
+“And I more deeply so,” she returned, with her previous bloodless moral
+precision, “for she probably knows by this time, Edward, why you have
+omitted your usual Sabbath visit, and with WHOM you were.”
+
+“But I can pull on my boots again and run in there for a moment,” he
+suggested, dubiously, “if you think it necessary. It won't take me a
+moment.”
+
+“No,” she said, positively; “it is so late now that your visit would
+only show it to be a second thought. I will go myself--it will be a call
+for us both.”
+
+“But shall I go with you to the door? It is dark and sleeting,”
+ suggested Blandford, eagerly.
+
+“No,” she replied, peremptorily. “Stay where you are, and when Ezekiel
+and Bridget come in send them to bed, for I have made everything fast in
+the kitchen. Don't wait up for me.”
+
+She left the room, and in a few moments returned, wrapped from head to
+foot in an enormous plaid shawl. A white woollen scarf thrown over her
+bare brown head, and twice rolled around her neck, almost concealed her
+face from view. When she had parted from her husband, and reached the
+darkened hall below, she drew from beneath the folds of her shawl a
+thick blue veil, with which she completely enveloped her features. As
+she opened the front door and peered out into the night, her own husband
+would have scarcely recognized her.
+
+With her head lowered against the keen wind she walked rapidly down
+the street and stopped for an instant at the door of the fourth house.
+Glancing quickly back at the house she had left and then at the closed
+windows of the one she had halted before, she gathered her skirts with
+one hand and sped away from both, never stopping until she reached the
+door of the Independence Hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mrs. Blandford entered the side door boldly. Luckily for her, the
+austerities of the Sabbath were manifest even here; the bar-room was
+closed, and the usual loungers in the passages were absent. Without
+risking the recognition of her voice in an inquiry to the clerk, she
+slipped past the office, still muffled in her veil, and quickly mounted
+the narrow staircase. For an instant she hesitated before the public
+parlor, and glanced dubiously along the half-lit corridor. Chance
+befriended her; the door of a bedroom opened at that moment, and Richard
+Demorest, with his overcoat and hat on, stepped out in the hall.
+
+With a quick and nervous gesture of her hand she beckoned him to
+approach. He came towards her leisurely, with an amused curiosity that
+suddenly changed to utter astonishment as she hurriedly lifted her veil,
+dropped it, turned, and glided down the staircase into the street again.
+He followed rapidly, but did not overtake her until she had reached the
+corner, when she slackened her pace an instant for him to join her.
+
+“Lulu,” he said eagerly; “is it you?”
+
+“Not a word here,” she said, breathlessly. “Follow me at a distance.”
+
+She started forward again in the direction of her own house. He followed
+her at a sufficient interval to keep her faintly distinguishable figure
+in sight until she had crossed three streets, and near the end of the
+next block glided up the steps of a house not far from the one where
+he remembered to have left Blandford. As he joined her, she had just
+succeeded in opening the door with a pass-key, and was awaiting him.
+With a gesture of silence she took his hand in her cold fingers, and
+leading him softly through the dark hall and passage, quickly entered
+the kitchen. Here she lit a candle, turned, and faced him. He could see
+that the outside shutters were bolted, and the kitchen evidently closed
+for the night.
+
+As she removed the veil from her face he made a movement as if to regain
+her hand again, but she drew it away.
+
+“You have forced this upon me,” she said hurriedly, “and it may be ruin
+to us both. Why have you betrayed me?”
+
+“Betrayed you, Lulu--Good God! what do you mean?”
+
+She looked him full in the eye, and then said slowly, “Do you mean to
+say that you have told no one of our meetings?”
+
+“Only one--my old friend Blandford, who lives--Ah, yes! I see it now.
+You are neighbors. He has betrayed me. This house is--”
+
+“My father's!” she replied boldly.
+
+The momentary uneasiness passed from Demorest's resolute face. His old
+self-sufficiency returned. “Good,” he said, with a frank laugh, “that
+will do for me. Open the door there, Lulu, and take me to him. I'm not
+ashamed of anything I've done, my girl, nor need you be. I'll tell him
+my real name is Dick Demorest, as I ought to have told you before, and
+that I want to marry you, fairly and squarely, and let him make the
+conditions. I'm not a vagabond nor a thief, Lulu, if I have met you on
+the sly. Come, dear, let us end this now. Come--”
+
+But she had thrown herself before him and placed her hand upon his lips.
+“Hush! are you mad? Listen to me, I tell you--please--oh, do--no you
+must not!” He had covered her hand with kisses and was drawing her face
+towards his own. “No--not again, it was wrong then, it is monstrous now.
+I implore you, listen, if you love me, stop.”
+
+He released her. She sank into a chair by the kitchen-table, and buried
+her flushed face in her hands.
+
+He stood for a moment motionless before her. “Lulu, if that is your
+name,” he said slowly, but gently, “tell me all now. Be frank with me,
+and trust me. If there is anything stands in the way, let me know what
+it is and I can overcome it. If it is my telling Ned Blandford, don't
+let that worry you, he's as loyal a fellow as ever breathed, and I'm a
+dog to ever think he willingly betrayed us. His wife, well, she's one of
+those pious saints--but no, she would not be such a cursed hypocrite and
+bigot as this.”
+
+“Hush, I tell you! WILL you hush,” she said, in a frantic whisper,
+springing to her feet and grasping him convulsively by the lapels of
+his overcoat. “Not a word more, or I'll kill myself. Listen! Do you know
+what I brought you here for? why I left my--this house and dragged you
+out of your hotel? Well, it was to tell you that you must leave me,
+leave HERE--go out of this house and out of this town at once, to-night!
+And never look on it or me again! There! you have said we must end this
+now. It is ended, as only it could and ever would end. And if you open
+that door except to go, or if you attempt to--to touch me again, I'll do
+something desperate. There!”
+
+She threw him off again and stepped back, strangely beautiful in the
+loosened shackles of her long repressed human emotion. It was as if the
+passion-rent robes of the priestess had laid bare the flesh of the woman
+dazzling and victorious. Demorest was fascinated and frightened.
+
+“Then you do not love me?” he said with a constrained smile, “and I am a
+fool?”
+
+“Love you!” she repeated. “Love you,” she continued, bowing her brown
+head over her hanging arms and clasped hands. “What then has brought me
+to this? Oh,” she said suddenly, again seizing him by his two arms, and
+holding him from her with a half-prudish, half-passionate gesture, “why
+could you not have left things as they were; why could we not have met
+in the same old way we used to meet, when I was so foolish and so happy?
+Why could you spoil that one dream I have clung to? Why didn't you leave
+me those few days of my wretched life when I was weak, silly, vain, but
+not the unhappy woman I am now. You were satisfied to sit beside me and
+talk to me then. You respected my secret, my reserve. My God! I used
+to think you loved me as I loved you--for THAT! Why did you break your
+promise and follow me here? I believed you the first day we met, when
+you said there was no wrong in my listening to you; that it should go no
+further; that you would never seek to renew it without my consent. You
+tell me I don't love you, and I tell you now that we must part, that
+frightened as I was, foolish as I was, that day was the first day I had
+ever lived and felt as other women live and feel. If I ran away from you
+then it was because I was running away from my old self too. Don't you
+understand me? Could you not have trusted me as I trusted you?”
+
+“I broke my promise only when you broke yours. When you would not meet
+me I followed you here, because I loved you.”
+
+“And that is why you must leave me now,” she said, starting from his
+outstretched arms again. “Do not ask me why, but go, I implore you. You
+must leave this town to-night, to-morrow will be too late.”
+
+He cast a hurried glance around him, as if seeking to gather some reason
+for this mysterious haste, or a clue for future identification. He saw
+only the Sabbath-sealed cupboards, the cold white china on the dresser,
+and the flicker of the candle on the partly-opened glass transom above
+the door. “As you wish,” he said, with quiet sadness. “I will go now,
+and leave the town to-night; but”--his voice struck its old imperative
+note--“this shall not end here, Lulu. There will be a next time, and I
+am bound to win you yet, in spite of all and everything.”
+
+She looked at him with a half-frightened, half-hysterical light in her
+eyes. “God knows!”
+
+“And you will be frank with me then, and tell me all?”
+
+“Yes, yes, another time; but go now.” She had extinguished the candle,
+turned the handle of the door noiselessly, and was holding it open. A
+faint light stole through the dark passage. She drew back hastily.
+“You have left the front door open,” she said in a frightened voice. “I
+thought you had shut it behind me,” he returned quickly. “Good night.”
+ He drew her towards him. She resisted slightly. They were for an instant
+clasped in a passionate embrace; then there was a sudden collapse of the
+light and a dull jar. The front door had swung to.
+
+With a desperate bound she darted into the passage and through the hall,
+dragging him by the hand, and threw the front door open. Without, the
+street was silent and empty.
+
+“Go,” she whispered frantically.
+
+Demorest passed quickly down the steps and disappeared. At the same
+moment a voice came from the banisters of the landing above. “Who's
+there?”
+
+“It's I, mother.”
+
+“I thought so. And it's like Edward to bring you and sneak off in that
+fashion.”
+
+Mrs. Blandford gave a quick sigh of relief. Demorest's flight had been
+mistaken for her husband's habitual evasion. Knowing that her mother
+would not refer to the subject again, she did not reply, but slowly
+mounted the dark staircase with an assumption of more than usual
+hesitating precaution, in order to recover her equanimity.
+
+
+The clocks were striking eleven when she left her mother's house and
+re-entered her own. She was surprised to find a light burning in the
+kitchen, and Ezekiel, their hired man, awaiting her in a dominant and
+nasal key of religious and practical disapprobation. “Pity you wern't
+tu hum afore, ma'am, considerin' the doins that's goin' on in perfessed
+Christians' houses arter meetin' on the Sabbath Day.”
+
+“What's the difficulty now, Ezekiel?” said Mrs. Blandford, who had
+regained her rigorous precision once more under the decorous security of
+her own roof.
+
+“Wa'al, here comes an entire stranger axin for Squire Blandford. And
+when I tells he warn't tu hum--”
+
+“Not at home?” interrupted Mrs. Blandford, with a slight start. “I left
+him here.”
+
+“Mebbee so, but folks nowadays don't 'pear to keer much whether they
+break the Sabbath or not, trapsen' raound town in and arter meetin'
+hours, ez if 'twor gin'ral tranin' day--and hez gone out agin.”
+
+“Go on,” said Mrs. Blandford, curtly.
+
+“Wa'al, the stranger sez, sez he, 'Show me the way to the stables,' sez
+he, and without taken' no for an answer, ups and meanders through the
+hall, outer the kitchen inter the yard, ez if he was justice of the
+peace; and when he gets there he sez, 'Fetch out his hoss and harness
+up, and be blamed quick about it, and tell Ned Blandford that Dick
+Demorest hez got to leave town to-night, and ez ther ain't a blamed
+puritanical shadbelly in this hull town ez would let a hoss go on hire
+Sunday night, he guesses he'll hev to borry his.' And afore I could
+say Jack Robinson, he tackles the hoss up and drives outer the yard,
+flinging this two-dollar-and-a-half-piece behind him ez if I wur a
+Virginia slave and he was John C. Calhoun hisself. I'd a chucked it
+after him if it hadn't been the Lord's Day, and it mout hev provoked
+disturbance.”
+
+“Mr. Demorest is worldly, but one of Edward's old friends,” said Mrs.
+Blandford, with a slight kindling of her eyes, “and he would not have
+refused to aid him in what might be an errand of grace or necessity. You
+can keep the money, Ezekiel, as a gift, not as a wage. And go to bed. I
+will sit up for Mr. Blandford.”
+
+She passed out and up the staircase into her bedroom, pausing on her way
+to glance into the empty back parlor and take the lamp from the table.
+Here she noticed that her husband had evidently changed his clothes
+again and taken a heavier overcoat from the closet. Removing her own
+wraps she again descended to the lower apartment, brought out the volume
+of sermons, placed it and the lamp in the old position, and with
+her abstracted eyes on the page fell into her former attitude. Every
+suggestion of the passionate, half-frenzied woman in the kitchen of the
+house only four doors away, had vanished; one would scarcely believe she
+had ever stirred from the chair in which she had formally received
+her husband two hours before. And yet she was thinking of herself and
+Demorest in that kitchen.
+
+His prompt and decisive response to her appeal, as shown in this last
+bold and characteristic action, relieved, while it half piqued her. But
+the overruling destiny which had enabled her to bring him from his hotel
+to her mother's house unnoticed, had protected them while there, had
+arrested a dangerous meeting between him and herself and her husband in
+her own house, impressed her more than all. It imparted to her a hideous
+tranquillity born of the doctrines of her youth--Predestination! She
+reflected with secret exultation that her moral resolution to fly from
+him and her conscientiously broken promise had been the direct means of
+bringing him there; that step by step circumstances not in themselves
+evil or to be combated had led her along; that even her husband and
+mother had felt it their duty to assist towards this fateful climax! If
+Edward had never kept up his worldly friendship, if she had never been
+restricted and compassed in her own; if she had ever known the freedom
+of other girls,--all this might not have happened. She had been elected
+to share with Demorest and her husband the effects of their ungodliness.
+She was no longer a free agent; what availed her resolutions? To
+Demorest's imperious hope, she had said, “God knows.” What more could
+she say? Her small red lips grew white and compressed; her face rigid,
+her eyes hollow and abstracted; she looked like the genius of asceticism
+as she sat there, grimly formulating a dogmatic explanation of her
+lawless and unlicensed passion.
+
+The wind had risen to a gale without, and stirred even the sealed
+sepulchre of the fireplace with dull rumblings and muffled moans. At
+times the hot-air drum in the corner seemed to expand as with some
+pent-up emotion. Strange currents of air crossed the empty room like the
+passage of unseen spirits, and she even fancied she heard whispers at
+the window. This caused her to rise and open it, when she found that the
+sleet had given way to a dry feathery snow that was swarming through
+the slits of the shutter; a faint reflection from the already whitened
+fences glimmered in the panes. She shut the window hastily, with a
+little shiver of cold. Where was Demorest in this storm? Would it
+stop him? She thought with pride now of the dominant energy that had
+frightened her, and knew it would not. But her husband?--what kept him?
+It was twelve o'clock; he had seldom stayed out so late before. During
+the first half hour of her reflections she had been relieved by his
+absence; she had even believed that he had met Demorest in the town,
+and was not alarmed by it, for she knew that the latter would avoid
+any further confidence, and cut short any return to it. But why had not
+Edward returned? For an instant the terrible thought that something had
+happened, and that they might both return together, took possession
+of her, and she trembled. But no; Demorest, who had already taken such
+extreme measures, could not consistently listen to any suggestion for
+delay. As her only danger lay in Demorest's presence, the absence of her
+husband caused her more undefinable uneasiness than actual alarm.
+
+The room had become cold with the dying out of the dining-room fire that
+warmed the drum. She would go to bed. She nevertheless arranged the room
+again with a singular impression that she was doing it for the last time
+in her present existing circumstances, and placing the lamp on the table
+in the hall, went up to her own room. By the light of a single candle
+she undressed herself hastily, said her prayers punctiliously, and got
+into bed, with an unexpected relief at finding herself still occupying
+it alone. Then she fell asleep and dreamed of Demorest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When Edward Blandford found himself alone after his wife had undertaken
+to fulfil his abandoned filial duty at her parents' house, he felt a
+slight twinge of self-reproach. He could not deny that this was not
+the first time he had evaded the sterile Sabbath evenings at his
+mother-in-law's, or that even at other times he was not in accord with
+the cold and colorless sanctity of the family. Yet he remembered that
+when he picked out from the budding womanhood of North Liberty
+this pure, scentless blossom, he had endured the privations of its
+surroundings with a sense of security in inhaling the atmosphere in
+which it grew, and knowing the integrity of its descent. There was a
+certain pleasure also in invading this seclusion with human passion; the
+first pressure of her hand when they were kneeling together at family
+prayers had the zest without the sin of a forbidden pleasure; the first
+kiss he had given her with their heads over the family Bible had fairly
+intoxicated him in the thin, rarefied air of their surroundings. In
+transplanting this blossom to his own home with the fond belief that it
+would eventually borrow the hues and color of his own passion, he had
+no further interest in the house he had left behind. When he found,
+however, that the ancestral influence was stronger than he expected,
+that the young wife, instead of assimilating to his conditions, had
+imported into their little household the rigors of her youthful home,
+he had been chilled and disappointed. But he could not help also
+remembering that his own boyhood had been spent in an atmosphere like
+her own in everything but its sincerity and deep conviction. His father
+had recognized the business value of placating the narrow tyranny of the
+respectable well-to-do religious community, and had become a conscious
+hypocrite and a popular citizen. He had himself been under that
+influence, and it was partly a conviction of this that had drawn him
+towards her as something genuine and real. It occurred to him now for
+the first time, as he looked around upon that compromise of their two
+lives in this chilly artificial home, that it was only natural that she
+would prefer the more truthful austerities of her mother's house. Had
+she detected the sham, and did she despise him for it?
+
+These were questions which seemed to bring another self-accusing doubt
+in his own mind, although, without his being conscious of it, they had
+been really the outcome of that doubt. He could not help dwelling on the
+singular human interest she had taken in Demorest's love affair, and
+the utterly unexpected emotion she had shown. He had never seen her as
+charmingly illogical, capricious, and bewitchingly feminine. Had he not
+made a radical mistake in not giving her a frequent provocation for this
+innocent emotion--in fact, in not taking her out into a world of broader
+sympathies and experiences? What a household they might have had--if
+necessary in some other town--away from those cramped prejudices and
+limitations! What friends she might have been with Dick and his other
+worldly acquaintances; what social pleasures--guiltless amusements
+for her pure mind--in theatres, parties, and concerts! Would she have
+objected to them?--had he ever seriously proposed them to her? No! if
+she had objected there would have been time enough to have made this
+present compromise; she would have at least respected and understood his
+sacrifice--and his friends.
+
+Even the artificial externals of his household had never before so
+visibly impressed him. Now that she was no longer in the room it did not
+even bear a trace of her habitation, it certainly bore no suggestion of
+his own. Why had he bought that hideous horsehair furniture? To remind
+her of the old provincial heirlooms of her father's sitting-room. Did
+it remind her of it? The stiff and stony emptiness of this room had
+been fashioned upon the decorous respectability of his own father's
+parlor--in which his father, who usually spent his slippered leisure
+in the family sitting-room, never entered except on visits from the
+minister. It had chilled his own youthful soul--why had he perpetuated
+it here?
+
+He could only answer these questions by moodily wandering about the
+house, and regretting he had not gone with her. After a vain attempt to
+establish social and domestic relations with the hot-air drum by putting
+his feet upon it--after an equally futile attempt to extract interest
+from the book of sermons by opening its pages at random--he glanced at
+the clock and suddenly resolved to go and fetch her. It would remind him
+of the old times when he used to accompany her from church, and, after
+her parents had retired, spend a blissful half-hour alone with her. With
+what a mingling of fear and childish curiosity she used to accept his
+equally timid caresses! Yes, he would go and fetch her; and he would
+recall it to her in a whisper while they were there.
+
+Filled with this idea, when he changed his clothes again he put on a
+certain heavy beaver overcoat, on whose shaggy sleeve her little, hand
+had so often rested when he escorted her from meeting; and he even
+selected the gray muffler she had knit for him in the old ante-nuptial
+days. It was lying in the half-opened drawer from where she had not long
+before taken her disguising veil.
+
+It was still blowing in sudden, capricious gusts; and when he opened the
+front door the wind charged fiercely upon him, as if to drive him back.
+When he had finally forced his way into the street, a return current
+closed the door as suddenly and sharply behind him as if it had ejected
+him from his home for ever.
+
+He reached the fourth house quickly, and as quickly ran up the steps;
+his hand was upon the bell when his eye suddenly caught sight of his
+wife's pass-key still in the lock. She had evidently forgotten it. Here
+was a chance to mischievously banter that habitually careful little
+woman! He slipped it into his pocket and quietly entered the dark but
+perfectly familiar hall. He reached the staircase without a stumble
+and began to ascend softly. Halfway up he heard the sound of his wife's
+hurried voice and another that startled him. He ascended hastily two
+steps, which brought him to the level of the half-opened transom of
+the kitchen. A candle was burning on the kitchen table; he could see
+everything that passed in the room; he could hear distinctly every word
+that was uttered.
+
+He did not utter a cry or sound; he did not even tremble. He remained
+so rigid and motionless, clutching the banisters with his stiffened
+fingers, that when he did attempt to move, all life, as well as all that
+had made life possible to him, seemed to have died from him for
+ever. There was no nervous illusion, no dimming of his senses; he saw
+everything with a hideous clarity of perception. By some diabolical
+instantaneous photography of the brain, little actions, peculiarities,
+touches of gesture, expression and attitude never before noted by him in
+his wife, were clearly fixed and bitten in his consciousness. He saw the
+color of his friend's overcoat, the reddish tinge of his wife's brown
+hair, till then unnoticed; in that supreme moment he was aware of a
+sudden likeness to her mother; but more terrible than all, there seemed
+to be a nameless sympathetic resemblance that the guilty pair had to
+each other in gesture and movement as of some unhallowed relationship
+beyond his ken. He knew not how long he stood there without breath,
+without reflection, without one connected thought. He saw her suddenly
+put her hand on the handle of the door. He knew that in another moment
+they would pass almost before him. He made a convulsive effort to move,
+with an inward cry to God for support, and succeeded in staggering with
+outstretched palms against the wall, down the staircase, and blindly
+forward through the hall to the front door. As yet he had been able to
+formulate only one idea--to escape before them, for it seemed to him
+that their contact meant the ruin of them both, of that house, of all
+that was near to him--a catastrophe that struck blindly at his whole
+visible world. He had reached the door and opened it at the moment that
+the handle of the kitchen-door was turned. He mechanically fell back
+behind the open door that hid him, while it let the cruel light glimmer
+for a moment on their clasped figures. The door slipped from his
+nerveless fingers and swung to with a dull sound. Crouching still in the
+corner, he heard the quick rush of hurrying feet in the darkness, saw
+the door open and Demorest glide out--saw her glance hurriedly after
+him, close the door, and involve herself and him in the blackness of the
+hall. Her dress almost touched him in his corner; he could feel the
+near scent of her clothes, and the air stirred by her figure retreating
+towards the stairs; could hear the unlocking of a door above and the
+voice of her mother from the landing, his wife's reply, the slow fading
+of her footsteps on the stairs and overhead, the closing of a door, and
+all was quiet again. Still stooping, he groped for the handle of the
+door, opened it, and the next moment reeled like a drunken man down the
+steps into the street.
+
+It was well for him that a fierce onset of wind and sleet at that
+instant caught him savagely--stirred his stagnated blood into action,
+and beat thought once more into his brain. He had mechanically turned
+towards his own home; his first effort of recovering will hurried
+him furiously past it and into a side street. He walked rapidly, but
+undeviatingly on to escape observation and secure some solitude for his
+returning thoughts. Almost before he knew it he was in the open fields.
+
+The idea of vengeance had never crossed his mind. He was neither a
+physical nor a moral coward, but he had never felt the merely animal
+fury of disputed animal possession which the world has chosen to
+recognize as a proof of outraged sentiment, nor had North Liberty
+accepted the ethics that an exchange of shots equalized a transferred
+affection. His love had been too pure and too real to be moved like
+the beasts of the field, to seek in one brutal passion compensation for
+another. Killing--what was there to kill? All that he had to live for
+had been already slain. With the love that was in him--in them--already
+dead at his feet, what was it to him whether these two hollow lives
+moved on and passed him, or mingled their emptiness elsewhere? Only let
+them henceforth keep out of his way!
+
+For in his first feverish flow of thought--the reaction to his benumbed
+will within and the beating sleet without--he believed Demorest as
+treacherous as his wife. He recalled his sudden and unexpected intrusion
+into the buggy only a few hours before, his mysterious confidences, his
+assurance of Joan's favorable reception of his secret, and her consent
+to the Californian trip. What had all this meant if not that Demorest
+was using him, the husband, to assist his intrigue, and carry the news
+of his presence in the town to her? And this boldness, this assurance,
+this audacity of conception was like Demorest! While only certain
+passages of the guilty meeting he had just seen and overheard were
+distinctly impressed on his mind, he remembered now, with hideous
+and terrible clearness, all that had gone before. It was part of the
+disturbed and unequal exaltation of his faculties that he dwelt more
+upon this and his wife's previous deceit and manifest hypocrisy, than
+upon the actual evidence he had witnessed of her unfaithfulness. The
+corroboration of the fact was stronger to him than the fact itself. He
+understood the coldness, the uncongeniality now--the simulated increase
+of her aversion to Demorest--her journeys to Boston and Hartford to
+see her relatives, her acquiescence to his frequent absences; not an
+incident, not a characteristic of her married life was inconsistent with
+her guilt and her deceit. He went even back to her maidenhood: how did
+he know this was not the legitimate sequence of other secret schoolgirl
+escapades. The bitter worldly light that had been forced upon his simple
+ingenuous nature had dazzled and blinded him. He passed from fatuous
+credulity to equally fatuous distrust.
+
+He stopped suddenly with the roaring of water before him. In the furious
+following of his rapid thought through storm and darkness he had come,
+he knew not how, upon the bank of the swollen river, whose endangered
+bridge Demorest had turned from that evening. A few steps more and he
+would have fallen into it. He drew nearer and looked at it with vague
+curiosity. Had he come there with any definite intention? The thought
+sobered without frightening him. There was always THAT culmination
+possible, and to be considered coolly.
+
+He turned and began to retrace his steps. On his way thither he had been
+fighting the elements step by step; now they seemed to him to have taken
+possession of him and were hurrying him quickly away. But where? and to
+what? He was always thinking of the past. He had wandered he knew not
+how long, always thinking of that. It was the future he had to consider.
+What was to be done?
+
+He had heard of such cases before; he had read of them in newspapers
+and talked of them with cold curiosity. But they were of worldly, sinful
+people, of dissolute men whose characters he could not conceive--of
+silly, vain, frivolous, and abandoned women whom he had never even met.
+But Joan--O God! It was the first time since his mute prayer on the
+staircase that the Divine name had been wrested from his lips. It came
+with his wife's--and his first tears! But the wind swept the one away
+and dried the others upon his hot cheeks.
+
+It had ceased to rain, and the wind, which was still high, had shifted
+more to the north and was bitterly cold. He could feel the roadway
+stiffening under his feet. When he reached the pavement of the outskirts
+once more he was obliged to take the middle of the street, to avoid the
+treacherous films of ice that were beginning to glaze the sidewalks. Yet
+this very inclemency, added to the usual Sabbath seclusion, had left the
+streets deserted. He was obliged to proceed more slowly, but he met no
+one and could pursue his bewildering thoughts unchecked. As he passed
+between the lines of cold, colorless houses, from which all light and
+life had vanished, it seemed to him that their occupants were dead
+as his love, or had fled their ruined houses as he had. Why should he
+remain? Yet what was his duty now as a man--as a Christian? His eye fell
+on the hideous facade of the church he was passing--her church! He gave
+a bitter laugh and stumbled on again.
+
+With one of the gusts he fancied he heard a familiar sound--the rattling
+of buggy wheels over the stiffening road. Or was it merely the fanciful
+echo of an idea that only at that moment sprung up in his mind? If it
+was real it came from the street parallel with the one he was in. Who
+could be driving out at this time? What other buggy than his own could
+be found to desecrate this Christian Sabbath? An irresistible thought
+impelled him at the risk of recognition to quicken his pace and turn the
+corner as Richard Demorest drove up to the Independence Hotel, sprang
+from his buggy, throwing the reins over the dashboard, and disappeared
+into the hotel!
+
+Blandford stood still, but for an instant only. He had been wandering
+for an hour aimlessly, hopelessly, without consecutive idea, coherent
+thought or plan of action; without the faintest inspiration or
+suggestion of escape from his bewildering torment, without--he had begun
+to fear--even the power to conceive or the will to execute; when a wild
+idea flashed upon him with the rattle of his buggy wheels. And even
+as Demorest disappeared into the hotel, he had conceived his plan and
+executed it. He crossed the street swiftly, leaped into his buggy,
+lifted the reins and brought down the whip simultaneously, and the next
+instant was dashing down the street in the direction of the Warensboro
+turnpike. So sudden was the action that by the time the astonished hall
+porter had rushed into the street, horse and buggy had already vanished
+in the darkness.
+
+Presently it began to snow. So lightly at first that it seemed a mere
+passing whisper to the ear, the brush of some viewless insect upon the
+cheek, or the soft tap of unseen fingers on the shoulders. But by the
+time the porter returned from his hopeless and invisible chase of
+the “runaway,” he came in out of a swarming cloud of whirling flakes,
+blinded and whitened. There was a hurried consultation with the
+landlord, the exhibition of much imperious energy and some bank-notes
+from Demorest, and with a glance at the clock that marked the expiring
+limit of the Puritan Sabbath, the landlord at last consented. By the
+time the falling snow had muffled the street from the indiscreet clamor
+of Sabbath-breaking hoofs, the landlord's noiseless sledge was at the
+door and Demorest had departed.
+
+The snow fell all that night; with fierce gusts of wind that moaned in
+the chimneys of North Liberty and sorely troubled the Sabbath sleep of
+its decorous citizens; with deep, passionless silences, none the
+less fateful, that softly precipitated a spotless mantle of merciful
+obliteration equally over their precise or their straying footprints,
+that would have done them good to heed and to remember; and when morning
+broke upon a world of week-day labor, it was covered as far as their
+eyes could reach as with a clear and unwritten tablet, on which they
+might record their lives anew. Near the wreck of the broken bridge on
+the Warensboro turnpike an overturned buggy lay imbedded in the drift
+and debris of the river hurrying silently towards the sea, and a horse
+with fragments of broken and icy harness still clinging to him was found
+standing before the stable-door of Edward Blandford. But to any further
+knowledge of the fate of its owner, North Liberty awoke never again.
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The last note of the Angelus had just rung out of the crumbling fissures
+in the tower of the mission chapel of San Buena-ventura. The sun which
+had beamed that day and indeed every day for the whole dry season over
+the red-tiled roofs of that old and happily ventured pueblo seemed to
+broaden to a smile as it dipped below the horizon, as if in undiminished
+enjoyment of its old practical joke of suddenly plunging the Southern
+California coast in darkness without any preliminary twilight. The olive
+and fig trees at once lost their characteristic outlines in formless
+masses of shadow; only the twisted trunks of the old pear trees in the
+mission garden retained their grotesque shapes and became gruesome in
+the gathering gloom. The encircling pines beyond closed up their serried
+files; a cool breeze swept down from the coast range and, passing
+through them, sent their day-long heated spices through the town.
+
+If there was any truth in the local belief that the pious incantation of
+the Angelus bell had the power of excluding all evil influence abroad
+at that perilous hour within its audible radius, and comfortably keeping
+all unbelieving wickedness at a distance, it was presumably ineffective
+as regarded the innovating stage-coach from Monterey that twice a
+week at that hour brought its question-asking, revolver-persuading and
+fortune-seeking load of passengers through the sleepy Spanish town. On
+the night of the 3d of August, 1856, it had not only brought but set
+down at the Posada one of those passengers. It was a Mr. Ezekiel
+Corwin, formerly known to these pages as “hired man” to the late Squire
+Blandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut, but now a shrewd, practical,
+self-sufficient, and self-asserting unit of the more cautious later
+Californian immigration. As the stage rattled away again with more or
+less humorous and open disparagement of the town and the Posada from its
+“outsiders,” he lounged with lazy but systematic deliberation towards
+Mateo Morez, the proprietor.
+
+“I guess that some of your folks here couldn't direct me to Dick
+Demorest's house, could ye?”
+
+The Senor Mateo Morez was at once perplexed and pained. Pained at the
+ignorance thus forced upon him by a caballero; perplexed as to its
+intention. Between the two he smiled apologetically but gravely, and
+said: “No sabe, Senor. I 'ave not understood.”
+
+“No more hev I,” returned Ezekiel, with patronizing recognition of his
+obtuseness. “I guess ez heow you ain't much on American. You folks orter
+learn the language if you kalkilate to keep a hotel.”
+
+But the momentary vision of a waistless woman with a shawl gathered over
+her head and shoulders at the back door attracted his attention. She
+said something to Mateo in Spanish, and the yellowish-white of Mateo's
+eyes glistened with intelligent comprehension.
+
+“Ah, posiblemente; it is Don Ricardo Demorest you wish?”
+
+Mr. Ezekiel's face and manner expressed a mingling of grateful curiosity
+and some scorn at the discovery. “Wa'al,” he said, looking around as if
+to take the entire Posada into his confidence, “way up in North Liberty,
+where I kem from, he was allus known as Dick Demorest, and didn't
+tack any forrin titles to his name. Et wouldn't hev gone down there, I
+reckon, 'mongst free-born Merikin citizens, no mor'n aliases would in
+court--and I kinder guess for the same reason. But folks get peart
+and sassy when they're way from hum, and put on ez many airs as a buck
+nigger. And so he calls hisself Don Ricardo here, does he?”
+
+“The Senor knows Don Ricardo?” said Mateo politely.
+
+“Ef you mean me--wa'al, yes--I should say so. He was a partiklar friend
+of a man I've known since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.”
+
+Ezekiel had actually never seen Demorest but once in his life. He would
+have scorned to lie, but strict accuracy was not essential with an
+ignorant foreign audience.
+
+He took up his carpet-bag.
+
+“I reckon I kin find his house, ef it's anyway handy.”
+
+But the Senor Mateo was again politely troubled. The house of Don
+Ricardo was of a truth not more than a mile distant. It was even
+possible that the Senor had observed it above a wall and vineyard as he
+came into the pueblo. But it was late--it was also dark, as the Senor
+would himself perceive--and there was still to-morrow. To-morrow--ah, it
+was always there! Meanwhile there were beds of a miraculous quality
+at the Posada, and a supper such as a caballero might order in his own
+house. Health, discretion, solicitude for oneself--all pointed clearly
+to to-morrow.
+
+What part of this speech Ezekiel understood affected him only as an
+innkeeper's bid for custom, and as such to be steadily exposed and
+disposed of. With the remark that he guessed Dick Demorest's was “a good
+enough hotel for HIM,” and that he'd better be “getting along there,” he
+walked down the steps, carpet-bag in hand, and coolly departed, leaving
+Mateo pained, but smiling, on the doorstep.
+
+“An animal with a pig's head--without doubt,” said Mateo, sententiously.
+
+“Clearly a brigand with the liver of a chicken,” responded his wife.
+
+The subject of this ambiguous criticism, happily oblivious, meantime
+walked doggedly back along the road the stage-coach had just brought
+him. It was badly paved and hollowed in the middle with the worn ruts of
+a century of slow undeviating ox carts, and the passage of water
+during the rainy season. The low adobe houses on each side, with bright
+cinnamon-colored tiles relieving their dark-brown walls, had the regular
+outlines of their doors and windows obliterated by the crumbling of
+years, until they looked as if they had been afterthoughts of the
+builder, rudely opened by pick and crowbar, and finished by the gentle
+auxiliary architecture of birds and squirrels. Yet these openings at
+times permitted glimpses of a picturesque past in the occasional view
+of a lace-edged pillow or silken counterpane, striped hangings, or dyed
+Indian rugs, the flitting of a flounced petticoat or flower-covered
+head, or the indolent leaning figure framed in a doorway of a man in
+wide velvet trousers and crimson-barred serape, whose brown face
+was partly hidden in a yellow nimbus of cigarette smoke. Even in the
+semi-darkness, Ezekiel's penetrating and impertinent eyes took eager
+note of these facts with superior complacency, quite unmindful, after
+the fashion of most critical travellers, of the hideous contrast of his
+own long shapeless nankeen duster, his stiff half-clerical brown straw
+hat, his wisp of gingham necktie, his dusty boots, his outrageous
+carpet-bag, and his straggling goat-like beard. A few looked at him in
+grave, discreet wonder. Whether they recognized in him the advent of a
+civilization that was destined to supplant their own ignorant, sensuous,
+colorful life with austere intelligence and rigid practical improvement,
+did not appear. He walked steadily on. As he passed the low arched door
+of the mission church and saw a faint light glimmering from the side
+windows, he had indeed a weak human desire to go in and oppose in his
+own person a debased and idolatrous superstition with some happily
+chosen question that would necessarily make the officiating priest and
+his congregation exceedingly uncomfortable. But he resisted; partly in
+the hope of meeting some idolater on his way to Benediction, and, in
+the guise of a stranger seeking information, dropping a few unpalatable
+truths; and partly because he could unbosom himself later to Demorest,
+who he was not unwilling to believe had embraced Popery with his
+adoption of a Spanish surname and title.
+
+It had become quite dark when he reached the long wall that enclosed
+Demorest's premises. The wall itself excited his resentment, not only
+as indicating an exclusiveness highly objectionable in a man who
+had emigrated from a free State, but because he, Ezekiel Corwin, had
+difficulty in discovering the entrance. When he succeeded, he found
+himself before an iron gate, happily open, but savoring offensively of
+feudalism and tyrannical proprietorship, and passed through and entered
+an avenue of trees scarcely distinguishable in the darkness, whose
+mysterious shapes and feathery plumes were unknown to him. Numberless
+odors equally vague and mysterious were heavy in the air, strange and
+delicate plants rose dimly on either hand; enormous blossoms, like
+ghostly faces, seemed to peer at him from the shadows. For an instant
+Ezekiel succumbed to an unprofitable sense of beauty, and acquiesced in
+this reckless extravagance of Nature that was so unlike North Liberty.
+But the next moment he recovered himself, with the reflection that it
+was probably unhealthy, and doggedly approached the house. It was a
+long, one-storied, structure, apparently all roof, vine, and pillared
+veranda. Every window and door was open; the two or three grass hammocks
+swung emptily between the columns; the bamboo chairs and settees were
+vacant; his heavy footsteps on the floor had summoned no attendant; not
+even a dog had barked as he approached the house. It was shiftless, it
+was sinful--it boded no good to the future of Demorest.
+
+He put down his carpet-bag on the veranda and entered the broad hall,
+where an old-fashioned lantern was burning on a stand. Here, too, the
+doors of the various apartments were open, and the rooms themselves
+empty of occupants. An opportunity not to be lost by Ezekiel's inquiring
+mind thus offered itself. He took the lantern and deliberately examined
+the several apartments, the furniture, the bedding, and even the small
+articles that were on the tables and mantels. When he had completed the
+round--including a corridor opening on a dark courtyard, which he did
+not penetrate--he returned to the hall, and set down the lantern again.
+
+“Well,” said a voice in his own familiar vernacular, “I hope you like
+it.”
+
+Ezekiel was surprised, but not disconcerted. What he had taken in the
+shadow for a bundle of serapes lying on the floor of the veranda,
+was the recumbent figure of a man who now raised himself to a sitting
+posture.
+
+“Ez to that,” drawled Ezekiel, with unshaken self-possession, “whether
+I like it or not ez only a question betwixt kempany manners and
+truth-telling. Beggars hadn't oughter be choosers, and transient
+visitors like myself needn't allus speak their mind. But if you mean to
+signify that with every door and window open and universal shiftlessness
+lying round everywhere temptin' Providence, you ain't lucky in havin' a
+feller-citizen of yours drop in on ye instead of some Mexican thief, I
+don't agree with ye--that's all.”
+
+The man laughed shortly and rose up. In spite of his careless yet
+picturesque Mexican dress, Ezekiel instantly recognized Demorest. With
+his usual instincts he was naturally pleased to observe that he looked
+older and more careworn. The softer, sensuous climate had perhaps
+imparted a heaviness to his figure and a deliberation to his manner that
+was quite unlike his own potential energy.
+
+“That don't tell me who you are, and what you want,” he said, coldly.
+
+“Wa'al then, I'm Ezekiel Corwin of North Liberty, ez used to live with
+my friend and YOURS too, I guess--seein' how the friendship was swapped
+into relationship--Squire Blandford.”
+
+A slight shade passed over Demorest's face. “Well,” he said,
+impatiently, “I don't remember you; what then?”
+
+“You don't remember me; that's likely,” returned Ezekiel imperturbably,
+combing his straggling chin beard with three fingers, “but whether it's
+NAT'RAL or not, considerin' the sukumstances when we last met, ez a
+matter of op-pinion. You got me to harness up the hoss and buggy the
+night Squire Blandford left home, and never was heard of again. It's
+true that it kem out on enquiry that the hoss and buggy ran away from
+the hotel, and that you had to go out to Warensboro in a sleigh, and
+the theory is that poor Squire Blandford must have stopped the hoss
+and buggy somewhere, got in and got run away agin, and pitched over the
+bridge. But seein' your relationship to both Squire and Mrs. Blandford,
+and all the sukumstances, I reckoned you'd remember it.”
+
+“I heard of it in Boston a month afterwards,” said Demorest, dryly, “but
+I don't think I'd have recognized you. So you were the hired man who
+gave me the buggy. Well, I don't suppose they discharged you for it.”
+
+“No,” said Ezekiel, with undisturbed equanimity. “I kalkilate Joan would
+have stopped that. Considerin', too, that I knew her when she was Deacon
+Salisbury's darter, and our fam'lies waz thick az peas. She knew me well
+enough when I met her in Frisco the other day.”
+
+“Have you seen Mrs. Demorest already?” said Demorest, with sudden
+vivacity. “Why didn't you say so before?” It was wonderful how quickly
+his face had lighted up with an earnestness that was not, however,
+without some undefinable uneasiness. The alert Ezekiel noticed it and
+observed that it was as totally unlike the irresistible dominance of the
+man of five years ago as it was different from the heavy abstraction of
+the man of five minutes before.
+
+“I reckon you didn't ax me,” he returned coolly. “She told me where you
+were, and as I had business down this way she guessed I might drop in.”
+
+“Yes, yes--it's all right, Mr. Corwin; glad you did,” said Demorest,
+kindly but half nervously. “And you saw Mrs. Demorest? Where did you see
+her, and how did you think she was looking? As pretty as ever, eh?”
+
+But the coldly literal Ezekiel was not to be beguiled into polite or
+ambiguous fiction. He even went to the extent of insulting deliberation
+before he replied. “I've seen Joan Salisbury lookin' healthier and
+ez far ez I kin judge doin' more credit to her stock and raisin'
+gin'rally,” he said, thoughtfully combing his beard, “and I've seen her
+when she was too poor to get the silks and satins, furbelows, fineries
+and vanities she's flauntin' in now, and that was in Squire Blandford's
+time, too, I reckon. Ez to her purtiness, that's a matter of taste. You
+think her purty, and I guess them fellows ez was escortin' and squirin'
+her round Frisco thought so too, or SHE thought they did to hev allowed
+it.”
+
+“You are not very merciful to your townsfolk, Mr. Corwin,” said
+Demorest, with a forced smile; “but what can I do for you?”
+
+It was the turn for Ezekiel's face to brighten, or rather to break up,
+like a cold passionless mirror suddenly cracked, into various amusing
+but distorted reflections on the person before him. “Townies ain't to
+be fooled by other townies, Mr. Demorest; at least that ain't my idea
+o' marcy, he-he! But seen you're pressin', I don't mind tellen you MY
+business. I'm the only agent of Seventeen Patent Medicine Proprietors
+in Connecticut represented by the firm of Dilworth & Dusenberry, of San
+Francisco. Mebbe you heard of 'em afore--A1 druggists and importers.
+Wa'al, I'm openin' a field for 'em and spreadin' 'em gin'rally through
+these air benighted and onhealthy districts, havin' the contract for
+the hull State--especially for Wozun's Universal Injin Panacea ez cures
+everything--bein' had from a recipe given by a Sachem to Dr. Wozun's
+gran'ther. That bag--leavin' out a dozen paper collars and socks--is all
+the rest samples. That's me, Ezekiel Corwin--only agent for Californy,
+and that's my mission.”
+
+“Very well; but look here, Corwin,” said Demorest, with a slight return
+of his old off-hand manner,--“I'd advise you to adopt a little more
+caution, and a little less criticism in your speech to the people about
+here, or I'm afraid you'll need the Universal Panacea for yourself.
+Better men than you have been shot in my presence for half your
+freedom.”
+
+“I guess you've just hit the bull's-eye there,” replied Ezekiel, coolly,
+“for it's that HALF-freedom and HALF-truth that doesn't pay. I kalkilate
+gin'rally to speak my hull mind--and I DO. Wot's the consequence? Why,
+when folks find I ain't afeard to speak my mind on their affairs, they
+kinder guess I'm tellin' the truth about my own. Folks don't like the
+man that truckles to 'em, whether it's in the sellin' of a box of pills
+or a principle. When they re-cognize Ezekiel Corwin ain't goin' to lie
+about 'em to curry favor with 'em, they're ready to believe he ain't
+goin' to lie about Jones' Bitters or Wozun's Panacea. And, wa'al, I've
+been on the road just about a fortnit, and I haven't yet discovered that
+the original independent style introduced by Ezekiel Corwin ever broke
+anybody's bones or didn't pay.”
+
+And he told the truth. That remarkably unfair and unpleasant spoken man
+had actually frozen Hanley's Ford into icy astonishment at his
+audacity, and he had sold them an invoice of the Panacea before they had
+recovered; he had insulted Chipitas into giving an extensive order in
+bitters; he had left Hayward's Creek pledged to Burne's pills--with
+drawn revolvers still in their hands.
+
+At another time Demorest might have been amused at his guest's audacity,
+or have combated it with his old imperiousness, but he only remained
+looking at him in a dull sort of way as if yielding to his influence.
+It was part of the phenomenon that the two men seemed to have changed
+character since they last met, and when Ezekiel said confidentially: “I
+reckon you're goin' to show me what room I ken stow these duds o' mine
+in,” Demorest replied hurriedly, “Yes, certainly,” and taking up
+his guest's carpet-bag preceded him through the hall to one of the
+apartments.
+
+“I'll send Manuel to you presently,” he said, putting down the bag
+mechanically; “the servants are not back from church, it's some saint's
+festival to-day.”
+
+“And so you keep a pack of lazy idolaters to leave your house to take
+care of itself, whilst they worship graven images,” said Ezekiel,
+delighted at this opportunity to improve the occasion.
+
+“If my memory isn't bad, Mr. Corwin,” said Demorest dryly, “when I
+accompanied Mr. Blandford home the night he returned from his journey,
+we found YOU at church, and he had to put up his horse himself.”
+
+“But that was the Sabbath--the seventh day of the command,” retorted
+Ezekiel.
+
+“And here the Sabbath doesn't consist of only ONE day to serve God in,”
+ said Demorest, sententiously.
+
+Ezekiel glanced under his white lashes at Demorest's thoughtful face.
+His fondest fears appeared to be confirmed; Demorest had evidently
+become a Papist. But that gentleman stopped any theological discussion
+by the abrupt inquiry:
+
+“Did Mrs. Demorest say when she thought of returning?”
+
+“She allowed she mout kem to-morrow--but--” added Ezekiel dubiously.
+
+“But what?”
+
+“Wa'al, wot with her enjyments of the vanities of this life and
+the kempany she keeps, I reckon she's in no hurry,” said Ezekiel,
+cheerfully.
+
+The entrance of Manuel here cut short any response from Demorest,
+who after a few directions in Spanish to the peon, left his guest to
+himself.
+
+He walked to the veranda with the same dull preoccupation that Ezekiel
+had noticed as so different from his old decisive manner, and remained
+for a few moments abstractedly gazing into the dark garden. The strange
+and mystic shapes which had impressed even the practical Ezekiel, had
+become even more weird and ghost-like in the faint radiance of a rising
+moon.
+
+What memories evoked by his rude guest seemed to take form and outline
+in that dreamy and unreal expanse!
+
+He saw his wife again, standing as she had stood that night in her
+mother's house, with the white muffler around her head, and white face,
+imploring him to fly; he saw himself again hurrying through the driving
+storm to Warensboro, and reaching the train that bore him swiftly and
+safely miles away--that same night when her husband was perishing in the
+swollen river. He remembered with what strangely mingled sensations he
+had read the account of Blandford's death in the newspapers, and how the
+loss of his old friend was forgotten in the associations conjured up by
+his singular meeting that very night with the mysterious woman he had
+loved. He remembered that he had never dreamed how near and fateful
+were these associations; and how he had kept his promise not to seek
+her without her permission, until six months after, when she appointed
+a meeting, and revealed to him the whole truth. He could see her now,
+as he had seen her then, more beautiful and fascinating than ever in her
+black dress, and the pensive grace of refined suffering and restrained
+passion in her delicate face. He remembered, too, how the shock of
+her disclosure--the knowledge that she had been his old friend's
+wife--seemed only to accent her purity and suffering and his own wilful
+recklessness, and how it had stirred all the chivalry, generosity, and
+affection of his easy nature to take the whole responsibility of this
+innocent but compromising intrigue on his own shoulders. He had had no
+self-accusing sense of disloyalty to Blandford in his practical nature;
+he had never suspected the shy, proper girl of being his wife; he was
+willing to believe now, that had he known it, even that night, he would
+never have seen her again; he had been very foolish; he had made this
+poor woman participate in his folly; but he had never been dishonest or
+treacherous in thought or action. If Blandford had lived, even he
+would have admitted it. Yet he was guiltily conscious of a material
+satisfaction in Blandford's death, without his wife's religious
+conviction of the saving graces of predestination.
+
+They had been married quietly when the two years of her widowhood
+had expired; his former relations with her husband and the straitened
+circumstances in which Blandford's death had left her having been deemed
+sufficient excuse in the eyes of North Liberty for her more worldly
+union. They had come to California at her suggestion “to begin life
+anew,” for she had not hesitated to make this dislocation of all her
+antecedent surroundings as a reason as well as a condition of this
+marriage. She wished to see the world of which he had been a passing
+glimpse; to expand under his protection beyond the limits of her
+fettered youth. He had bought this old Spanish estate, with its near
+vineyard and its outlying leagues covered with wild cattle, partly from
+that strange contradictory predilection for peaceful husbandry common to
+men who have led a roving life, and partly as a check to her growing and
+feverish desire for change and excitement. He had at first enjoyed with
+an almost parental affection her childish unsophisticated delight in
+that world he had already wearied of, and which he had been prepared
+to gladly resign for her. But as the months and even years had passed
+without any apparent diminution in her zest for these pleasures, he
+tried uneasily to resume his old interest in them, and spent ten months
+with her in the chaotic freedom of San Francisco hotel life. But to his
+discomfiture he found that they no longer diverted him; to his horror he
+discovered that those easy gallantries in which he had spent his youth,
+and in which he had seen no harm, were intolerable when exhibited to his
+wife, and he trembled between inquietude and indignation at the copies
+of his former self, whom he met in hotel parlors, at theatres, and
+in public conveyances. The next time she visited some friends in San
+Francisco he did not accompany her. Though he fondly cherished his
+experience of her power to resist even stronger temptation, he was too
+practical to subject himself to the annoyance of witnessing it. In her
+absence he trusted her completely; his scant imagination conjured up no
+disturbing picture of possibilities beyond what he actually knew. In his
+recent questions of Ezekiel he did not expect to learn anything more.
+Even his guest's uncomfortable comments added no sting that he had not
+already felt.
+
+With these thoughts called up by the unlooked-for advent of Ezekiel
+under his roof, he continued to gaze moodily into the garden. Near the
+house were scattered several uncouth varieties of cacti which seemed to
+have lost all semblance of vegetable growth, and had taken rude likeness
+to beasts and human figures. One high-shouldered specimen, partly hidden
+in the shadow, had the appearance of a man with a cloak or serape thrown
+over his left shoulder. As Demorest's wandering eyes at last became
+fixed upon it, he fancied he could trace the faint outlines of a pale
+face, the lower part of which was hidden by the folds of the serape.
+There certainly was the forehead, the curve of the dark eyebrows, the
+shadow of a nose, and even as he looked more steadily, a glistening of
+the eyes upturned to the moonlight. A sudden chill seized him. It was
+a horrible fancy, but it looked as might have looked the dead face
+of Edward Blandford! He started and ran quickly down the steps of the
+veranda. A slight wind at the same moment moved the long leaves and
+tendrils of a vine nearest him and sent a faint wave through the garden.
+He reached the cactus; its fantastic bulk stood plainly before him, but
+nothing more.
+
+“Whar are ye runnin' to?” said the inquiring voice of Ezekiel from the
+veranda.
+
+“I thought I saw some one in the garden,” returned Demorest, quietly,
+satisfied of the illusion of his senses, “but it was a mistake.”
+
+“It mout and it moutn't,” said Ezekiel, dryly. “Thar's nothin' to keep
+any one out. It's only a wonder that you ain't overrun with thieves and
+sich like.”
+
+“There are usually servants about the place,” said Demorest, carelessly.
+
+“Ef they're the same breed ez that Manuel, I reckon I'd almost as leave
+take my chances in the road. Ef it's all the same to you I kalkilate to
+put a paytent fastener to my door and winder to-night. I allus travel
+with them.” Seeing that Demorest only shrugged his shoulders without
+replying, he continued, “Et ain't far from here that some folks allow is
+the headquarters of that cattle-stealing gang. The driver of the coach
+went ez far ez to say that some of these high and mighty Dons hereabouts
+knows more of it than they keer to tell.”
+
+“That's simply a yarn for greenhorns,” said Demorest, contemptuously.
+“I know all the ranch proprietors for twenty leagues around, and they've
+lost as many cattle and horses as I have.”
+
+“I wanter know,” said Ezekiel, with grim interest. “Then you've already
+had consid'ble losses, eh? I kalkilate them cattle are vally'ble--about
+wot figger do you reckon yer out and injured?”
+
+“Three or four thousand dollars, I suppose, altogether,” replied
+Demorest, shortly.
+
+“Then you don't take any stock in them yer yarns about the gang being
+run and protected by some first-class men in Frisco?” said Ezekiel,
+regretfully.
+
+“Not much,” responded Demorest, dryly; “but if people choose to believe
+this bluff gotten up by the petty thieves themselves to increase their
+importance and secure their immunity--they can. But here's Manuel to
+tell us supper is ready.”
+
+He led the way to the corridor and courtyard which Ezekiel had not
+penetrated on account of its obscurity and solitude, but which now
+seemed to be peopled with peons and household servants of both sexes. At
+the end of a long low-ceilinged room a table was spread with omelettes,
+chupa, cakes, chocolate, grapes, and melons, around which half a dozen
+attendants stood gravely in waiting. The size of the room, which to
+Ezekiel's eyes looked as large as the church at North Liberty, the
+profusion of the viands, the six attendants for the host and solitary
+guest, deeply impressed him. Morally rebelling against this feudal
+display and extravagance, he, who had disdained to even assist the
+Blandfords' servant-in-waiting at table and had always made his
+solitary meal on the kitchen dresser, was not above feeling a material
+satisfaction in sitting on equal terms with his master's friend and
+being served by these menials he despised. He did full justice to
+the victuals of which Demorest partook in sparing abstraction, and
+particularly to the fruit, which Demorest did not touch at all.
+Observant of his servants' eyes fixed in wonder on the strange guest who
+had just disposed of a second melon at supper, Demorest could not help
+remarking that he would lose credit as a medico with the natives unless
+he restrained a public exhibition of his tastes.
+
+“Ez ha'aw?” queried Ezekiel.
+
+“They have a proverb here that fruit is gold in the morning, silver at
+noon, and lead at night.”
+
+“That'll do for lazy stomicks,” said the unabashed Ezekiel. “When
+they're once fortified by Jones' bitters and hard work, they'll be able
+to tackle the Lord's nat'ral gifts of the airth at any time.”
+
+Declining the cigarettes offered him by Demorest for a quid of
+tobacco, which he gravely took from a tin box in his pocket, and to
+the astonished eyes of the servants apparently obliterated any further
+remembrance of the meal, he accompanied his host to the veranda again,
+where, tilting his chair back and putting his feet on the railing, he
+gave himself up to unwonted and silent rumination.
+
+The silence was broken at last by Demorest, who, half-reclining on a
+settee, had once or twice glanced towards the misshapen cactus.
+
+“Was there any trace discovered of Blandford, other than we knew before
+we left the States?”
+
+“Wa'al, no,” said Ezekiel, thoughtfully. “The last idea was that he'd
+got control of the hoss after passin' the bridge, and had managed to
+turn him back, for there was marks of buggy wheels on the snow on the
+far side, and that fearin' to trust the hoss or the bridge he tried to
+lead him over when the bridge gave way, and he was caught in the wreck
+and carried off down stream. That would account for his body not bein'
+found; they do tell that chunks of that bridge were picked up on the
+Sound beach near the mouth o' the river, nigh unto sixty miles away.
+That's about the last idea they had of it at North Liberty.” He paused
+and then cleverly directing a stream of tobacco juice at an accurate
+curve over the railing, wiped his lips with the back of his hand,
+and added, slowly: “Thar's another idea--but I reckon it's only mine.
+Leastways I ain't heard it argued by anybody.”
+
+“What is that?” asked Demorest.
+
+“Wa'al, it ain't exakly complimentary to E. Blandford, Esq., and it mout
+be orkard for YOU.”
+
+“I don't think you're in the habit of letting such trifles interfere
+with your opinion,” said Demorest, with a slightly forced laugh; “but
+what is your idea?”
+
+“That thar wasn't any accident.”
+
+“No accident?” replied Demorest, raising himself on his elbow.
+
+“Nary accident,” continued Ezekiel, deliberately, “and, if it comes to
+that, not much of a dead body either.”
+
+“What the devil do you mean?” said Demorest, sitting up.
+
+“I mean,” said Ezekiel, with momentous deliberation, “that E. Blandford,
+of the Winnipeg Mills, was in March, '50, ez nigh bein' bust up ez any
+man kin be without actually failin'; that he'd been down to Boston that
+day to get some extensions; that old Deacon Salisbury knew it, and had
+been pesterin' Mrs. Blandford to induce him to sell out and leave the
+place; and that the night he left he took about two hundred and fifty
+dollars in bank bills that they allus kept in the house, and Mrs.
+Blandford was in the habit o' hidin' in the breast-pocket of one of his
+old overcoats hangin' up in the closet. I mean that that air money and
+that air overcoat went off with him, ez Mrs. Blandford knows, for I
+heard her tell her ma about it. And when his affairs were wound up and
+his debts paid, I reckon that the two hundred and fifty was all there
+was left--and he scooted with it. It's orkard for you--ez I said
+afore--but I don't see wot on earth you need get riled for. Ef he ran
+off on account of only two hundred and fifty dollars he ain't goin'
+to run back again for the mere matter o' your marrying Joan. Ef he
+had--he'd a done it afore this. It's orkard ez I said--but the only
+orkardness is your feelin's. I reckon Joan's got used to hers.”
+
+Demorest had risen angrily to his feet. But the next moment the utter
+impossibility of reaching this man's hidebound moral perception by even
+physical force hopelessly overcame him. It would only impress him with
+the effect of his own disturbing power, that to Ezekiel was equal to
+a proof of the truth of his opinions. It might even encourage him to
+repeat this absurd story elsewhere with his own construction upon his
+reception of it. After all it was only Ezekiel's opinion--an opinion too
+preposterous for even a moment's serious consideration. Blandford
+alive, and a petty defaulter! Blandford above the earth and complacently
+abandoning his wife and home to another! Blandford--perhaps a sneaking,
+cowardly Nemesis--hiding in the shadow for future--impossible! It really
+was enough to make him laugh.
+
+He did laugh, albeit with an uneasy sense that only a few years ago
+he would have struck down the man who had thus traduced his friend's
+memory.
+
+“You've been overtaxing your brain in patent-medicine circulars,
+Corwin,” he said in a roughly rallying manner, “and you've got rather
+too much highfalutin and bitters mixed with your opinions. After that
+yarn of yours you must be dry. What'll you take? I haven't got any New
+England rum, but I can give you some ten-year-old aguardiente made on
+the place.”
+
+As he spoke he lifted a decanter and glass from a small table which
+Manuel had placed in the veranda.
+
+“I guess not,” said Ezekiel dryly. “It's now goin' on five years since
+I've been a consistent temperance man.”
+
+“In everything but melons, and criticism of your neighbor, eh?” said
+Demorest, pouring out a glass of the liquor.
+
+“I hev my convictions,” said Ezekiel with affected meekness.
+
+“And I have mine,” said Demorest, tossing off the fiery liquor at a
+draft, “and it's that this is devilish good stuff. Sorry you can't take
+some. I'm afraid I'll have to get you to excuse me for a while. I have
+to take a ride over the ranch before turning in, to see if everything's
+right. The house is 'at your disposition,' as we say here. I'll see you
+later.”
+
+He walked away with a slight exaggeration of unconcern. Ezekiel watched
+him narrowly with colorless eyes beneath his white lashes. When he
+had gone he examined the thoroughly emptied glass of aguardiente,
+and, taking the decanter, sniffed critically at its sharp and potent
+contents. A smile of gratified discernment followed. It was clear to him
+that Demorest was a heavy drinker.
+
+Contrary to his prognostication, however, Mrs. Demorest DID arrive the
+next day. But although he was to depart from Buenaventura by the same
+coach that had set her down at the gate of the casa, he had already left
+the house armed with some letters of introduction which Demorest had
+generously given him, to certain small traders in the pueblo and along
+the route. Demorest was not displeased to part with him before the
+arrival of his wife, and thus spare her the awkwardness of a repetition
+of Ezekiel's effrontery in her presence. Nor was he willing to have the
+impediment of a guest in the house to any explanation he might have to
+seek from her, or to the confidences that hereafter must be fuller
+and more mutual. For with all his deep affection for his wife, Richard
+Demorest unconsciously feared her. The strong man whose dominance over
+men and women alike had been his salient characteristic, had begun to
+feel an undefinable sense of some unrecognized quality in the woman he
+loved. He had once or twice detected it in a tone of her voice, in a
+remembered and perhaps even once idolized gesture, or in the accidental
+lapse of some bewildering word. With the generosity of a large nature he
+had put the thought aside, referring it to some selfish weakness of
+his own, or--more fatuous than all--to a possible diminution of his own
+affection.
+
+He was standing on the steps ready to receive her. Few of her
+appreciative sex could have remained indifferent to the tender and
+touching significance of his silent and subdued welcome. He had that
+piteous wistfulness of eye seen in some dogs and the husbands of many
+charming women--the affection that pardons beforehand the indifference
+it has learned to expect. She approached him smiling in her turn,
+meeting the sublime patience of being unloved with the equally resigned
+patience of being loved, and feeling that comforting sense of virtue
+which might become a bore, but never a self-reproach. For the rest, she
+was prettier than ever; her five years of expanded life had slightly
+rounded the elongated oval of her face, filled up the ascetic hollows
+of her temples, and freed the repression of her mouth and chin. A more
+genial climate had quickened the circulation that North Liberty had
+arrested, and suffused the transparent beauty of her skin with eloquent
+life. It seemed as if the long, protracted northern spring of her youth
+had suddenly burst into a summer of womanhood under those gentle skies;
+and yet enough of her puritan precision of manner, movement, and gesture
+remained to temper her fuller and more exuberant life and give it
+repose. In a community of pretty women more or less given to the license
+and extravagance of the epoch, she always looked like a lady.
+
+He took her in his arms and half-lifted her up the last step of the
+veranda. She resisted slightly with her characteristic action of
+catching his wrists in both her hands and holding him off with an
+awkward primness, and almost in the same tone that she had used to
+Edward Blandford five years before, said:
+
+“There, Dick, that will do.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Demorest's dream of a few days' conjugal seclusion and confidences with
+his wife was quickly dispelled by that lady. “I came down with Rosita
+Pico, whose father, you know, once owned this property,” she said.
+“She's gone on to her cousins at Los Osos Rancho to-night, but comes
+here to-morrow for a visit. She knows the place well; in fact, she once
+had a romantic love affair here. But she is very entertaining. It will
+be a little change for us,” she added, naively.
+
+Demorest kept back a sigh, without changing his gentle smile. “I'm glad
+for your sake, dear. But is she not a little flighty and inclined to
+flirt a good deal? I think I've heard so.”
+
+“She's a young girl who has been severely tried, Richard, and perhaps is
+not to blame for endeavoring to forget it in such distraction as she can
+find,” said Mrs. Demorest, with a slight return of her old manner. “I
+can understand her feelings perfectly.” She looked pointedly at her
+husband as she spoke, it being one of her late habits to openly refer to
+their ante-nuptial acquaintance as a natural reaction from the martyrdom
+of her first marriage, with a quiet indifference that seemed almost
+an indelicacy. But her husband only said: “As you like, dear,” vaguely
+remembering Dona Rosita as the alleged heroine of a forgotten romance
+with some earlier American adventurer who had disappeared, and trying
+vainly to reconcile his wife's sentimental description of her with his
+own recollection of the buxom, pretty, laughing, but dangerous-eyed
+Spanish girl he had, however, seen but once.
+
+She arrived the next day, flying into a protracted embrace of Joan,
+which included a smiling recognition of Demorest with an unoccupied blue
+eye, and a shake of her fan over his wife's shoulder. Then she drew
+back and seemed to take in the whole veranda and garden in another long
+caress of her eyes. “Ah-yess! I have recognized it, mooch. It es ze
+same. Of no change--not even of a leetle. No, she ess always--esso.”
+ She stopped, looked unutterable things at Joan, pressed her fan below
+a spray of roses on her full bodice as if to indicate some thrilling
+memory beneath it, shook her head again, suddenly caught sight of
+Demorest's serious face, said: “Ah, that brigand of our husband laughs
+himself at me,” and then herself broke into a charming ripple of
+laughter.
+
+“But I was not laughing, Dona Rosita,” said Demorest, smiling sadly,
+however, in spite of himself.
+
+She made a little grimace, and then raised her elbows, slightly lifting
+her shoulders. “As it shall please you, Senor. But he is gone--thees
+passion. Yess--what you shall call thees sentiment of lof--zo--as he
+came!” She threw her fingers in the air as if to illustrate the volatile
+and transitory passage of her affections, and then turned again to Joan
+with her back towards Demorest.
+
+“Do please go on--Dona Rosita,” said he, “I never heard the real story.
+If there is any romance about my house, I'd like to know it,” he added
+with a faint sigh.
+
+Dona Rosita wheeled upon him with an inquiring little look. “Ah, you
+have the sentiment, and YOU,” she continued, taking Joan by the arms,
+“YOU have not. Eet ess good so. When a--the wife,” she continued boldly,
+hazarding an extended English abstraction, “he has the sentimente and
+the hoosband he has nothing, eet is not good--for a-him--ze wife,” she
+concluded triumphantly.
+
+“But I have great appreciation and I am dying to hear it,” said
+Demorest, trying to laugh.
+
+“Well, poor one, you look so. But you shall lif till another time,” said
+Dona Rosita, with a mock courtesy, gliding with Joan away.
+
+The “other time” came that evening when chocolate was served on the
+veranda, where Dona Rosita, mantilla-draped against the dry, clear,
+moonlit air, sat at the feet of Joan on the lowest step. Demorest,
+uneasily observant of the influence of the giddy foreigner on his wife,
+and conscious of certain confidences between them from which he was
+excluded, leaned against a pillar of the porch in half abstracted
+resignation; Joan, under the tutelage of Rosita, lit a cigarette;
+Demorest gazed at her wonderingly, trying to recall, in her fuller and
+more animated face, some memory of the pale, refined profile of the
+Puritan girl he had first met in the Boston train, the faint aurora of
+whose cheek in that northern clime seemed to come and go with his words.
+Becoming conscious at last of the eyes of Dona Rosita watching him from
+below, with an effort he recalled his duty as her host and gallantly
+reminded her that moonlight and the hour seemed expressly fitted for her
+promised love story.
+
+“Do tell it,” said Joan, “I don't mind hearing it again.”
+
+“Then you know it already?” said Demorest, surprised.
+
+Joan took the cigarette from her lips, laughed complacently, and
+exchanged a familiar glance with Rosita. “She told it me a year ago,
+when we first knew each other,” she replied. “Go on, dear,” to Rosita.
+
+Thus encouraged, Dona Rosita began, addressing herself first in Spanish
+to Demorest, who understood the language better than his wife, and
+lapsing into her characteristic English as she appealed to them both.
+It was really very little to interest Don Ricardo--this story of a silly
+muchacha like herself and a strange caballero. He would go to sleep
+while she was talking, and to-night he would say to his wife, “Mother of
+God! why have you brought here this chattering parrot who speaks but of
+one thing?” But she would go on always like the windmill, whether there
+was grain to grind or no. “It was four years ago. Ah! Don Ricardo did
+not remember the country then--it was when the first Americans came--now
+it is different. Then there were no coaches--in truth one travelled
+very little, and always on horseback, only to see one's neighbors. And
+suddenly, as if in one day, it was changed; there were strange men on
+the roads, and one was frightened, and one shut the gates of the pateo
+and drove the horses into the corral. One did not know much of the
+Americans then--for why? They were always going, going--never stopping,
+hurrying on to the gold mines, hurrying away from the gold mines,
+hurrying to look for other gold mines: but always going on foot, on
+horseback, in queer wagons--hurrying, pushing everywhere. Ah, it took
+away the breath. All, except one American--he did not hurry, he did not
+go with the others, he came and stayed here at Buenaventura. He was
+very quiet, very civil, very sad, and very discreet. He was not like
+the others, and always kept aloof from them. He came to see Don Andreas
+Pico, and wanted to beg a piece of land and an old vaquero's hut near
+the road for a trifle. Don Andreas would have given it, or a better
+house, to him, or have had him live at the casa here; but he would not.
+He was very proud and shy, so he took the vaquero's hut, a mere adobe
+affair, and lived in it, though a caballero like yourself, with white
+hands that knew not labor, and small feet that had seldom walked. In
+good time he learned to ride like the best vaquero, and helped Don
+Andreas to find the lost mustangs, and showed him how to improve the old
+mill. And his pride and his shyness wore off, and he would come to
+the casa sometimes. And Don Andreas got to love him very much, and his
+daughter, Dona Rosita--ah, well, yes truly--a leetle.
+
+“But he had strange moods and ways, this American, and at times they
+would have thought him a lunatico had they not believed it to be an
+American fashion. He would be very kind and gentle like one of the
+family, coming to the casa every day, playing with the children,
+advising Don Andreas and--yes--having a devotion--very discreet, very
+ceremonious, for Dona Rosita. And then, all in a moment, he would become
+as ill, without a word or gesture, until he would stalk out of the
+house, gallop away furiously, and for a week not be heard of. The first
+time it happened, Dona Rosita was piqued by his rudeness, Don Andreas
+was alarmed, for it was on an evening like the present, and Dona Rosita
+was teaching him a little song on the guitar when the fit came on him.
+And he snapped the guitar strings like thread and threw it down, and got
+up like a bear and walked away without a word.”
+
+“I see it all,” said Demorest, half seriously: “you were coquetting with
+him, and he was jealous.”
+
+But Dona Rosita shook her head and turned impetuously, and said in
+English to Joan:
+
+“No, it was astutcia--a trick, a ruse. Because when my father have
+arrived at his house, he is agone. And so every time. When he have the
+fit he goes not to his house. No. And it ees not until after one time
+when he comes back never again, that we have comprehend what he do at
+these times. And what do you think? I shall tell to you.”
+
+She composed herself comfortably, with her plump elbows on her knees,
+and her fan crossed on the palm of her hand before her, and began again:
+
+“It is a year he has gone, and the stagecoach is attack of brigands.
+Tiburcio, our vaquero, have that night made himself a pasear on the
+road, and he have seen HIM. He have seen, one, two, three men came from
+the wood with something on the face, and HE is of them. He has nothing
+on his face, and Tiburcio have recognize him. We have laugh at Tiburcio.
+We believe him not. It is improbable that this Senor Huanson--”
+
+“Senor who?” said Demorest.
+
+“Huanson--eet is the name of him. Ah, Carr!--posiblemente it is
+nothing--a Don Fulano--or an apodo--Huanson.”
+
+“Oh, I see, JOHNSON, very likely.”
+
+“We have said it is not possible that this good man, who have come to
+the house and ride on his back the children, is a thief and a brigand.
+And one night my father have come from the Monterey in the coach, and it
+was stopped. And the brigands have take from the passengers the money,
+the rings from the finger, and the watch--and my father was of the same.
+And my father, he have great dissatisfaction and anguish, for his watch
+is given to him of an old friend, and it is not like the other watch.
+But the watch he go all the same. And then when the robbers have made a
+finish comes to the window of the coach a mascara and have say, 'Who
+is the Don Andreas Pico?' And my father have say, 'It is I who am Don
+Andreas Pico.' And the mask have say, 'Behold, your watch is
+restore!' and he gif it to him. And my father say, 'To whom have I the
+distinguished honor to thank?' And the mask say--”
+
+“Johnson,” interrupted Demorest.
+
+“No,” said Dona Rosita in grave triumph, “he say Essmith. For this
+Essmith is like Huanson--an apodo--nothing.”
+
+“Then you really think this man was your old friend?” asked Demorest.
+
+“I think.”
+
+“And that he was a robber even when living here--and that it was not
+your cruelty that really drove him to take the road?”
+
+Dona Rosita shrugged her plump shoulders. “You will not comprehend. It
+was because of his being a brigand that he stayed not with us. My father
+would not have object if he have present himself to me for marriage in
+these times. I would not have object, for I was young, and we have knew
+nothing. It was he who have object. For why? Inside of his heart he have
+feel he was a brigand.”
+
+“But you might have reformed him in time,” said Demorest.
+
+She again shrugged her shoulders. “Quien sabe.” After a pause she added
+with infinite gravity: “And before he have reform, it is bad for the
+menage. I should invite to my house some friend. They arrive, and one
+say, 'I have not the watch of my pocket,' and another, 'The ring of my
+finger, he is gone,' and another, 'My earrings, she is loss.' And I am
+obliged to say, 'They reside now in the pocket of my hoosband; patience!
+a little while--perhaps to-morrow--he will restore.' No,” she continued,
+with an air of infinite conviction, “it is not good for the menage--the
+necessity of those explanation.”
+
+“You told me he was handsome,” said Joan, passing her arm carelessly
+around Dona Rosita's comfortable waist. “How did he look?”
+
+“As an angel! He have long curls to his back. His moustache was as
+silk, for he have had never a barber to his face. And his eyes--Santa
+Maria!--so soft and so--so melankoly. When he smile it is like the
+moonlight. But,” she added, rising to her feet and tossing the end
+of her lace mantilla over her shoulder with a little laugh--“it is
+finish--Adelante! Dr-rrive on!”
+
+“I don't want to destroy your belief in the connection of your friend
+with the road agents,” said Demorest grimly, “but if he belongs to
+their band it is in an inferior capacity. Most of them are known to
+the authorities, and I have heard it even said that their leader or
+organizer is a very unromantic speculator in San Francisco.”
+
+But this suggestion was received coldly by the ladies, who
+superciliously turned their backs upon it and the suggester. Joan
+dropped her voice to a lower tone and turned to Dona Rosita. “And you
+have never seen him since?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“I should--at least, I wouldn't have let it end in THAT way,” said Joan
+in a positive whisper.
+
+“Eh?” said Dona Rosita, laughing. “So eet is YOU, Juanita, that have the
+romance--eh? Ah, bueno! 'you have the house--so I gif to you the lover
+also.' I place him at your disposition.” She made a mock gesture of
+elaborate and complete abnegation. “But,” she added in Joan's ear, with
+a quick glance at Demorest, “do not let our hoosband eat him. Even now
+he have the look to strangle ME. Make to him a little lof, quickly, when
+I shall walk in the garden.” She turned away with a pretty wave of her
+fan to Demorest, and calling out, “I go to make an assignation with my
+memory,” laughed again, and lazily passed into the shadow. An ominous
+silence on the veranda followed, broken finally by Mrs. Demorest.
+
+“I don't think it was necessary for you to show your dislike to Dona
+Rosita quite so plainly,” she said, coldly, slightly accenting the
+Puritan stiffness, which any conjugal tete-a-tete lately revived in her
+manner.
+
+“I show dislike of Dona Rosita?” stammered Demorest, in surprise. “Come,
+Joan,” he added, with a forgiving smile, “you don't mean to imply that
+I dislike her because I couldn't get up a thrilling interest in an old
+story I've heard from every gossip in the pueblo since I can remember.”
+
+“It's not an old story to HER,” said Joan, dryly, “and even if it were,
+you might reflect that all people are not as anxious to forget the past
+as you are.”
+
+Demorest drew back to let the shaft glance by. “The story is old enough,
+at least for her to have had a dozen flirtations, as you know, since
+then,” he returned gently, “and I don't think she herself seriously
+believes in it. But let that pass. I am sorry I offended her. I had no
+idea of doing so. As a rule, I think she is not so easily offended. But
+I shall apologize to her.” He stopped and approached nearer his wife in
+a half-timid, half-tentative affection. “As to my forgetfulness of the
+past, Joan, even if it were true, I have had little cause to forget it
+lately. Your friend, Corwin--”
+
+“I must insist upon your not calling him MY friend, Richard,”
+ interrupted Joan, sharply, “considering that it was through YOUR
+indiscretion in coming to us for the buggy that night, that he
+suspected--”
+
+She stopped suddenly, for at that moment a startled little shriek,
+quickly subdued, rang through the garden. Demorest ran hurriedly down
+the steps in the direction of the outcry. Joan followed more cautiously.
+At the first turning of the path Dona Rosita almost fell into his arms.
+She was breathless and trembling, but broke into a hysterical laugh.
+
+“I have such a fear come to me--I cry out! I think I have seen a man;
+but it was nothing--nothing! I am a fool. It is no one here.”
+
+“But where did you see anything?” said Joan, coming up.
+
+Rosita flew to her side. “Where? Oh, here!--everywhere! Ah, I am a
+fool!” She was laughing now, albeit there were tears glistening on her
+lashes when she laid her head on Joan's shoulder.
+
+“It was some fancy--some resemblance you saw in that queer cactus,” said
+Demorest, gently. “It is quite natural, I was myself deceived the other
+night. But I'll look around to satisfy you. Take Dona Rosita back to the
+veranda, Joan. But don't be alarmed, dear--it was only an illusion.”
+
+He turned away. When his figure was lost in the entwining foliage, Dona
+Rosita seized Joan's shoulder and dragged her face down to a level with
+her own.
+
+“It was something!” she whispered quickly.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“It was--HIM!”
+
+“Nonsense,” groaned Joan, nevertheless casting a hurried glance around
+her.
+
+“Have no fear,” said Dona Rosita quickly, “he is gone--I saw him pass
+away--so! But it was HE--Huanson. I recognize him. I forget him never.”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“Have I the eyes? the memory? Madre de Dios! Am I a lunatico too? Look!
+He have stood there--so.”
+
+“Then you think he knew you were here?”
+
+“Quien sabe?”
+
+“And that he came here to see you?”
+
+Dona Rosita caught her again by the shoulders, and with her lips to
+Joan's ear, said with the intensest and most deliberate of emphasis:
+
+“NO!”
+
+“What in Heaven's name brought him here then?”
+
+“You!”
+
+“Are you crazy?”
+
+“You! you! YOU!” repeated Dona Rosita, with crescendo energy. “I have
+come upon him here; where he stood and look at the veranda, absorrrb of
+YOU. You move--he fly.”
+
+“Hush!”
+
+“Ah, yes! I have said I give him to you. And he came, Bueno,” murmured
+Dona Rosita, with a half-resigned, half-superstitious gesture.
+
+“WILL you be quiet!”
+
+It was the sound of Demorest's feet on the gravel path, returning
+from his fruitless search. He had seen nothing. It must have been Dona
+Rosita's fancy.
+
+“She was just saying she thought she had been mistaken,” said Joan,
+quietly. “Let us go in--it is rather chilly here, and I begin to feel
+creepy too.”
+
+Nevertheless, as they entered the house again, and the light of the
+hall lantern fell upon her face, Demorest thought he had never but once
+before seen her look so nervously and animatedly beautiful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The following day, when Mr. Ezekiel Corwin had delivered his letters of
+introduction, and thoroughly canvassed the scant mercantile community of
+San Buenaventura with considerable success, he deposited his carpet-bag
+at the stage office in the posada, and found to his chagrin that he had
+still two hours to wait before the coach arrived. After a vain attempt
+to impart cheerful but disparaging criticism of the pueblo and its
+people to Senor Mateo and his wife--whose external courtesy had been
+visibly increased by a line from Demorest, but whose confidence towards
+the stranger had not been extended in the same proportion--he gave it
+up, and threw himself lazily on a wooden bench in the veranda, already
+hacked with the initials of his countrymen, and drawing a jack-knife
+from his pocket, he began to add to that emblazonry the trade-mark of
+the Panacea--as a casual advertisement. During its progress, however,
+he was struck by the fact that while no one seemed to enter the posada
+through the stage office, the number of voices in the adjoining room
+seemed to increase, and the ministrations of Mateo and his wife became
+more feverishly occupied with their invisible guests. It seemed to
+Ezekiel that consequently there must be a second entrance which he had
+not seen, and this added to the circumstance that one or two lounging
+figures who had been approaching unaccountably disappeared before
+reaching the veranda, induced him to rise and examine the locality. A
+few paces beyond was an alley, but it appeared to be already blocked by
+several cigarette-smoking, short-jacketed men who were leaning against
+its walls, and showed no inclination to make way for him. Checked, but
+not daunted, Ezekiel coolly returned to the stage office, and taking the
+first opportunity when Mateo passed through the rear door, followed him.
+As he expected, the innkeeper turned to the left and entered a large
+room filled with tobacco smoke and the local habitues of the posada.
+But Ezekiel, shrewdly surmising that the private entrance must be in the
+opposite direction, turned to the right along the passage until he came
+unexpectedly upon the corridor of the usual courtyard, or patio, of
+every Mexican hostelry, closed at one end by a low adobe wall, in which
+there was a door. The free passage around the corridor was interrupted
+by wide partitions, fitted up with tables and benches, like stalls,
+opening upon the courtyard where a few stunted fig and orange trees
+still grew. As the courtyard seemed to be the only communication between
+the passage he had left and the door in the wall, he was about to cross
+it, when the voices of two men in the compartment struck his ears.
+Although one was evidently an American's, Ezekiel was instinctively
+convinced that they were speaking in English only for greater security
+against being understood by the frequenters of the posada. It is
+unnecessary to say that this was an innocent challenge to the curiosity
+of Ezekiel that he instantly accepted. He drew back carefully into the
+shadow of the partition as one of the voices asked--
+
+“Wasn't that Johnson just come in?”
+
+There was a movement as if some one had risen to look over the
+compartment, but the gathering twilight completely hid Ezekiel.
+
+“No!”
+
+“He's late. Suppose he don't come--or back out?”
+
+The other man broke into a grim laugh. “I reckon you don't know Johnson
+yet, or you'd understand this yer little game o' his is just the one
+idea o' his life. He's been two years on that man's track, and he ain't
+goin' to back out now that he's got a dead sure thing on him.”
+
+“But why is he so keen about it, anyway? It don't seem nat'ral for a
+business man built after Johnson's style, and a rich man to boot, to go
+into this detective business. It ain't the reward, we know that. Is it
+an old grudge?”
+
+“You bet!” The speaker paused, and then in a lower voice, which taxed
+Ezekial's keen ear to the uttermost, resumed: “It's said up in Frisco
+that Cherokee Bob knew suthin' agin Johnson way back in the States;
+anyhow, I believe it's understood that they came across the plains
+together in '50--and Bob hounded Johnson and blackmailed him here where
+he was livin', even to the point of makin' him help him on the road or
+give information, until one day Johnson bucked against it--kicked over
+the traces--and swore he'd be revenged on Bob, and then just settled
+himself down to that business. Wotever he'd been and done himself he
+made it all right with the sheriff here; and I've heard ez it wasn't
+anything criminal or that sort, but that it was o' some private trouble
+that he'd confided to that hound Bob, and Bob had threatened to tell
+agen him. That's the grudge they say Johnson has, and that's why he's
+allowed to be the head devil in this yer affair. It's an understood
+thing, too, that the sheriff and the police ain't goin' to interfere if
+Johnson accidentally blows the top of Bob's head off in the scrimmage of
+a capter.”
+
+“And I reckon Bob wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing to him when he
+finds out that Johnson has given him away?”
+
+“I reckon,” said the other, sententiously, “for it's Johnson's knowledge
+of the country and the hoss-stealers that are in with Bob's gang of road
+agents that made it easy for him to buy up and win over Bob's friends
+here, so that they'd help to trap him.”
+
+“It's pretty rough on Bob to be sold out in that way,” said the second
+speaker, sympathizingly.
+
+“If they were white men, p'rhaps,” returned his companion,
+contemptuously, “but this yer's a case of Injin agen Injin, ez the men
+are Mexican half-breeds just as Bob's a half Cherokee. The sooner that
+kind o' cross cattle exterminate each other the better it'll be for the
+country. It takes a white man like Johnson to set 'em by the ears.”
+
+A silence followed. Ezekiel, beginning to be slightly bored with his
+cheaply acquired but rather impractical information, was about to slip
+back into the passage again when he was arrested by a laugh from the
+first speaker.
+
+“What's the matter?” growled the other. “Do you want to bring the whole
+posada out here?”
+
+“I was only thinkin' what a skeer them innocent greenhorn passengers
+will get just ez they're snoozing off for the night, ten miles from
+here,” responded his friend, with a chuckle. “Wonder ef anybody's goin'
+up from here besides that patent medicine softy.”
+
+Ezekiel stopped as if petrified.
+
+“Ef the ---- fools keep quiet they won't be hurt, for our men will be
+ready to chip in the moment of the attack. But we've got to let the
+attack be made for the sake of the evidence. And if we warn off the
+passengers from going this trip, and let the stage go up empty, Bob
+would suspect something and vamose. But here's Johnson!”
+
+The door in the adobe wall had suddenly opened, and a figure in a serape
+entered the patio. Ezekiel, whose curiosity was whetted with indignation
+at the ignominious part assigned to him in this comedy, forgot even
+his risk of detection by the newcomer, who advanced quickly towards the
+compartment. When he had reached it he said, in a tone of bitterness:
+
+“The game is up, gentlemen, and the whole thing is blown. The scoundrel
+has got some confederate here--for he's been seen openly on the road
+near Demorest's ranch, and the band have had warning and dispersed. We
+must find out the traitor, and take our precautions for the next time.
+Who is that there? I don't know him.”
+
+He was pointing to Ezekiel, who had started eagerly forward at the first
+sound of his voice. The two occupants of the compartment rose at
+the same moment, leaped into the courtyard, and confronted Ezekiel.
+Surrounded by the three menacing figures he did not quail, but remained
+intently gazing upon the newcomer. Then his mouth opened, and he drawled
+lazily:
+
+“Wa'al, ef it ain't Squire Blandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut, I'm
+a treed coon. Squire Blandford, how DO you do?”
+
+The stranger drew back in undisguised amazement; the two men glanced
+hurriedly at each other; Ezekiel alone remained cool, smiling,
+imperturbable, and triumphant.
+
+“Who are YOU, sir? I do not know you,” demanded the newcomer, roughly.
+
+“Like ez not,” said Corwin dryly, “it's a matter o' four year sense I
+lived in your house. Even Dick Demorest--you knew Dick?--didn't know me;
+but I reckon that Mrs. Blandford as used to be--”
+
+“That's enough,” said Blandford--for it was he--suddenly mastering both
+himself and Corwin by a supreme emphasis of will and gesture. “Wait!”
+ Then turning to the two others who were discreetly regarding the
+blank adobe wall before them, he said: “Excuse me for a few minutes,
+gentlemen. There is no hurry now. I will see you later;” and with an
+imperative wave of his hand motioned Ezekiel to precede him into the
+passage, and followed him.
+
+He did not speak until they entered the stage office, when, passing
+through it, he said peremptorily: “Follow me.” The few loungers, who
+seemed to recognize him, made way for him with a singular deference that
+impressed Ezekiel, already dominated by his manner. The first perception
+in his mind was that Blandford had in some strange way succeeded to
+Demorest's former imperious character. There was no trace left of the
+old, gentle subjection to Joan's prim precision. Ezekiel followed him
+out of the office as unresistingly as he had followed Demorest into the
+stables on that eventful night. They passed down the narrow street until
+Blandford suddenly stopped short and turned into the crumbling doorway
+of one of the low adobe buildings and entered an apartment. It seemed
+to be the ordinary living-room of the house, made more domestic by
+the presence of a silk counterpaned bed in one corner, a prie Dieu and
+crucifix, and one or two articles of bedchamber furniture. A woman
+was sitting in deshabille by the window; a man was smoking on a lounge
+against the wall. Blandford, in the same peremptory manner, addressed
+a command in Spanish to the inmates, who immediately abandoned the
+apartment to the seeming trespasser.
+
+Motioning his companion to a seat on the lounge just vacated, Blandford
+folded his arms and stood erect before him.
+
+“Well,” he said, with quick, business conciseness, “what do you want?”
+
+Ezekiel was staggered out of his complacency.
+
+“Wa'al,” he stammered, “I only reckoned to ask the news, ez we are old
+friends--I--”
+
+“How much do you want?” repeated Blandford, impatiently.
+
+Ezekiel was mystified, yet expectant. “I can't say ez I exakly
+understand,” he began.
+
+“How--much--money--do--you--want,” continued Blandford, with frigid
+accuracy, “to get up and get out of this place?”
+
+“Wa'al, consideren ez I'm travellin' here ez the only authorized agent
+of a first-class Frisco Drug House,” said Ezekiel, with a mingling of
+mortification, pride, and hopefulness, “unless you're travellin' in the
+opposition business, I don't see what's that to you.”
+
+Blandford regarded him searchingly for an instant. “Who sent you here?”
+
+“Dilworth & Dusenberry, Battery Street, San Francisco. Hev their card?”
+ said Ezekiel, taking one from his waistcoat pocket.
+
+“Corwin,” said Blandford, sternly, “whatever your business is here
+you'll find it will pay you better, a ---- sight, to be frank with
+me and stop this Yankee shuffling. You say you have been with
+Demorest--what has HE got to do with your business here?”
+
+“Nothin',” said Ezekiel. “I reckon he wos ez astonished to see me ez you
+are.”
+
+“And didn't he send you here to seek me?” said Blandford, impatiently.
+
+“Considerin' he believes you a dead man, I reckon not.”
+
+Blandford gave a hard, constrained laugh. After a pause, still keeping
+his eyes fixed on Ezekiel, he said:
+
+“Then your recognition of me was accidental?”
+
+“Wa'al, yes. And ez I never took much stock in the stories that you were
+washed off the Warensboro Bridge, I ain't much astonished at finding you
+agin.”
+
+“What did you believe happened to me?” said Blandford, less brusquely.
+
+Ezekiel noticed the softening; he felt his own turn coming. “I
+kalkilated you had reasons for going off, leaving no address behind
+you,” he drawled.
+
+“What reasons?” asked Blandford, with a sudden relapse of his former
+harshness.
+
+“Wa'al, Squire Blandford, sens you wanter know--I reckon your business
+wasn't payin', and there was a matter of two hundred and fifty dollars
+ye took with ye, that your creditors would hev liked to hev back.”
+
+“Who dare say that?” demanded Blandford, angrily.
+
+“Your wife that was--Mrs. Demorest ez is--told it to her mother,”
+ returned Ezekiel, lazily.
+
+The blow struck deeper than even Ezekiel's dry malice imagined. For an
+instant, Blandford remained stupefied. In the five years' retrospect of
+his resolution on that fatal night, whatever doubt of its wisdom might
+have obtruded itself upon him, he had never thought of THIS. He had been
+willing to believe that his wife had quietly forgotten him as well as
+her treachery to him, he had passively acquiesced in the results of that
+forgetfulness and his own silence; he had been conscious that his
+wound had healed sooner than he expected, but if this consciousness
+had enabled him to extend a certain passive forgiveness to his wife
+and Demorest, it was always with the conviction that his mysterious
+effacement had left an inexplicable shadow upon them which their
+consciences alone could explain. But for this unjust, vulgar, and
+degrading interpretation of his own act of expiation, he was totally
+unprepared. It completely crushed whatever sentiment remained of that
+act in the horrible irony of finding himself put upon his defence before
+the world, without being able now to offer the real cause. The anguish
+of that night had gone forever; but the ridiculous interpretation of it
+had survived, and would survive it. In the eyes of the man before him
+he was not a wronged husband, but an absconding petty defaulter, whom he
+had just detected!
+
+His mind was quickly made up. In that instant he had resolved upon a
+step as fateful as his former one, and a fitting climax to its results.
+For five years he had clearly misunderstood his attitude towards his
+treacherous wife and perjured friend. Thanks to this practical, selfish
+machine before him, he knew it now.
+
+“Look here, Corwin,” he said, turning upon Ezekiel a colorless face,
+but a steady, merciless eye. “I can guess, without your telling me, what
+lies may be circulated about me by the man and woman who know that I
+have only to declare myself alive to convict them of infamy--perhaps
+even of criminality before the law. You are not MY friend, or you would
+not have believed them; if you are THEIRS, you have two courses open to
+you now. Keep this meeting to yourself and trust to my mercy to keep it
+a secret also; or, tell Mrs. Demorest that you have seen Mr. Johnson,
+who is not afraid to come forward at any moment and proclaim that he
+is Edward Blandford, her only lawful husband. Choose which course you
+like--it is nothing more to me.”
+
+“Wa'al, I reckon that, as far as I know Mrs. Demorest,” said Ezekiel,
+dryly, “it don't make the least difference to her either; but if you
+want to know my opinion o' this matter, it is that neither you nor
+Demorest exactly understand that woman. I've known Joan Salisbury since
+she was so high, but if ye expected me to tell you wot she was goin' to
+do next, I'd be able to tell ye where the next flash o' lightnin' would
+strike. It's wot you don't expect of Joan Salisbury that she does. And
+the best proof of it is that she filed papers for a divorce agin you
+in Chicago and got it by default a few weeks afore she married
+Demorest--and you don't know it.”
+
+Blandford recoiled. “Impossible,” he said, but his voice too plainly
+showed how clearly its possibility struck him now.
+
+“It's so, but it was kept secret by Deacon Salisbury. I overheerd it.
+Wa'al, that's a proof that you don't understand Joan, I reckon. And
+considerin' that Demorest HIMSELF don't know it, ez I found out only the
+other day in talking to him, I kalkilate I'm safe in sayin' that
+you're neither o' you quite up to Deacon Salisbury's darter in nat'ral
+cuteness. I don't like to obtrude my opinion, Squire Blandford, ez we're
+old friends, but I do say, that wot with Demorest's prematooriness and
+yer own hangfiredness, it's a good thing that you two worldly men hev
+got Joan Salisbury to stand up for North Liberty and keep it from bein'
+scandalized by the ungodly. Ef it hadn't been for her smartness, whar
+y'd both be landed now? There's a heap in Christian bringin' up, and a
+power in grace, Squire Blandford.”
+
+His hard, dry face was for an instant transfigured by a grim fealty and
+the dull glow of some sectarian clannishness. Or was it possible that
+this woman's personality had in some mysterious way disturbed his rooted
+selfishness?
+
+During his speech Blandford had walked to the window. When Corwin had
+ceased speaking, Blandford turned towards him with an equally changed
+face and cold imperturbability that astonished him, and held out his
+hand. “Let bygones be bygones, Corwin--whether we ever meet again or
+not. Yet if I can do anything for you for the sake of old times, I
+am ready to do it. I have some power here and in San Francisco,” he
+continued, with a slight touch of pride, “that isn't dependent upon the
+mere name I may travel under. I have a purpose in coming here.”
+
+“I know it,” said Ezekiel, dryly. “I heard it all from your two friends.
+You're huntin' some man that did you an injury.”
+
+“I'm hunting down a dog who, suspecting I had some secret in emigrating
+here, tried to blackmail and ruin me,” said Blandford, with a sudden
+expression of hatred that seemed inconsistent with anything that Ezekiel
+had ever known of his old master's character--“a scoundrel who tried to
+break up my new life as another had broken up the old.” He stopped and
+recovered himself with a short laugh. “Well, Ezekiel, I don't know as
+his opinion of me was any worse than yours or HERS. And until I catch
+HIM to clear my name again, I let the other slanderers go.”
+
+“Wa'al, I reckon you might lay hands on that devil yet, and not far
+away, either. I was up at Demorest's to-day, and I heard Joan and a
+skittish sort o' Mexican young lady talkin' about some tramp that had
+frightened her. And Miss Pico said--”
+
+“What! Who did you say?” demanded Blandford, with a violent start.
+
+“Wa'al, I reckoned I heerd the first name too--Rosita.”
+
+A quick flush crossed Blandford's face, and left it glowing like a
+boy's.
+
+“Is SHE there?”
+
+“Wa'al, I reckon she's visitin' Joan,” said Ezekiel, narrowly attentive
+of Blandford's strange excitement; “but wot of it?”
+
+But Blandford had utterly forgotten Ezekiel's presence. He had
+remained speechless and flushed. And then, as if suddenly dazzled by an
+inspiration, he abruptly dashed from the room. Ezekiel heard him call to
+his passive host with a Spanish oath, but before he could follow, they
+had both hurriedly left the house.
+
+Ezekiel glanced around him and contemplatively ran his fingers through
+his beard. “It ain't Joan Salisbury nor Dick Demorest ez giv' him that
+start! Humph! Wa'al--I wanter know!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Mrs. Demorest was so fascinated by the company of Dona Rosita Pico and
+her romantic memories, that she prevailed upon that heart-broken but
+scarcely attenuated young lady to prolong her visit beyond the fortnight
+she had allotted to communion with the past. For a day or two following
+her singular experience in the garden, Mrs. Demorest plied her with
+questions regarding the apparition she had seen, and finally extorted
+from her the admission that she could not positively swear to its being
+the real Johnson, or even a perfectly consistent shade of that faithless
+man. When Joan pointed out to her that such masculine perfections
+as curling raven locks, long silken mustachios, and dark eyes, were
+attributes by no means exclusive to her lover, but were occasionally
+seen among other less favored and even equally dangerous Americans, Dona
+Rosita assented with less objection than Joan anticipated. “Besides,
+dear,” said Joan, eying her with feline watchfulness, “it is four years
+since you've seen him, and surely the man has either shaved since, or
+else he took a ridiculous vow never to do it, and then he would be more
+fully bearded.”
+
+But Dona Rosita only shook her pretty head. “Ah, but he have an air--a
+something I know not what you call--so.” She threw her shawl over her
+left shoulder, and as far as a pair of soft blue eyes and comfortably
+pacific features would admit, endeavored to convey an idea of wicked and
+gloomy abstraction.
+
+“You child,” said Joan,--“that's nothing; they all of them do that. Why,
+there was a stranger at the Oriental Hotel whom I met twice when I was
+there--just as mysterious, romantic, and wicked-looking. And in fact
+they hinted terrible things about him. Well! so much so, that Mr.
+Demorest was quite foolish about my being barely civil to him--you
+understand--and--” She stopped suddenly, with a heightened color under
+the fire of Rosita's laughing eyes.
+
+“Ah--so--Dona Discretion! Tell to me all. Did our hoosband eat him?”
+
+Joan's features suddenly tightened to their old puritan rigidity. “Mr.
+Demorest has reasons--abundant reasons--to thoroughly understand and
+trust me,” she replied in an austere voice.
+
+Rosita looked at her a moment in mystification and then shrugged her
+shoulders. The conversation dropped. Nevertheless, it is worthy of being
+recorded that from that moment the usual familiar allusions, playful and
+serious, to Rosita's mysterious visitor began to diminish in frequency
+and finally ceased. Even the news brought by Demorest of some vague
+rumor in the pueblo that an intended attack on the stage-coach had been
+frustrated by the authorities, and that the vicinity had been haunted by
+incognitos of both parties, failed to revive the discussion.
+
+Meantime the slight excitement that had stirred the sluggish life of the
+pueblo of San Buenaventura had subsided. The posada of Senor Mateo
+had lost its feverish and perplexing dual life; the alley behind it
+no longer was congested by lounging cigarette smokers; the compartment
+looking upon the silent patio was unoccupied, and its chairs and tables
+were empty. The two deputy sheriffs, of whom Senor Mateo presumably
+knew very little, had fled; and the mysterious Senor Johnson, of whom
+he--still presumably--knew still less, had also disappeared. For Senor
+Mateo's knowledge of what transpired in and about his posada, and of
+the character and purposes of those who frequented it, was tinctured by
+grave and philosophical doubts. This courteous and dignified scepticism
+generally took the formula of quien sabe to all frivolous and mundane
+inquiry. He would affirm with strict verity that his omelettes were
+unapproachable, his beds miraculous, his aguardiente supreme, his house
+was even as your own. Beyond these were questions with which the simply
+finite and always discreet human intellect declined to grapple.
+
+The disturbing effect of Senor Corwin upon a mind thus gravely
+constituted may be easily imagined. Besides Ezekiel's inordinate
+capacity for useless or indiscreet information, it was undeniable that
+his patent medicines had effected a certain peaceful revolutionary
+movement in San Buenaventura. A simple and superstitious community that
+had steadily resisted the practical domestic and agricultural American
+improvements, succumbed to the occult healing influences of the Panacea
+and Jones's Bitters. The virtues of a mysterious balsam, more or less
+illuminated with a colored mythological label, deeply impressed them;
+and the exhibition of a circular, whereon a celestial visitant was
+represented as descending with a gross of Rogers' Pills to a suffering
+but admiring multitude, touched their religious sympathies to such an
+extent that the good Padre Jose was obliged to warn them from the pulpit
+of the diabolical character of their heresies of healing--with the
+natural result of yet more dangerously advertising Ezekiel. There were
+those too who spoke under their breath of the miraculous efficacy
+of these nostrums. Had not Don Victor Arguello, whose respectable
+digestion, exhausted by continuous pepper and garlic, failed him
+suddenly, received an unexpected and pleasurable stimulus from the
+New England rum, which was the basis of the Jones Bitters? Had not the
+baker, tremulous from excessive aguardiente, been soothed and sustained
+by the invisible morphia, judiciously hidden in Blogg's Nerve Tonic?
+Nor had the wily Ezekiel forgotten the weaker sex in their maiden
+and maternal requirements. Unguents, that made silken their black but
+somewhat coarsely fibrous tresses, opened charming possibilities to
+the Senoritas; while soothing syrups lent a peaceful repose to many a
+distracted mother's household. The success of Ezekiel was so marked as
+to justify his return at the end of three weeks with a fresh assortment
+and an undiminished audacity.
+
+It was on his second visit that the sceptical, non-committal policy of
+Senor Mateo was sorely tried. Arriving at the posada one night, Ezekiel
+became aware that his host was engaged in some mysterious conference
+with a visitor who had entered through the ordinary public room. The
+view which the acute Ezekiel managed to get of the stranger, however,
+was productive of no further discovery than that he bore a faint
+and disreputable resemblance to Blandford, and was handsome after a
+conscious, reckless fashion, with an air of mingled bravado and conceit.
+But an hour later, as Corwin was taking the cooler air of the veranda
+before retiring to one of the miraculous beds of the posada, he was
+amazed at seeing what was apparently Blandford himself emerge on
+horseback from the alley, and after a quick glance towards the veranda,
+canter rapidly up the street. Ezekiel's first impression was to call to
+him, but the sudden recollection that he parted from his old master on
+confidential terms only three days before in San Francisco, and that it
+was impossible for him to be in the pueblo, stopped him with his fingers
+meditatively in his beard. Then he turned in to the posada, and hastily
+summoned Mateo.
+
+The gentleman presented himself in a state of such profound scepticism
+that it seemed to have already communicated itself to his shoulders, and
+gave him the appearance of having shrugged himself into the room.
+
+“Ha'ow long ago did Mr. Johnson get here?” asked Corwin, lazily.
+
+“Ah--possibly--then there has been a Mr. Johnson?” This is a polite
+doubt of his own perceptions and a courteous acceptance of his
+questioner's.
+
+“Wa'al, I guess so. Considerin' I jest saw him with my own eyes,”
+ returned Ezekiel.
+
+“Ah!” Mateo was relieved. Might he congratulate the Senor Corwin, who
+must be also relieved, and shake his respected hand. Bueno. And then he
+had met this Senor Johnson? doubtless a friend? And he was well? and all
+were happy?
+
+“Look yer, Mattayo! What I wanter know ez THIS. When did that man, who
+has just ridden out of your alley, come here? Sabe that--it's a plain
+question.”
+
+Ah surely, of the clearest comprehension. Bueno. It may have been last
+week--or even this week--or perhaps yesterday--or of a possibility
+to-day. The Senor Corwin, who was wise and omniscient, would comprehend
+that the difficulty lay in deciding WHO was that man. Perhaps a friend
+of the Senor Corwin--perhaps only one who LOOKED like him. There
+existed--might Mateo point out--a doubt.
+
+Ezekiel regarded Mateo with a certain grim appreciation. “Wa'al, is
+there anybody here who looks like Johnson?”
+
+Again there were the difficulty of ascertaining perfectly how the Senor
+Johnson looked. If the Senor Johnson was Americano, doubtless there
+were other Americanos who had resembled him. It was possible. The Senor
+Corwin had doubtless observed for a little space a caballero who was
+here, as it were, in the instant of the appearance of Senor Johnson?
+Possibly there was a resemblance, and yet--
+
+Corwin had certainly noticed this resemblance, but it did not suit his
+cautious intellect to fall in with any prevailing scepticism of his
+host. Satisfied in his mind that Mateo was concealing something from
+him, and equally satisfied that he would sooner or later find it out,
+he grinned diabolically in the face of that worthy man, and sought the
+meditation of his miraculous couch. When he had departed, the sceptic
+turned to his wife:
+
+“This animal has been sniffing at the trail.”
+
+“Truly--but Mother of God--where is the discretion of our friend. If he
+will continue to haunt the pueblo like a lovesick chicken, he will get
+his neck wrung yet.”
+
+Following out an ingenious idea of his own, Ezekiel called the next day
+on the Demorests, and in some occult fashion obtained an invitation to
+stay under their hospitable roof during his sojourn in Buenaventura.
+Perfectly aware that he owed this courtesy more to Joan than to her
+husband, it is probable that his grim enjoyment was not diminished by
+the fact; while Joan, for reasons of her own, preferred the constraint
+which the presence of another visitor put upon Demorest's uxoriousness.
+Of late, too, there were times when Dona Rosita's naive intelligence,
+which was not unlike the embarrassing perceptions of a bright and
+half-spoiled child, was in her way, and she would willingly have
+shared the young lady's company with her husband had Demorest shown any
+sympathy for the girl. It was in the faint hope that Ezekiel might in
+some way beguile Rosita's wandering attention that she had invited him.
+The only difficulty lay in his uncouthness, and in presenting to the
+heiress of the Picos a man who had been formerly her own servant. Had
+she attempted to conceal that fact she was satisfied that Ezekiel's
+independence and natural predilection for embarrassing situations would
+have inevitably revealed it. She had even gone so far as to consider the
+propriety of investing him with a poor relationship to her family, when
+Dona Rosita herself happily stopped all further trouble. On her very
+first introduction to him, that charming young lady at once accepted him
+as a lunatic whose brains were turned by occult, scientific, and medical
+study! Ah! she, Rosita, had heard of such cases before. Had not a
+paternal ancestor of hers, one Don Diego Castro, believed he had
+discovered the elixir of youth. Had he not to that end refused even to
+wash him the hand, to cut him the nail of the finger and the hair of
+the head! Exalted by that discovery, had he not been unsparingly
+uncomplimentary to all humanity, especially to the weaker sex? Even as
+the Senor Corwin!
+
+Far from being offended at this ingenious interpretation of his
+character, Ezekiel exhibited a dry gratification over it, and even
+conceived an unwholesome admiration of the fair critic; he haunted her
+presence and preoccupied her society far beyond Joan's most sanguine
+expectations. He sat in open-mouthed enjoyment of her at the table,
+he waylaid her in the garden, he attempted to teach her English. Dona
+Rosita received these extraordinary advances in a no less extraordinary
+manner. In the scant masculine atmosphere of the house, and the somewhat
+rigid New England reserve that still pervaded it, perhaps she languished
+a little, and was not averse to a slight flirtation, even with a madman.
+Besides, she assumed the attitude of exercising a wholesome restraint
+over him. “If we are not found dead in our bed one morning, and
+extracted of our blood for a cordial, you shall thank to me for it,” she
+said to Joan. “Also for the not empoisoning of the coffee!”
+
+So she permitted him to carry a chair or hammock for her into the
+garden, to fetch the various articles which she was continually losing,
+and which he found with his usual penetration; and to supply her with
+information, in which, however, he exercised an unwonted caution. On
+the other hand, certain naive recollections and admissions, which in the
+quality of a voluble child she occasionally imparted to this “madman” in
+return, were in the proportion of three to one.
+
+It had been a hot day, and even the usual sunset breeze had failed that
+evening to rock the tops of the outlying pine-trees or cool the heated
+tiles of the pueblo roofs. There was a hush and latent expectancy in the
+air that reacted upon the people with feverish unrest and uneasiness;
+even a lull in the faintly whispering garden around the Demorests' casa
+had affected the spirits of its inmates, causing them to wander about
+in vague restlessness. Joan had disappeared; Dona Rosita, under an
+olive-tree in one of the deserted paths, and attended by the faithful
+Ezekiel, had said it was “earthquake weather,” and recalled, with a sign
+of the cross, a certain dreadful day of her childhood, when el temblor
+had shaken down one of the Mission towers. “You shall see it now, as
+he have left it so it has remain always,” she added with superstitious
+gravity.
+
+“That's just the lazy shiftlessness of your folks,” responded Ezekiel
+with prompt ungallantry. “It ain't no wonder the Lord Almighty hez to
+stir you up now and then to keep you goin'.”
+
+Dona Rosita gazed at him with simple childish pity. “Poor man; it have
+affect you also in the head, this weather. So! It was even so with
+the uncle of my father. Hush up yourself, and bring to me the box of
+chocolates of my table. I will gif to you one. You shall for one time
+have something pleasant on the end of your tongue, even if you must
+swallow him after.”
+
+Ezekiel grinned. “Ye ain't afraid o' bein' left alone with the ghost
+that haunts the garden, Miss Rosita?”
+
+“After YOU--never-r-r.”
+
+“I'll find Mrs. Demorest and send her to ye,” said Ezekiel,
+hesitatingly.
+
+“Eh, to attract here the ghost? Thank you, no, very mooch.”
+
+Ezekiel's face contracted until nothing but his bright peering gray eyes
+could be seen. “Attract the ghost!” he echoed. “Then you kalkilate that
+it's--” he stopped, insinuatingly.
+
+Rosita brought her fan sharply over his knuckles, and immediately opened
+it again over her half-embarrassed face. “I comprehend not anything to
+'ekalkilate.' WILL you go, Don Fantastico; or is it for me to bring to
+you?”
+
+Ezekiel flew. He quickly found the chocolates and returned, but was
+disconcerted on arriving under the olive-tree to find Dona Rosita no
+longer in the hammock. He turned into a by-path, where an extraordinary
+circumstance attracted his attention. The air was perfectly still, but
+the leaves of a manzanita bush near the misshapen cactus were slightly
+agitated. Presently Ezekiel saw the stealthy figure of a man emerge from
+behind it and approach the cactus. Reaching his hand cautiously towards
+the plant, the stranger detached something from one of its thorns, and
+instantly disappeared. The quick eyes of Ezekiel had seen that it was a
+letter, his unerring perception of faces recognized at the same moment
+that the intruder was none other than the handsome, reckless-looking man
+he had seen the other day in conference with Mateo.
+
+But Ezekiel was not the only witness of this strange intrusion. A few
+paces from him, Dona Rosita, unconscious of his return, was gazing in
+a half-frightened, breathless absorption in the direction of the
+stranger's flight.
+
+“Wa'al!” drawled Ezekiel lazily.
+
+She started and turned towards him. Her face was pale and alarmed, and
+yet to the critical eye of Ezekiel it seemed to wear an expression of
+gratified relief. She laughed faintly.
+
+“Ef that's the kind o' ghost you hev about yer, it's a healthy one,”
+ drawled Ezekiel. He turned and fixed his keen eyes on Rosita's face. “I
+wonder what kind o' fruit grows on the cactus that he's so fond of?”
+
+Either she had not seen the abstraction of the letter, or his acting was
+perfect, for she returned his look unwaveringly. “The fruit, eh? I have
+not comprehend.”
+
+“Wa'al, I reckon I will,” said Ezekiel. He walked towards the cactus;
+there was nothing to be seen but its thorny spikes. He was confronted,
+however, by the sudden apparition of Joan from behind the manzanita at
+its side. She looked up and glanced from Ezekiel to Dona Rosita with an
+agitated air.
+
+“Oh, you saw him too?” she said eagerly.
+
+“I reckon,” answered Ezekiel, with his eyes still on Rosita. “I was
+wondering what on airth he was so taken with that air cactus for.”
+
+Rosita had become slightly pale again in the presence of her friend.
+Joan quietly pushed Ezekiel aside and put her arm around her. “Are you
+frightened again?” she asked, in a low whisper.
+
+“Not mooch,” returned Rosita, without lifting her eyes.
+
+“It was only some peon, trespassing to pick blossoms for his
+sweetheart,” she said significantly, with a glance towards Ezekiel. “Let
+us go in.”
+
+She passed her hand through Rosita's passive arm and led her towards
+the house, Ezekiel's penetrating eyes still following Rosita with an
+expression of gratified doubt.
+
+For once, however, that astute observer was wrong. When Mrs. Demorest
+had reached the house she slipped into her own room, and, bolting the
+door, drew from her bosom a letter which SHE had picked from the cactus
+thorn, and read it with a flushed face and eager eyes.
+
+It may have been the effect of the phenomenal weather, but the next day
+a malign influence seemed to pervade the Demorest household. Dona Rosita
+was confined to her room by an attack of languid nerves, superinduced,
+as she was still voluble enough to declare, by the narcotic effect of
+some unknown herb which the lunatic Ezekiel had no doubt mysteriously
+administered to her with a view of experimenting on its properties. She
+even avowed that she must speedily return to Los Osos, before Ezekiel
+should further compromise her reputation by putting her on a colored
+label in place of the usual Celestial Distributer of the Panacea.
+Ezekiel himself, who had been singularly abstracted and reticent,
+and had absolutely foregone one or two opportunities of disagreeable
+criticism, had gone to the pueblo early that morning. The house was
+comparatively silent and deserted when Demorest walked into his wife's
+boudoir.
+
+It was a pretty room, looking upon the garden, furnished with a singular
+mingling of her own inherited formal tastes and the more sensuous
+coloring and abandon of her new life. There were a great many rugs
+and hangings scattered in disorder around the room, and apparently
+purposeless, except for color; there was a bamboo lounge as large as a
+divan, with two or three cushions disposed on it, and a low chair that
+seemed the incarnation of indolence. Opposed to this, on the wall, was
+the rigid picture of her grandfather, who had apparently retired with
+his volume further into the canvas before the spectacle of this ungodly
+opulence; a large Bible on a funereal trestle-like stand, and the
+primmest and barest of writing-tables, before which she was standing as
+at a sacrificial altar. With an almost mechanical movement she closed
+her portfolio as her husband entered, and also shut the lid of a
+small box with a slight snap. This suggested exclusion of him from her
+previous occupation, whatever it might have been, caused a faint shadow
+of pain to pass across his loving eyes. He cast a glance at his wife
+as if mutely asking her to sit beside him, but she drew a chair to the
+table, and with her elbow resting on the box, resignedly awaited his
+speech.
+
+“I don't mean to disturb you, darling,” he said, gently, “but as we were
+alone, I thought we might have one of our old-fashioned talks, and--”
+
+“Don't let it be so old-fashioned as to include North Liberty again,”
+ she interrupted, wearily. “We've had quite enough of that since I
+returned.”
+
+“I thought you found fault with me then for forgetting the past. But
+let that pass, dear; it is not OUR affairs I wanted to talk to you about
+now,” he said, stifling a sigh, “it's about your friend. Please don't
+misunderstand what I am going to say; nor that I interpose except from
+necessity.”
+
+She turned her dark brown eyes in his direction, but her glance passed
+abstractedly over his head into the garden.
+
+“It's a matter perfectly well known to me--and, I fear, to all our
+servants also--that somebody is making clandestine visits to our garden.
+I would not trouble you before, until I ascertained the object of these
+visits. It is quite plain to me now that Dona Rosita is that object, and
+that communications are secretly carried on between her and some unknown
+stranger. He has been here once or twice before; he was here again
+yesterday. Ezekiel saw him and saw her.”
+
+“Together?” asked Mrs. Demorest, sharply.
+
+“No; but it was evident that there was some understanding, and that some
+communication passed between them.”
+
+“Well?” said Mrs. Demorest, with repressed impatience.
+
+“It is equally evident, Joan, that this stranger is a man who does not
+dare to approach your friend in her own house, nor more openly in this;
+but who, with her connivance, uses us to carry on an intrigue which may
+be perfectly innocent, but is certainly compromising to all concerned.
+I am quite willing to believe that Dona Rosita is only romantic and
+reckless, but that will not prevent her from becoming a dupe of some
+rascal who dare not face us openly, and who certainly does not act as
+her equal.”
+
+“Well, Rosita is no chicken, and you are not her guardian.”
+
+There was a vague heartlessness, more in her voice than in her words,
+that touched him as her cold indifference to himself had never done,
+and for an instant stung his crushed spirit to revolt. “No” he said,
+sternly, “but I am her father's FRIEND, and I shall not allow his
+daughter to be compromised under my roof.”
+
+Her eyes sprang up to meet his in hatred as promptly as they once had
+met in love. “And since when, Richard Demorest, have you become so
+particular?” she began, with dry asperity. “Since you lured ME from the
+side of my wedded husband? Since you met ME clandestinely in trains and
+made love to ME under an assumed name? Since you followed ME to my house
+under the pretext of being my husband's friend, and forced me--yes,
+forced me--to see you secretly under my mother's roof? Did you think of
+compromising ME then? Did you think of ruining my reputation, of driving
+my husband from his home in despair? Did you call yourself a rascal
+then? Did you--”
+
+“Stop!” he said, in a voice that shook the rafters; “I command you,
+stop!”
+
+She had gradually worked herself from a deliberately insulting precision
+into an hysterical, and it is to be feared a virtuous, conviction of
+her wrongs. Beginning only with the instinct to taunt and wound the man
+before her, she had been led by a secret consciousness of something else
+he did not know to anticipate his reproach and justify herself in a wild
+feminine abandonment of emotion. But she stopped at his words. For a
+moment she was even thrilled again by the strength and imperiousness she
+had loved.
+
+They were facing each other after five years of mistaken passion, even
+as they had faced each other that night in her mother's kitchen. But the
+grave of that dead passion yawned between them. It was Joan who broke
+the silence, that after her single outburst seemed to fill and oppress
+the room.
+
+“As far as Rosita is concerned,” she said, with affected calmness, “she
+is going to-night. And you probably will not be troubled any longer by
+your mysterious visitor.”
+
+Whether he heeded the sarcastic significance of her last sentence, or
+even heard her at all, he did not reply. For a moment he turned his
+blazing eyes full upon her, and then without a word strode from the
+room.
+
+She walked to the door and stood uneasily listening in the passage until
+she heard the clatter of hoofs in the paved patio, and knew that he had
+ordered his horse. Then she turned back relieved to her room.
+
+It was already sunset when Demorest drew rein again at the entrance
+of the corral, and the last stroke of the Angelus was ringing from
+the Mission tower. He looked haggard and exhausted, and his horse was
+flecked with foam and dirt. Wherever he had been, or for what object, or
+whether, objectless and dazed, he had simply sought to lose himself in
+aimlessly wandering over the dry yellow hills or in careering furiously
+among his own wild cattle on the arid, brittle plain; whether he had
+beaten all thought from his brain with the jarring leap of his horse, or
+whether he had pursued some vague and elusive determination to his own
+door, is not essential to this brief chronicle. Enough that when he
+dismounted he drew a pistol from his holster and replaced it in his
+pocket.
+
+He had just pushed open the gate of the corral as he led in his horse
+by the bridle, when he noticed another horse tethered among some cotton
+woods that shaded the outer wall of his garden. As he gazed, the figure
+of a man swung lightly from one of the upper boughs of a cotton-wood
+on the wall and disappeared on the other side. It was evidently the
+clandestine visitor. Demorest was in no mood for trifling. Hurriedly
+driving his horse into the enclosure with a sharp cut of his riata, he
+closed the gate upon him, slipped past the intervening space into the
+patio, and then unnoticed into the upper part of the garden. Taking a
+narrow by-path in the direction of the cotton woods that could be seen
+above the wall, he presently came in sight of the object of his search
+moving stealthily towards the house. It was the work of a moment only to
+dash forward and seize him, to find himself engaged in a sharp wrestle,
+to half draw his pistol as he struggled with his captive in the open.
+But once in the clearer light, he started, his grasp of the stranger
+relaxed, and he fell back in bewildered terror.
+
+“Edward Blandford! Good God!”
+
+The pistol had dropped from his hand as he leaned breathless against a
+tree. The stranger kicked the weapon contemptuously aside. Then quietly
+adjusting his disordered dress, and picking the brambles from his
+sleeve, he said with the same air of disdain, “Yes! Edward Blandford,
+whom you thought dead! There! I'm not a ghost--though you tried to make
+me one this time,” he said, pointing to the pistol.
+
+Demorest passed his hand across his white face. “Then it's you--and you
+have come here for--for--Joan?”
+
+“For Joan?” echoed Blandford, with a quick scornful laugh, that made the
+blood flow back into Demorest's face as from a blow, and recalled his
+scattered senses. “For Joan,” he repeated. “Not much!”
+
+The two men were facing each other in irreconcilable yet confused
+antagonism. Both were still excited and combative from their late
+physical struggle, but with feelings so widely different that it would
+have been impossible for either to have comprehended the other. In the
+figure that had apparently risen from the dead to confront him, Demorest
+only saw the man he had unconsciously wronged--the man who had it in his
+power to claim Joan and exact a terrible retribution! But it was part of
+this monstrous and irreconcilable situation that Blandford had ceased
+to contemplate it, and in his preoccupation only saw the actual
+interference of a man whom he no longer hated, but had begun to pity and
+despise.
+
+He glanced coolly around him. “Whatever we've got to say to each other,”
+ he said deliberately, “had better not be overheard. At least what I have
+got to say to you.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Demorest, now as self-possessed as his adversary, haughtily waved his
+hand towards the path. They walked on in silence, without even looking
+at each other, until they reached a small summer-house that stood in the
+angle of the wall. Demorest entered. “We cannot be heard here,” he said
+curtly.
+
+“And we can see what is going on. Good,” said Blandford, coolly
+following him. The summer-house contained a bench and a table. Blandford
+seated himself on the bench. Demorest remained standing beside the
+table. There was a moment's silence.
+
+“I came here with no desire to see you or avoid you,” said Blandford,
+with cold indifference. “A few weeks ago I might perhaps have avoided
+you, for your own sake. But since then I have learned that among the
+many things I owe to--to your wife is the fact that five years ago she
+secretly DIVORCED ME, and that consequently my living presence could
+neither be a danger nor a menace to you. I see,” he added, dryly, with
+a quick glance at Demorest's horror-stricken face, “that I was also told
+the truth when they said you were as ignorant of the divorce as I was.”
+
+He stopped, half in pity of his adversary's shame, half in surprise of
+his own calmness. Five years before, in the tumultuous consciousness of
+his wrongs, he would have scarcely trusted himself face to face with
+the cooler and more self-controlled Demorest. He wondered at and partly
+admired his own coolness now, in the presence of his enemy's confusion.
+
+“As your mind is at rest on that point,” he continued, sarcastically,
+“I don't suppose you care to know what became of ME when I left North
+Liberty. But as it happens to have something to do with my being here
+to-night, and is a part of my business with you, you'll have to listen
+to it. Sit down! Very well, then--stand up! It's your own house.”
+
+His half cynical, wholly contemptuous ignoring of the real issue between
+them was more crushing to Demorest than the keenest reproach or most
+tragic outburst. He did not lift his eyes as Blandford resumed in a dry,
+business-like way:
+
+“When I came across the plains to California, I fell in with a man about
+my own age--an emigrant also. I suppose I looked and acted like a crazy
+fool through all the journey, for he satisfied himself that I had some
+secret reason for leaving the States, and suspected that I was, like
+himself--a criminal. I afterwards learned that he was an escaped thief
+and assassin. Well, he played upon me all the way here, for I didn't
+care to reveal my real trouble to him, lest it should get back to North
+liberty--” He interrupted himself with a sarcastic laugh. “Of course,
+you understand that all this while Joan was getting her divorce unknown
+to me, and you were marrying her--yet as I didn't know anything about it
+I let him compromise me to save her. But”--he stopped, his eye kindled,
+and, losing his self-control in what to Demorest seemed some incoherent
+passion, went on excitedly: “that man continued his persecution
+HERE--yes, HERE, in this very house, where I was a trusted and honored
+guest, and threatened to expose me to a pure, innocent, simple girl
+who had taken pity on me--unless I helped him in a conspiracy of
+cattle-stealers and road agents, of which he was chief. I was such a
+cursed sentimental fool then, that believing him capable of doing this,
+believing myself still the husband of that woman, your wife, and to
+spare that innocent girl the shame of thinking me a villain, I purchased
+his silence by consenting. May God curse me for it!”
+
+He had started to his feet with flashing eyes, and the indication of an
+overmastering passion that to Demorest, absorbed only in the stupefying
+revelation of his wife's divorce and the horrible doubt it implied,
+seemed utterly vacant and unmeaning.
+
+He had often dreamed of Blandford as standing before him, reproachful,
+indignant, and even desperate over his wife's unfaithfulness; but
+this insane folly and fury over some trivial wrong done to that plump,
+baby-faced, flirting Dona Rosita, crushed him by its unconscious but
+degrading obliteration of Joan and himself more than the most violent
+denunciation. Dazed and bewildered, yet with the instinct of a helpless
+man, he clung only to that part of Blandford's story which indicated
+that he had come there for Rosita, and not to separate him from Joan,
+and even turned to his former friend with a half-embarrassed gesture of
+apology as he stammered--
+
+“Then it was YOU who were Rosita's lover, and you who have been here
+to see her. Forgive me, Ned--if I had only known it.” He stopped and
+timidly extended his hand. But Blandford put it aside with a cold
+gesture and folded his arms.
+
+“You have forgotten all you ever knew of me, Demorest! I am not in
+the habit of making clandestine appointments with helpless women whose
+natural protectors I dare not face. I have never pursued an innocent
+girl to the house I dared not enter. When I found that I could not
+honorably retain Dona Rosita's affection, I fled her roof. When I
+believed that even if I broke with this scoundrel--as I did--I was still
+legally if not morally tied to your wife, and could not marry Rosita, I
+left her never to return. And I tore my heart out to do it.”
+
+The tears were standing in his eyes. Demorest regarded him again with
+vacant wonder. Tears!--not for Joan's unfaithfulness to him--but for
+this silly girl's transitory sentimentalism. It was horrible!
+
+And yet what was Joan to Blandford now? Why should he weep for the woman
+who had never loved him--whom he loved no longer? The woman who had
+deceived him--who had deceived them BOTH. Yes! for Joan must have
+suspected that Blandford was living to have sought her secret
+divorce--and yet she had never told him--him--the man for whom she got
+it. Ah! he must not forget THAT! It was to marry him that she had taken
+that step. It was perhaps a foolish caution--a mistaken reservation; but
+it was the folly--the mistake of a loving woman. He hugged this belief
+the closer, albeit he was conscious at the same time of following
+Blandford's story of his alienated affection with a feeling of wonder
+and envy.
+
+“And what was the result of this touching sacrifice?” continued
+Blandford, trying to resume his former cynical indifference. “I'll tell
+you. This scoundrel set himself about to supplant me. Taking advantage
+of my absence, his knowledge that her affection for me was heightened by
+the mystery of my life, and trusting to profit by a personal resemblance
+he is said to bear to me, he began to haunt her. Lately he has grown
+bolder, and he dared even to communicate with her here. For it is he,”
+ he continued, again giving way to his passion, “this dog, this sneaking
+coward, who visits the place unknown to you, and thinks to entrap the
+poor girl through her memory of me. And it is he that I came here to
+prevent, to expose--if necessary to kill! Don't misunderstand me. I have
+made myself a deputy of the law for that purpose. I've a warrant in my
+pocket, and I shall take him, this mongrel, half-breed Cherokee Bob, by
+fair means or foul!”
+
+The energy and presence of his passion was so infectious that it
+momentarily swept away Demorest's doubts of the past. “And I will help
+you, before God, Blandford,” he said eagerly. “And Joan shall, too. She
+will find out from Rosita how far--”
+
+“Thank you,” interrupted Blandford, dryly; “but your wife has already
+interfered in this matter, to my cost. It is to her, I believe, I owe
+this wretch's following Rosita here. She already knows this man--has met
+him twice in San Francisco; he even boasts of YOUR jealousy. You know
+best how far he lied.”
+
+But Demorest had braced himself against the chill sensation that had
+begun to creep over him as Blandford spoke. He nerved himself and said,
+proudly, “I forbade her knowing him on account of his reputation solely.
+I have no reason to believe she has ever even wished to disobey me.”
+
+A smile of scorn that had kindled in Blandford's eyes, darkened with a
+swift shadow of compassion as he glanced at Demorest's hard, ashen
+face. He held out his hand with a sudden impulse. “Enough, I accept your
+offer, and shall put it to the test this very night. I know--if you do
+not--that Rosita is to leave here for Los Osos an hour from now in a
+private carriage, which your wife has ordered especially for her. The
+same information tells me that this villain and another of his gang will
+be in wait for the carriage three miles out of the pueblo to attack it
+and carry off the young girl.”
+
+“Are you mad!” said Demorest, in unfeigned amazement. “Do you believe
+them capable of attacking a private carriage and carrying off a
+solitary, defenceless woman? Come, Blandford, this is a school-girl
+romance--not an act of mercenary highwaymen--least of all Cherokee Bob
+and his gang. This is some madness of Rosita's, surely,” he continued
+with a forced laugh.
+
+“Does this mean that you think better of your promise?” asked Blandford,
+dryly.
+
+“I said I was at your service,” said Demorest, reproachfully.
+
+“Then hear my plan to prevent it, and yet take that dog in the act,”
+ said Blandford. “But we must first wait here till the last moment to
+ascertain if he makes any signal to show that his plan is altered,
+or that he has discovered he is watched.” He turned, and in his
+preoccupation laid his hand for an instant upon Demorest's shoulder with
+the absent familiarity of old days. Unconscious as the action was, it
+thrilled them both--from its very unconsciousness--and impelled them to
+throw themselves into the new alliance with such feverish and excited
+activity in order to preclude any dangerous alien reflection, that when
+they rose a few moments later and cautiously left the garden arm-in-arm
+through the outer gates, no one would have believed they had ever been
+estranged, least of all the clever woman who had separated them.
+
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock when the two friends, accompanied by the
+sheriff of the county, left San Buenaventura turnpike and turned into
+a thicket of alders to wait the coming of the carriage they were to
+henceforth follow cautiously and unseen in a parallel trail to the main
+road. The moon had risen, and with it the long withheld wind that now
+swept over the distant stretch of gleaming road and partly veiled it
+at times with flying dust unchecked by any dew from the clear cold sky.
+Demorest shivered even with his ready hand on his revolver. Suddenly the
+sheriff uttered an exclamation of disgust.
+
+“Blasted if thar ain't some one in the road between us and their
+ambush.”
+
+“It's one of their gang--scouting. Lie close.”
+
+“Scout be darned. Look at him bucking round there in the dust. He can't
+even ride! It's some blasted greenhorn taking a pasear on a hoss for the
+first time. Damnation! he's ruined everything. They'll take the alarm.”
+
+“I'll push on and clear him out,” said Blandford, excitedly. “Even if
+they're off, I may yet get a shot at the Cherokee.”
+
+“Quick then,” said Demorest, “for here comes the carriage.” He pointed
+to a dark spot on the road occasionally emerging from the driven dust
+clouds.
+
+In another moment Blandford was at the heels of the awkward horseman,
+who wheeled clumsily at his approach and revealed the lank figure of
+Ezekiel Corwin!
+
+“You here!” said Blandford, in stupefied fury.
+
+“Wa'al, yes, squire,” said Ezekiel lazily, in spite of his uneasy seat.
+“I kalkilated ef there was suthin' goin' on, I'd like to see it.”
+
+“You cursed prying fool! you've spoiled all. There!” he shouted
+despairingly, as the quick clatter of hoofs rang from the arroyo behind
+them, “there they go! That's your work, blockhead! Out of my way, or by
+God--” but the sentence was left unfinished as, joined by the sheriff,
+who had galloped up at the sound of the robbers' flight, he darted past
+the unconcerned Ezekiel. Demorest would have followed, but Blandford,
+with a warning cry to him to remain and protect the carriage, halted him
+at the side of Corwin as the vehicle now rapidly approached.
+
+But Ezekiel was before him even then, and as the driver pulled up, that
+inquiring man tumbled from his horse, ran to the door and opened it.
+Demorest rode up, glanced into the carriage, and fell back in blank
+amazement.
+
+It was his wife who was sitting there alone, pale, erect, and beautiful.
+By some illusion of the moonlight, her face and figure, covered with
+soft white wrappings for a journey, looked as he remembered to have seen
+her the first night they had met in the Boston train. The picture was
+completed by the traveling bag and rug that lay on the seat before her.
+Another terrible foreboding seized him; his brain reeled. Was he going
+mad?
+
+“Joan!” he stammered. “You? What is the meaning of this?”
+
+Ezekiel whom but for his dazed condition he might have seen
+violently contorting his features in Joan's face, presumably in equal
+astonishment--broke into a series of discordant chuckles.
+
+“Wa'al, ef that ain't Deacon Salisbury's darter all over. Ha! Here are
+ye two men folks makin' no end o' fuss to save that Mexican gal
+with pistols and ambushes and plots and counterplots, and yer's Joan
+Salisbury shows ye the way ha'ow to do it. And so, ma'am, you succeeded
+in fixin' it up with Dona Rosita to take her place and just sell them
+robbers cheap! Wa'al, ma'am, yer sold this yer party, too--for”--he
+advanced his face close to hers--“I never let on a word, though I knew
+it, and although they nearly knocked me off my hoss in their fuss and
+fury. Ha! ha! They wanted to know what I was doin' here, he-he! Tell
+'em, Joan, tell 'em.”
+
+Demorest gazed from one to another with a troubled face, yet one on
+which a faint relief was breaking.
+
+“What does he mean, Joan? Speak,” he said, almost imploringly.
+
+Joan, whose color was slightly returning, drew herself up with her old
+cold Puritan precision.
+
+“After the scene you made this morning, Richard, when you chose to
+accuse your wife of unfaithfulness to her friend, her guest, and even
+your reputation, I resolved to go myself with Dona Rosita to Los Osos
+and explain the matter to her father. Some rumor of the ridiculous farce
+I have just witnessed reached us through Ezekiel, and frightened the
+poor girl so that she declined--and properly, too to face the hoax which
+you and some nameless impersonator of a disgraced fugitive have gotten
+up for purposes of your own! I wish you joy of your work! If the play is
+over now, I presume I may be allowed to proceed on my journey?”
+
+“Not yet,” said Demorest slowly, with a face over which the chasing
+doubts had at last settled in a grayish pallor. “Believe what you like,
+misunderstand me if you will, laugh at the danger you perhaps comprehend
+better than I do, but upon this road, wherever or to whatever it was
+leading you--to-night you go no further!”
+
+“Then I suppose I may return home,” she said coldly. “Ezekiel will
+accompany me back to protect me from--robbers. Come, Ezekiel. Mr.
+Demorest and his friends can be safely trusted to take care of--your
+horse.”
+
+And as the grinning Ezekiel sprang into the carriage beside her, she
+pulled up the glass in the fateful and set face of her once trusting
+husband; the carriage turned and drove off, leaving him like a statue in
+the road.
+
+*****
+
+The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just ceased
+ringing. But in the last five years it had rung out the bass viol and
+harmonium, and rung in an organ and choir; and the old austere interior
+had been subjected at the hands of the rising generation to an invasion
+of youthful warmth and color. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the
+choir itself, where the bright spring sunshine, piercing a newly-opened
+stained-glass window, picked out the new spring bonnet of Mrs. Demorest
+and settled upon it during the singing of the hymn. Perhaps that was
+the reason why a few eyes were curiously directed in that direction, and
+that even the minister himself strayed from the precise path of doctrine
+to allude with ecclesiastical vagueness to certain shining examples of
+the Christian virtues that were “again in our midst.” The shrewd face
+and white eyelashes of Ezekiel Corwin, junior partner in the firm of
+Dilworth & Dusenberry, of San Francisco, were momentarily raised
+towards the choir, and then relapsed into an expression of fatigued
+self-righteousness.
+
+When the service was over a few worshipers lingered near the choir
+staircase, mindful of the spring bonnet.
+
+“It looks quite nat'ral,” said Deacon Fairchild, “ter see Joan Salisbury
+attendin' the ministration of the Word agin. And I ain't sorry she
+didn't bring that second husband of hers with her. It kinder looks like
+old times--afore Edward Blandford was gathered to the Lord.”
+
+“That's so,” replied his auditor meekly, “and they do say ez ha'ow
+Demorest got more powerful worldly and unregenerate in that heathen
+country, and that Joan ez a professin' Christian had to leave him.
+I've heerd tell thet he'd got mixed up, out thar, with some half-breed
+outlaw, of the name o' Johnson, ez hez a purty, high-flyin' Mexican
+wife. It was fort'nit for Joan that she found a friend in grace in
+Brother Corwin to look arter her share in the property and bring her
+back tu hum.”
+
+“She's lookin' peart,” said Sister Bradley, “though to my mind that
+bonnet savors still o' heathen vanities.”
+
+“Et's the new idees--crept in with that organ,” groaned Deacon
+Fairchild; “but--sho--thar she comes.”
+
+She shone for an instant--a charming vision--out of the shadow of the
+choir stairs, and then glided primly into the street.
+
+The old sexton, still in waiting with his hand on the half-closed door,
+paused and looked after her with a troubled brow. A singular and utterly
+incomprehensible recollection and resemblance had just crossed his mind.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Argonauts of North Liberty, by Bret Harte
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Argonauts of North Liberty, by Bret Harte
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Argonauts of North Liberty, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Argonauts of North Liberty
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2703]
+Last Updated: March 5, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Bret Harte
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PART1"> <big><b>PART I</b></big> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2H_PART2"> <big><b>PART II</b></big> </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART1" id="link2H_PART1">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      PART I
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just ceased
+      ringing. North Liberty, Connecticut, never on any day a cheerful town, was
+      always bleaker and more cheerless on the seventh, when the Sabbath sun,
+      after vainly trying to coax a smile of reciprocal kindliness from the
+      drawn curtains and half-closed shutters of the austere dwellings and the
+      equally sealed and hard-set churchgoing faces of the people, at last
+      settled down into a blank stare of stony astonishment. On this chilly
+      March evening of the year 1850, that stare had kindled into an offended
+      sunset and an angry night that furiously spat sleet and hail in the faces
+      of the worshippers, and made them fight their way to the church, step by
+      step, with bent heads and fiercely compressed lips, until they seemed to
+      be carrying its forbidding portals at the point of their umbrellas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within that sacred but graceless edifice, the rigors of the hour and
+      occasion reached their climax. The shivering gas-jets lit up the austere
+      pallor of the bare walls, and the hollow, shell-like sweep of colorless
+      vacuity behind the cold communion table. The chill of despair and hopeless
+      renunciation was in the air, untempered by any glow from the sealed
+      air-tight stove that seemed only to bring out a lukewarm exhalation of wet
+      clothes and cheaply dyed umbrellas. Nor did the presence of the
+      worshippers themselves impart any life to the dreary apartment. Scattered
+      throughout the white pews, in dull, shapeless, neutral blotches, rigidly
+      separated from each other, they seemed only to accent the colorless church
+      and the emptiness of all things. A few children, who had huddled together
+      for warmth in one of the back benches and who had became glutinous and
+      adherent through moisture, were laboriously drawn out and painfully picked
+      apart by a watchful deacon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dry, monotonous disturbance of the bell had given way to the strain of
+      a bass viol, that had been apparently pitched to the key of the east wind
+      without, and the crude complaint of a new harmonium that seemed to bewail
+      its limited prospect of ever becoming seasoned or mellowed in its earthly
+      tabernacle, and then the singing began. Here and there a human voice
+      soared and struggled above the narrow text and the monotonous cadence with
+      a cry of individual longing, but was borne down by the dull, trampling
+      precision of the others' formal chant. This and a certain muffled raking
+      of the stove by the sexton brought the temperature down still lower. A
+      sermon, in keeping with the previous performance, in which the chill east
+      wind of doctrine was not tempered to any shorn lamb within that dreary
+      fold, followed. A spark of human and vulgar interest was momentarily
+      kindled by the collection and the simultaneous movement of reluctant hands
+      towards their owners' pockets; but the coins fell on the baize-covered
+      plates with a dull thud, like clods on a coffin, and the dreariness
+      returned. Then there was another hymn and a prolonged moan from the
+      harmonium, to which mysterious suggestion the congregation rose and began
+      slowly to file into the aisle. For a moment they mingled; there was the
+      silent grasping of damp woollen mittens and cold black gloves, and the
+      whispered interchange of each other's names with the prefix of &ldquo;Brother&rdquo;
+       or &ldquo;Sister,&rdquo; and an utter absence of fraternal geniality, and then the
+      meeting slowly dispersed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The few who had waited until the minister had resumed his hat, overcoat,
+      and overshoes, and accompanied him to the door, had already passed out;
+      the sexton was turning out the flickering gas jets one by one, when the
+      cold and austere silence was broken by a sound&mdash;the unmistakable echo
+      of a kiss of human passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the horror-stricken official turned angrily, the figure of a man glided
+      from the shadow of the stairs below the organ loft, and vanished through
+      the open door. Before the sexton could follow, the figure of a woman
+      slipped out of the same portal and with a hurried glance after the first
+      retreating figure, turned in the opposite direction and was lost in the
+      darkness. By the time the indignant and scandalized custodian had reached
+      the portal, they had both melted in the troubled sea of tossing umbrellas
+      already to the right and left of him, and pursuit and recognition were
+      hopeless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The male figure, however, after mingling with his fellow-worshippers to
+      the corner of the block, stopped a moment under the lamp-post as if
+      uncertain as to the turning, but really to cast a long, scrutinizing look
+      towards the scattered umbrellas now almost lost in the opposite direction.
+      He was still gazing and apparently hesitating whether to retrace his
+      steps, when a horse and buggy rapidly driven down the side street passed
+      him. In a brief glance he evidently recognized the driver, and stepping
+      over the curbstone called in a brief authoritative voice:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ned!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The occupant of the vehicle pulled up suddenly, leaned from the buggy, and
+      said in an astonished tone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dick Demorest! Well! I declare! hold on, and I'll drive up to the curb.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; stay where you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The speaker approached the buggy, jumped in beside the occupant,
+      refastened the apron, and coolly taking the reins from his companion's
+      hand, started the horse forward. The action was that of an habitually
+      imperious man; and the only recognition he made of the other's ownership
+      was the question:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where were you going?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Home&mdash;to see Joan,&rdquo; replied the other. &ldquo;Just drove over from
+      Warensboro Station. But what on earth are YOU doing here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without answering the question, Demorest turned to his companion with the
+      same good-natured, half humorous authority. &ldquo;Let your wife wait; take a
+      drive with me. I want to talk to you. She'll be just as glad to see you an
+      hour later, and it's her fault if I can't come home with you now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; returned his companion, in a tone of half-annoyed apology.
+      &ldquo;She still sticks to her old compact when we first married, that she
+      shouldn't be obliged to receive my old worldly friends. And, see here,
+      Dick, I thought I'd talked her out of it as regards YOU at least, but
+      Parson Thomas has been raking up all the old stories about you&mdash;you
+      know that affair of the Fall River widow, and that breaking off of Garry
+      Spofferth's match&mdash;and about your horse-racing&mdash;until&mdash;you
+      know, she's more set than ever against knowing you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's not a bad sort of horse you've got there,&rdquo; interrupted Demorest,
+      who usually conducted conversation without reference to alien topics
+      suggested by others. &ldquo;Where did you get him? He's good yet for a spin down
+      the turnpike and over the bridge. We'll do it, and I'll bring you home
+      safely to Mrs. Blandford inside the hour.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford knew little of horseflesh, but like all men he was not superior
+      to this implied compliment to his knowledge. He resigned himself to his
+      companion as he had been in the habit of doing, and Demorest hurried the
+      horse at a rapid gait down the street until they left the lamps behind,
+      and were fully on the dark turnpike. The sleet rattled against the hood
+      and leathern apron of the buggy, gusts of fierce wind filled the vehicle
+      and seemed to hold it back, but Demorest did not appear to mind it.
+      Blandford thrust his hands deeply into his pockets for warmth, and
+      contracted his shoulders as if in dogged patience. Yet, in spite of the
+      fact that he was tired, cold, and anxious to see his wife, he was
+      conscious of a secret satisfaction in submitting to the caprices of this
+      old friend of his boyhood. After all, Dick Demorest knew what he was
+      about, and had never led him astray by his autocratic will. It was safe to
+      let Dick have his way. It was true it was generally Dick's own way&mdash;but
+      he made others think it was theirs too&mdash;or would have been theirs had
+      they had the will and the knowledge to project it. He looked up
+      comfortably at the handsome, resolute profile of the man who had taken
+      selfish possession of him. Many women had done the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose if you were to tell your wife I was going to reform,&rdquo; said
+      Demorest, &ldquo;it might be different, eh? She'd want to take me into the
+      church&mdash;'another sinner saved,' and all that, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Blandford, earnestly. &ldquo;Joan isn't as rigid as all that, Dick.
+      What she's got against you is the common report of your free way of
+      living, and that&mdash;come now, you know yourself, Dick, that isn't
+      exactly the thing a woman brought up in her style can stand. Why, she
+      thinks I'm unregenerate, and&mdash;well, a man can't carry on business
+      always like a class meeting. But are you thinking of reforming?&rdquo; he
+      continued, trying to get a glimpse of his companion's eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps. It depends. Now&mdash;there's a woman I know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What, another? and you call this going to reform?&rdquo; interrupted Blandford,
+      yet not without a certain curiosity in his manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; that's just why I think of reforming. For this one isn't exactly
+      like any other&mdash;at least as far as I know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That means you don't know anything about her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait, and I'll tell you.&rdquo; He drew the reins tightly to accelerate the
+      horse's speed, and, half turning to his companion, without, however,
+      moving his eyes from the darkness before him, spoke quickly between the
+      blasts: &ldquo;I've seen her only half a dozen times. Met her first in 6.40
+      train out from Boston last fall. She sat next to me. Covered up with wraps
+      and veils; never looked twice at her. She spoke first&mdash;kind of half
+      bold, half frightened way. Then got more comfortable and unwound herself,
+      you know, and I saw she was young and not bad-looking. Thought she was
+      some school-girl out for a lark&mdash;but rather new at it. Inexperienced,
+      you know, but quite able to take care of herself, by George! and although
+      she looked and acted as if she'd never spoken to a stranger all her life,
+      didn't mind the kind of stuff I talked to her. Rather encouraged it; and
+      laughed&mdash;such a pretty little odd laugh, as if laughing wasn't in her
+      usual line, either, and she didn't know how to manage it. Well, it ended
+      in her slipping out at one end of the car when we arrived, while I was
+      looking out for a cab for her at the other.&rdquo; He stopped to recover from a
+      stronger gust of wind. &ldquo;I&mdash;I thought it a good joke on me, and let
+      the thing drop out of my mind, although, mind you, she'd promised to meet
+      me a month afterwards at the same time and place. Well, when the day came
+      I happened to be in Boston, and went to the station. Don't know why I
+      went, for I didn't for a moment think she'd keep her appointment. First, I
+      couldn't find her in the train, but after we'd started she came along out
+      of some seat in the corner, prettier than ever, holding out her hand.&rdquo; He
+      drew a long inspiration. &ldquo;You can bet your life, Ned, I didn't let go that
+      little hand the rest of the journey.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His passion, or what passed for it, seemed to impart its warmth to the
+      vehicle, and even stirred the chilled pulses of the man beside him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, who and what was she?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn't find out; don't know now. For the first thing she made me promise
+      was not to follow her, nor to try to know her name. In return she said she
+      would meet me again on another train near Hartford. She did&mdash;and
+      again and again&mdash;but always on the train for about an hour, going or
+      coming. Then she missed an appointment. I was regularly cut up, I tell
+      you, and swore as she hadn't kept her word, I wouldn't keep mine, and
+      began to hunt for her. In the midst of it I saw her accidentally; no
+      matter where; I followed her to&mdash;well, that's no matter to you,
+      either. Enough that I saw her again&mdash;and, well, Ned, such is the
+      influence of that girl over me that, by George! she made me make the same
+      promise again!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford, a little disappointed at his friend's dogmatic suppression of
+      certain material facts, shrugged his shoulders.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that's all your story,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I must say I see no prospect of your
+      reforming. It's the old thing over again, only this time you are evidently
+      the victim. She's some designing creature who will have you if she hasn't
+      already got you completely in her power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't know what you're talking about, Ned, and you'd better quit,&rdquo;
+       returned Demorest, with cheerful authoritativeness. &ldquo;I tell you that
+      that's the sort of girl I'm going to marry, if I can, and settle down
+      upon. You can make a memorandum of that, old man, if you like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I don't really see why you want to talk to ME about it. And if you
+      are thinking that such a story would go down for a moment with Joan as an
+      evidence of your reformation, you're completely out, Dick. Was that your
+      idea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;and I can tell you, you're wrong again, Ned. You don't know
+      anything about women. You do just as I say&mdash;do you understand?&mdash;and
+      don't interfere with your own wrong-headed opinions of what other people
+      will think, and I'll take the risks of Mrs. Blandford giving me good
+      advice. Your wife has got a heap more sense on these subjects than you
+      have, you bet. You just tell her that I want to marry the girl and want
+      her to help me&mdash;that I mean business, this time&mdash;and you'll see
+      how quick she'll come down. That's all I want of you. Will you or won't
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With an outward expression of sceptical consideration and an inward
+      suspicion of the peculiar force of this man's dogmatic insight, Blandford
+      assented, with, I fear, the mental reservation of telling the story to his
+      wife in his own way. He was surprised when his friend suddenly drew the
+      horse up sharply, and after a moment's pause began to back him, cramp the
+      wheels of the buggy and then skilfully, in the almost profound darkness,
+      turn the vehicle and horse completely round to the opposite direction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you are not going over the bridge?&rdquo; said Blandford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Demorest made an imperative gesture of silence. The tumultuous rush and
+      roar of swollen and rapid water came from the darkness behind them.
+      &ldquo;There's been another break-out somewhere, and I reckon the bridge has got
+      all it can do to-night to keep itself out of water without taking us over.
+      At least, as I promised to set you down at your wife's door inside of the
+      hour, I don't propose to try.&rdquo; As the horse now travelled more easily with
+      the wind behind him, Demorest, dismissing abruptly all other subjects,
+      laid his hand with brusque familiarity on his companion's knee, and as if
+      the hour for social and confidential greeting had only just then arrived,
+      said: &ldquo;Well, Neddy, old boy, how are you getting on?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So, so,&rdquo; said Blandford, dubiously. &ldquo;You see,&rdquo; he began, argumentatively,
+      &ldquo;in my business there's a good deal of competition, and I was only saying
+      this morning&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But either Demorest was already familiar with his friend's arguments, or
+      had as usual exhausted his topic, for without paying the slightest
+      attention to him, he again demanded abruptly, &ldquo;Why don't you go to
+      California? Here everything's played out. That's the country for a young
+      man like you&mdash;just starting into life, and without incumbrances. If I
+      was free and fixed in my family affairs like you I'd go to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was such an occult positivism in Demorest's manner that for an
+      instant Blandford, who had been married two years, and was transacting a
+      steady and fairly profitable manufacturing business in the adjacent town,
+      actually believed he was more fitted for adventurous speculation than the
+      grimly erratic man of energetic impulses and pleasures beside him. He
+      managed to stammer hesitatingly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But there's Joan&mdash;she&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense! Let her stay with her mother; you sell out your interest in the
+      business, put the money into an assorted cargo, and clap it and yourself
+      into the first ship out of Boston&mdash;and there you are. You've been
+      married going on two years now, and a little separation until you've built
+      up a business out there, won't do either of you any harm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford, who was very much in love with his wife, was not, however,
+      above putting the onus of embarrassing affection upon HER. &ldquo;You don't
+      know, Joan, Dick,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;She'd never consent to a separation, even
+      for a short time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try her. She's a sensible woman&mdash;a deuced sight more than you are.
+      You don't understand women, Ned. That's what's the matter with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It required all of Blandford's fond memories of his wife's conservative
+      habits, Puritan practicality, religious domesticity, and strong family
+      attachments, to withstand Demorest's dogmatic convictions. He smiled,
+      however, with a certain complacency, as he also recalled the previous
+      autumn when the first news of the California gold discovery had penetrated
+      North Liberty, and he had expressed to her his belief that it would offer
+      an outlet to Demorest's adventurous energy. She had received it with
+      ill-disguised satisfaction, and the remark that if this exodus of Mammon
+      cleared the community of the godless and unregenerate it would only be
+      another proof of God's mysterious providence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the tumultuous wind at their backs it was not long before the buggy
+      rattled once more over the cobble-stones of the town. Under the direction
+      of his friend, Demorest, who still retained possession of the reins, drove
+      briskly down a side street of more pretentious dwellings, where Blandford
+      lived. One or two wayfarers looked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so fast, Dick.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why? I want to bring you up to your door in style.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes&mdash;but&mdash;it's Sunday. That's my house, the corner one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They had stopped before a square, two-storied brick house, with an equally
+      square wooden porch supported by two plain, rigid wooden columns, and a
+      hollow sweep of dull concavity above the door, evidently of the same
+      architectural order as the church. There was no corner or projection to
+      break the force of the wind that swept its smooth glacial surface; there
+      was no indication of light or warmth behind its six closed windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There seems to be nobody at home,&rdquo; said Demorest, briefly. &ldquo;Come along
+      with me to the hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Joan sits in the back parlor, Sundays,&rdquo; explained the husband.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I drive round to the barn and leave the horse and buggy there while
+      you go in?&rdquo; continued Demorest, good-humoredly, pointing to the stable
+      gate at the side.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you,&rdquo; returned Blandford, &ldquo;it's locked, and I'll have to open
+      it from the other side after I go in. The horse will stand until then. I
+      think I'll have to say good-night, now,&rdquo; he added, with a sudden
+      half-ashamed consciousness of the forbidding aspect of the house, and his
+      own inhospitality. &ldquo;I'm sorry I can't ask you in&mdash;but you understand
+      why.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right,&rdquo; returned Demorest, stoutly, turning up his coat-collar, and
+      unfurling his umbrella. &ldquo;The hotel is only four blocks away&mdash;you'll
+      find me there to-morrow morning if you call. But mind you tell your wife
+      just what I told you&mdash;and no meandering of your own&mdash;you hear!
+      She'll strike out some idea with her woman's wits, you bet. Good-night,
+      old man!&rdquo; He reached out his hand, pressed Blandford's strongly and
+      potentially, and strode down the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford hitched his steaming horse to a sleet-covered horse block with a
+      quick sigh of impatient sympathy over the animal and himself, and after
+      fumbling in his pocket for a latchkey, opened the front door. A vista of
+      well-ordered obscurity with shadowy trestle-like objects against the
+      walls, and an odor of chill decorum, as if of a damp but respectable
+      funeral, greeted him on entering. A faint light, like a cold dawn, broke
+      through the glass pane of a door leading to the kitchen. Blandford paused
+      in the mid-darkness and hesitated. Should he first go to his wife in the
+      back parlor, or pass silently through the kitchen, open the back gate, and
+      mercifully bestow his sweating beast in the stable? With the reflection
+      that an immediate conjugal greeting, while his horse was still exposed to
+      the fury of the blast in the street, would necessarily be curtailed and
+      limited, he compromised by quickly passing through the kitchen into the
+      stable yard, opening the gate, and driving horse and vehicle under the
+      shed to await later and more thorough ministration. As he entered the back
+      door, a faint hope that his wife might have heard him and would be waiting
+      for him in the hall for an instant thrilled him; but he remembered it was
+      Sunday, and that she was probably engaged in some devotional reading or
+      exercise. He hesitatingly opened the back-parlor door with a consciousness
+      of committing some unreasonable trespass, and entered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was there, sitting quietly before a large, round, shining
+      centre-table, whose sterile emptiness was relieved only by a shaded lamp
+      and a large black and gilt open volume. A single picture on the opposite
+      wall&mdash;the portrait of an elderly gentleman stiffened over a
+      corresponding volume, which he held in invincible mortmain in his rigid
+      hand, and apparently defied posterity to take from him&mdash;seemed to
+      offer a not uncongenial companionship. Yet the greenish light of the shade
+      fell upon a young and pretty face, despite the color it extracted from it,
+      and the hand that supported her low white forehead over which her full
+      hair was simply parted, like a brown curtain, was slim and gentle-womanly.
+      In spite of her plain lustreless silk dress, in spite of the formal frame
+      of sombre heavy horsehair and mahogany furniture that seemed to set her
+      off, she diffused an atmosphere of cleanly grace and prim refinement
+      through the apartment. The priestess of this ascetic temple, the
+      femininity of her closely covered arms, her pink ears, and a little
+      serviceable morocco house-shoe that was visible lower down, resting on the
+      carved lion's paw that upheld the centre-table, appeared to be only the
+      more accented. And the precisely rounded but softly heaving bosom, that
+      was pressed upon the edges of the open book of sermons before her, seemed
+      to assert itself triumphantly over the rigors of the volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At least so her husband and lover thought, as he moved tenderly towards
+      her. She met his first kiss on her forehead; the second, a supererogatory
+      one, based on some supposed inefficiency in the first, fell upon a shining
+      band of her hair, beside her neck. She reached up her slim hands, caught
+      his wrists firmly, and, slightly putting him aside, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Edward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I drove out from Warensboro, so as to get here to-night, as I have to
+      return to the city on Tuesday. I thought it would give me a little more
+      time with you, Joan,&rdquo; he said, looking around him, and, at last,
+      hesitatingly drawing an apparently reluctant chair from its formal
+      position at the window. The remembrance that he had ever dared to occupy
+      the same chair with her, now seemed hardly possible of credence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it was a question of your travelling on the Lord's Day, Edward, I
+      would rather you should have waited until to-morrow,&rdquo; she said, with slow
+      precision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But&mdash;I&mdash;I thought I'd get here in time for the meeting,&rdquo; he
+      said, weakly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And instead, you have driven through the town, I suppose, where everybody
+      will see you and talk about it. But,&rdquo; she added, raising her dark eyes
+      suddenly to his, &ldquo;where else have you been? The train gets into Warensboro
+      at six, and it's only half an hour's drive from there. What have you been
+      doing, Edward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was scarcely a felicitous moment for the introduction of Demorest's
+      name, and he would have avoided it. But he reflected that he had been
+      seen, and he was naturally truthful. &ldquo;I met Dick Demorest near the church,
+      and as he had something to tell me, we drove down the turnpike a little
+      way&mdash;so as to be out of the town, you know, Joan&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped. Her face had taken upon itself that appalling and exasperating
+      calmness of very good people who never get angry, but drive others to
+      frenzy by the simple occlusion of an adamantine veil between their own
+      feelings and their opponents'. &ldquo;I'll tell you all about it after I've put
+      up the horse,&rdquo; he said hurriedly, glad to escape until the veil was lifted
+      again. &ldquo;I suppose the hired man is out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should hope he was in church, Edward, but I trust YOU won't delay
+      taking care of that poor dumb brute who has been obliged to minister to
+      your and Mr. Demorest's Sabbath pleasures.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford did not wait for a further suggestion. When the door had closed
+      behind him, Mrs. Blandford went to the mantel-shelf, where a grimly
+      allegorical clock cut down the hours and minutes of men with a scythe, and
+      consulted it with a slight knitting of her pretty eyebrows. Then she fell
+      into a vague abstraction, standing before the open book on the
+      centre-table. Then she closed it with a snap, and methodically putting it
+      exactly in the middle of the top of a black cabinet in the corner, lifted
+      the shaded lamp in her hand and passed slowly with it up the stairs to her
+      bedroom, where her light steps were heard moving to and fro. In a few
+      moments she reappeared, stopping for a moment in the hall with the lighted
+      lamp as if to watch and listen for her husband's return. Seen in that
+      favorable light, her cheeks had caught a delicate color, and her dark eyes
+      shone softly. Putting the lamp down in exactly the same place as before,
+      she returned to the cabinet for the book, brought it again to the table,
+      opened it at the page where she had placed her perforated cardboard
+      book-marker, sat down beside it, and with her hands in her lap and her
+      eyes on the page began abstractedly to tear a small piece of paper into
+      tiny fragments. When she had reduced it to the smallest shreds, she
+      scraped the pieces out of her silk lap and again collected them in the
+      pink hollow of her little hand, kneeling down on the scrupulously
+      well-swept carpet to peck up with a bird-like action of her thumb and
+      forefinger an escaped atom here and there. These and the contents of her
+      hand she poured into the chilly cavity of a sepulchral-looking alabaster
+      vase that stood on the etagere. Returning to her old seat, and making a
+      nest for her clasped fingers in the lap of her dress, she remained in that
+      attitude, her shoulders a little narrowed and bent forward, until her
+      husband returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've lit the fire in the bedroom for you to change your clothes by,&rdquo; she
+      said, as he entered; then evading the caress which this wifely attention
+      provoked, by bending still more primly over her book, she added, &ldquo;Go at
+      once. You're making everything quite damp here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He returned in a few moments in his slippers and jacket, but evidently
+      found the same difficulty in securing a conjugal and confidential
+      contiguity to his wife. There was no apparent social centre or nucleus of
+      comfort in the apartment; its fireplace, sealed by an iron ornament like a
+      monumental tablet over dead ashes, had its functions superseded by an
+      air-tight drum in the corner, warmed at second-hand from the dining-room
+      below, and offered no attractive seclusion; the sofa against the wall was
+      immovable and formally repellent. He was obliged to draw a chair beside
+      the table, whose every curve seemed to facilitate his wife's easy
+      withdrawal from side-by-side familiarity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Demorest has been urging me very strongly to go to California, but, of
+      course, I spoke of you,&rdquo; he said, stealing his hand into his wife's lap,
+      and possessing himself of her fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Blandford slowly lifted her fingers enclosed in his clasping hand and
+      placed them in shameless publicity on the volume before her. This implied
+      desecration was too much for Blandford; he withdrew his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does that man propose to go with you?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Blandford, coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; he's preoccupied with other matters that he wanted me to talk to you
+      about,&rdquo; said her husband, hesitatingly. &ldquo;He is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&rdquo;&mdash;continued Mrs. Blandford in the same measured tone, &ldquo;if he
+      does not add his own evil company to his advice, it is the best he has
+      ever given yet. I think he might have taken another day than the Lord's to
+      talk about it, but we must not despise the means nor the hour whence the
+      truth comes. Father wanted me to take some reasonable moment to prepare
+      you to consider it seriously, and I thought of talking to you about it
+      to-morrow. He thinks it would be a very judicious plan. Even Deacon
+      Truesdail&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Having sold his invoice of damaged sugar kettles for mining purposes, is
+      converted,&rdquo; said Blandford, goaded into momentary testiness by his wife's
+      unexpected acquiescence and a sudden recollection of Demorest's prophecy.
+      &ldquo;You have changed your opinion, Joan, since last fall, when you couldn't
+      bear to think of my leaving you,&rdquo; he added reproachfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I couldn't bear to think of your joining the mob of lawless and sinful
+      men who use that as an excuse for leaving their wives and families. As for
+      my own feelings, Edward, I have never allowed them to stand between me and
+      what I believed best for our home and your Christian welfare. Though I
+      have no cause to admire the influence that I find this man, Demorest,
+      still holds over you, I am willing to acquiesce, as you see, in what he
+      advises for your good. You can hardly reproach ME, Edward, for worldly or
+      selfish motives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford felt keenly the bitter truth of his wife's speech. For the
+      moment he would gladly have exchanged it for a more illogical and selfish
+      affection, but he reflected that he had married this religious girl for
+      the security of an affection which he felt was not subject to the
+      temptations of the world&mdash;or even its own weakness&mdash;as was too
+      often the case with the giddy maidens whom he had known through Demorest's
+      companionship. It was, therefore, more with a sense of recalling this
+      distinctive quality of his wife than any loyalty to Demorest that he
+      suddenly resolved to confide to her the latter's fatuous folly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it, dear,&rdquo; he said, apologetically, &ldquo;and we'll talk it over
+      to-morrow, and it may be possible to arrange it so that you shall go with
+      me. But, speaking of Demorest, I think you don't quite do HIM justice. He
+      really respects YOUR feelings and your knowledge of right and wrong more
+      than you imagine. I actually believe he came here to-night merely to get
+      me to interest you in an extraordinary love affair of his. I mean, Joan,&rdquo;
+       he added hastily, seeing the same look of dull repression come over her
+      face, &ldquo;I mean, Joan&mdash;that is, you know, from all I can judge&mdash;it
+      is something really serious this time. He intends to reform. And this is
+      because he has become violently smitten with a young woman whom he has
+      only seen half a dozen times, at long intervals, whom he first met in a
+      railway train, and whose name and residence he don't even know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was an ominous silence&mdash;so hushed that the ticking of the
+      allegorical clock came like a grim monitor. &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Mrs. Blandford,
+      in a hard, dry voice that her alarmed husband scarcely recognized, &ldquo;he
+      proposed to insult your wife by taking her into his shameful confidence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good heavens! Joan, no&mdash;you don't understand. At the worst, this is
+      some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be intending only
+      an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and deeply in
+      love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick Demorest, and if ever
+      there was a man honestly in love, it is he.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you mean to say that this man&mdash;an utter stranger to me&mdash;a
+      man whom I've never laid my eyes on&mdash;whom I wouldn't know if I met in
+      the street&mdash;expects me to advise him&mdash;to&mdash;to&mdash;&rdquo; She
+      stopped. Blandford could scarcely believe his senses. There were tears in
+      her eyes&mdash;this woman who never cried; her voice trembled&mdash;she
+      who had always controlled her emotions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took advantage of this odd but opportune melting. He placed his arm
+      around her shoulders. She tried to escape it, but with a coy, shy
+      movement, half hysterical, half girlish, unlike her usual stony, moral
+      precision. &ldquo;Yes, Joan,&rdquo; he repeated, laughingly, &ldquo;but whose fault is it?
+      Not HIS, remember! And I firmly believe he thinks you can do him good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he has never seen me,&rdquo; she continued, with a nervous little laugh,
+      &ldquo;and probably considers me some old Gorgon&mdash;like&mdash;like&mdash;Sister
+      Jemima Skerret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford smiled with the complacency of far-reaching masculine intuition.
+      Ah! that shrewd fellow, Demorest, was right. Joan, dear Joan, was only a
+      woman after all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he'll be the more agreeably astonished,&rdquo; he returned, gayly, &ldquo;and I
+      think YOU will, too, Joan. For Dick isn't a bad-looking fellow; most women
+      like him. It's true,&rdquo; he continued, much amused at the novelty of the
+      perfectly natural toss and grimace with which Mrs. Blandford received this
+      statement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think he's been pointed out to me somewhere,&rdquo; she said, thoughtfully;
+      &ldquo;he's a tall, dark, dissipated-looking man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing of the kind,&rdquo; laughed her husband. &ldquo;He's middle-sized and as
+      blond as your cousin Joe, only he's got a long yellow moustache, and has a
+      quick, abrupt way of talking. He isn't at all fancy-looking; you'd take
+      him for an energetic business man or a doctor, if you didn't know him. So
+      you see, Joan, this correct little wife of mine has been a little, just a
+      little, prejudiced.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He drew her again gently backwards and nearer his seat, but she caught his
+      wrists in her slim hands, and rising from the chair at the same moment,
+      dexterously slipped from his embrace with her back towards him. &ldquo;I do not
+      know why I should be unprejudiced by anything you've told me,&rdquo; she said,
+      sharply closing the book of sermons, and, with her back still to her
+      husband, reinstating it formally in its place on the cabinet. &ldquo;It's
+      probably one of his many scandalous pursuits of defenceless and believing
+      women, and he, no doubt, goes off to Boston, laughing at you for thinking
+      him in earnest; and as ready to tell his story to anybody else and boast
+      of his double deceit.&rdquo; Her voice had a touch of human asperity in it now,
+      which he had never before noticed, but recognizing, as he thought, the
+      human cause, it was far from exciting his displeasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wrong again, Joan; he's waiting here at the Independence House for me to
+      see him to-morrow,&rdquo; he returned, cheerfully. &ldquo;And I believe him so much in
+      earnest that I would be ready to swear that not another person will ever
+      know the story but you and I and he. No, it is a real thing with him; he's
+      dead in love, and it's your duty as a Christian to help him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment of silence. Mrs. Blandford remained by the cabinet,
+      methodically arranging some small articles displaced by the return of the
+      book. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; she said, suddenly, &ldquo;you don't tell me what mother had to
+      say. Of course, as you came home earlier than you expected, you had time
+      to stop THERE&mdash;only four doors from this house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, no, Joan,&rdquo; replied Blandford, in awkward discomfiture. &ldquo;You see I
+      met Dick first, and then&mdash;then I hurried here to you&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;I
+      clean forgot it. I'm very sorry,&rdquo; he added, dejectedly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I more deeply so,&rdquo; she returned, with her previous bloodless moral
+      precision, &ldquo;for she probably knows by this time, Edward, why you have
+      omitted your usual Sabbath visit, and with WHOM you were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I can pull on my boots again and run in there for a moment,&rdquo; he
+      suggested, dubiously, &ldquo;if you think it necessary. It won't take me a
+      moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she said, positively; &ldquo;it is so late now that your visit would only
+      show it to be a second thought. I will go myself&mdash;it will be a call
+      for us both.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But shall I go with you to the door? It is dark and sleeting,&rdquo; suggested
+      Blandford, eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; she replied, peremptorily. &ldquo;Stay where you are, and when Ezekiel and
+      Bridget come in send them to bed, for I have made everything fast in the
+      kitchen. Don't wait up for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She left the room, and in a few moments returned, wrapped from head to
+      foot in an enormous plaid shawl. A white woollen scarf thrown over her
+      bare brown head, and twice rolled around her neck, almost concealed her
+      face from view. When she had parted from her husband, and reached the
+      darkened hall below, she drew from beneath the folds of her shawl a thick
+      blue veil, with which she completely enveloped her features. As she opened
+      the front door and peered out into the night, her own husband would have
+      scarcely recognized her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With her head lowered against the keen wind she walked rapidly down the
+      street and stopped for an instant at the door of the fourth house.
+      Glancing quickly back at the house she had left and then at the closed
+      windows of the one she had halted before, she gathered her skirts with one
+      hand and sped away from both, never stopping until she reached the door of
+      the Independence Hotel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Blandford entered the side door boldly. Luckily for her, the
+      austerities of the Sabbath were manifest even here; the bar-room was
+      closed, and the usual loungers in the passages were absent. Without
+      risking the recognition of her voice in an inquiry to the clerk, she
+      slipped past the office, still muffled in her veil, and quickly mounted
+      the narrow staircase. For an instant she hesitated before the public
+      parlor, and glanced dubiously along the half-lit corridor. Chance
+      befriended her; the door of a bedroom opened at that moment, and Richard
+      Demorest, with his overcoat and hat on, stepped out in the hall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a quick and nervous gesture of her hand she beckoned him to approach.
+      He came towards her leisurely, with an amused curiosity that suddenly
+      changed to utter astonishment as she hurriedly lifted her veil, dropped
+      it, turned, and glided down the staircase into the street again. He
+      followed rapidly, but did not overtake her until she had reached the
+      corner, when she slackened her pace an instant for him to join her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lulu,&rdquo; he said eagerly; &ldquo;is it you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a word here,&rdquo; she said, breathlessly. &ldquo;Follow me at a distance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She started forward again in the direction of her own house. He followed
+      her at a sufficient interval to keep her faintly distinguishable figure in
+      sight until she had crossed three streets, and near the end of the next
+      block glided up the steps of a house not far from the one where he
+      remembered to have left Blandford. As he joined her, she had just
+      succeeded in opening the door with a pass-key, and was awaiting him. With
+      a gesture of silence she took his hand in her cold fingers, and leading
+      him softly through the dark hall and passage, quickly entered the kitchen.
+      Here she lit a candle, turned, and faced him. He could see that the
+      outside shutters were bolted, and the kitchen evidently closed for the
+      night.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As she removed the veil from her face he made a movement as if to regain
+      her hand again, but she drew it away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have forced this upon me,&rdquo; she said hurriedly, &ldquo;and it may be ruin to
+      us both. Why have you betrayed me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Betrayed you, Lulu&mdash;Good God! what do you mean?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked him full in the eye, and then said slowly, &ldquo;Do you mean to say
+      that you have told no one of our meetings?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Only one&mdash;my old friend Blandford, who lives&mdash;Ah, yes! I see it
+      now. You are neighbors. He has betrayed me. This house is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My father's!&rdquo; she replied boldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The momentary uneasiness passed from Demorest's resolute face. His old
+      self-sufficiency returned. &ldquo;Good,&rdquo; he said, with a frank laugh, &ldquo;that will
+      do for me. Open the door there, Lulu, and take me to him. I'm not ashamed
+      of anything I've done, my girl, nor need you be. I'll tell him my real
+      name is Dick Demorest, as I ought to have told you before, and that I want
+      to marry you, fairly and squarely, and let him make the conditions. I'm
+      not a vagabond nor a thief, Lulu, if I have met you on the sly. Come,
+      dear, let us end this now. Come&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But she had thrown herself before him and placed her hand upon his lips.
+      &ldquo;Hush! are you mad? Listen to me, I tell you&mdash;please&mdash;oh, do&mdash;no
+      you must not!&rdquo; He had covered her hand with kisses and was drawing her
+      face towards his own. &ldquo;No&mdash;not again, it was wrong then, it is
+      monstrous now. I implore you, listen, if you love me, stop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He released her. She sank into a chair by the kitchen-table, and buried
+      her flushed face in her hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stood for a moment motionless before her. &ldquo;Lulu, if that is your name,&rdquo;
+       he said slowly, but gently, &ldquo;tell me all now. Be frank with me, and trust
+      me. If there is anything stands in the way, let me know what it is and I
+      can overcome it. If it is my telling Ned Blandford, don't let that worry
+      you, he's as loyal a fellow as ever breathed, and I'm a dog to ever think
+      he willingly betrayed us. His wife, well, she's one of those pious saints&mdash;but
+      no, she would not be such a cursed hypocrite and bigot as this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, I tell you! WILL you hush,&rdquo; she said, in a frantic whisper,
+      springing to her feet and grasping him convulsively by the lapels of his
+      overcoat. &ldquo;Not a word more, or I'll kill myself. Listen! Do you know what
+      I brought you here for? why I left my&mdash;this house and dragged you out
+      of your hotel? Well, it was to tell you that you must leave me, leave HERE&mdash;go
+      out of this house and out of this town at once, to-night! And never look
+      on it or me again! There! you have said we must end this now. It is ended,
+      as only it could and ever would end. And if you open that door except to
+      go, or if you attempt to&mdash;to touch me again, I'll do something
+      desperate. There!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She threw him off again and stepped back, strangely beautiful in the
+      loosened shackles of her long repressed human emotion. It was as if the
+      passion-rent robes of the priestess had laid bare the flesh of the woman
+      dazzling and victorious. Demorest was fascinated and frightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you do not love me?&rdquo; he said with a constrained smile, &ldquo;and I am a
+      fool?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Love you!&rdquo; she repeated. &ldquo;Love you,&rdquo; she continued, bowing her brown head
+      over her hanging arms and clasped hands. &ldquo;What then has brought me to
+      this? Oh,&rdquo; she said suddenly, again seizing him by his two arms, and
+      holding him from her with a half-prudish, half-passionate gesture, &ldquo;why
+      could you not have left things as they were; why could we not have met in
+      the same old way we used to meet, when I was so foolish and so happy? Why
+      could you spoil that one dream I have clung to? Why didn't you leave me
+      those few days of my wretched life when I was weak, silly, vain, but not
+      the unhappy woman I am now. You were satisfied to sit beside me and talk
+      to me then. You respected my secret, my reserve. My God! I used to think
+      you loved me as I loved you&mdash;for THAT! Why did you break your promise
+      and follow me here? I believed you the first day we met, when you said
+      there was no wrong in my listening to you; that it should go no further;
+      that you would never seek to renew it without my consent. You tell me I
+      don't love you, and I tell you now that we must part, that frightened as I
+      was, foolish as I was, that day was the first day I had ever lived and
+      felt as other women live and feel. If I ran away from you then it was
+      because I was running away from my old self too. Don't you understand me?
+      Could you not have trusted me as I trusted you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I broke my promise only when you broke yours. When you would not meet me
+      I followed you here, because I loved you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that is why you must leave me now,&rdquo; she said, starting from his
+      outstretched arms again. &ldquo;Do not ask me why, but go, I implore you. You
+      must leave this town to-night, to-morrow will be too late.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He cast a hurried glance around him, as if seeking to gather some reason
+      for this mysterious haste, or a clue for future identification. He saw
+      only the Sabbath-sealed cupboards, the cold white china on the dresser,
+      and the flicker of the candle on the partly-opened glass transom above the
+      door. &ldquo;As you wish,&rdquo; he said, with quiet sadness. &ldquo;I will go now, and
+      leave the town to-night; but&rdquo;&mdash;his voice struck its old imperative
+      note&mdash;&ldquo;this shall not end here, Lulu. There will be a next time, and
+      I am bound to win you yet, in spite of all and everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at him with a half-frightened, half-hysterical light in her
+      eyes. &ldquo;God knows!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you will be frank with me then, and tell me all?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, another time; but go now.&rdquo; She had extinguished the candle,
+      turned the handle of the door noiselessly, and was holding it open. A
+      faint light stole through the dark passage. She drew back hastily. &ldquo;You
+      have left the front door open,&rdquo; she said in a frightened voice. &ldquo;I thought
+      you had shut it behind me,&rdquo; he returned quickly. &ldquo;Good night.&rdquo; He drew her
+      towards him. She resisted slightly. They were for an instant clasped in a
+      passionate embrace; then there was a sudden collapse of the light and a
+      dull jar. The front door had swung to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a desperate bound she darted into the passage and through the hall,
+      dragging him by the hand, and threw the front door open. Without, the
+      street was silent and empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go,&rdquo; she whispered frantically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Demorest passed quickly down the steps and disappeared. At the same moment
+      a voice came from the banisters of the landing above. &ldquo;Who's there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's I, mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought so. And it's like Edward to bring you and sneak off in that
+      fashion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Blandford gave a quick sigh of relief. Demorest's flight had been
+      mistaken for her husband's habitual evasion. Knowing that her mother would
+      not refer to the subject again, she did not reply, but slowly mounted the
+      dark staircase with an assumption of more than usual hesitating
+      precaution, in order to recover her equanimity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clocks were striking eleven when she left her mother's house and
+      re-entered her own. She was surprised to find a light burning in the
+      kitchen, and Ezekiel, their hired man, awaiting her in a dominant and
+      nasal key of religious and practical disapprobation. &ldquo;Pity you wern't tu
+      hum afore, ma'am, considerin' the doins that's goin' on in perfessed
+      Christians' houses arter meetin' on the Sabbath Day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the difficulty now, Ezekiel?&rdquo; said Mrs. Blandford, who had
+      regained her rigorous precision once more under the decorous security of
+      her own roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, here comes an entire stranger axin for Squire Blandford. And when
+      I tells he warn't tu hum&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at home?&rdquo; interrupted Mrs. Blandford, with a slight start. &ldquo;I left
+      him here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mebbee so, but folks nowadays don't 'pear to keer much whether they break
+      the Sabbath or not, trapsen' raound town in and arter meetin' hours, ez if
+      'twor gin'ral tranin' day&mdash;and hez gone out agin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go on,&rdquo; said Mrs. Blandford, curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, the stranger sez, sez he, 'Show me the way to the stables,' sez
+      he, and without taken' no for an answer, ups and meanders through the
+      hall, outer the kitchen inter the yard, ez if he was justice of the peace;
+      and when he gets there he sez, 'Fetch out his hoss and harness up, and be
+      blamed quick about it, and tell Ned Blandford that Dick Demorest hez got
+      to leave town to-night, and ez ther ain't a blamed puritanical shadbelly
+      in this hull town ez would let a hoss go on hire Sunday night, he guesses
+      he'll hev to borry his.' And afore I could say Jack Robinson, he tackles
+      the hoss up and drives outer the yard, flinging this
+      two-dollar-and-a-half-piece behind him ez if I wur a Virginia slave and he
+      was John C. Calhoun hisself. I'd a chucked it after him if it hadn't been
+      the Lord's Day, and it mout hev provoked disturbance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Demorest is worldly, but one of Edward's old friends,&rdquo; said Mrs.
+      Blandford, with a slight kindling of her eyes, &ldquo;and he would not have
+      refused to aid him in what might be an errand of grace or necessity. You
+      can keep the money, Ezekiel, as a gift, not as a wage. And go to bed. I
+      will sit up for Mr. Blandford.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She passed out and up the staircase into her bedroom, pausing on her way
+      to glance into the empty back parlor and take the lamp from the table.
+      Here she noticed that her husband had evidently changed his clothes again
+      and taken a heavier overcoat from the closet. Removing her own wraps she
+      again descended to the lower apartment, brought out the volume of sermons,
+      placed it and the lamp in the old position, and with her abstracted eyes
+      on the page fell into her former attitude. Every suggestion of the
+      passionate, half-frenzied woman in the kitchen of the house only four
+      doors away, had vanished; one would scarcely believe she had ever stirred
+      from the chair in which she had formally received her husband two hours
+      before. And yet she was thinking of herself and Demorest in that kitchen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His prompt and decisive response to her appeal, as shown in this last bold
+      and characteristic action, relieved, while it half piqued her. But the
+      overruling destiny which had enabled her to bring him from his hotel to
+      her mother's house unnoticed, had protected them while there, had arrested
+      a dangerous meeting between him and herself and her husband in her own
+      house, impressed her more than all. It imparted to her a hideous
+      tranquillity born of the doctrines of her youth&mdash;Predestination! She
+      reflected with secret exultation that her moral resolution to fly from him
+      and her conscientiously broken promise had been the direct means of
+      bringing him there; that step by step circumstances not in themselves evil
+      or to be combated had led her along; that even her husband and mother had
+      felt it their duty to assist towards this fateful climax! If Edward had
+      never kept up his worldly friendship, if she had never been restricted and
+      compassed in her own; if she had ever known the freedom of other girls,&mdash;all
+      this might not have happened. She had been elected to share with Demorest
+      and her husband the effects of their ungodliness. She was no longer a free
+      agent; what availed her resolutions? To Demorest's imperious hope, she had
+      said, &ldquo;God knows.&rdquo; What more could she say? Her small red lips grew white
+      and compressed; her face rigid, her eyes hollow and abstracted; she looked
+      like the genius of asceticism as she sat there, grimly formulating a
+      dogmatic explanation of her lawless and unlicensed passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wind had risen to a gale without, and stirred even the sealed
+      sepulchre of the fireplace with dull rumblings and muffled moans. At times
+      the hot-air drum in the corner seemed to expand as with some pent-up
+      emotion. Strange currents of air crossed the empty room like the passage
+      of unseen spirits, and she even fancied she heard whispers at the window.
+      This caused her to rise and open it, when she found that the sleet had
+      given way to a dry feathery snow that was swarming through the slits of
+      the shutter; a faint reflection from the already whitened fences glimmered
+      in the panes. She shut the window hastily, with a little shiver of cold.
+      Where was Demorest in this storm? Would it stop him? She thought with
+      pride now of the dominant energy that had frightened her, and knew it
+      would not. But her husband?&mdash;what kept him? It was twelve o'clock; he
+      had seldom stayed out so late before. During the first half hour of her
+      reflections she had been relieved by his absence; she had even believed
+      that he had met Demorest in the town, and was not alarmed by it, for she
+      knew that the latter would avoid any further confidence, and cut short any
+      return to it. But why had not Edward returned? For an instant the terrible
+      thought that something had happened, and that they might both return
+      together, took possession of her, and she trembled. But no; Demorest, who
+      had already taken such extreme measures, could not consistently listen to
+      any suggestion for delay. As her only danger lay in Demorest's presence,
+      the absence of her husband caused her more undefinable uneasiness than
+      actual alarm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room had become cold with the dying out of the dining-room fire that
+      warmed the drum. She would go to bed. She nevertheless arranged the room
+      again with a singular impression that she was doing it for the last time
+      in her present existing circumstances, and placing the lamp on the table
+      in the hall, went up to her own room. By the light of a single candle she
+      undressed herself hastily, said her prayers punctiliously, and got into
+      bed, with an unexpected relief at finding herself still occupying it
+      alone. Then she fell asleep and dreamed of Demorest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When Edward Blandford found himself alone after his wife had undertaken to
+      fulfil his abandoned filial duty at her parents' house, he felt a slight
+      twinge of self-reproach. He could not deny that this was not the first
+      time he had evaded the sterile Sabbath evenings at his mother-in-law's, or
+      that even at other times he was not in accord with the cold and colorless
+      sanctity of the family. Yet he remembered that when he picked out from the
+      budding womanhood of North Liberty this pure, scentless blossom, he had
+      endured the privations of its surroundings with a sense of security in
+      inhaling the atmosphere in which it grew, and knowing the integrity of its
+      descent. There was a certain pleasure also in invading this seclusion with
+      human passion; the first pressure of her hand when they were kneeling
+      together at family prayers had the zest without the sin of a forbidden
+      pleasure; the first kiss he had given her with their heads over the family
+      Bible had fairly intoxicated him in the thin, rarefied air of their
+      surroundings. In transplanting this blossom to his own home with the fond
+      belief that it would eventually borrow the hues and color of his own
+      passion, he had no further interest in the house he had left behind. When
+      he found, however, that the ancestral influence was stronger than he
+      expected, that the young wife, instead of assimilating to his conditions,
+      had imported into their little household the rigors of her youthful home,
+      he had been chilled and disappointed. But he could not help also
+      remembering that his own boyhood had been spent in an atmosphere like her
+      own in everything but its sincerity and deep conviction. His father had
+      recognized the business value of placating the narrow tyranny of the
+      respectable well-to-do religious community, and had become a conscious
+      hypocrite and a popular citizen. He had himself been under that influence,
+      and it was partly a conviction of this that had drawn him towards her as
+      something genuine and real. It occurred to him now for the first time, as
+      he looked around upon that compromise of their two lives in this chilly
+      artificial home, that it was only natural that she would prefer the more
+      truthful austerities of her mother's house. Had she detected the sham, and
+      did she despise him for it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These were questions which seemed to bring another self-accusing doubt in
+      his own mind, although, without his being conscious of it, they had been
+      really the outcome of that doubt. He could not help dwelling on the
+      singular human interest she had taken in Demorest's love affair, and the
+      utterly unexpected emotion she had shown. He had never seen her as
+      charmingly illogical, capricious, and bewitchingly feminine. Had he not
+      made a radical mistake in not giving her a frequent provocation for this
+      innocent emotion&mdash;in fact, in not taking her out into a world of
+      broader sympathies and experiences? What a household they might have had&mdash;if
+      necessary in some other town&mdash;away from those cramped prejudices and
+      limitations! What friends she might have been with Dick and his other
+      worldly acquaintances; what social pleasures&mdash;guiltless amusements
+      for her pure mind&mdash;in theatres, parties, and concerts! Would she have
+      objected to them?&mdash;had he ever seriously proposed them to her? No! if
+      she had objected there would have been time enough to have made this
+      present compromise; she would have at least respected and understood his
+      sacrifice&mdash;and his friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even the artificial externals of his household had never before so visibly
+      impressed him. Now that she was no longer in the room it did not even bear
+      a trace of her habitation, it certainly bore no suggestion of his own. Why
+      had he bought that hideous horsehair furniture? To remind her of the old
+      provincial heirlooms of her father's sitting-room. Did it remind her of
+      it? The stiff and stony emptiness of this room had been fashioned upon the
+      decorous respectability of his own father's parlor&mdash;in which his
+      father, who usually spent his slippered leisure in the family
+      sitting-room, never entered except on visits from the minister. It had
+      chilled his own youthful soul&mdash;why had he perpetuated it here?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He could only answer these questions by moodily wandering about the house,
+      and regretting he had not gone with her. After a vain attempt to establish
+      social and domestic relations with the hot-air drum by putting his feet
+      upon it&mdash;after an equally futile attempt to extract interest from the
+      book of sermons by opening its pages at random&mdash;he glanced at the
+      clock and suddenly resolved to go and fetch her. It would remind him of
+      the old times when he used to accompany her from church, and, after her
+      parents had retired, spend a blissful half-hour alone with her. With what
+      a mingling of fear and childish curiosity she used to accept his equally
+      timid caresses! Yes, he would go and fetch her; and he would recall it to
+      her in a whisper while they were there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Filled with this idea, when he changed his clothes again he put on a
+      certain heavy beaver overcoat, on whose shaggy sleeve her little, hand had
+      so often rested when he escorted her from meeting; and he even selected
+      the gray muffler she had knit for him in the old ante-nuptial days. It was
+      lying in the half-opened drawer from where she had not long before taken
+      her disguising veil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was still blowing in sudden, capricious gusts; and when he opened the
+      front door the wind charged fiercely upon him, as if to drive him back.
+      When he had finally forced his way into the street, a return current
+      closed the door as suddenly and sharply behind him as if it had ejected
+      him from his home for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He reached the fourth house quickly, and as quickly ran up the steps; his
+      hand was upon the bell when his eye suddenly caught sight of his wife's
+      pass-key still in the lock. She had evidently forgotten it. Here was a
+      chance to mischievously banter that habitually careful little woman! He
+      slipped it into his pocket and quietly entered the dark but perfectly
+      familiar hall. He reached the staircase without a stumble and began to
+      ascend softly. Halfway up he heard the sound of his wife's hurried voice
+      and another that startled him. He ascended hastily two steps, which
+      brought him to the level of the half-opened transom of the kitchen. A
+      candle was burning on the kitchen table; he could see everything that
+      passed in the room; he could hear distinctly every word that was uttered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not utter a cry or sound; he did not even tremble. He remained so
+      rigid and motionless, clutching the banisters with his stiffened fingers,
+      that when he did attempt to move, all life, as well as all that had made
+      life possible to him, seemed to have died from him for ever. There was no
+      nervous illusion, no dimming of his senses; he saw everything with a
+      hideous clarity of perception. By some diabolical instantaneous
+      photography of the brain, little actions, peculiarities, touches of
+      gesture, expression and attitude never before noted by him in his wife,
+      were clearly fixed and bitten in his consciousness. He saw the color of
+      his friend's overcoat, the reddish tinge of his wife's brown hair, till
+      then unnoticed; in that supreme moment he was aware of a sudden likeness
+      to her mother; but more terrible than all, there seemed to be a nameless
+      sympathetic resemblance that the guilty pair had to each other in gesture
+      and movement as of some unhallowed relationship beyond his ken. He knew
+      not how long he stood there without breath, without reflection, without
+      one connected thought. He saw her suddenly put her hand on the handle of
+      the door. He knew that in another moment they would pass almost before
+      him. He made a convulsive effort to move, with an inward cry to God for
+      support, and succeeded in staggering with outstretched palms against the
+      wall, down the staircase, and blindly forward through the hall to the
+      front door. As yet he had been able to formulate only one idea&mdash;to
+      escape before them, for it seemed to him that their contact meant the ruin
+      of them both, of that house, of all that was near to him&mdash;a
+      catastrophe that struck blindly at his whole visible world. He had reached
+      the door and opened it at the moment that the handle of the kitchen-door
+      was turned. He mechanically fell back behind the open door that hid him,
+      while it let the cruel light glimmer for a moment on their clasped
+      figures. The door slipped from his nerveless fingers and swung to with a
+      dull sound. Crouching still in the corner, he heard the quick rush of
+      hurrying feet in the darkness, saw the door open and Demorest glide out&mdash;saw
+      her glance hurriedly after him, close the door, and involve herself and
+      him in the blackness of the hall. Her dress almost touched him in his
+      corner; he could feel the near scent of her clothes, and the air stirred
+      by her figure retreating towards the stairs; could hear the unlocking of a
+      door above and the voice of her mother from the landing, his wife's reply,
+      the slow fading of her footsteps on the stairs and overhead, the closing
+      of a door, and all was quiet again. Still stooping, he groped for the
+      handle of the door, opened it, and the next moment reeled like a drunken
+      man down the steps into the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was well for him that a fierce onset of wind and sleet at that instant
+      caught him savagely&mdash;stirred his stagnated blood into action, and
+      beat thought once more into his brain. He had mechanically turned towards
+      his own home; his first effort of recovering will hurried him furiously
+      past it and into a side street. He walked rapidly, but undeviatingly on to
+      escape observation and secure some solitude for his returning thoughts.
+      Almost before he knew it he was in the open fields.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of vengeance had never crossed his mind. He was neither a
+      physical nor a moral coward, but he had never felt the merely animal fury
+      of disputed animal possession which the world has chosen to recognize as a
+      proof of outraged sentiment, nor had North Liberty accepted the ethics
+      that an exchange of shots equalized a transferred affection. His love had
+      been too pure and too real to be moved like the beasts of the field, to
+      seek in one brutal passion compensation for another. Killing&mdash;what
+      was there to kill? All that he had to live for had been already slain.
+      With the love that was in him&mdash;in them&mdash;already dead at his
+      feet, what was it to him whether these two hollow lives moved on and
+      passed him, or mingled their emptiness elsewhere? Only let them henceforth
+      keep out of his way!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For in his first feverish flow of thought&mdash;the reaction to his
+      benumbed will within and the beating sleet without&mdash;he believed
+      Demorest as treacherous as his wife. He recalled his sudden and unexpected
+      intrusion into the buggy only a few hours before, his mysterious
+      confidences, his assurance of Joan's favorable reception of his secret,
+      and her consent to the Californian trip. What had all this meant if not
+      that Demorest was using him, the husband, to assist his intrigue, and
+      carry the news of his presence in the town to her? And this boldness, this
+      assurance, this audacity of conception was like Demorest! While only
+      certain passages of the guilty meeting he had just seen and overheard were
+      distinctly impressed on his mind, he remembered now, with hideous and
+      terrible clearness, all that had gone before. It was part of the disturbed
+      and unequal exaltation of his faculties that he dwelt more upon this and
+      his wife's previous deceit and manifest hypocrisy, than upon the actual
+      evidence he had witnessed of her unfaithfulness. The corroboration of the
+      fact was stronger to him than the fact itself. He understood the coldness,
+      the uncongeniality now&mdash;the simulated increase of her aversion to
+      Demorest&mdash;her journeys to Boston and Hartford to see her relatives,
+      her acquiescence to his frequent absences; not an incident, not a
+      characteristic of her married life was inconsistent with her guilt and her
+      deceit. He went even back to her maidenhood: how did he know this was not
+      the legitimate sequence of other secret schoolgirl escapades. The bitter
+      worldly light that had been forced upon his simple ingenuous nature had
+      dazzled and blinded him. He passed from fatuous credulity to equally
+      fatuous distrust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped suddenly with the roaring of water before him. In the furious
+      following of his rapid thought through storm and darkness he had come, he
+      knew not how, upon the bank of the swollen river, whose endangered bridge
+      Demorest had turned from that evening. A few steps more and he would have
+      fallen into it. He drew nearer and looked at it with vague curiosity. Had
+      he come there with any definite intention? The thought sobered without
+      frightening him. There was always THAT culmination possible, and to be
+      considered coolly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned and began to retrace his steps. On his way thither he had been
+      fighting the elements step by step; now they seemed to him to have taken
+      possession of him and were hurrying him quickly away. But where? and to
+      what? He was always thinking of the past. He had wandered he knew not how
+      long, always thinking of that. It was the future he had to consider. What
+      was to be done?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had heard of such cases before; he had read of them in newspapers and
+      talked of them with cold curiosity. But they were of worldly, sinful
+      people, of dissolute men whose characters he could not conceive&mdash;of
+      silly, vain, frivolous, and abandoned women whom he had never even met.
+      But Joan&mdash;O God! It was the first time since his mute prayer on the
+      staircase that the Divine name had been wrested from his lips. It came
+      with his wife's&mdash;and his first tears! But the wind swept the one away
+      and dried the others upon his hot cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had ceased to rain, and the wind, which was still high, had shifted
+      more to the north and was bitterly cold. He could feel the roadway
+      stiffening under his feet. When he reached the pavement of the outskirts
+      once more he was obliged to take the middle of the street, to avoid the
+      treacherous films of ice that were beginning to glaze the sidewalks. Yet
+      this very inclemency, added to the usual Sabbath seclusion, had left the
+      streets deserted. He was obliged to proceed more slowly, but he met no one
+      and could pursue his bewildering thoughts unchecked. As he passed between
+      the lines of cold, colorless houses, from which all light and life had
+      vanished, it seemed to him that their occupants were dead as his love, or
+      had fled their ruined houses as he had. Why should he remain? Yet what was
+      his duty now as a man&mdash;as a Christian? His eye fell on the hideous
+      facade of the church he was passing&mdash;her church! He gave a bitter
+      laugh and stumbled on again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With one of the gusts he fancied he heard a familiar sound&mdash;the
+      rattling of buggy wheels over the stiffening road. Or was it merely the
+      fanciful echo of an idea that only at that moment sprung up in his mind?
+      If it was real it came from the street parallel with the one he was in.
+      Who could be driving out at this time? What other buggy than his own could
+      be found to desecrate this Christian Sabbath? An irresistible thought
+      impelled him at the risk of recognition to quicken his pace and turn the
+      corner as Richard Demorest drove up to the Independence Hotel, sprang from
+      his buggy, throwing the reins over the dashboard, and disappeared into the
+      hotel!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford stood still, but for an instant only. He had been wandering for
+      an hour aimlessly, hopelessly, without consecutive idea, coherent thought
+      or plan of action; without the faintest inspiration or suggestion of
+      escape from his bewildering torment, without&mdash;he had begun to fear&mdash;even
+      the power to conceive or the will to execute; when a wild idea flashed
+      upon him with the rattle of his buggy wheels. And even as Demorest
+      disappeared into the hotel, he had conceived his plan and executed it. He
+      crossed the street swiftly, leaped into his buggy, lifted the reins and
+      brought down the whip simultaneously, and the next instant was dashing
+      down the street in the direction of the Warensboro turnpike. So sudden was
+      the action that by the time the astonished hall porter had rushed into the
+      street, horse and buggy had already vanished in the darkness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently it began to snow. So lightly at first that it seemed a mere
+      passing whisper to the ear, the brush of some viewless insect upon the
+      cheek, or the soft tap of unseen fingers on the shoulders. But by the time
+      the porter returned from his hopeless and invisible chase of the
+      &ldquo;runaway,&rdquo; he came in out of a swarming cloud of whirling flakes, blinded
+      and whitened. There was a hurried consultation with the landlord, the
+      exhibition of much imperious energy and some bank-notes from Demorest, and
+      with a glance at the clock that marked the expiring limit of the Puritan
+      Sabbath, the landlord at last consented. By the time the falling snow had
+      muffled the street from the indiscreet clamor of Sabbath-breaking hoofs,
+      the landlord's noiseless sledge was at the door and Demorest had departed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The snow fell all that night; with fierce gusts of wind that moaned in the
+      chimneys of North Liberty and sorely troubled the Sabbath sleep of its
+      decorous citizens; with deep, passionless silences, none the less fateful,
+      that softly precipitated a spotless mantle of merciful obliteration
+      equally over their precise or their straying footprints, that would have
+      done them good to heed and to remember; and when morning broke upon a
+      world of week-day labor, it was covered as far as their eyes could reach
+      as with a clear and unwritten tablet, on which they might record their
+      lives anew. Near the wreck of the broken bridge on the Warensboro turnpike
+      an overturned buggy lay imbedded in the drift and debris of the river
+      hurrying silently towards the sea, and a horse with fragments of broken
+      and icy harness still clinging to him was found standing before the
+      stable-door of Edward Blandford. But to any further knowledge of the fate
+      of its owner, North Liberty awoke never again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_PART2" id="link2H_PART2">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      PART II
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The last note of the Angelus had just rung out of the crumbling fissures
+      in the tower of the mission chapel of San Buena-ventura. The sun which had
+      beamed that day and indeed every day for the whole dry season over the
+      red-tiled roofs of that old and happily ventured pueblo seemed to broaden
+      to a smile as it dipped below the horizon, as if in undiminished enjoyment
+      of its old practical joke of suddenly plunging the Southern California
+      coast in darkness without any preliminary twilight. The olive and fig
+      trees at once lost their characteristic outlines in formless masses of
+      shadow; only the twisted trunks of the old pear trees in the mission
+      garden retained their grotesque shapes and became gruesome in the
+      gathering gloom. The encircling pines beyond closed up their serried
+      files; a cool breeze swept down from the coast range and, passing through
+      them, sent their day-long heated spices through the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there was any truth in the local belief that the pious incantation of
+      the Angelus bell had the power of excluding all evil influence abroad at
+      that perilous hour within its audible radius, and comfortably keeping all
+      unbelieving wickedness at a distance, it was presumably ineffective as
+      regarded the innovating stage-coach from Monterey that twice a week at
+      that hour brought its question-asking, revolver-persuading and
+      fortune-seeking load of passengers through the sleepy Spanish town. On the
+      night of the 3d of August, 1856, it had not only brought but set down at
+      the Posada one of those passengers. It was a Mr. Ezekiel Corwin, formerly
+      known to these pages as &ldquo;hired man&rdquo; to the late Squire Blandford, of North
+      Liberty, Connecticut, but now a shrewd, practical, self-sufficient, and
+      self-asserting unit of the more cautious later Californian immigration. As
+      the stage rattled away again with more or less humorous and open
+      disparagement of the town and the Posada from its &ldquo;outsiders,&rdquo; he lounged
+      with lazy but systematic deliberation towards Mateo Morez, the proprietor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess that some of your folks here couldn't direct me to Dick
+      Demorest's house, could ye?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Senor Mateo Morez was at once perplexed and pained. Pained at the
+      ignorance thus forced upon him by a caballero; perplexed as to its
+      intention. Between the two he smiled apologetically but gravely, and said:
+      &ldquo;No sabe, Senor. I 'ave not understood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more hev I,&rdquo; returned Ezekiel, with patronizing recognition of his
+      obtuseness. &ldquo;I guess ez heow you ain't much on American. You folks orter
+      learn the language if you kalkilate to keep a hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the momentary vision of a waistless woman with a shawl gathered over
+      her head and shoulders at the back door attracted his attention. She said
+      something to Mateo in Spanish, and the yellowish-white of Mateo's eyes
+      glistened with intelligent comprehension.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, posiblemente; it is Don Ricardo Demorest you wish?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Ezekiel's face and manner expressed a mingling of grateful curiosity
+      and some scorn at the discovery. &ldquo;Wa'al,&rdquo; he said, looking around as if to
+      take the entire Posada into his confidence, &ldquo;way up in North Liberty,
+      where I kem from, he was allus known as Dick Demorest, and didn't tack any
+      forrin titles to his name. Et wouldn't hev gone down there, I reckon,
+      'mongst free-born Merikin citizens, no mor'n aliases would in court&mdash;and
+      I kinder guess for the same reason. But folks get peart and sassy when
+      they're way from hum, and put on ez many airs as a buck nigger. And so he
+      calls hisself Don Ricardo here, does he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Senor knows Don Ricardo?&rdquo; said Mateo politely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ef you mean me&mdash;wa'al, yes&mdash;I should say so. He was a partiklar
+      friend of a man I've known since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel had actually never seen Demorest but once in his life. He would
+      have scorned to lie, but strict accuracy was not essential with an
+      ignorant foreign audience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took up his carpet-bag.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon I kin find his house, ef it's anyway handy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the Senor Mateo was again politely troubled. The house of Don Ricardo
+      was of a truth not more than a mile distant. It was even possible that the
+      Senor had observed it above a wall and vineyard as he came into the
+      pueblo. But it was late&mdash;it was also dark, as the Senor would himself
+      perceive&mdash;and there was still to-morrow. To-morrow&mdash;ah, it was
+      always there! Meanwhile there were beds of a miraculous quality at the
+      Posada, and a supper such as a caballero might order in his own house.
+      Health, discretion, solicitude for oneself&mdash;all pointed clearly to
+      to-morrow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What part of this speech Ezekiel understood affected him only as an
+      innkeeper's bid for custom, and as such to be steadily exposed and
+      disposed of. With the remark that he guessed Dick Demorest's was &ldquo;a good
+      enough hotel for HIM,&rdquo; and that he'd better be &ldquo;getting along there,&rdquo; he
+      walked down the steps, carpet-bag in hand, and coolly departed, leaving
+      Mateo pained, but smiling, on the doorstep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;An animal with a pig's head&mdash;without doubt,&rdquo; said Mateo,
+      sententiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Clearly a brigand with the liver of a chicken,&rdquo; responded his wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subject of this ambiguous criticism, happily oblivious, meantime
+      walked doggedly back along the road the stage-coach had just brought him.
+      It was badly paved and hollowed in the middle with the worn ruts of a
+      century of slow undeviating ox carts, and the passage of water during the
+      rainy season. The low adobe houses on each side, with bright
+      cinnamon-colored tiles relieving their dark-brown walls, had the regular
+      outlines of their doors and windows obliterated by the crumbling of years,
+      until they looked as if they had been afterthoughts of the builder, rudely
+      opened by pick and crowbar, and finished by the gentle auxiliary
+      architecture of birds and squirrels. Yet these openings at times permitted
+      glimpses of a picturesque past in the occasional view of a lace-edged
+      pillow or silken counterpane, striped hangings, or dyed Indian rugs, the
+      flitting of a flounced petticoat or flower-covered head, or the indolent
+      leaning figure framed in a doorway of a man in wide velvet trousers and
+      crimson-barred serape, whose brown face was partly hidden in a yellow
+      nimbus of cigarette smoke. Even in the semi-darkness, Ezekiel's
+      penetrating and impertinent eyes took eager note of these facts with
+      superior complacency, quite unmindful, after the fashion of most critical
+      travellers, of the hideous contrast of his own long shapeless nankeen
+      duster, his stiff half-clerical brown straw hat, his wisp of gingham
+      necktie, his dusty boots, his outrageous carpet-bag, and his straggling
+      goat-like beard. A few looked at him in grave, discreet wonder. Whether
+      they recognized in him the advent of a civilization that was destined to
+      supplant their own ignorant, sensuous, colorful life with austere
+      intelligence and rigid practical improvement, did not appear. He walked
+      steadily on. As he passed the low arched door of the mission church and
+      saw a faint light glimmering from the side windows, he had indeed a weak
+      human desire to go in and oppose in his own person a debased and
+      idolatrous superstition with some happily chosen question that would
+      necessarily make the officiating priest and his congregation exceedingly
+      uncomfortable. But he resisted; partly in the hope of meeting some
+      idolater on his way to Benediction, and, in the guise of a stranger
+      seeking information, dropping a few unpalatable truths; and partly because
+      he could unbosom himself later to Demorest, who he was not unwilling to
+      believe had embraced Popery with his adoption of a Spanish surname and
+      title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had become quite dark when he reached the long wall that enclosed
+      Demorest's premises. The wall itself excited his resentment, not only as
+      indicating an exclusiveness highly objectionable in a man who had
+      emigrated from a free State, but because he, Ezekiel Corwin, had
+      difficulty in discovering the entrance. When he succeeded, he found
+      himself before an iron gate, happily open, but savoring offensively of
+      feudalism and tyrannical proprietorship, and passed through and entered an
+      avenue of trees scarcely distinguishable in the darkness, whose mysterious
+      shapes and feathery plumes were unknown to him. Numberless odors equally
+      vague and mysterious were heavy in the air, strange and delicate plants
+      rose dimly on either hand; enormous blossoms, like ghostly faces, seemed
+      to peer at him from the shadows. For an instant Ezekiel succumbed to an
+      unprofitable sense of beauty, and acquiesced in this reckless extravagance
+      of Nature that was so unlike North Liberty. But the next moment he
+      recovered himself, with the reflection that it was probably unhealthy, and
+      doggedly approached the house. It was a long, one-storied, structure,
+      apparently all roof, vine, and pillared veranda. Every window and door was
+      open; the two or three grass hammocks swung emptily between the columns;
+      the bamboo chairs and settees were vacant; his heavy footsteps on the
+      floor had summoned no attendant; not even a dog had barked as he
+      approached the house. It was shiftless, it was sinful&mdash;it boded no
+      good to the future of Demorest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He put down his carpet-bag on the veranda and entered the broad hall,
+      where an old-fashioned lantern was burning on a stand. Here, too, the
+      doors of the various apartments were open, and the rooms themselves empty
+      of occupants. An opportunity not to be lost by Ezekiel's inquiring mind
+      thus offered itself. He took the lantern and deliberately examined the
+      several apartments, the furniture, the bedding, and even the small
+      articles that were on the tables and mantels. When he had completed the
+      round&mdash;including a corridor opening on a dark courtyard, which he did
+      not penetrate&mdash;he returned to the hall, and set down the lantern
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said a voice in his own familiar vernacular, &ldquo;I hope you like it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel was surprised, but not disconcerted. What he had taken in the
+      shadow for a bundle of serapes lying on the floor of the veranda, was the
+      recumbent figure of a man who now raised himself to a sitting posture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ez to that,&rdquo; drawled Ezekiel, with unshaken self-possession, &ldquo;whether I
+      like it or not ez only a question betwixt kempany manners and
+      truth-telling. Beggars hadn't oughter be choosers, and transient visitors
+      like myself needn't allus speak their mind. But if you mean to signify
+      that with every door and window open and universal shiftlessness lying
+      round everywhere temptin' Providence, you ain't lucky in havin' a
+      feller-citizen of yours drop in on ye instead of some Mexican thief, I
+      don't agree with ye&mdash;that's all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The man laughed shortly and rose up. In spite of his careless yet
+      picturesque Mexican dress, Ezekiel instantly recognized Demorest. With his
+      usual instincts he was naturally pleased to observe that he looked older
+      and more careworn. The softer, sensuous climate had perhaps imparted a
+      heaviness to his figure and a deliberation to his manner that was quite
+      unlike his own potential energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That don't tell me who you are, and what you want,&rdquo; he said, coldly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al then, I'm Ezekiel Corwin of North Liberty, ez used to live with my
+      friend and YOURS too, I guess&mdash;seein' how the friendship was swapped
+      into relationship&mdash;Squire Blandford.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A slight shade passed over Demorest's face. &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, impatiently,
+      &ldquo;I don't remember you; what then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't remember me; that's likely,&rdquo; returned Ezekiel imperturbably,
+      combing his straggling chin beard with three fingers, &ldquo;but whether it's
+      NAT'RAL or not, considerin' the sukumstances when we last met, ez a matter
+      of op-pinion. You got me to harness up the hoss and buggy the night Squire
+      Blandford left home, and never was heard of again. It's true that it kem
+      out on enquiry that the hoss and buggy ran away from the hotel, and that
+      you had to go out to Warensboro in a sleigh, and the theory is that poor
+      Squire Blandford must have stopped the hoss and buggy somewhere, got in
+      and got run away agin, and pitched over the bridge. But seein' your
+      relationship to both Squire and Mrs. Blandford, and all the sukumstances,
+      I reckoned you'd remember it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I heard of it in Boston a month afterwards,&rdquo; said Demorest, dryly, &ldquo;but I
+      don't think I'd have recognized you. So you were the hired man who gave me
+      the buggy. Well, I don't suppose they discharged you for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, with undisturbed equanimity. &ldquo;I kalkilate Joan would
+      have stopped that. Considerin', too, that I knew her when she was Deacon
+      Salisbury's darter, and our fam'lies waz thick az peas. She knew me well
+      enough when I met her in Frisco the other day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen Mrs. Demorest already?&rdquo; said Demorest, with sudden
+      vivacity. &ldquo;Why didn't you say so before?&rdquo; It was wonderful how quickly his
+      face had lighted up with an earnestness that was not, however, without
+      some undefinable uneasiness. The alert Ezekiel noticed it and observed
+      that it was as totally unlike the irresistible dominance of the man of
+      five years ago as it was different from the heavy abstraction of the man
+      of five minutes before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon you didn't ax me,&rdquo; he returned coolly. &ldquo;She told me where you
+      were, and as I had business down this way she guessed I might drop in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes&mdash;it's all right, Mr. Corwin; glad you did,&rdquo; said Demorest,
+      kindly but half nervously. &ldquo;And you saw Mrs. Demorest? Where did you see
+      her, and how did you think she was looking? As pretty as ever, eh?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But the coldly literal Ezekiel was not to be beguiled into polite or
+      ambiguous fiction. He even went to the extent of insulting deliberation
+      before he replied. &ldquo;I've seen Joan Salisbury lookin' healthier and ez far
+      ez I kin judge doin' more credit to her stock and raisin' gin'rally,&rdquo; he
+      said, thoughtfully combing his beard, &ldquo;and I've seen her when she was too
+      poor to get the silks and satins, furbelows, fineries and vanities she's
+      flauntin' in now, and that was in Squire Blandford's time, too, I reckon.
+      Ez to her purtiness, that's a matter of taste. You think her purty, and I
+      guess them fellows ez was escortin' and squirin' her round Frisco thought
+      so too, or SHE thought they did to hev allowed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not very merciful to your townsfolk, Mr. Corwin,&rdquo; said Demorest,
+      with a forced smile; &ldquo;but what can I do for you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the turn for Ezekiel's face to brighten, or rather to break up,
+      like a cold passionless mirror suddenly cracked, into various amusing but
+      distorted reflections on the person before him. &ldquo;Townies ain't to be
+      fooled by other townies, Mr. Demorest; at least that ain't my idea o'
+      marcy, he-he! But seen you're pressin', I don't mind tellen you MY
+      business. I'm the only agent of Seventeen Patent Medicine Proprietors in
+      Connecticut represented by the firm of Dilworth &amp; Dusenberry, of San
+      Francisco. Mebbe you heard of 'em afore&mdash;A1 druggists and importers.
+      Wa'al, I'm openin' a field for 'em and spreadin' 'em gin'rally through
+      these air benighted and onhealthy districts, havin' the contract for the
+      hull State&mdash;especially for Wozun's Universal Injin Panacea ez cures
+      everything&mdash;bein' had from a recipe given by a Sachem to Dr. Wozun's
+      gran'ther. That bag&mdash;leavin' out a dozen paper collars and socks&mdash;is
+      all the rest samples. That's me, Ezekiel Corwin&mdash;only agent for
+      Californy, and that's my mission.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well; but look here, Corwin,&rdquo; said Demorest, with a slight return of
+      his old off-hand manner,&mdash;&ldquo;I'd advise you to adopt a little more
+      caution, and a little less criticism in your speech to the people about
+      here, or I'm afraid you'll need the Universal Panacea for yourself. Better
+      men than you have been shot in my presence for half your freedom.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess you've just hit the bull's-eye there,&rdquo; replied Ezekiel, coolly,
+      &ldquo;for it's that HALF-freedom and HALF-truth that doesn't pay. I kalkilate
+      gin'rally to speak my hull mind&mdash;and I DO. Wot's the consequence?
+      Why, when folks find I ain't afeard to speak my mind on their affairs,
+      they kinder guess I'm tellin' the truth about my own. Folks don't like the
+      man that truckles to 'em, whether it's in the sellin' of a box of pills or
+      a principle. When they re-cognize Ezekiel Corwin ain't goin' to lie about
+      'em to curry favor with 'em, they're ready to believe he ain't goin' to
+      lie about Jones' Bitters or Wozun's Panacea. And, wa'al, I've been on the
+      road just about a fortnit, and I haven't yet discovered that the original
+      independent style introduced by Ezekiel Corwin ever broke anybody's bones
+      or didn't pay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And he told the truth. That remarkably unfair and unpleasant spoken man
+      had actually frozen Hanley's Ford into icy astonishment at his audacity,
+      and he had sold them an invoice of the Panacea before they had recovered;
+      he had insulted Chipitas into giving an extensive order in bitters; he had
+      left Hayward's Creek pledged to Burne's pills&mdash;with drawn revolvers
+      still in their hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At another time Demorest might have been amused at his guest's audacity,
+      or have combated it with his old imperiousness, but he only remained
+      looking at him in a dull sort of way as if yielding to his influence. It
+      was part of the phenomenon that the two men seemed to have changed
+      character since they last met, and when Ezekiel said confidentially: &ldquo;I
+      reckon you're goin' to show me what room I ken stow these duds o' mine
+      in,&rdquo; Demorest replied hurriedly, &ldquo;Yes, certainly,&rdquo; and taking up his
+      guest's carpet-bag preceded him through the hall to one of the apartments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll send Manuel to you presently,&rdquo; he said, putting down the bag
+      mechanically; &ldquo;the servants are not back from church, it's some saint's
+      festival to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so you keep a pack of lazy idolaters to leave your house to take care
+      of itself, whilst they worship graven images,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, delighted at
+      this opportunity to improve the occasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If my memory isn't bad, Mr. Corwin,&rdquo; said Demorest dryly, &ldquo;when I
+      accompanied Mr. Blandford home the night he returned from his journey, we
+      found YOU at church, and he had to put up his horse himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But that was the Sabbath&mdash;the seventh day of the command,&rdquo; retorted
+      Ezekiel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And here the Sabbath doesn't consist of only ONE day to serve God in,&rdquo;
+       said Demorest, sententiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel glanced under his white lashes at Demorest's thoughtful face. His
+      fondest fears appeared to be confirmed; Demorest had evidently become a
+      Papist. But that gentleman stopped any theological discussion by the
+      abrupt inquiry:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Mrs. Demorest say when she thought of returning?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She allowed she mout kem to-morrow&mdash;but&mdash;&rdquo; added Ezekiel
+      dubiously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, wot with her enjyments of the vanities of this life and the
+      kempany she keeps, I reckon she's in no hurry,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, cheerfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The entrance of Manuel here cut short any response from Demorest, who
+      after a few directions in Spanish to the peon, left his guest to himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked to the veranda with the same dull preoccupation that Ezekiel had
+      noticed as so different from his old decisive manner, and remained for a
+      few moments abstractedly gazing into the dark garden. The strange and
+      mystic shapes which had impressed even the practical Ezekiel, had become
+      even more weird and ghost-like in the faint radiance of a rising moon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What memories evoked by his rude guest seemed to take form and outline in
+      that dreamy and unreal expanse!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He saw his wife again, standing as she had stood that night in her
+      mother's house, with the white muffler around her head, and white face,
+      imploring him to fly; he saw himself again hurrying through the driving
+      storm to Warensboro, and reaching the train that bore him swiftly and
+      safely miles away&mdash;that same night when her husband was perishing in
+      the swollen river. He remembered with what strangely mingled sensations he
+      had read the account of Blandford's death in the newspapers, and how the
+      loss of his old friend was forgotten in the associations conjured up by
+      his singular meeting that very night with the mysterious woman he had
+      loved. He remembered that he had never dreamed how near and fateful were
+      these associations; and how he had kept his promise not to seek her
+      without her permission, until six months after, when she appointed a
+      meeting, and revealed to him the whole truth. He could see her now, as he
+      had seen her then, more beautiful and fascinating than ever in her black
+      dress, and the pensive grace of refined suffering and restrained passion
+      in her delicate face. He remembered, too, how the shock of her disclosure&mdash;the
+      knowledge that she had been his old friend's wife&mdash;seemed only to
+      accent her purity and suffering and his own wilful recklessness, and how
+      it had stirred all the chivalry, generosity, and affection of his easy
+      nature to take the whole responsibility of this innocent but compromising
+      intrigue on his own shoulders. He had had no self-accusing sense of
+      disloyalty to Blandford in his practical nature; he had never suspected
+      the shy, proper girl of being his wife; he was willing to believe now,
+      that had he known it, even that night, he would never have seen her again;
+      he had been very foolish; he had made this poor woman participate in his
+      folly; but he had never been dishonest or treacherous in thought or
+      action. If Blandford had lived, even he would have admitted it. Yet he was
+      guiltily conscious of a material satisfaction in Blandford's death,
+      without his wife's religious conviction of the saving graces of
+      predestination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had been married quietly when the two years of her widowhood had
+      expired; his former relations with her husband and the straitened
+      circumstances in which Blandford's death had left her having been deemed
+      sufficient excuse in the eyes of North Liberty for her more worldly union.
+      They had come to California at her suggestion &ldquo;to begin life anew,&rdquo; for
+      she had not hesitated to make this dislocation of all her antecedent
+      surroundings as a reason as well as a condition of this marriage. She
+      wished to see the world of which he had been a passing glimpse; to expand
+      under his protection beyond the limits of her fettered youth. He had
+      bought this old Spanish estate, with its near vineyard and its outlying
+      leagues covered with wild cattle, partly from that strange contradictory
+      predilection for peaceful husbandry common to men who have led a roving
+      life, and partly as a check to her growing and feverish desire for change
+      and excitement. He had at first enjoyed with an almost parental affection
+      her childish unsophisticated delight in that world he had already wearied
+      of, and which he had been prepared to gladly resign for her. But as the
+      months and even years had passed without any apparent diminution in her
+      zest for these pleasures, he tried uneasily to resume his old interest in
+      them, and spent ten months with her in the chaotic freedom of San
+      Francisco hotel life. But to his discomfiture he found that they no longer
+      diverted him; to his horror he discovered that those easy gallantries in
+      which he had spent his youth, and in which he had seen no harm, were
+      intolerable when exhibited to his wife, and he trembled between inquietude
+      and indignation at the copies of his former self, whom he met in hotel
+      parlors, at theatres, and in public conveyances. The next time she visited
+      some friends in San Francisco he did not accompany her. Though he fondly
+      cherished his experience of her power to resist even stronger temptation,
+      he was too practical to subject himself to the annoyance of witnessing it.
+      In her absence he trusted her completely; his scant imagination conjured
+      up no disturbing picture of possibilities beyond what he actually knew. In
+      his recent questions of Ezekiel he did not expect to learn anything more.
+      Even his guest's uncomfortable comments added no sting that he had not
+      already felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these thoughts called up by the unlooked-for advent of Ezekiel under
+      his roof, he continued to gaze moodily into the garden. Near the house
+      were scattered several uncouth varieties of cacti which seemed to have
+      lost all semblance of vegetable growth, and had taken rude likeness to
+      beasts and human figures. One high-shouldered specimen, partly hidden in
+      the shadow, had the appearance of a man with a cloak or serape thrown over
+      his left shoulder. As Demorest's wandering eyes at last became fixed upon
+      it, he fancied he could trace the faint outlines of a pale face, the lower
+      part of which was hidden by the folds of the serape. There certainly was
+      the forehead, the curve of the dark eyebrows, the shadow of a nose, and
+      even as he looked more steadily, a glistening of the eyes upturned to the
+      moonlight. A sudden chill seized him. It was a horrible fancy, but it
+      looked as might have looked the dead face of Edward Blandford! He started
+      and ran quickly down the steps of the veranda. A slight wind at the same
+      moment moved the long leaves and tendrils of a vine nearest him and sent a
+      faint wave through the garden. He reached the cactus; its fantastic bulk
+      stood plainly before him, but nothing more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whar are ye runnin' to?&rdquo; said the inquiring voice of Ezekiel from the
+      veranda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought I saw some one in the garden,&rdquo; returned Demorest, quietly,
+      satisfied of the illusion of his senses, &ldquo;but it was a mistake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It mout and it moutn't,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, dryly. &ldquo;Thar's nothin' to keep any
+      one out. It's only a wonder that you ain't overrun with thieves and sich
+      like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are usually servants about the place,&rdquo; said Demorest, carelessly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ef they're the same breed ez that Manuel, I reckon I'd almost as leave
+      take my chances in the road. Ef it's all the same to you I kalkilate to
+      put a paytent fastener to my door and winder to-night. I allus travel with
+      them.&rdquo; Seeing that Demorest only shrugged his shoulders without replying,
+      he continued, &ldquo;Et ain't far from here that some folks allow is the
+      headquarters of that cattle-stealing gang. The driver of the coach went ez
+      far ez to say that some of these high and mighty Dons hereabouts knows
+      more of it than they keer to tell.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's simply a yarn for greenhorns,&rdquo; said Demorest, contemptuously. &ldquo;I
+      know all the ranch proprietors for twenty leagues around, and they've lost
+      as many cattle and horses as I have.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wanter know,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, with grim interest. &ldquo;Then you've already
+      had consid'ble losses, eh? I kalkilate them cattle are vally'ble&mdash;about
+      wot figger do you reckon yer out and injured?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three or four thousand dollars, I suppose, altogether,&rdquo; replied Demorest,
+      shortly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you don't take any stock in them yer yarns about the gang being run
+      and protected by some first-class men in Frisco?&rdquo; said Ezekiel,
+      regretfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not much,&rdquo; responded Demorest, dryly; &ldquo;but if people choose to believe
+      this bluff gotten up by the petty thieves themselves to increase their
+      importance and secure their immunity&mdash;they can. But here's Manuel to
+      tell us supper is ready.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He led the way to the corridor and courtyard which Ezekiel had not
+      penetrated on account of its obscurity and solitude, but which now seemed
+      to be peopled with peons and household servants of both sexes. At the end
+      of a long low-ceilinged room a table was spread with omelettes, chupa,
+      cakes, chocolate, grapes, and melons, around which half a dozen attendants
+      stood gravely in waiting. The size of the room, which to Ezekiel's eyes
+      looked as large as the church at North Liberty, the profusion of the
+      viands, the six attendants for the host and solitary guest, deeply
+      impressed him. Morally rebelling against this feudal display and
+      extravagance, he, who had disdained to even assist the Blandfords'
+      servant-in-waiting at table and had always made his solitary meal on the
+      kitchen dresser, was not above feeling a material satisfaction in sitting
+      on equal terms with his master's friend and being served by these menials
+      he despised. He did full justice to the victuals of which Demorest partook
+      in sparing abstraction, and particularly to the fruit, which Demorest did
+      not touch at all. Observant of his servants' eyes fixed in wonder on the
+      strange guest who had just disposed of a second melon at supper, Demorest
+      could not help remarking that he would lose credit as a medico with the
+      natives unless he restrained a public exhibition of his tastes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ez ha'aw?&rdquo; queried Ezekiel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They have a proverb here that fruit is gold in the morning, silver at
+      noon, and lead at night.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That'll do for lazy stomicks,&rdquo; said the unabashed Ezekiel. &ldquo;When they're
+      once fortified by Jones' bitters and hard work, they'll be able to tackle
+      the Lord's nat'ral gifts of the airth at any time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Declining the cigarettes offered him by Demorest for a quid of tobacco,
+      which he gravely took from a tin box in his pocket, and to the astonished
+      eyes of the servants apparently obliterated any further remembrance of the
+      meal, he accompanied his host to the veranda again, where, tilting his
+      chair back and putting his feet on the railing, he gave himself up to
+      unwonted and silent rumination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The silence was broken at last by Demorest, who, half-reclining on a
+      settee, had once or twice glanced towards the misshapen cactus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was there any trace discovered of Blandford, other than we knew before we
+      left the States?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, no,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, thoughtfully. &ldquo;The last idea was that he'd got
+      control of the hoss after passin' the bridge, and had managed to turn him
+      back, for there was marks of buggy wheels on the snow on the far side, and
+      that fearin' to trust the hoss or the bridge he tried to lead him over
+      when the bridge gave way, and he was caught in the wreck and carried off
+      down stream. That would account for his body not bein' found; they do tell
+      that chunks of that bridge were picked up on the Sound beach near the
+      mouth o' the river, nigh unto sixty miles away. That's about the last idea
+      they had of it at North Liberty.&rdquo; He paused and then cleverly directing a
+      stream of tobacco juice at an accurate curve over the railing, wiped his
+      lips with the back of his hand, and added, slowly: &ldquo;Thar's another idea&mdash;but
+      I reckon it's only mine. Leastways I ain't heard it argued by anybody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is that?&rdquo; asked Demorest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, it ain't exakly complimentary to E. Blandford, Esq., and it mout
+      be orkard for YOU.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think you're in the habit of letting such trifles interfere with
+      your opinion,&rdquo; said Demorest, with a slightly forced laugh; &ldquo;but what is
+      your idea?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That thar wasn't any accident.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No accident?&rdquo; replied Demorest, raising himself on his elbow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nary accident,&rdquo; continued Ezekiel, deliberately, &ldquo;and, if it comes to
+      that, not much of a dead body either.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the devil do you mean?&rdquo; said Demorest, sitting up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I mean,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, with momentous deliberation, &ldquo;that E. Blandford,
+      of the Winnipeg Mills, was in March, '50, ez nigh bein' bust up ez any man
+      kin be without actually failin'; that he'd been down to Boston that day to
+      get some extensions; that old Deacon Salisbury knew it, and had been
+      pesterin' Mrs. Blandford to induce him to sell out and leave the place;
+      and that the night he left he took about two hundred and fifty dollars in
+      bank bills that they allus kept in the house, and Mrs. Blandford was in
+      the habit o' hidin' in the breast-pocket of one of his old overcoats
+      hangin' up in the closet. I mean that that air money and that air overcoat
+      went off with him, ez Mrs. Blandford knows, for I heard her tell her ma
+      about it. And when his affairs were wound up and his debts paid, I reckon
+      that the two hundred and fifty was all there was left&mdash;and he scooted
+      with it. It's orkard for you&mdash;ez I said afore&mdash;but I don't see
+      wot on earth you need get riled for. Ef he ran off on account of only two
+      hundred and fifty dollars he ain't goin' to run back again for the mere
+      matter o' your marrying Joan. Ef he had&mdash;he'd a done it afore this.
+      It's orkard ez I said&mdash;but the only orkardness is your feelin's. I
+      reckon Joan's got used to hers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Demorest had risen angrily to his feet. But the next moment the utter
+      impossibility of reaching this man's hidebound moral perception by even
+      physical force hopelessly overcame him. It would only impress him with the
+      effect of his own disturbing power, that to Ezekiel was equal to a proof
+      of the truth of his opinions. It might even encourage him to repeat this
+      absurd story elsewhere with his own construction upon his reception of it.
+      After all it was only Ezekiel's opinion&mdash;an opinion too preposterous
+      for even a moment's serious consideration. Blandford alive, and a petty
+      defaulter! Blandford above the earth and complacently abandoning his wife
+      and home to another! Blandford&mdash;perhaps a sneaking, cowardly Nemesis&mdash;hiding
+      in the shadow for future&mdash;impossible! It really was enough to make
+      him laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did laugh, albeit with an uneasy sense that only a few years ago he
+      would have struck down the man who had thus traduced his friend's memory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You've been overtaxing your brain in patent-medicine circulars, Corwin,&rdquo;
+       he said in a roughly rallying manner, &ldquo;and you've got rather too much
+      highfalutin and bitters mixed with your opinions. After that yarn of yours
+      you must be dry. What'll you take? I haven't got any New England rum, but
+      I can give you some ten-year-old aguardiente made on the place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke he lifted a decanter and glass from a small table which Manuel
+      had placed in the veranda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I guess not,&rdquo; said Ezekiel dryly. &ldquo;It's now goin' on five years since
+      I've been a consistent temperance man.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In everything but melons, and criticism of your neighbor, eh?&rdquo; said
+      Demorest, pouring out a glass of the liquor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hev my convictions,&rdquo; said Ezekiel with affected meekness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I have mine,&rdquo; said Demorest, tossing off the fiery liquor at a draft,
+      &ldquo;and it's that this is devilish good stuff. Sorry you can't take some. I'm
+      afraid I'll have to get you to excuse me for a while. I have to take a
+      ride over the ranch before turning in, to see if everything's right. The
+      house is 'at your disposition,' as we say here. I'll see you later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked away with a slight exaggeration of unconcern. Ezekiel watched
+      him narrowly with colorless eyes beneath his white lashes. When he had
+      gone he examined the thoroughly emptied glass of aguardiente, and, taking
+      the decanter, sniffed critically at its sharp and potent contents. A smile
+      of gratified discernment followed. It was clear to him that Demorest was a
+      heavy drinker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Contrary to his prognostication, however, Mrs. Demorest DID arrive the
+      next day. But although he was to depart from Buenaventura by the same
+      coach that had set her down at the gate of the casa, he had already left
+      the house armed with some letters of introduction which Demorest had
+      generously given him, to certain small traders in the pueblo and along the
+      route. Demorest was not displeased to part with him before the arrival of
+      his wife, and thus spare her the awkwardness of a repetition of Ezekiel's
+      effrontery in her presence. Nor was he willing to have the impediment of a
+      guest in the house to any explanation he might have to seek from her, or
+      to the confidences that hereafter must be fuller and more mutual. For with
+      all his deep affection for his wife, Richard Demorest unconsciously feared
+      her. The strong man whose dominance over men and women alike had been his
+      salient characteristic, had begun to feel an undefinable sense of some
+      unrecognized quality in the woman he loved. He had once or twice detected
+      it in a tone of her voice, in a remembered and perhaps even once idolized
+      gesture, or in the accidental lapse of some bewildering word. With the
+      generosity of a large nature he had put the thought aside, referring it to
+      some selfish weakness of his own, or&mdash;more fatuous than all&mdash;to
+      a possible diminution of his own affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was standing on the steps ready to receive her. Few of her appreciative
+      sex could have remained indifferent to the tender and touching
+      significance of his silent and subdued welcome. He had that piteous
+      wistfulness of eye seen in some dogs and the husbands of many charming
+      women&mdash;the affection that pardons beforehand the indifference it has
+      learned to expect. She approached him smiling in her turn, meeting the
+      sublime patience of being unloved with the equally resigned patience of
+      being loved, and feeling that comforting sense of virtue which might
+      become a bore, but never a self-reproach. For the rest, she was prettier
+      than ever; her five years of expanded life had slightly rounded the
+      elongated oval of her face, filled up the ascetic hollows of her temples,
+      and freed the repression of her mouth and chin. A more genial climate had
+      quickened the circulation that North Liberty had arrested, and suffused
+      the transparent beauty of her skin with eloquent life. It seemed as if the
+      long, protracted northern spring of her youth had suddenly burst into a
+      summer of womanhood under those gentle skies; and yet enough of her
+      puritan precision of manner, movement, and gesture remained to temper her
+      fuller and more exuberant life and give it repose. In a community of
+      pretty women more or less given to the license and extravagance of the
+      epoch, she always looked like a lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took her in his arms and half-lifted her up the last step of the
+      veranda. She resisted slightly with her characteristic action of catching
+      his wrists in both her hands and holding him off with an awkward primness,
+      and almost in the same tone that she had used to Edward Blandford five
+      years before, said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, Dick, that will do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Demorest's dream of a few days' conjugal seclusion and confidences with
+      his wife was quickly dispelled by that lady. &ldquo;I came down with Rosita
+      Pico, whose father, you know, once owned this property,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;She's
+      gone on to her cousins at Los Osos Rancho to-night, but comes here
+      to-morrow for a visit. She knows the place well; in fact, she once had a
+      romantic love affair here. But she is very entertaining. It will be a
+      little change for us,&rdquo; she added, naively.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Demorest kept back a sigh, without changing his gentle smile. &ldquo;I'm glad
+      for your sake, dear. But is she not a little flighty and inclined to flirt
+      a good deal? I think I've heard so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's a young girl who has been severely tried, Richard, and perhaps is
+      not to blame for endeavoring to forget it in such distraction as she can
+      find,&rdquo; said Mrs. Demorest, with a slight return of her old manner. &ldquo;I can
+      understand her feelings perfectly.&rdquo; She looked pointedly at her husband as
+      she spoke, it being one of her late habits to openly refer to their
+      ante-nuptial acquaintance as a natural reaction from the martyrdom of her
+      first marriage, with a quiet indifference that seemed almost an
+      indelicacy. But her husband only said: &ldquo;As you like, dear,&rdquo; vaguely
+      remembering Dona Rosita as the alleged heroine of a forgotten romance with
+      some earlier American adventurer who had disappeared, and trying vainly to
+      reconcile his wife's sentimental description of her with his own
+      recollection of the buxom, pretty, laughing, but dangerous-eyed Spanish
+      girl he had, however, seen but once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She arrived the next day, flying into a protracted embrace of Joan, which
+      included a smiling recognition of Demorest with an unoccupied blue eye,
+      and a shake of her fan over his wife's shoulder. Then she drew back and
+      seemed to take in the whole veranda and garden in another long caress of
+      her eyes. &ldquo;Ah-yess! I have recognized it, mooch. It es ze same. Of no
+      change&mdash;not even of a leetle. No, she ess always&mdash;esso.&rdquo; She
+      stopped, looked unutterable things at Joan, pressed her fan below a spray
+      of roses on her full bodice as if to indicate some thrilling memory
+      beneath it, shook her head again, suddenly caught sight of Demorest's
+      serious face, said: &ldquo;Ah, that brigand of our husband laughs himself at
+      me,&rdquo; and then herself broke into a charming ripple of laughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I was not laughing, Dona Rosita,&rdquo; said Demorest, smiling sadly,
+      however, in spite of himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She made a little grimace, and then raised her elbows, slightly lifting
+      her shoulders. &ldquo;As it shall please you, Senor. But he is gone&mdash;thees
+      passion. Yess&mdash;what you shall call thees sentiment of lof&mdash;zo&mdash;as
+      he came!&rdquo; She threw her fingers in the air as if to illustrate the
+      volatile and transitory passage of her affections, and then turned again
+      to Joan with her back towards Demorest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do please go on&mdash;Dona Rosita,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;I never heard the real
+      story. If there is any romance about my house, I'd like to know it,&rdquo; he
+      added with a faint sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dona Rosita wheeled upon him with an inquiring little look. &ldquo;Ah, you have
+      the sentiment, and YOU,&rdquo; she continued, taking Joan by the arms, &ldquo;YOU have
+      not. Eet ess good so. When a&mdash;the wife,&rdquo; she continued boldly,
+      hazarding an extended English abstraction, &ldquo;he has the sentimente and the
+      hoosband he has nothing, eet is not good&mdash;for a-him&mdash;ze wife,&rdquo;
+       she concluded triumphantly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I have great appreciation and I am dying to hear it,&rdquo; said Demorest,
+      trying to laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, poor one, you look so. But you shall lif till another time,&rdquo; said
+      Dona Rosita, with a mock courtesy, gliding with Joan away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;other time&rdquo; came that evening when chocolate was served on the
+      veranda, where Dona Rosita, mantilla-draped against the dry, clear,
+      moonlit air, sat at the feet of Joan on the lowest step. Demorest,
+      uneasily observant of the influence of the giddy foreigner on his wife,
+      and conscious of certain confidences between them from which he was
+      excluded, leaned against a pillar of the porch in half abstracted
+      resignation; Joan, under the tutelage of Rosita, lit a cigarette; Demorest
+      gazed at her wonderingly, trying to recall, in her fuller and more
+      animated face, some memory of the pale, refined profile of the Puritan
+      girl he had first met in the Boston train, the faint aurora of whose cheek
+      in that northern clime seemed to come and go with his words. Becoming
+      conscious at last of the eyes of Dona Rosita watching him from below, with
+      an effort he recalled his duty as her host and gallantly reminded her that
+      moonlight and the hour seemed expressly fitted for her promised love
+      story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do tell it,&rdquo; said Joan, &ldquo;I don't mind hearing it again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you know it already?&rdquo; said Demorest, surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joan took the cigarette from her lips, laughed complacently, and exchanged
+      a familiar glance with Rosita. &ldquo;She told it me a year ago, when we first
+      knew each other,&rdquo; she replied. &ldquo;Go on, dear,&rdquo; to Rosita.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus encouraged, Dona Rosita began, addressing herself first in Spanish to
+      Demorest, who understood the language better than his wife, and lapsing
+      into her characteristic English as she appealed to them both. It was
+      really very little to interest Don Ricardo&mdash;this story of a silly
+      muchacha like herself and a strange caballero. He would go to sleep while
+      she was talking, and to-night he would say to his wife, &ldquo;Mother of God!
+      why have you brought here this chattering parrot who speaks but of one
+      thing?&rdquo; But she would go on always like the windmill, whether there was
+      grain to grind or no. &ldquo;It was four years ago. Ah! Don Ricardo did not
+      remember the country then&mdash;it was when the first Americans came&mdash;now
+      it is different. Then there were no coaches&mdash;in truth one travelled
+      very little, and always on horseback, only to see one's neighbors. And
+      suddenly, as if in one day, it was changed; there were strange men on the
+      roads, and one was frightened, and one shut the gates of the pateo and
+      drove the horses into the corral. One did not know much of the Americans
+      then&mdash;for why? They were always going, going&mdash;never stopping,
+      hurrying on to the gold mines, hurrying away from the gold mines, hurrying
+      to look for other gold mines: but always going on foot, on horseback, in
+      queer wagons&mdash;hurrying, pushing everywhere. Ah, it took away the
+      breath. All, except one American&mdash;he did not hurry, he did not go
+      with the others, he came and stayed here at Buenaventura. He was very
+      quiet, very civil, very sad, and very discreet. He was not like the
+      others, and always kept aloof from them. He came to see Don Andreas Pico,
+      and wanted to beg a piece of land and an old vaquero's hut near the road
+      for a trifle. Don Andreas would have given it, or a better house, to him,
+      or have had him live at the casa here; but he would not. He was very proud
+      and shy, so he took the vaquero's hut, a mere adobe affair, and lived in
+      it, though a caballero like yourself, with white hands that knew not
+      labor, and small feet that had seldom walked. In good time he learned to
+      ride like the best vaquero, and helped Don Andreas to find the lost
+      mustangs, and showed him how to improve the old mill. And his pride and
+      his shyness wore off, and he would come to the casa sometimes. And Don
+      Andreas got to love him very much, and his daughter, Dona Rosita&mdash;ah,
+      well, yes truly&mdash;a leetle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he had strange moods and ways, this American, and at times they would
+      have thought him a lunatico had they not believed it to be an American
+      fashion. He would be very kind and gentle like one of the family, coming
+      to the casa every day, playing with the children, advising Don Andreas and&mdash;yes&mdash;having
+      a devotion&mdash;very discreet, very ceremonious, for Dona Rosita. And
+      then, all in a moment, he would become as ill, without a word or gesture,
+      until he would stalk out of the house, gallop away furiously, and for a
+      week not be heard of. The first time it happened, Dona Rosita was piqued
+      by his rudeness, Don Andreas was alarmed, for it was on an evening like
+      the present, and Dona Rosita was teaching him a little song on the guitar
+      when the fit came on him. And he snapped the guitar strings like thread
+      and threw it down, and got up like a bear and walked away without a word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see it all,&rdquo; said Demorest, half seriously: &ldquo;you were coquetting with
+      him, and he was jealous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dona Rosita shook her head and turned impetuously, and said in English
+      to Joan:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it was astutcia&mdash;a trick, a ruse. Because when my father have
+      arrived at his house, he is agone. And so every time. When he have the fit
+      he goes not to his house. No. And it ees not until after one time when he
+      comes back never again, that we have comprehend what he do at these times.
+      And what do you think? I shall tell to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She composed herself comfortably, with her plump elbows on her knees, and
+      her fan crossed on the palm of her hand before her, and began again:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a year he has gone, and the stagecoach is attack of brigands.
+      Tiburcio, our vaquero, have that night made himself a pasear on the road,
+      and he have seen HIM. He have seen, one, two, three men came from the wood
+      with something on the face, and HE is of them. He has nothing on his face,
+      and Tiburcio have recognize him. We have laugh at Tiburcio. We believe him
+      not. It is improbable that this Senor Huanson&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Senor who?&rdquo; said Demorest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Huanson&mdash;eet is the name of him. Ah, Carr!&mdash;posiblemente it is
+      nothing&mdash;a Don Fulano&mdash;or an apodo&mdash;Huanson.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I see, JOHNSON, very likely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have said it is not possible that this good man, who have come to the
+      house and ride on his back the children, is a thief and a brigand. And one
+      night my father have come from the Monterey in the coach, and it was
+      stopped. And the brigands have take from the passengers the money, the
+      rings from the finger, and the watch&mdash;and my father was of the same.
+      And my father, he have great dissatisfaction and anguish, for his watch is
+      given to him of an old friend, and it is not like the other watch. But the
+      watch he go all the same. And then when the robbers have made a finish
+      comes to the window of the coach a mascara and have say, 'Who is the Don
+      Andreas Pico?' And my father have say, 'It is I who am Don Andreas Pico.'
+      And the mask have say, 'Behold, your watch is restore!' and he gif it to
+      him. And my father say, 'To whom have I the distinguished honor to thank?'
+      And the mask say&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Johnson,&rdquo; interrupted Demorest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Dona Rosita in grave triumph, &ldquo;he say Essmith. For this Essmith
+      is like Huanson&mdash;an apodo&mdash;nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you really think this man was your old friend?&rdquo; asked Demorest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that he was a robber even when living here&mdash;and that it was not
+      your cruelty that really drove him to take the road?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dona Rosita shrugged her plump shoulders. &ldquo;You will not comprehend. It was
+      because of his being a brigand that he stayed not with us. My father would
+      not have object if he have present himself to me for marriage in these
+      times. I would not have object, for I was young, and we have knew nothing.
+      It was he who have object. For why? Inside of his heart he have feel he
+      was a brigand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you might have reformed him in time,&rdquo; said Demorest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She again shrugged her shoulders. &ldquo;Quien sabe.&rdquo; After a pause she added
+      with infinite gravity: &ldquo;And before he have reform, it is bad for the
+      menage. I should invite to my house some friend. They arrive, and one say,
+      'I have not the watch of my pocket,' and another, 'The ring of my finger,
+      he is gone,' and another, 'My earrings, she is loss.' And I am obliged to
+      say, 'They reside now in the pocket of my hoosband; patience! a little
+      while&mdash;perhaps to-morrow&mdash;he will restore.' No,&rdquo; she continued,
+      with an air of infinite conviction, &ldquo;it is not good for the menage&mdash;the
+      necessity of those explanation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told me he was handsome,&rdquo; said Joan, passing her arm carelessly
+      around Dona Rosita's comfortable waist. &ldquo;How did he look?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As an angel! He have long curls to his back. His moustache was as silk,
+      for he have had never a barber to his face. And his eyes&mdash;Santa
+      Maria!&mdash;so soft and so&mdash;so melankoly. When he smile it is like
+      the moonlight. But,&rdquo; she added, rising to her feet and tossing the end of
+      her lace mantilla over her shoulder with a little laugh&mdash;&ldquo;it is
+      finish&mdash;Adelante! Dr-rrive on!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't want to destroy your belief in the connection of your friend with
+      the road agents,&rdquo; said Demorest grimly, &ldquo;but if he belongs to their band
+      it is in an inferior capacity. Most of them are known to the authorities,
+      and I have heard it even said that their leader or organizer is a very
+      unromantic speculator in San Francisco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But this suggestion was received coldly by the ladies, who superciliously
+      turned their backs upon it and the suggester. Joan dropped her voice to a
+      lower tone and turned to Dona Rosita. &ldquo;And you have never seen him since?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should&mdash;at least, I wouldn't have let it end in THAT way,&rdquo; said
+      Joan in a positive whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh?&rdquo; said Dona Rosita, laughing. &ldquo;So eet is YOU, Juanita, that have the
+      romance&mdash;eh? Ah, bueno! 'you have the house&mdash;so I gif to you the
+      lover also.' I place him at your disposition.&rdquo; She made a mock gesture of
+      elaborate and complete abnegation. &ldquo;But,&rdquo; she added in Joan's ear, with a
+      quick glance at Demorest, &ldquo;do not let our hoosband eat him. Even now he
+      have the look to strangle ME. Make to him a little lof, quickly, when I
+      shall walk in the garden.&rdquo; She turned away with a pretty wave of her fan
+      to Demorest, and calling out, &ldquo;I go to make an assignation with my
+      memory,&rdquo; laughed again, and lazily passed into the shadow. An ominous
+      silence on the veranda followed, broken finally by Mrs. Demorest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think it was necessary for you to show your dislike to Dona
+      Rosita quite so plainly,&rdquo; she said, coldly, slightly accenting the Puritan
+      stiffness, which any conjugal tete-a-tete lately revived in her manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I show dislike of Dona Rosita?&rdquo; stammered Demorest, in surprise. &ldquo;Come,
+      Joan,&rdquo; he added, with a forgiving smile, &ldquo;you don't mean to imply that I
+      dislike her because I couldn't get up a thrilling interest in an old story
+      I've heard from every gossip in the pueblo since I can remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's not an old story to HER,&rdquo; said Joan, dryly, &ldquo;and even if it were,
+      you might reflect that all people are not as anxious to forget the past as
+      you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Demorest drew back to let the shaft glance by. &ldquo;The story is old enough,
+      at least for her to have had a dozen flirtations, as you know, since
+      then,&rdquo; he returned gently, &ldquo;and I don't think she herself seriously
+      believes in it. But let that pass. I am sorry I offended her. I had no
+      idea of doing so. As a rule, I think she is not so easily offended. But I
+      shall apologize to her.&rdquo; He stopped and approached nearer his wife in a
+      half-timid, half-tentative affection. &ldquo;As to my forgetfulness of the past,
+      Joan, even if it were true, I have had little cause to forget it lately.
+      Your friend, Corwin&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I must insist upon your not calling him MY friend, Richard,&rdquo; interrupted
+      Joan, sharply, &ldquo;considering that it was through YOUR indiscretion in
+      coming to us for the buggy that night, that he suspected&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She stopped suddenly, for at that moment a startled little shriek, quickly
+      subdued, rang through the garden. Demorest ran hurriedly down the steps in
+      the direction of the outcry. Joan followed more cautiously. At the first
+      turning of the path Dona Rosita almost fell into his arms. She was
+      breathless and trembling, but broke into a hysterical laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have such a fear come to me&mdash;I cry out! I think I have seen a man;
+      but it was nothing&mdash;nothing! I am a fool. It is no one here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where did you see anything?&rdquo; said Joan, coming up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosita flew to her side. &ldquo;Where? Oh, here!&mdash;everywhere! Ah, I am a
+      fool!&rdquo; She was laughing now, albeit there were tears glistening on her
+      lashes when she laid her head on Joan's shoulder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was some fancy&mdash;some resemblance you saw in that queer cactus,&rdquo;
+       said Demorest, gently. &ldquo;It is quite natural, I was myself deceived the
+      other night. But I'll look around to satisfy you. Take Dona Rosita back to
+      the veranda, Joan. But don't be alarmed, dear&mdash;it was only an
+      illusion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned away. When his figure was lost in the entwining foliage, Dona
+      Rosita seized Joan's shoulder and dragged her face down to a level with
+      her own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was something!&rdquo; she whispered quickly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was&mdash;HIM!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nonsense,&rdquo; groaned Joan, nevertheless casting a hurried glance around
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have no fear,&rdquo; said Dona Rosita quickly, &ldquo;he is gone&mdash;I saw him pass
+      away&mdash;so! But it was HE&mdash;Huanson. I recognize him. I forget him
+      never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I the eyes? the memory? Madre de Dios! Am I a lunatico too? Look! He
+      have stood there&mdash;so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you think he knew you were here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quien sabe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And that he came here to see you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dona Rosita caught her again by the shoulders, and with her lips to Joan's
+      ear, said with the intensest and most deliberate of emphasis:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;NO!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What in Heaven's name brought him here then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you crazy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You! you! YOU!&rdquo; repeated Dona Rosita, with crescendo energy. &ldquo;I have come
+      upon him here; where he stood and look at the veranda, absorrrb of YOU.
+      You move&mdash;he fly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, yes! I have said I give him to you. And he came, Bueno,&rdquo; murmured
+      Dona Rosita, with a half-resigned, half-superstitious gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;WILL you be quiet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the sound of Demorest's feet on the gravel path, returning from his
+      fruitless search. He had seen nothing. It must have been Dona Rosita's
+      fancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was just saying she thought she had been mistaken,&rdquo; said Joan,
+      quietly. &ldquo;Let us go in&mdash;it is rather chilly here, and I begin to feel
+      creepy too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, as they entered the house again, and the light of the hall
+      lantern fell upon her face, Demorest thought he had never but once before
+      seen her look so nervously and animatedly beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The following day, when Mr. Ezekiel Corwin had delivered his letters of
+      introduction, and thoroughly canvassed the scant mercantile community of
+      San Buenaventura with considerable success, he deposited his carpet-bag at
+      the stage office in the posada, and found to his chagrin that he had still
+      two hours to wait before the coach arrived. After a vain attempt to impart
+      cheerful but disparaging criticism of the pueblo and its people to Senor
+      Mateo and his wife&mdash;whose external courtesy had been visibly
+      increased by a line from Demorest, but whose confidence towards the
+      stranger had not been extended in the same proportion&mdash;he gave it up,
+      and threw himself lazily on a wooden bench in the veranda, already hacked
+      with the initials of his countrymen, and drawing a jack-knife from his
+      pocket, he began to add to that emblazonry the trade-mark of the Panacea&mdash;as
+      a casual advertisement. During its progress, however, he was struck by the
+      fact that while no one seemed to enter the posada through the stage
+      office, the number of voices in the adjoining room seemed to increase, and
+      the ministrations of Mateo and his wife became more feverishly occupied
+      with their invisible guests. It seemed to Ezekiel that consequently there
+      must be a second entrance which he had not seen, and this added to the
+      circumstance that one or two lounging figures who had been approaching
+      unaccountably disappeared before reaching the veranda, induced him to rise
+      and examine the locality. A few paces beyond was an alley, but it appeared
+      to be already blocked by several cigarette-smoking, short-jacketed men who
+      were leaning against its walls, and showed no inclination to make way for
+      him. Checked, but not daunted, Ezekiel coolly returned to the stage
+      office, and taking the first opportunity when Mateo passed through the
+      rear door, followed him. As he expected, the innkeeper turned to the left
+      and entered a large room filled with tobacco smoke and the local habitues
+      of the posada. But Ezekiel, shrewdly surmising that the private entrance
+      must be in the opposite direction, turned to the right along the passage
+      until he came unexpectedly upon the corridor of the usual courtyard, or
+      patio, of every Mexican hostelry, closed at one end by a low adobe wall,
+      in which there was a door. The free passage around the corridor was
+      interrupted by wide partitions, fitted up with tables and benches, like
+      stalls, opening upon the courtyard where a few stunted fig and orange
+      trees still grew. As the courtyard seemed to be the only communication
+      between the passage he had left and the door in the wall, he was about to
+      cross it, when the voices of two men in the compartment struck his ears.
+      Although one was evidently an American's, Ezekiel was instinctively
+      convinced that they were speaking in English only for greater security
+      against being understood by the frequenters of the posada. It is
+      unnecessary to say that this was an innocent challenge to the curiosity of
+      Ezekiel that he instantly accepted. He drew back carefully into the shadow
+      of the partition as one of the voices asked&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wasn't that Johnson just come in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a movement as if some one had risen to look over the
+      compartment, but the gathering twilight completely hid Ezekiel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He's late. Suppose he don't come&mdash;or back out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The other man broke into a grim laugh. &ldquo;I reckon you don't know Johnson
+      yet, or you'd understand this yer little game o' his is just the one idea
+      o' his life. He's been two years on that man's track, and he ain't goin'
+      to back out now that he's got a dead sure thing on him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why is he so keen about it, anyway? It don't seem nat'ral for a
+      business man built after Johnson's style, and a rich man to boot, to go
+      into this detective business. It ain't the reward, we know that. Is it an
+      old grudge?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bet!&rdquo; The speaker paused, and then in a lower voice, which taxed
+      Ezekial's keen ear to the uttermost, resumed: &ldquo;It's said up in Frisco that
+      Cherokee Bob knew suthin' agin Johnson way back in the States; anyhow, I
+      believe it's understood that they came across the plains together in '50&mdash;and
+      Bob hounded Johnson and blackmailed him here where he was livin', even to
+      the point of makin' him help him on the road or give information, until
+      one day Johnson bucked against it&mdash;kicked over the traces&mdash;and
+      swore he'd be revenged on Bob, and then just settled himself down to that
+      business. Wotever he'd been and done himself he made it all right with the
+      sheriff here; and I've heard ez it wasn't anything criminal or that sort,
+      but that it was o' some private trouble that he'd confided to that hound
+      Bob, and Bob had threatened to tell agen him. That's the grudge they say
+      Johnson has, and that's why he's allowed to be the head devil in this yer
+      affair. It's an understood thing, too, that the sheriff and the police
+      ain't goin' to interfere if Johnson accidentally blows the top of Bob's
+      head off in the scrimmage of a capter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I reckon Bob wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing to him when he
+      finds out that Johnson has given him away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon,&rdquo; said the other, sententiously, &ldquo;for it's Johnson's knowledge
+      of the country and the hoss-stealers that are in with Bob's gang of road
+      agents that made it easy for him to buy up and win over Bob's friends
+      here, so that they'd help to trap him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's pretty rough on Bob to be sold out in that way,&rdquo; said the second
+      speaker, sympathizingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If they were white men, p'rhaps,&rdquo; returned his companion, contemptuously,
+      &ldquo;but this yer's a case of Injin agen Injin, ez the men are Mexican
+      half-breeds just as Bob's a half Cherokee. The sooner that kind o' cross
+      cattle exterminate each other the better it'll be for the country. It
+      takes a white man like Johnson to set 'em by the ears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A silence followed. Ezekiel, beginning to be slightly bored with his
+      cheaply acquired but rather impractical information, was about to slip
+      back into the passage again when he was arrested by a laugh from the first
+      speaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What's the matter?&rdquo; growled the other. &ldquo;Do you want to bring the whole
+      posada out here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was only thinkin' what a skeer them innocent greenhorn passengers will
+      get just ez they're snoozing off for the night, ten miles from here,&rdquo;
+       responded his friend, with a chuckle. &ldquo;Wonder ef anybody's goin' up from
+      here besides that patent medicine softy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel stopped as if petrified.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ef the &mdash;&mdash; fools keep quiet they won't be hurt, for our men
+      will be ready to chip in the moment of the attack. But we've got to let
+      the attack be made for the sake of the evidence. And if we warn off the
+      passengers from going this trip, and let the stage go up empty, Bob would
+      suspect something and vamose. But here's Johnson!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The door in the adobe wall had suddenly opened, and a figure in a serape
+      entered the patio. Ezekiel, whose curiosity was whetted with indignation
+      at the ignominious part assigned to him in this comedy, forgot even his
+      risk of detection by the newcomer, who advanced quickly towards the
+      compartment. When he had reached it he said, in a tone of bitterness:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The game is up, gentlemen, and the whole thing is blown. The scoundrel
+      has got some confederate here&mdash;for he's been seen openly on the road
+      near Demorest's ranch, and the band have had warning and dispersed. We
+      must find out the traitor, and take our precautions for the next time. Who
+      is that there? I don't know him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was pointing to Ezekiel, who had started eagerly forward at the first
+      sound of his voice. The two occupants of the compartment rose at the same
+      moment, leaped into the courtyard, and confronted Ezekiel. Surrounded by
+      the three menacing figures he did not quail, but remained intently gazing
+      upon the newcomer. Then his mouth opened, and he drawled lazily:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, ef it ain't Squire Blandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut, I'm a
+      treed coon. Squire Blandford, how DO you do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger drew back in undisguised amazement; the two men glanced
+      hurriedly at each other; Ezekiel alone remained cool, smiling,
+      imperturbable, and triumphant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are YOU, sir? I do not know you,&rdquo; demanded the newcomer, roughly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like ez not,&rdquo; said Corwin dryly, &ldquo;it's a matter o' four year sense I
+      lived in your house. Even Dick Demorest&mdash;you knew Dick?&mdash;didn't
+      know me; but I reckon that Mrs. Blandford as used to be&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's enough,&rdquo; said Blandford&mdash;for it was he&mdash;suddenly
+      mastering both himself and Corwin by a supreme emphasis of will and
+      gesture. &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; Then turning to the two others who were discreetly
+      regarding the blank adobe wall before them, he said: &ldquo;Excuse me for a few
+      minutes, gentlemen. There is no hurry now. I will see you later;&rdquo; and with
+      an imperative wave of his hand motioned Ezekiel to precede him into the
+      passage, and followed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not speak until they entered the stage office, when, passing
+      through it, he said peremptorily: &ldquo;Follow me.&rdquo; The few loungers, who
+      seemed to recognize him, made way for him with a singular deference that
+      impressed Ezekiel, already dominated by his manner. The first perception
+      in his mind was that Blandford had in some strange way succeeded to
+      Demorest's former imperious character. There was no trace left of the old,
+      gentle subjection to Joan's prim precision. Ezekiel followed him out of
+      the office as unresistingly as he had followed Demorest into the stables
+      on that eventful night. They passed down the narrow street until Blandford
+      suddenly stopped short and turned into the crumbling doorway of one of the
+      low adobe buildings and entered an apartment. It seemed to be the ordinary
+      living-room of the house, made more domestic by the presence of a silk
+      counterpaned bed in one corner, a prie Dieu and crucifix, and one or two
+      articles of bedchamber furniture. A woman was sitting in deshabille by the
+      window; a man was smoking on a lounge against the wall. Blandford, in the
+      same peremptory manner, addressed a command in Spanish to the inmates, who
+      immediately abandoned the apartment to the seeming trespasser.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Motioning his companion to a seat on the lounge just vacated, Blandford
+      folded his arms and stood erect before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; he said, with quick, business conciseness, &ldquo;what do you want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel was staggered out of his complacency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al,&rdquo; he stammered, &ldquo;I only reckoned to ask the news, ez we are old
+      friends&mdash;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much do you want?&rdquo; repeated Blandford, impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel was mystified, yet expectant. &ldquo;I can't say ez I exakly
+      understand,&rdquo; he began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How&mdash;much&mdash;money&mdash;do&mdash;you&mdash;want,&rdquo; continued
+      Blandford, with frigid accuracy, &ldquo;to get up and get out of this place?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, consideren ez I'm travellin' here ez the only authorized agent of
+      a first-class Frisco Drug House,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, with a mingling of
+      mortification, pride, and hopefulness, &ldquo;unless you're travellin' in the
+      opposition business, I don't see what's that to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford regarded him searchingly for an instant. &ldquo;Who sent you here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dilworth &amp; Dusenberry, Battery Street, San Francisco. Hev their
+      card?&rdquo; said Ezekiel, taking one from his waistcoat pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Corwin,&rdquo; said Blandford, sternly, &ldquo;whatever your business is here you'll
+      find it will pay you better, a &mdash;&mdash; sight, to be frank with me
+      and stop this Yankee shuffling. You say you have been with Demorest&mdash;what
+      has HE got to do with your business here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothin',&rdquo; said Ezekiel. &ldquo;I reckon he wos ez astonished to see me ez you
+      are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And didn't he send you here to seek me?&rdquo; said Blandford, impatiently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Considerin' he believes you a dead man, I reckon not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford gave a hard, constrained laugh. After a pause, still keeping his
+      eyes fixed on Ezekiel, he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then your recognition of me was accidental?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, yes. And ez I never took much stock in the stories that you were
+      washed off the Warensboro Bridge, I ain't much astonished at finding you
+      agin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did you believe happened to me?&rdquo; said Blandford, less brusquely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel noticed the softening; he felt his own turn coming. &ldquo;I kalkilated
+      you had reasons for going off, leaving no address behind you,&rdquo; he drawled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What reasons?&rdquo; asked Blandford, with a sudden relapse of his former
+      harshness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, Squire Blandford, sens you wanter know&mdash;I reckon your
+      business wasn't payin', and there was a matter of two hundred and fifty
+      dollars ye took with ye, that your creditors would hev liked to hev back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who dare say that?&rdquo; demanded Blandford, angrily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your wife that was&mdash;Mrs. Demorest ez is&mdash;told it to her
+      mother,&rdquo; returned Ezekiel, lazily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blow struck deeper than even Ezekiel's dry malice imagined. For an
+      instant, Blandford remained stupefied. In the five years' retrospect of
+      his resolution on that fatal night, whatever doubt of its wisdom might
+      have obtruded itself upon him, he had never thought of THIS. He had been
+      willing to believe that his wife had quietly forgotten him as well as her
+      treachery to him, he had passively acquiesced in the results of that
+      forgetfulness and his own silence; he had been conscious that his wound
+      had healed sooner than he expected, but if this consciousness had enabled
+      him to extend a certain passive forgiveness to his wife and Demorest, it
+      was always with the conviction that his mysterious effacement had left an
+      inexplicable shadow upon them which their consciences alone could explain.
+      But for this unjust, vulgar, and degrading interpretation of his own act
+      of expiation, he was totally unprepared. It completely crushed whatever
+      sentiment remained of that act in the horrible irony of finding himself
+      put upon his defence before the world, without being able now to offer the
+      real cause. The anguish of that night had gone forever; but the ridiculous
+      interpretation of it had survived, and would survive it. In the eyes of
+      the man before him he was not a wronged husband, but an absconding petty
+      defaulter, whom he had just detected!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His mind was quickly made up. In that instant he had resolved upon a step
+      as fateful as his former one, and a fitting climax to its results. For
+      five years he had clearly misunderstood his attitude towards his
+      treacherous wife and perjured friend. Thanks to this practical, selfish
+      machine before him, he knew it now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look here, Corwin,&rdquo; he said, turning upon Ezekiel a colorless face, but a
+      steady, merciless eye. &ldquo;I can guess, without your telling me, what lies
+      may be circulated about me by the man and woman who know that I have only
+      to declare myself alive to convict them of infamy&mdash;perhaps even of
+      criminality before the law. You are not MY friend, or you would not have
+      believed them; if you are THEIRS, you have two courses open to you now.
+      Keep this meeting to yourself and trust to my mercy to keep it a secret
+      also; or, tell Mrs. Demorest that you have seen Mr. Johnson, who is not
+      afraid to come forward at any moment and proclaim that he is Edward
+      Blandford, her only lawful husband. Choose which course you like&mdash;it
+      is nothing more to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, I reckon that, as far as I know Mrs. Demorest,&rdquo; said Ezekiel,
+      dryly, &ldquo;it don't make the least difference to her either; but if you want
+      to know my opinion o' this matter, it is that neither you nor Demorest
+      exactly understand that woman. I've known Joan Salisbury since she was so
+      high, but if ye expected me to tell you wot she was goin' to do next, I'd
+      be able to tell ye where the next flash o' lightnin' would strike. It's
+      wot you don't expect of Joan Salisbury that she does. And the best proof
+      of it is that she filed papers for a divorce agin you in Chicago and got
+      it by default a few weeks afore she married Demorest&mdash;and you don't
+      know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blandford recoiled. &ldquo;Impossible,&rdquo; he said, but his voice too plainly
+      showed how clearly its possibility struck him now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's so, but it was kept secret by Deacon Salisbury. I overheerd it.
+      Wa'al, that's a proof that you don't understand Joan, I reckon. And
+      considerin' that Demorest HIMSELF don't know it, ez I found out only the
+      other day in talking to him, I kalkilate I'm safe in sayin' that you're
+      neither o' you quite up to Deacon Salisbury's darter in nat'ral cuteness.
+      I don't like to obtrude my opinion, Squire Blandford, ez we're old
+      friends, but I do say, that wot with Demorest's prematooriness and yer own
+      hangfiredness, it's a good thing that you two worldly men hev got Joan
+      Salisbury to stand up for North Liberty and keep it from bein' scandalized
+      by the ungodly. Ef it hadn't been for her smartness, whar y'd both be
+      landed now? There's a heap in Christian bringin' up, and a power in grace,
+      Squire Blandford.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His hard, dry face was for an instant transfigured by a grim fealty and
+      the dull glow of some sectarian clannishness. Or was it possible that this
+      woman's personality had in some mysterious way disturbed his rooted
+      selfishness?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During his speech Blandford had walked to the window. When Corwin had
+      ceased speaking, Blandford turned towards him with an equally changed face
+      and cold imperturbability that astonished him, and held out his hand. &ldquo;Let
+      bygones be bygones, Corwin&mdash;whether we ever meet again or not. Yet if
+      I can do anything for you for the sake of old times, I am ready to do it.
+      I have some power here and in San Francisco,&rdquo; he continued, with a slight
+      touch of pride, &ldquo;that isn't dependent upon the mere name I may travel
+      under. I have a purpose in coming here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, dryly. &ldquo;I heard it all from your two friends.
+      You're huntin' some man that did you an injury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'm hunting down a dog who, suspecting I had some secret in emigrating
+      here, tried to blackmail and ruin me,&rdquo; said Blandford, with a sudden
+      expression of hatred that seemed inconsistent with anything that Ezekiel
+      had ever known of his old master's character&mdash;&ldquo;a scoundrel who tried
+      to break up my new life as another had broken up the old.&rdquo; He stopped and
+      recovered himself with a short laugh. &ldquo;Well, Ezekiel, I don't know as his
+      opinion of me was any worse than yours or HERS. And until I catch HIM to
+      clear my name again, I let the other slanderers go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, I reckon you might lay hands on that devil yet, and not far away,
+      either. I was up at Demorest's to-day, and I heard Joan and a skittish
+      sort o' Mexican young lady talkin' about some tramp that had frightened
+      her. And Miss Pico said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! Who did you say?&rdquo; demanded Blandford, with a violent start.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, I reckoned I heerd the first name too&mdash;Rosita.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A quick flush crossed Blandford's face, and left it glowing like a boy's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is SHE there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, I reckon she's visitin' Joan,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, narrowly attentive of
+      Blandford's strange excitement; &ldquo;but wot of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Blandford had utterly forgotten Ezekiel's presence. He had remained
+      speechless and flushed. And then, as if suddenly dazzled by an
+      inspiration, he abruptly dashed from the room. Ezekiel heard him call to
+      his passive host with a Spanish oath, but before he could follow, they had
+      both hurriedly left the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel glanced around him and contemplatively ran his fingers through his
+      beard. &ldquo;It ain't Joan Salisbury nor Dick Demorest ez giv' him that start!
+      Humph! Wa'al&mdash;I wanter know!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Demorest was so fascinated by the company of Dona Rosita Pico and her
+      romantic memories, that she prevailed upon that heart-broken but scarcely
+      attenuated young lady to prolong her visit beyond the fortnight she had
+      allotted to communion with the past. For a day or two following her
+      singular experience in the garden, Mrs. Demorest plied her with questions
+      regarding the apparition she had seen, and finally extorted from her the
+      admission that she could not positively swear to its being the real
+      Johnson, or even a perfectly consistent shade of that faithless man. When
+      Joan pointed out to her that such masculine perfections as curling raven
+      locks, long silken mustachios, and dark eyes, were attributes by no means
+      exclusive to her lover, but were occasionally seen among other less
+      favored and even equally dangerous Americans, Dona Rosita assented with
+      less objection than Joan anticipated. &ldquo;Besides, dear,&rdquo; said Joan, eying
+      her with feline watchfulness, &ldquo;it is four years since you've seen him, and
+      surely the man has either shaved since, or else he took a ridiculous vow
+      never to do it, and then he would be more fully bearded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Dona Rosita only shook her pretty head. &ldquo;Ah, but he have an air&mdash;a
+      something I know not what you call&mdash;so.&rdquo; She threw her shawl over her
+      left shoulder, and as far as a pair of soft blue eyes and comfortably
+      pacific features would admit, endeavored to convey an idea of wicked and
+      gloomy abstraction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You child,&rdquo; said Joan,&mdash;&ldquo;that's nothing; they all of them do that.
+      Why, there was a stranger at the Oriental Hotel whom I met twice when I
+      was there&mdash;just as mysterious, romantic, and wicked-looking. And in
+      fact they hinted terrible things about him. Well! so much so, that Mr.
+      Demorest was quite foolish about my being barely civil to him&mdash;you
+      understand&mdash;and&mdash;&rdquo; She stopped suddenly, with a heightened color
+      under the fire of Rosita's laughing eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah&mdash;so&mdash;Dona Discretion! Tell to me all. Did our hoosband eat
+      him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Joan's features suddenly tightened to their old puritan rigidity. &ldquo;Mr.
+      Demorest has reasons&mdash;abundant reasons&mdash;to thoroughly understand
+      and trust me,&rdquo; she replied in an austere voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosita looked at her a moment in mystification and then shrugged her
+      shoulders. The conversation dropped. Nevertheless, it is worthy of being
+      recorded that from that moment the usual familiar allusions, playful and
+      serious, to Rosita's mysterious visitor began to diminish in frequency and
+      finally ceased. Even the news brought by Demorest of some vague rumor in
+      the pueblo that an intended attack on the stage-coach had been frustrated
+      by the authorities, and that the vicinity had been haunted by incognitos
+      of both parties, failed to revive the discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meantime the slight excitement that had stirred the sluggish life of the
+      pueblo of San Buenaventura had subsided. The posada of Senor Mateo had
+      lost its feverish and perplexing dual life; the alley behind it no longer
+      was congested by lounging cigarette smokers; the compartment looking upon
+      the silent patio was unoccupied, and its chairs and tables were empty. The
+      two deputy sheriffs, of whom Senor Mateo presumably knew very little, had
+      fled; and the mysterious Senor Johnson, of whom he&mdash;still presumably&mdash;knew
+      still less, had also disappeared. For Senor Mateo's knowledge of what
+      transpired in and about his posada, and of the character and purposes of
+      those who frequented it, was tinctured by grave and philosophical doubts.
+      This courteous and dignified scepticism generally took the formula of
+      quien sabe to all frivolous and mundane inquiry. He would affirm with
+      strict verity that his omelettes were unapproachable, his beds miraculous,
+      his aguardiente supreme, his house was even as your own. Beyond these were
+      questions with which the simply finite and always discreet human intellect
+      declined to grapple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The disturbing effect of Senor Corwin upon a mind thus gravely constituted
+      may be easily imagined. Besides Ezekiel's inordinate capacity for useless
+      or indiscreet information, it was undeniable that his patent medicines had
+      effected a certain peaceful revolutionary movement in San Buenaventura. A
+      simple and superstitious community that had steadily resisted the
+      practical domestic and agricultural American improvements, succumbed to
+      the occult healing influences of the Panacea and Jones's Bitters. The
+      virtues of a mysterious balsam, more or less illuminated with a colored
+      mythological label, deeply impressed them; and the exhibition of a
+      circular, whereon a celestial visitant was represented as descending with
+      a gross of Rogers' Pills to a suffering but admiring multitude, touched
+      their religious sympathies to such an extent that the good Padre Jose was
+      obliged to warn them from the pulpit of the diabolical character of their
+      heresies of healing&mdash;with the natural result of yet more dangerously
+      advertising Ezekiel. There were those too who spoke under their breath of
+      the miraculous efficacy of these nostrums. Had not Don Victor Arguello,
+      whose respectable digestion, exhausted by continuous pepper and garlic,
+      failed him suddenly, received an unexpected and pleasurable stimulus from
+      the New England rum, which was the basis of the Jones Bitters? Had not the
+      baker, tremulous from excessive aguardiente, been soothed and sustained by
+      the invisible morphia, judiciously hidden in Blogg's Nerve Tonic? Nor had
+      the wily Ezekiel forgotten the weaker sex in their maiden and maternal
+      requirements. Unguents, that made silken their black but somewhat coarsely
+      fibrous tresses, opened charming possibilities to the Senoritas; while
+      soothing syrups lent a peaceful repose to many a distracted mother's
+      household. The success of Ezekiel was so marked as to justify his return
+      at the end of three weeks with a fresh assortment and an undiminished
+      audacity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was on his second visit that the sceptical, non-committal policy of
+      Senor Mateo was sorely tried. Arriving at the posada one night, Ezekiel
+      became aware that his host was engaged in some mysterious conference with
+      a visitor who had entered through the ordinary public room. The view which
+      the acute Ezekiel managed to get of the stranger, however, was productive
+      of no further discovery than that he bore a faint and disreputable
+      resemblance to Blandford, and was handsome after a conscious, reckless
+      fashion, with an air of mingled bravado and conceit. But an hour later, as
+      Corwin was taking the cooler air of the veranda before retiring to one of
+      the miraculous beds of the posada, he was amazed at seeing what was
+      apparently Blandford himself emerge on horseback from the alley, and after
+      a quick glance towards the veranda, canter rapidly up the street.
+      Ezekiel's first impression was to call to him, but the sudden recollection
+      that he parted from his old master on confidential terms only three days
+      before in San Francisco, and that it was impossible for him to be in the
+      pueblo, stopped him with his fingers meditatively in his beard. Then he
+      turned in to the posada, and hastily summoned Mateo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentleman presented himself in a state of such profound scepticism
+      that it seemed to have already communicated itself to his shoulders, and
+      gave him the appearance of having shrugged himself into the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha'ow long ago did Mr. Johnson get here?&rdquo; asked Corwin, lazily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah&mdash;possibly&mdash;then there has been a Mr. Johnson?&rdquo; This is a
+      polite doubt of his own perceptions and a courteous acceptance of his
+      questioner's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, I guess so. Considerin' I jest saw him with my own eyes,&rdquo; returned
+      Ezekiel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; Mateo was relieved. Might he congratulate the Senor Corwin, who must
+      be also relieved, and shake his respected hand. Bueno. And then he had met
+      this Senor Johnson? doubtless a friend? And he was well? and all were
+      happy?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look yer, Mattayo! What I wanter know ez THIS. When did that man, who has
+      just ridden out of your alley, come here? Sabe that&mdash;it's a plain
+      question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah surely, of the clearest comprehension. Bueno. It may have been last
+      week&mdash;or even this week&mdash;or perhaps yesterday&mdash;or of a
+      possibility to-day. The Senor Corwin, who was wise and omniscient, would
+      comprehend that the difficulty lay in deciding WHO was that man. Perhaps a
+      friend of the Senor Corwin&mdash;perhaps only one who LOOKED like him.
+      There existed&mdash;might Mateo point out&mdash;a doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel regarded Mateo with a certain grim appreciation. &ldquo;Wa'al, is there
+      anybody here who looks like Johnson?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Again there were the difficulty of ascertaining perfectly how the Senor
+      Johnson looked. If the Senor Johnson was Americano, doubtless there were
+      other Americanos who had resembled him. It was possible. The Senor Corwin
+      had doubtless observed for a little space a caballero who was here, as it
+      were, in the instant of the appearance of Senor Johnson? Possibly there
+      was a resemblance, and yet&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Corwin had certainly noticed this resemblance, but it did not suit his
+      cautious intellect to fall in with any prevailing scepticism of his host.
+      Satisfied in his mind that Mateo was concealing something from him, and
+      equally satisfied that he would sooner or later find it out, he grinned
+      diabolically in the face of that worthy man, and sought the meditation of
+      his miraculous couch. When he had departed, the sceptic turned to his
+      wife:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This animal has been sniffing at the trail.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly&mdash;but Mother of God&mdash;where is the discretion of our
+      friend. If he will continue to haunt the pueblo like a lovesick chicken,
+      he will get his neck wrung yet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Following out an ingenious idea of his own, Ezekiel called the next day on
+      the Demorests, and in some occult fashion obtained an invitation to stay
+      under their hospitable roof during his sojourn in Buenaventura. Perfectly
+      aware that he owed this courtesy more to Joan than to her husband, it is
+      probable that his grim enjoyment was not diminished by the fact; while
+      Joan, for reasons of her own, preferred the constraint which the presence
+      of another visitor put upon Demorest's uxoriousness. Of late, too, there
+      were times when Dona Rosita's naive intelligence, which was not unlike the
+      embarrassing perceptions of a bright and half-spoiled child, was in her
+      way, and she would willingly have shared the young lady's company with her
+      husband had Demorest shown any sympathy for the girl. It was in the faint
+      hope that Ezekiel might in some way beguile Rosita's wandering attention
+      that she had invited him. The only difficulty lay in his uncouthness, and
+      in presenting to the heiress of the Picos a man who had been formerly her
+      own servant. Had she attempted to conceal that fact she was satisfied that
+      Ezekiel's independence and natural predilection for embarrassing
+      situations would have inevitably revealed it. She had even gone so far as
+      to consider the propriety of investing him with a poor relationship to her
+      family, when Dona Rosita herself happily stopped all further trouble. On
+      her very first introduction to him, that charming young lady at once
+      accepted him as a lunatic whose brains were turned by occult, scientific,
+      and medical study! Ah! she, Rosita, had heard of such cases before. Had
+      not a paternal ancestor of hers, one Don Diego Castro, believed he had
+      discovered the elixir of youth. Had he not to that end refused even to
+      wash him the hand, to cut him the nail of the finger and the hair of the
+      head! Exalted by that discovery, had he not been unsparingly
+      uncomplimentary to all humanity, especially to the weaker sex? Even as the
+      Senor Corwin!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far from being offended at this ingenious interpretation of his character,
+      Ezekiel exhibited a dry gratification over it, and even conceived an
+      unwholesome admiration of the fair critic; he haunted her presence and
+      preoccupied her society far beyond Joan's most sanguine expectations. He
+      sat in open-mouthed enjoyment of her at the table, he waylaid her in the
+      garden, he attempted to teach her English. Dona Rosita received these
+      extraordinary advances in a no less extraordinary manner. In the scant
+      masculine atmosphere of the house, and the somewhat rigid New England
+      reserve that still pervaded it, perhaps she languished a little, and was
+      not averse to a slight flirtation, even with a madman. Besides, she
+      assumed the attitude of exercising a wholesome restraint over him. &ldquo;If we
+      are not found dead in our bed one morning, and extracted of our blood for
+      a cordial, you shall thank to me for it,&rdquo; she said to Joan. &ldquo;Also for the
+      not empoisoning of the coffee!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So she permitted him to carry a chair or hammock for her into the garden,
+      to fetch the various articles which she was continually losing, and which
+      he found with his usual penetration; and to supply her with information,
+      in which, however, he exercised an unwonted caution. On the other hand,
+      certain naive recollections and admissions, which in the quality of a
+      voluble child she occasionally imparted to this &ldquo;madman&rdquo; in return, were
+      in the proportion of three to one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been a hot day, and even the usual sunset breeze had failed that
+      evening to rock the tops of the outlying pine-trees or cool the heated
+      tiles of the pueblo roofs. There was a hush and latent expectancy in the
+      air that reacted upon the people with feverish unrest and uneasiness; even
+      a lull in the faintly whispering garden around the Demorests' casa had
+      affected the spirits of its inmates, causing them to wander about in vague
+      restlessness. Joan had disappeared; Dona Rosita, under an olive-tree in
+      one of the deserted paths, and attended by the faithful Ezekiel, had said
+      it was &ldquo;earthquake weather,&rdquo; and recalled, with a sign of the cross, a
+      certain dreadful day of her childhood, when el temblor had shaken down one
+      of the Mission towers. &ldquo;You shall see it now, as he have left it so it has
+      remain always,&rdquo; she added with superstitious gravity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's just the lazy shiftlessness of your folks,&rdquo; responded Ezekiel with
+      prompt ungallantry. &ldquo;It ain't no wonder the Lord Almighty hez to stir you
+      up now and then to keep you goin'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dona Rosita gazed at him with simple childish pity. &ldquo;Poor man; it have
+      affect you also in the head, this weather. So! It was even so with the
+      uncle of my father. Hush up yourself, and bring to me the box of
+      chocolates of my table. I will gif to you one. You shall for one time have
+      something pleasant on the end of your tongue, even if you must swallow him
+      after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel grinned. &ldquo;Ye ain't afraid o' bein' left alone with the ghost that
+      haunts the garden, Miss Rosita?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After YOU&mdash;never-r-r.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll find Mrs. Demorest and send her to ye,&rdquo; said Ezekiel, hesitatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Eh, to attract here the ghost? Thank you, no, very mooch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel's face contracted until nothing but his bright peering gray eyes
+      could be seen. &ldquo;Attract the ghost!&rdquo; he echoed. &ldquo;Then you kalkilate that
+      it's&mdash;&rdquo; he stopped, insinuatingly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosita brought her fan sharply over his knuckles, and immediately opened
+      it again over her half-embarrassed face. &ldquo;I comprehend not anything to
+      'ekalkilate.' WILL you go, Don Fantastico; or is it for me to bring to
+      you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel flew. He quickly found the chocolates and returned, but was
+      disconcerted on arriving under the olive-tree to find Dona Rosita no
+      longer in the hammock. He turned into a by-path, where an extraordinary
+      circumstance attracted his attention. The air was perfectly still, but the
+      leaves of a manzanita bush near the misshapen cactus were slightly
+      agitated. Presently Ezekiel saw the stealthy figure of a man emerge from
+      behind it and approach the cactus. Reaching his hand cautiously towards
+      the plant, the stranger detached something from one of its thorns, and
+      instantly disappeared. The quick eyes of Ezekiel had seen that it was a
+      letter, his unerring perception of faces recognized at the same moment
+      that the intruder was none other than the handsome, reckless-looking man
+      he had seen the other day in conference with Mateo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Ezekiel was not the only witness of this strange intrusion. A few
+      paces from him, Dona Rosita, unconscious of his return, was gazing in a
+      half-frightened, breathless absorption in the direction of the stranger's
+      flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al!&rdquo; drawled Ezekiel lazily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She started and turned towards him. Her face was pale and alarmed, and yet
+      to the critical eye of Ezekiel it seemed to wear an expression of
+      gratified relief. She laughed faintly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ef that's the kind o' ghost you hev about yer, it's a healthy one,&rdquo;
+       drawled Ezekiel. He turned and fixed his keen eyes on Rosita's face. &ldquo;I
+      wonder what kind o' fruit grows on the cactus that he's so fond of?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Either she had not seen the abstraction of the letter, or his acting was
+      perfect, for she returned his look unwaveringly. &ldquo;The fruit, eh? I have
+      not comprehend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, I reckon I will,&rdquo; said Ezekiel. He walked towards the cactus;
+      there was nothing to be seen but its thorny spikes. He was confronted,
+      however, by the sudden apparition of Joan from behind the manzanita at its
+      side. She looked up and glanced from Ezekiel to Dona Rosita with an
+      agitated air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you saw him too?&rdquo; she said eagerly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I reckon,&rdquo; answered Ezekiel, with his eyes still on Rosita. &ldquo;I was
+      wondering what on airth he was so taken with that air cactus for.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Rosita had become slightly pale again in the presence of her friend. Joan
+      quietly pushed Ezekiel aside and put her arm around her. &ldquo;Are you
+      frightened again?&rdquo; she asked, in a low whisper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not mooch,&rdquo; returned Rosita, without lifting her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was only some peon, trespassing to pick blossoms for his sweetheart,&rdquo;
+       she said significantly, with a glance towards Ezekiel. &ldquo;Let us go in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She passed her hand through Rosita's passive arm and led her towards the
+      house, Ezekiel's penetrating eyes still following Rosita with an
+      expression of gratified doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For once, however, that astute observer was wrong. When Mrs. Demorest had
+      reached the house she slipped into her own room, and, bolting the door,
+      drew from her bosom a letter which SHE had picked from the cactus thorn,
+      and read it with a flushed face and eager eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may have been the effect of the phenomenal weather, but the next day a
+      malign influence seemed to pervade the Demorest household. Dona Rosita was
+      confined to her room by an attack of languid nerves, superinduced, as she
+      was still voluble enough to declare, by the narcotic effect of some
+      unknown herb which the lunatic Ezekiel had no doubt mysteriously
+      administered to her with a view of experimenting on its properties. She
+      even avowed that she must speedily return to Los Osos, before Ezekiel
+      should further compromise her reputation by putting her on a colored label
+      in place of the usual Celestial Distributer of the Panacea. Ezekiel
+      himself, who had been singularly abstracted and reticent, and had
+      absolutely foregone one or two opportunities of disagreeable criticism,
+      had gone to the pueblo early that morning. The house was comparatively
+      silent and deserted when Demorest walked into his wife's boudoir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a pretty room, looking upon the garden, furnished with a singular
+      mingling of her own inherited formal tastes and the more sensuous coloring
+      and abandon of her new life. There were a great many rugs and hangings
+      scattered in disorder around the room, and apparently purposeless, except
+      for color; there was a bamboo lounge as large as a divan, with two or
+      three cushions disposed on it, and a low chair that seemed the incarnation
+      of indolence. Opposed to this, on the wall, was the rigid picture of her
+      grandfather, who had apparently retired with his volume further into the
+      canvas before the spectacle of this ungodly opulence; a large Bible on a
+      funereal trestle-like stand, and the primmest and barest of
+      writing-tables, before which she was standing as at a sacrificial altar.
+      With an almost mechanical movement she closed her portfolio as her husband
+      entered, and also shut the lid of a small box with a slight snap. This
+      suggested exclusion of him from her previous occupation, whatever it might
+      have been, caused a faint shadow of pain to pass across his loving eyes.
+      He cast a glance at his wife as if mutely asking her to sit beside him,
+      but she drew a chair to the table, and with her elbow resting on the box,
+      resignedly awaited his speech.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't mean to disturb you, darling,&rdquo; he said, gently, &ldquo;but as we were
+      alone, I thought we might have one of our old-fashioned talks, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't let it be so old-fashioned as to include North Liberty again,&rdquo; she
+      interrupted, wearily. &ldquo;We've had quite enough of that since I returned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought you found fault with me then for forgetting the past. But let
+      that pass, dear; it is not OUR affairs I wanted to talk to you about now,&rdquo;
+       he said, stifling a sigh, &ldquo;it's about your friend. Please don't
+      misunderstand what I am going to say; nor that I interpose except from
+      necessity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She turned her dark brown eyes in his direction, but her glance passed
+      abstractedly over his head into the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's a matter perfectly well known to me&mdash;and, I fear, to all our
+      servants also&mdash;that somebody is making clandestine visits to our
+      garden. I would not trouble you before, until I ascertained the object of
+      these visits. It is quite plain to me now that Dona Rosita is that object,
+      and that communications are secretly carried on between her and some
+      unknown stranger. He has been here once or twice before; he was here again
+      yesterday. Ezekiel saw him and saw her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Together?&rdquo; asked Mrs. Demorest, sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; but it was evident that there was some understanding, and that some
+      communication passed between them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well?&rdquo; said Mrs. Demorest, with repressed impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is equally evident, Joan, that this stranger is a man who does not
+      dare to approach your friend in her own house, nor more openly in this;
+      but who, with her connivance, uses us to carry on an intrigue which may be
+      perfectly innocent, but is certainly compromising to all concerned. I am
+      quite willing to believe that Dona Rosita is only romantic and reckless,
+      but that will not prevent her from becoming a dupe of some rascal who dare
+      not face us openly, and who certainly does not act as her equal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Rosita is no chicken, and you are not her guardian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a vague heartlessness, more in her voice than in her words, that
+      touched him as her cold indifference to himself had never done, and for an
+      instant stung his crushed spirit to revolt. &ldquo;No&rdquo; he said, sternly, &ldquo;but I
+      am her father's FRIEND, and I shall not allow his daughter to be
+      compromised under my roof.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Her eyes sprang up to meet his in hatred as promptly as they once had met
+      in love. &ldquo;And since when, Richard Demorest, have you become so
+      particular?&rdquo; she began, with dry asperity. &ldquo;Since you lured ME from the
+      side of my wedded husband? Since you met ME clandestinely in trains and
+      made love to ME under an assumed name? Since you followed ME to my house
+      under the pretext of being my husband's friend, and forced me&mdash;yes,
+      forced me&mdash;to see you secretly under my mother's roof? Did you think
+      of compromising ME then? Did you think of ruining my reputation, of
+      driving my husband from his home in despair? Did you call yourself a
+      rascal then? Did you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; he said, in a voice that shook the rafters; &ldquo;I command you, stop!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She had gradually worked herself from a deliberately insulting precision
+      into an hysterical, and it is to be feared a virtuous, conviction of her
+      wrongs. Beginning only with the instinct to taunt and wound the man before
+      her, she had been led by a secret consciousness of something else he did
+      not know to anticipate his reproach and justify herself in a wild feminine
+      abandonment of emotion. But she stopped at his words. For a moment she was
+      even thrilled again by the strength and imperiousness she had loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They were facing each other after five years of mistaken passion, even as
+      they had faced each other that night in her mother's kitchen. But the
+      grave of that dead passion yawned between them. It was Joan who broke the
+      silence, that after her single outburst seemed to fill and oppress the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As far as Rosita is concerned,&rdquo; she said, with affected calmness, &ldquo;she is
+      going to-night. And you probably will not be troubled any longer by your
+      mysterious visitor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether he heeded the sarcastic significance of her last sentence, or even
+      heard her at all, he did not reply. For a moment he turned his blazing
+      eyes full upon her, and then without a word strode from the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She walked to the door and stood uneasily listening in the passage until
+      she heard the clatter of hoofs in the paved patio, and knew that he had
+      ordered his horse. Then she turned back relieved to her room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was already sunset when Demorest drew rein again at the entrance of the
+      corral, and the last stroke of the Angelus was ringing from the Mission
+      tower. He looked haggard and exhausted, and his horse was flecked with
+      foam and dirt. Wherever he had been, or for what object, or whether,
+      objectless and dazed, he had simply sought to lose himself in aimlessly
+      wandering over the dry yellow hills or in careering furiously among his
+      own wild cattle on the arid, brittle plain; whether he had beaten all
+      thought from his brain with the jarring leap of his horse, or whether he
+      had pursued some vague and elusive determination to his own door, is not
+      essential to this brief chronicle. Enough that when he dismounted he drew
+      a pistol from his holster and replaced it in his pocket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had just pushed open the gate of the corral as he led in his horse by
+      the bridle, when he noticed another horse tethered among some cotton woods
+      that shaded the outer wall of his garden. As he gazed, the figure of a man
+      swung lightly from one of the upper boughs of a cotton-wood on the wall
+      and disappeared on the other side. It was evidently the clandestine
+      visitor. Demorest was in no mood for trifling. Hurriedly driving his horse
+      into the enclosure with a sharp cut of his riata, he closed the gate upon
+      him, slipped past the intervening space into the patio, and then unnoticed
+      into the upper part of the garden. Taking a narrow by-path in the
+      direction of the cotton woods that could be seen above the wall, he
+      presently came in sight of the object of his search moving stealthily
+      towards the house. It was the work of a moment only to dash forward and
+      seize him, to find himself engaged in a sharp wrestle, to half draw his
+      pistol as he struggled with his captive in the open. But once in the
+      clearer light, he started, his grasp of the stranger relaxed, and he fell
+      back in bewildered terror.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Edward Blandford! Good God!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The pistol had dropped from his hand as he leaned breathless against a
+      tree. The stranger kicked the weapon contemptuously aside. Then quietly
+      adjusting his disordered dress, and picking the brambles from his sleeve,
+      he said with the same air of disdain, &ldquo;Yes! Edward Blandford, whom you
+      thought dead! There! I'm not a ghost&mdash;though you tried to make me one
+      this time,&rdquo; he said, pointing to the pistol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Demorest passed his hand across his white face. &ldquo;Then it's you&mdash;and
+      you have come here for&mdash;for&mdash;Joan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For Joan?&rdquo; echoed Blandford, with a quick scornful laugh, that made the
+      blood flow back into Demorest's face as from a blow, and recalled his
+      scattered senses. &ldquo;For Joan,&rdquo; he repeated. &ldquo;Not much!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men were facing each other in irreconcilable yet confused
+      antagonism. Both were still excited and combative from their late physical
+      struggle, but with feelings so widely different that it would have been
+      impossible for either to have comprehended the other. In the figure that
+      had apparently risen from the dead to confront him, Demorest only saw the
+      man he had unconsciously wronged&mdash;the man who had it in his power to
+      claim Joan and exact a terrible retribution! But it was part of this
+      monstrous and irreconcilable situation that Blandford had ceased to
+      contemplate it, and in his preoccupation only saw the actual interference
+      of a man whom he no longer hated, but had begun to pity and despise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He glanced coolly around him. &ldquo;Whatever we've got to say to each other,&rdquo;
+       he said deliberately, &ldquo;had better not be overheard. At least what I have
+      got to say to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Demorest, now as self-possessed as his adversary, haughtily waved his hand
+      towards the path. They walked on in silence, without even looking at each
+      other, until they reached a small summer-house that stood in the angle of
+      the wall. Demorest entered. &ldquo;We cannot be heard here,&rdquo; he said curtly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And we can see what is going on. Good,&rdquo; said Blandford, coolly following
+      him. The summer-house contained a bench and a table. Blandford seated
+      himself on the bench. Demorest remained standing beside the table. There
+      was a moment's silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came here with no desire to see you or avoid you,&rdquo; said Blandford, with
+      cold indifference. &ldquo;A few weeks ago I might perhaps have avoided you, for
+      your own sake. But since then I have learned that among the many things I
+      owe to&mdash;to your wife is the fact that five years ago she secretly
+      DIVORCED ME, and that consequently my living presence could neither be a
+      danger nor a menace to you. I see,&rdquo; he added, dryly, with a quick glance
+      at Demorest's horror-stricken face, &ldquo;that I was also told the truth when
+      they said you were as ignorant of the divorce as I was.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He stopped, half in pity of his adversary's shame, half in surprise of his
+      own calmness. Five years before, in the tumultuous consciousness of his
+      wrongs, he would have scarcely trusted himself face to face with the
+      cooler and more self-controlled Demorest. He wondered at and partly
+      admired his own coolness now, in the presence of his enemy's confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As your mind is at rest on that point,&rdquo; he continued, sarcastically, &ldquo;I
+      don't suppose you care to know what became of ME when I left North
+      Liberty. But as it happens to have something to do with my being here
+      to-night, and is a part of my business with you, you'll have to listen to
+      it. Sit down! Very well, then&mdash;stand up! It's your own house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His half cynical, wholly contemptuous ignoring of the real issue between
+      them was more crushing to Demorest than the keenest reproach or most
+      tragic outburst. He did not lift his eyes as Blandford resumed in a dry,
+      business-like way:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I came across the plains to California, I fell in with a man about
+      my own age&mdash;an emigrant also. I suppose I looked and acted like a
+      crazy fool through all the journey, for he satisfied himself that I had
+      some secret reason for leaving the States, and suspected that I was, like
+      himself&mdash;a criminal. I afterwards learned that he was an escaped
+      thief and assassin. Well, he played upon me all the way here, for I didn't
+      care to reveal my real trouble to him, lest it should get back to North
+      liberty&mdash;&rdquo; He interrupted himself with a sarcastic laugh. &ldquo;Of course,
+      you understand that all this while Joan was getting her divorce unknown to
+      me, and you were marrying her&mdash;yet as I didn't know anything about it
+      I let him compromise me to save her. But&rdquo;&mdash;he stopped, his eye
+      kindled, and, losing his self-control in what to Demorest seemed some
+      incoherent passion, went on excitedly: &ldquo;that man continued his persecution
+      HERE&mdash;yes, HERE, in this very house, where I was a trusted and
+      honored guest, and threatened to expose me to a pure, innocent, simple
+      girl who had taken pity on me&mdash;unless I helped him in a conspiracy of
+      cattle-stealers and road agents, of which he was chief. I was such a
+      cursed sentimental fool then, that believing him capable of doing this,
+      believing myself still the husband of that woman, your wife, and to spare
+      that innocent girl the shame of thinking me a villain, I purchased his
+      silence by consenting. May God curse me for it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had started to his feet with flashing eyes, and the indication of an
+      overmastering passion that to Demorest, absorbed only in the stupefying
+      revelation of his wife's divorce and the horrible doubt it implied, seemed
+      utterly vacant and unmeaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had often dreamed of Blandford as standing before him, reproachful,
+      indignant, and even desperate over his wife's unfaithfulness; but this
+      insane folly and fury over some trivial wrong done to that plump,
+      baby-faced, flirting Dona Rosita, crushed him by its unconscious but
+      degrading obliteration of Joan and himself more than the most violent
+      denunciation. Dazed and bewildered, yet with the instinct of a helpless
+      man, he clung only to that part of Blandford's story which indicated that
+      he had come there for Rosita, and not to separate him from Joan, and even
+      turned to his former friend with a half-embarrassed gesture of apology as
+      he stammered&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it was YOU who were Rosita's lover, and you who have been here to
+      see her. Forgive me, Ned&mdash;if I had only known it.&rdquo; He stopped and
+      timidly extended his hand. But Blandford put it aside with a cold gesture
+      and folded his arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have forgotten all you ever knew of me, Demorest! I am not in the
+      habit of making clandestine appointments with helpless women whose natural
+      protectors I dare not face. I have never pursued an innocent girl to the
+      house I dared not enter. When I found that I could not honorably retain
+      Dona Rosita's affection, I fled her roof. When I believed that even if I
+      broke with this scoundrel&mdash;as I did&mdash;I was still legally if not
+      morally tied to your wife, and could not marry Rosita, I left her never to
+      return. And I tore my heart out to do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The tears were standing in his eyes. Demorest regarded him again with
+      vacant wonder. Tears!&mdash;not for Joan's unfaithfulness to him&mdash;but
+      for this silly girl's transitory sentimentalism. It was horrible!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet what was Joan to Blandford now? Why should he weep for the woman
+      who had never loved him&mdash;whom he loved no longer? The woman who had
+      deceived him&mdash;who had deceived them BOTH. Yes! for Joan must have
+      suspected that Blandford was living to have sought her secret divorce&mdash;and
+      yet she had never told him&mdash;him&mdash;the man for whom she got it.
+      Ah! he must not forget THAT! It was to marry him that she had taken that
+      step. It was perhaps a foolish caution&mdash;a mistaken reservation; but
+      it was the folly&mdash;the mistake of a loving woman. He hugged this
+      belief the closer, albeit he was conscious at the same time of following
+      Blandford's story of his alienated affection with a feeling of wonder and
+      envy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what was the result of this touching sacrifice?&rdquo; continued Blandford,
+      trying to resume his former cynical indifference. &ldquo;I'll tell you. This
+      scoundrel set himself about to supplant me. Taking advantage of my
+      absence, his knowledge that her affection for me was heightened by the
+      mystery of my life, and trusting to profit by a personal resemblance he is
+      said to bear to me, he began to haunt her. Lately he has grown bolder, and
+      he dared even to communicate with her here. For it is he,&rdquo; he continued,
+      again giving way to his passion, &ldquo;this dog, this sneaking coward, who
+      visits the place unknown to you, and thinks to entrap the poor girl
+      through her memory of me. And it is he that I came here to prevent, to
+      expose&mdash;if necessary to kill! Don't misunderstand me. I have made
+      myself a deputy of the law for that purpose. I've a warrant in my pocket,
+      and I shall take him, this mongrel, half-breed Cherokee Bob, by fair means
+      or foul!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The energy and presence of his passion was so infectious that it
+      momentarily swept away Demorest's doubts of the past. &ldquo;And I will help
+      you, before God, Blandford,&rdquo; he said eagerly. &ldquo;And Joan shall, too. She
+      will find out from Rosita how far&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; interrupted Blandford, dryly; &ldquo;but your wife has already
+      interfered in this matter, to my cost. It is to her, I believe, I owe this
+      wretch's following Rosita here. She already knows this man&mdash;has met
+      him twice in San Francisco; he even boasts of YOUR jealousy. You know best
+      how far he lied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But Demorest had braced himself against the chill sensation that had begun
+      to creep over him as Blandford spoke. He nerved himself and said, proudly,
+      &ldquo;I forbade her knowing him on account of his reputation solely. I have no
+      reason to believe she has ever even wished to disobey me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A smile of scorn that had kindled in Blandford's eyes, darkened with a
+      swift shadow of compassion as he glanced at Demorest's hard, ashen face.
+      He held out his hand with a sudden impulse. &ldquo;Enough, I accept your offer,
+      and shall put it to the test this very night. I know&mdash;if you do not&mdash;that
+      Rosita is to leave here for Los Osos an hour from now in a private
+      carriage, which your wife has ordered especially for her. The same
+      information tells me that this villain and another of his gang will be in
+      wait for the carriage three miles out of the pueblo to attack it and carry
+      off the young girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you mad!&rdquo; said Demorest, in unfeigned amazement. &ldquo;Do you believe them
+      capable of attacking a private carriage and carrying off a solitary,
+      defenceless woman? Come, Blandford, this is a school-girl romance&mdash;not
+      an act of mercenary highwaymen&mdash;least of all Cherokee Bob and his
+      gang. This is some madness of Rosita's, surely,&rdquo; he continued with a
+      forced laugh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does this mean that you think better of your promise?&rdquo; asked Blandford,
+      dryly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said I was at your service,&rdquo; said Demorest, reproachfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then hear my plan to prevent it, and yet take that dog in the act,&rdquo; said
+      Blandford. &ldquo;But we must first wait here till the last moment to ascertain
+      if he makes any signal to show that his plan is altered, or that he has
+      discovered he is watched.&rdquo; He turned, and in his preoccupation laid his
+      hand for an instant upon Demorest's shoulder with the absent familiarity
+      of old days. Unconscious as the action was, it thrilled them both&mdash;from
+      its very unconsciousness&mdash;and impelled them to throw themselves into
+      the new alliance with such feverish and excited activity in order to
+      preclude any dangerous alien reflection, that when they rose a few moments
+      later and cautiously left the garden arm-in-arm through the outer gates,
+      no one would have believed they had ever been estranged, least of all the
+      clever woman who had separated them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was nearly nine o'clock when the two friends, accompanied by the
+      sheriff of the county, left San Buenaventura turnpike and turned into a
+      thicket of alders to wait the coming of the carriage they were to
+      henceforth follow cautiously and unseen in a parallel trail to the main
+      road. The moon had risen, and with it the long withheld wind that now
+      swept over the distant stretch of gleaming road and partly veiled it at
+      times with flying dust unchecked by any dew from the clear cold sky.
+      Demorest shivered even with his ready hand on his revolver. Suddenly the
+      sheriff uttered an exclamation of disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blasted if thar ain't some one in the road between us and their ambush.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It's one of their gang&mdash;scouting. Lie close.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Scout be darned. Look at him bucking round there in the dust. He can't
+      even ride! It's some blasted greenhorn taking a pasear on a hoss for the
+      first time. Damnation! he's ruined everything. They'll take the alarm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll push on and clear him out,&rdquo; said Blandford, excitedly. &ldquo;Even if
+      they're off, I may yet get a shot at the Cherokee.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Quick then,&rdquo; said Demorest, &ldquo;for here comes the carriage.&rdquo; He pointed to
+      a dark spot on the road occasionally emerging from the driven dust clouds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In another moment Blandford was at the heels of the awkward horseman, who
+      wheeled clumsily at his approach and revealed the lank figure of Ezekiel
+      Corwin!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You here!&rdquo; said Blandford, in stupefied fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, yes, squire,&rdquo; said Ezekiel lazily, in spite of his uneasy seat. &ldquo;I
+      kalkilated ef there was suthin' goin' on, I'd like to see it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You cursed prying fool! you've spoiled all. There!&rdquo; he shouted
+      despairingly, as the quick clatter of hoofs rang from the arroyo behind
+      them, &ldquo;there they go! That's your work, blockhead! Out of my way, or by
+      God&mdash;&rdquo; but the sentence was left unfinished as, joined by the
+      sheriff, who had galloped up at the sound of the robbers' flight, he
+      darted past the unconcerned Ezekiel. Demorest would have followed, but
+      Blandford, with a warning cry to him to remain and protect the carriage,
+      halted him at the side of Corwin as the vehicle now rapidly approached.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Ezekiel was before him even then, and as the driver pulled up, that
+      inquiring man tumbled from his horse, ran to the door and opened it.
+      Demorest rode up, glanced into the carriage, and fell back in blank
+      amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was his wife who was sitting there alone, pale, erect, and beautiful.
+      By some illusion of the moonlight, her face and figure, covered with soft
+      white wrappings for a journey, looked as he remembered to have seen her
+      the first night they had met in the Boston train. The picture was
+      completed by the traveling bag and rug that lay on the seat before her.
+      Another terrible foreboding seized him; his brain reeled. Was he going
+      mad?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Joan!&rdquo; he stammered. &ldquo;You? What is the meaning of this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ezekiel whom but for his dazed condition he might have seen violently
+      contorting his features in Joan's face, presumably in equal astonishment&mdash;broke
+      into a series of discordant chuckles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wa'al, ef that ain't Deacon Salisbury's darter all over. Ha! Here are ye
+      two men folks makin' no end o' fuss to save that Mexican gal with pistols
+      and ambushes and plots and counterplots, and yer's Joan Salisbury shows ye
+      the way ha'ow to do it. And so, ma'am, you succeeded in fixin' it up with
+      Dona Rosita to take her place and just sell them robbers cheap! Wa'al,
+      ma'am, yer sold this yer party, too&mdash;for&rdquo;&mdash;he advanced his face
+      close to hers&mdash;&ldquo;I never let on a word, though I knew it, and although
+      they nearly knocked me off my hoss in their fuss and fury. Ha! ha! They
+      wanted to know what I was doin' here, he-he! Tell 'em, Joan, tell 'em.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Demorest gazed from one to another with a troubled face, yet one on which
+      a faint relief was breaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does he mean, Joan? Speak,&rdquo; he said, almost imploringly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joan, whose color was slightly returning, drew herself up with her old
+      cold Puritan precision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After the scene you made this morning, Richard, when you chose to accuse
+      your wife of unfaithfulness to her friend, her guest, and even your
+      reputation, I resolved to go myself with Dona Rosita to Los Osos and
+      explain the matter to her father. Some rumor of the ridiculous farce I
+      have just witnessed reached us through Ezekiel, and frightened the poor
+      girl so that she declined&mdash;and properly, too to face the hoax which
+      you and some nameless impersonator of a disgraced fugitive have gotten up
+      for purposes of your own! I wish you joy of your work! If the play is over
+      now, I presume I may be allowed to proceed on my journey?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet,&rdquo; said Demorest slowly, with a face over which the chasing doubts
+      had at last settled in a grayish pallor. &ldquo;Believe what you like,
+      misunderstand me if you will, laugh at the danger you perhaps comprehend
+      better than I do, but upon this road, wherever or to whatever it was
+      leading you&mdash;to-night you go no further!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I suppose I may return home,&rdquo; she said coldly. &ldquo;Ezekiel will
+      accompany me back to protect me from&mdash;robbers. Come, Ezekiel. Mr.
+      Demorest and his friends can be safely trusted to take care of&mdash;your
+      horse.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      And as the grinning Ezekiel sprang into the carriage beside her, she
+      pulled up the glass in the fateful and set face of her once trusting
+      husband; the carriage turned and drove off, leaving him like a statue in
+      the road.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just ceased
+      ringing. But in the last five years it had rung out the bass viol and
+      harmonium, and rung in an organ and choir; and the old austere interior
+      had been subjected at the hands of the rising generation to an invasion of
+      youthful warmth and color. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the
+      choir itself, where the bright spring sunshine, piercing a newly-opened
+      stained-glass window, picked out the new spring bonnet of Mrs. Demorest
+      and settled upon it during the singing of the hymn. Perhaps that was the
+      reason why a few eyes were curiously directed in that direction, and that
+      even the minister himself strayed from the precise path of doctrine to
+      allude with ecclesiastical vagueness to certain shining examples of the
+      Christian virtues that were &ldquo;again in our midst.&rdquo; The shrewd face and
+      white eyelashes of Ezekiel Corwin, junior partner in the firm of Dilworth
+      &amp; Dusenberry, of San Francisco, were momentarily raised towards the
+      choir, and then relapsed into an expression of fatigued
+      self-righteousness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the service was over a few worshipers lingered near the choir
+      staircase, mindful of the spring bonnet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It looks quite nat'ral,&rdquo; said Deacon Fairchild, &ldquo;ter see Joan Salisbury
+      attendin' the ministration of the Word agin. And I ain't sorry she didn't
+      bring that second husband of hers with her. It kinder looks like old times&mdash;afore
+      Edward Blandford was gathered to the Lord.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That's so,&rdquo; replied his auditor meekly, &ldquo;and they do say ez ha'ow
+      Demorest got more powerful worldly and unregenerate in that heathen
+      country, and that Joan ez a professin' Christian had to leave him. I've
+      heerd tell thet he'd got mixed up, out thar, with some half-breed outlaw,
+      of the name o' Johnson, ez hez a purty, high-flyin' Mexican wife. It was
+      fort'nit for Joan that she found a friend in grace in Brother Corwin to
+      look arter her share in the property and bring her back tu hum.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She's lookin' peart,&rdquo; said Sister Bradley, &ldquo;though to my mind that bonnet
+      savors still o' heathen vanities.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Et's the new idees&mdash;crept in with that organ,&rdquo; groaned Deacon
+      Fairchild; &ldquo;but&mdash;sho&mdash;thar she comes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She shone for an instant&mdash;a charming vision&mdash;out of the shadow
+      of the choir stairs, and then glided primly into the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old sexton, still in waiting with his hand on the half-closed door,
+      paused and looked after her with a troubled brow. A singular and utterly
+      incomprehensible recollection and resemblance had just crossed his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
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+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Argonauts of North Liberty, by Bret Harte
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Argonauts of North Liberty
+
+Author: Bret Harte
+
+Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2703]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY
+
+
+By Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just ceased
+ringing. North Liberty, Connecticut, never on any day a cheerful town,
+was always bleaker and more cheerless on the seventh, when the Sabbath
+sun, after vainly trying to coax a smile of reciprocal kindliness from
+the drawn curtains and half-closed shutters of the austere dwellings and
+the equally sealed and hard-set churchgoing faces of the people, at last
+settled down into a blank stare of stony astonishment. On this chilly
+March evening of the year 1850, that stare had kindled into an offended
+sunset and an angry night that furiously spat sleet and hail in the
+faces of the worshippers, and made them fight their way to the church,
+step by step, with bent heads and fiercely compressed lips, until they
+seemed to be carrying its forbidding portals at the point of their
+umbrellas.
+
+Within that sacred but graceless edifice, the rigors of the hour and
+occasion reached their climax. The shivering gas-jets lit up the austere
+pallor of the bare walls, and the hollow, shell-like sweep of colorless
+vacuity behind the cold communion table. The chill of despair and
+hopeless renunciation was in the air, untempered by any glow from
+the sealed air-tight stove that seemed only to bring out a lukewarm
+exhalation of wet clothes and cheaply dyed umbrellas. Nor did the
+presence of the worshippers themselves impart any life to the dreary
+apartment. Scattered throughout the white pews, in dull, shapeless,
+neutral blotches, rigidly separated from each other, they seemed only
+to accent the colorless church and the emptiness of all things. A few
+children, who had huddled together for warmth in one of the back
+benches and who had became glutinous and adherent through moisture, were
+laboriously drawn out and painfully picked apart by a watchful deacon.
+
+The dry, monotonous disturbance of the bell had given way to the strain
+of a bass viol, that had been apparently pitched to the key of the east
+wind without, and the crude complaint of a new harmonium that seemed to
+bewail its limited prospect of ever becoming seasoned or mellowed in its
+earthly tabernacle, and then the singing began. Here and there a human
+voice soared and struggled above the narrow text and the monotonous
+cadence with a cry of individual longing, but was borne down by the
+dull, trampling precision of the others' formal chant. This and
+a certain muffled raking of the stove by the sexton brought the
+temperature down still lower. A sermon, in keeping with the previous
+performance, in which the chill east wind of doctrine was not tempered
+to any shorn lamb within that dreary fold, followed. A spark of human
+and vulgar interest was momentarily kindled by the collection and the
+simultaneous movement of reluctant hands towards their owners' pockets;
+but the coins fell on the baize-covered plates with a dull thud, like
+clods on a coffin, and the dreariness returned. Then there was another
+hymn and a prolonged moan from the harmonium, to which mysterious
+suggestion the congregation rose and began slowly to file into the
+aisle. For a moment they mingled; there was the silent grasping of damp
+woollen mittens and cold black gloves, and the whispered interchange
+of each other's names with the prefix of "Brother" or "Sister," and
+an utter absence of fraternal geniality, and then the meeting slowly
+dispersed.
+
+The few who had waited until the minister had resumed his hat, overcoat,
+and overshoes, and accompanied him to the door, had already passed out;
+the sexton was turning out the flickering gas jets one by one, when the
+cold and austere silence was broken by a sound--the unmistakable echo of
+a kiss of human passion.
+
+As the horror-stricken official turned angrily, the figure of a man
+glided from the shadow of the stairs below the organ loft, and vanished
+through the open door. Before the sexton could follow, the figure of a
+woman slipped out of the same portal and with a hurried glance after the
+first retreating figure, turned in the opposite direction and was lost
+in the darkness. By the time the indignant and scandalized custodian had
+reached the portal, they had both melted in the troubled sea of
+tossing umbrellas already to the right and left of him, and pursuit and
+recognition were hopeless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The male figure, however, after mingling with his fellow-worshippers
+to the corner of the block, stopped a moment under the lamp-post as if
+uncertain as to the turning, but really to cast a long, scrutinizing
+look towards the scattered umbrellas now almost lost in the opposite
+direction. He was still gazing and apparently hesitating whether to
+retrace his steps, when a horse and buggy rapidly driven down the side
+street passed him. In a brief glance he evidently recognized the driver,
+and stepping over the curbstone called in a brief authoritative voice:
+
+"Ned!"
+
+The occupant of the vehicle pulled up suddenly, leaned from the buggy,
+and said in an astonished tone:
+
+"Dick Demorest! Well! I declare! hold on, and I'll drive up to the
+curb."
+
+"No; stay where you are."
+
+The speaker approached the buggy, jumped in beside the occupant,
+refastened the apron, and coolly taking the reins from his companion's
+hand, started the horse forward. The action was that of an habitually
+imperious man; and the only recognition he made of the other's ownership
+was the question:
+
+"Where were you going?"
+
+"Home--to see Joan," replied the other. "Just drove over from Warensboro
+Station. But what on earth are YOU doing here?"
+
+Without answering the question, Demorest turned to his companion with
+the same good-natured, half humorous authority. "Let your wife wait;
+take a drive with me. I want to talk to you. She'll be just as glad to
+see you an hour later, and it's her fault if I can't come home with you
+now."
+
+"I know it," returned his companion, in a tone of half-annoyed apology.
+"She still sticks to her old compact when we first married, that she
+shouldn't be obliged to receive my old worldly friends. And, see here,
+Dick, I thought I'd talked her out of it as regards YOU at least, but
+Parson Thomas has been raking up all the old stories about you--you
+know that affair of the Fall River widow, and that breaking off of Garry
+Spofferth's match--and about your horse-racing--until--you know, she's
+more set than ever against knowing you."
+
+"That's not a bad sort of horse you've got there," interrupted Demorest,
+who usually conducted conversation without reference to alien topics
+suggested by others. "Where did you get him? He's good yet for a spin
+down the turnpike and over the bridge. We'll do it, and I'll bring you
+home safely to Mrs. Blandford inside the hour."
+
+Blandford knew little of horseflesh, but like all men he was not
+superior to this implied compliment to his knowledge. He resigned
+himself to his companion as he had been in the habit of doing, and
+Demorest hurried the horse at a rapid gait down the street until they
+left the lamps behind, and were fully on the dark turnpike. The sleet
+rattled against the hood and leathern apron of the buggy, gusts of
+fierce wind filled the vehicle and seemed to hold it back, but Demorest
+did not appear to mind it. Blandford thrust his hands deeply into
+his pockets for warmth, and contracted his shoulders as if in dogged
+patience. Yet, in spite of the fact that he was tired, cold, and anxious
+to see his wife, he was conscious of a secret satisfaction in submitting
+to the caprices of this old friend of his boyhood. After all, Dick
+Demorest knew what he was about, and had never led him astray by his
+autocratic will. It was safe to let Dick have his way. It was true it
+was generally Dick's own way--but he made others think it was theirs
+too--or would have been theirs had they had the will and the knowledge
+to project it. He looked up comfortably at the handsome, resolute
+profile of the man who had taken selfish possession of him. Many women
+had done the same.
+
+"Suppose if you were to tell your wife I was going to reform," said
+Demorest, "it might be different, eh? She'd want to take me into the
+church--'another sinner saved,' and all that, eh?"
+
+"No," said Blandford, earnestly. "Joan isn't as rigid as all that, Dick.
+What she's got against you is the common report of your free way of
+living, and that--come now, you know yourself, Dick, that isn't exactly
+the thing a woman brought up in her style can stand. Why, she thinks
+I'm unregenerate, and--well, a man can't carry on business always like a
+class meeting. But are you thinking of reforming?" he continued, trying
+to get a glimpse of his companion's eyes.
+
+"Perhaps. It depends. Now--there's a woman I know--"
+
+"What, another? and you call this going to reform?" interrupted
+Blandford, yet not without a certain curiosity in his manner.
+
+"Yes; that's just why I think of reforming. For this one isn't exactly
+like any other--at least as far as I know."
+
+"That means you don't know anything about her."
+
+"Wait, and I'll tell you." He drew the reins tightly to accelerate the
+horse's speed, and, half turning to his companion, without, however,
+moving his eyes from the darkness before him, spoke quickly between the
+blasts: "I've seen her only half a dozen times. Met her first in 6.40
+train out from Boston last fall. She sat next to me. Covered up with
+wraps and veils; never looked twice at her. She spoke first--kind of
+half bold, half frightened way. Then got more comfortable and unwound
+herself, you know, and I saw she was young and not bad-looking.
+Thought she was some school-girl out for a lark--but rather new at it.
+Inexperienced, you know, but quite able to take care of herself, by
+George! and although she looked and acted as if she'd never spoken to
+a stranger all her life, didn't mind the kind of stuff I talked to her.
+Rather encouraged it; and laughed--such a pretty little odd laugh, as
+if laughing wasn't in her usual line, either, and she didn't know how to
+manage it. Well, it ended in her slipping out at one end of the car when
+we arrived, while I was looking out for a cab for her at the other." He
+stopped to recover from a stronger gust of wind. "I--I thought it a good
+joke on me, and let the thing drop out of my mind, although, mind you,
+she'd promised to meet me a month afterwards at the same time and place.
+Well, when the day came I happened to be in Boston, and went to the
+station. Don't know why I went, for I didn't for a moment think she'd
+keep her appointment. First, I couldn't find her in the train, but after
+we'd started she came along out of some seat in the corner, prettier
+than ever, holding out her hand." He drew a long inspiration. "You can
+bet your life, Ned, I didn't let go that little hand the rest of the
+journey."
+
+His passion, or what passed for it, seemed to impart its warmth to the
+vehicle, and even stirred the chilled pulses of the man beside him.
+
+"Well, who and what was she?"
+
+"Didn't find out; don't know now. For the first thing she made me
+promise was not to follow her, nor to try to know her name. In return
+she said she would meet me again on another train near Hartford. She
+did--and again and again--but always on the train for about an hour,
+going or coming. Then she missed an appointment. I was regularly cut up,
+I tell you, and swore as she hadn't kept her word, I wouldn't keep mine,
+and began to hunt for her. In the midst of it I saw her accidentally; no
+matter where; I followed her to--well, that's no matter to you, either.
+Enough that I saw her again--and, well, Ned, such is the influence of
+that girl over me that, by George! she made me make the same promise
+again!"
+
+Blandford, a little disappointed at his friend's dogmatic suppression of
+certain material facts, shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"If that's all your story," he said, "I must say I see no prospect of
+your reforming. It's the old thing over again, only this time you are
+evidently the victim. She's some designing creature who will have you if
+she hasn't already got you completely in her power."
+
+"You don't know what you're talking about, Ned, and you'd better quit,"
+returned Demorest, with cheerful authoritativeness. "I tell you that
+that's the sort of girl I'm going to marry, if I can, and settle down
+upon. You can make a memorandum of that, old man, if you like."
+
+"Then I don't really see why you want to talk to ME about it. And if you
+are thinking that such a story would go down for a moment with Joan as
+an evidence of your reformation, you're completely out, Dick. Was that
+your idea?"
+
+"Yes--and I can tell you, you're wrong again, Ned. You don't know
+anything about women. You do just as I say--do you understand?--and
+don't interfere with your own wrong-headed opinions of what other people
+will think, and I'll take the risks of Mrs. Blandford giving me good
+advice. Your wife has got a heap more sense on these subjects than you
+have, you bet. You just tell her that I want to marry the girl and want
+her to help me--that I mean business, this time--and you'll see how
+quick she'll come down. That's all I want of you. Will you or won't
+you?"
+
+With an outward expression of sceptical consideration and an inward
+suspicion of the peculiar force of this man's dogmatic insight,
+Blandford assented, with, I fear, the mental reservation of telling
+the story to his wife in his own way. He was surprised when his friend
+suddenly drew the horse up sharply, and after a moment's pause began
+to back him, cramp the wheels of the buggy and then skilfully, in the
+almost profound darkness, turn the vehicle and horse completely round to
+the opposite direction.
+
+"Then you are not going over the bridge?" said Blandford.
+
+Demorest made an imperative gesture of silence. The tumultuous rush
+and roar of swollen and rapid water came from the darkness behind them.
+"There's been another break-out somewhere, and I reckon the bridge has
+got all it can do to-night to keep itself out of water without taking us
+over. At least, as I promised to set you down at your wife's door inside
+of the hour, I don't propose to try." As the horse now travelled more
+easily with the wind behind him, Demorest, dismissing abruptly all other
+subjects, laid his hand with brusque familiarity on his companion's
+knee, and as if the hour for social and confidential greeting had only
+just then arrived, said: "Well, Neddy, old boy, how are you getting on?"
+
+"So, so," said Blandford, dubiously. "You see," he began,
+argumentatively, "in my business there's a good deal of competition, and
+I was only saying this morning--"
+
+But either Demorest was already familiar with his friend's arguments,
+or had as usual exhausted his topic, for without paying the slightest
+attention to him, he again demanded abruptly, "Why don't you go to
+California? Here everything's played out. That's the country for a young
+man like you--just starting into life, and without incumbrances. If I
+was free and fixed in my family affairs like you I'd go to-morrow."
+
+There was such an occult positivism in Demorest's manner that for an
+instant Blandford, who had been married two years, and was transacting
+a steady and fairly profitable manufacturing business in the adjacent
+town, actually believed he was more fitted for adventurous speculation
+than the grimly erratic man of energetic impulses and pleasures beside
+him. He managed to stammer hesitatingly:
+
+"But there's Joan--she--"
+
+"Nonsense! Let her stay with her mother; you sell out your interest
+in the business, put the money into an assorted cargo, and clap it and
+yourself into the first ship out of Boston--and there you are. You've
+been married going on two years now, and a little separation until
+you've built up a business out there, won't do either of you any harm."
+
+Blandford, who was very much in love with his wife, was not, however,
+above putting the onus of embarrassing affection upon HER. "You don't
+know, Joan, Dick," he replied. "She'd never consent to a separation,
+even for a short time."
+
+"Try her. She's a sensible woman--a deuced sight more than you are. You
+don't understand women, Ned. That's what's the matter with you."
+
+It required all of Blandford's fond memories of his wife's conservative
+habits, Puritan practicality, religious domesticity, and strong family
+attachments, to withstand Demorest's dogmatic convictions. He smiled,
+however, with a certain complacency, as he also recalled the previous
+autumn when the first news of the California gold discovery had
+penetrated North Liberty, and he had expressed to her his belief that it
+would offer an outlet to Demorest's adventurous energy. She had received
+it with ill-disguised satisfaction, and the remark that if this exodus
+of Mammon cleared the community of the godless and unregenerate it would
+only be another proof of God's mysterious providence.
+
+With the tumultuous wind at their backs it was not long before the
+buggy rattled once more over the cobble-stones of the town. Under the
+direction of his friend, Demorest, who still retained possession of the
+reins, drove briskly down a side street of more pretentious dwellings,
+where Blandford lived. One or two wayfarers looked up.
+
+"Not so fast, Dick."
+
+"Why? I want to bring you up to your door in style."
+
+"Yes--but--it's Sunday. That's my house, the corner one."
+
+They had stopped before a square, two-storied brick house, with an
+equally square wooden porch supported by two plain, rigid wooden
+columns, and a hollow sweep of dull concavity above the door, evidently
+of the same architectural order as the church. There was no corner or
+projection to break the force of the wind that swept its smooth glacial
+surface; there was no indication of light or warmth behind its six
+closed windows.
+
+"There seems to be nobody at home," said Demorest, briefly. "Come along
+with me to the hotel."
+
+"Joan sits in the back parlor, Sundays," explained the husband.
+
+"Shall I drive round to the barn and leave the horse and buggy there
+while you go in?" continued Demorest, good-humoredly, pointing to the
+stable gate at the side.
+
+"No, thank you," returned Blandford, "it's locked, and I'll have to open
+it from the other side after I go in. The horse will stand until then.
+I think I'll have to say good-night, now," he added, with a sudden
+half-ashamed consciousness of the forbidding aspect of the house, and
+his own inhospitality. "I'm sorry I can't ask you in--but you understand
+why."
+
+"All right," returned Demorest, stoutly, turning up his coat-collar, and
+unfurling his umbrella. "The hotel is only four blocks away--you'll find
+me there to-morrow morning if you call. But mind you tell your wife just
+what I told you--and no meandering of your own--you hear! She'll strike
+out some idea with her woman's wits, you bet. Good-night, old man!" He
+reached out his hand, pressed Blandford's strongly and potentially, and
+strode down the street.
+
+Blandford hitched his steaming horse to a sleet-covered horse block
+with a quick sigh of impatient sympathy over the animal and himself, and
+after fumbling in his pocket for a latchkey, opened the front door.
+A vista of well-ordered obscurity with shadowy trestle-like objects
+against the walls, and an odor of chill decorum, as if of a damp but
+respectable funeral, greeted him on entering. A faint light, like a cold
+dawn, broke through the glass pane of a door leading to the kitchen.
+Blandford paused in the mid-darkness and hesitated. Should he first go
+to his wife in the back parlor, or pass silently through the kitchen,
+open the back gate, and mercifully bestow his sweating beast in the
+stable? With the reflection that an immediate conjugal greeting, while
+his horse was still exposed to the fury of the blast in the street,
+would necessarily be curtailed and limited, he compromised by quickly
+passing through the kitchen into the stable yard, opening the gate,
+and driving horse and vehicle under the shed to await later and more
+thorough ministration. As he entered the back door, a faint hope that
+his wife might have heard him and would be waiting for him in the hall
+for an instant thrilled him; but he remembered it was Sunday, and that
+she was probably engaged in some devotional reading or exercise.
+He hesitatingly opened the back-parlor door with a consciousness of
+committing some unreasonable trespass, and entered.
+
+She was there, sitting quietly before a large, round, shining
+centre-table, whose sterile emptiness was relieved only by a shaded lamp
+and a large black and gilt open volume. A single picture on the
+opposite wall--the portrait of an elderly gentleman stiffened over a
+corresponding volume, which he held in invincible mortmain in his rigid
+hand, and apparently defied posterity to take from him--seemed to offer
+a not uncongenial companionship. Yet the greenish light of the shade
+fell upon a young and pretty face, despite the color it extracted from
+it, and the hand that supported her low white forehead over which
+her full hair was simply parted, like a brown curtain, was slim and
+gentle-womanly. In spite of her plain lustreless silk dress, in spite of
+the formal frame of sombre heavy horsehair and mahogany furniture that
+seemed to set her off, she diffused an atmosphere of cleanly grace and
+prim refinement through the apartment. The priestess of this ascetic
+temple, the femininity of her closely covered arms, her pink ears, and
+a little serviceable morocco house-shoe that was visible lower down,
+resting on the carved lion's paw that upheld the centre-table, appeared
+to be only the more accented. And the precisely rounded but softly
+heaving bosom, that was pressed upon the edges of the open book of
+sermons before her, seemed to assert itself triumphantly over the rigors
+of the volume.
+
+At least so her husband and lover thought, as he moved tenderly
+towards her. She met his first kiss on her forehead; the second, a
+supererogatory one, based on some supposed inefficiency in the first,
+fell upon a shining band of her hair, beside her neck. She reached up
+her slim hands, caught his wrists firmly, and, slightly putting him
+aside, said:
+
+"There, Edward?"
+
+"I drove out from Warensboro, so as to get here to-night, as I have to
+return to the city on Tuesday. I thought it would give me a little
+more time with you, Joan," he said, looking around him, and, at last,
+hesitatingly drawing an apparently reluctant chair from its formal
+position at the window. The remembrance that he had ever dared to occupy
+the same chair with her, now seemed hardly possible of credence.
+
+"If it was a question of your travelling on the Lord's Day, Edward, I
+would rather you should have waited until to-morrow," she said, with
+slow precision.
+
+"But--I--I thought I'd get here in time for the meeting," he said,
+weakly.
+
+"And instead, you have driven through the town, I suppose, where
+everybody will see you and talk about it. But," she added, raising her
+dark eyes suddenly to his, "where else have you been? The train gets
+into Warensboro at six, and it's only half an hour's drive from there.
+What have you been doing, Edward?"
+
+It was scarcely a felicitous moment for the introduction of Demorest's
+name, and he would have avoided it. But he reflected that he had been
+seen, and he was naturally truthful. "I met Dick Demorest near the
+church, and as he had something to tell me, we drove down the turnpike a
+little way--so as to be out of the town, you know, Joan--and--and--"
+
+He stopped. Her face had taken upon itself that appalling and
+exasperating calmness of very good people who never get angry, but drive
+others to frenzy by the simple occlusion of an adamantine veil between
+their own feelings and their opponents'. "I'll tell you all about it
+after I've put up the horse," he said hurriedly, glad to escape until
+the veil was lifted again. "I suppose the hired man is out."
+
+"I should hope he was in church, Edward, but I trust YOU won't delay
+taking care of that poor dumb brute who has been obliged to minister to
+your and Mr. Demorest's Sabbath pleasures."
+
+Blandford did not wait for a further suggestion. When the door had
+closed behind him, Mrs. Blandford went to the mantel-shelf, where a
+grimly allegorical clock cut down the hours and minutes of men with a
+scythe, and consulted it with a slight knitting of her pretty eyebrows.
+Then she fell into a vague abstraction, standing before the open book
+on the centre-table. Then she closed it with a snap, and methodically
+putting it exactly in the middle of the top of a black cabinet in the
+corner, lifted the shaded lamp in her hand and passed slowly with it up
+the stairs to her bedroom, where her light steps were heard moving to
+and fro. In a few moments she reappeared, stopping for a moment in the
+hall with the lighted lamp as if to watch and listen for her husband's
+return. Seen in that favorable light, her cheeks had caught a delicate
+color, and her dark eyes shone softly. Putting the lamp down in exactly
+the same place as before, she returned to the cabinet for the book,
+brought it again to the table, opened it at the page where she had
+placed her perforated cardboard book-marker, sat down beside it, and
+with her hands in her lap and her eyes on the page began abstractedly to
+tear a small piece of paper into tiny fragments. When she had reduced it
+to the smallest shreds, she scraped the pieces out of her silk lap and
+again collected them in the pink hollow of her little hand, kneeling
+down on the scrupulously well-swept carpet to peck up with a bird-like
+action of her thumb and forefinger an escaped atom here and there. These
+and the contents of her hand she poured into the chilly cavity of a
+sepulchral-looking alabaster vase that stood on the etagere. Returning
+to her old seat, and making a nest for her clasped fingers in the lap
+of her dress, she remained in that attitude, her shoulders a little
+narrowed and bent forward, until her husband returned.
+
+"I've lit the fire in the bedroom for you to change your clothes by,"
+she said, as he entered; then evading the caress which this wifely
+attention provoked, by bending still more primly over her book, she
+added, "Go at once. You're making everything quite damp here."
+
+He returned in a few moments in his slippers and jacket, but evidently
+found the same difficulty in securing a conjugal and confidential
+contiguity to his wife. There was no apparent social centre or nucleus
+of comfort in the apartment; its fireplace, sealed by an iron ornament
+like a monumental tablet over dead ashes, had its functions superseded
+by an air-tight drum in the corner, warmed at second-hand from the
+dining-room below, and offered no attractive seclusion; the sofa against
+the wall was immovable and formally repellent. He was obliged to draw
+a chair beside the table, whose every curve seemed to facilitate his
+wife's easy withdrawal from side-by-side familiarity.
+
+"Demorest has been urging me very strongly to go to California, but, of
+course, I spoke of you," he said, stealing his hand into his wife's lap,
+and possessing himself of her fingers.
+
+Mrs. Blandford slowly lifted her fingers enclosed in his clasping hand
+and placed them in shameless publicity on the volume before her. This
+implied desecration was too much for Blandford; he withdrew his hand.
+
+"Does that man propose to go with you?" asked Mrs. Blandford, coldly.
+
+"No; he's preoccupied with other matters that he wanted me to talk to
+you about," said her husband, hesitatingly. "He is--"
+
+"Because"--continued Mrs. Blandford in the same measured tone, "if he
+does not add his own evil company to his advice, it is the best he has
+ever given yet. I think he might have taken another day than the Lord's
+to talk about it, but we must not despise the means nor the hour whence
+the truth comes. Father wanted me to take some reasonable moment to
+prepare you to consider it seriously, and I thought of talking to you
+about it to-morrow. He thinks it would be a very judicious plan. Even
+Deacon Truesdail--"
+
+"Having sold his invoice of damaged sugar kettles for mining purposes,
+is converted," said Blandford, goaded into momentary testiness by his
+wife's unexpected acquiescence and a sudden recollection of Demorest's
+prophecy. "You have changed your opinion, Joan, since last fall, when
+you couldn't bear to think of my leaving you," he added reproachfully.
+
+"I couldn't bear to think of your joining the mob of lawless and sinful
+men who use that as an excuse for leaving their wives and families. As
+for my own feelings, Edward, I have never allowed them to stand between
+me and what I believed best for our home and your Christian welfare.
+Though I have no cause to admire the influence that I find this man,
+Demorest, still holds over you, I am willing to acquiesce, as you see,
+in what he advises for your good. You can hardly reproach ME, Edward,
+for worldly or selfish motives."
+
+Blandford felt keenly the bitter truth of his wife's speech. For the
+moment he would gladly have exchanged it for a more illogical and
+selfish affection, but he reflected that he had married this religious
+girl for the security of an affection which he felt was not subject to
+the temptations of the world--or even its own weakness--as was too often
+the case with the giddy maidens whom he had known through Demorest's
+companionship. It was, therefore, more with a sense of recalling this
+distinctive quality of his wife than any loyalty to Demorest that he
+suddenly resolved to confide to her the latter's fatuous folly.
+
+"I know it, dear," he said, apologetically, "and we'll talk it over
+to-morrow, and it may be possible to arrange it so that you shall go
+with me. But, speaking of Demorest, I think you don't quite do HIM
+justice. He really respects YOUR feelings and your knowledge of right
+and wrong more than you imagine. I actually believe he came here
+to-night merely to get me to interest you in an extraordinary love
+affair of his. I mean, Joan," he added hastily, seeing the same look of
+dull repression come over her face, "I mean, Joan--that is, you know,
+from all I can judge--it is something really serious this time. He
+intends to reform. And this is because he has become violently smitten
+with a young woman whom he has only seen half a dozen times, at long
+intervals, whom he first met in a railway train, and whose name and
+residence he don't even know."
+
+There was an ominous silence--so hushed that the ticking of the
+allegorical clock came like a grim monitor. "Then," said Mrs. Blandford,
+in a hard, dry voice that her alarmed husband scarcely recognized,
+"he proposed to insult your wife by taking her into his shameful
+confidence."
+
+"Good heavens! Joan, no--you don't understand. At the worst, this is
+some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be intending
+only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and
+deeply in love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick Demorest,
+and if ever there was a man honestly in love, it is he."
+
+"Then you mean to say that this man--an utter stranger to me--a man
+whom I've never laid my eyes on--whom I wouldn't know if I met in the
+street--expects me to advise him--to--to--" She stopped. Blandford could
+scarcely believe his senses. There were tears in her eyes--this woman
+who never cried; her voice trembled--she who had always controlled her
+emotions.
+
+He took advantage of this odd but opportune melting. He placed his
+arm around her shoulders. She tried to escape it, but with a coy, shy
+movement, half hysterical, half girlish, unlike her usual stony, moral
+precision. "Yes, Joan," he repeated, laughingly, "but whose fault is it?
+Not HIS, remember! And I firmly believe he thinks you can do him good."
+
+"But he has never seen me," she continued, with a nervous little laugh,
+"and probably considers me some old Gorgon--like--like--Sister Jemima
+Skerret."
+
+Blandford smiled with the complacency of far-reaching masculine
+intuition. Ah! that shrewd fellow, Demorest, was right. Joan, dear Joan,
+was only a woman after all.
+
+"Then he'll be the more agreeably astonished," he returned, gayly, "and
+I think YOU will, too, Joan. For Dick isn't a bad-looking fellow; most
+women like him. It's true," he continued, much amused at the novelty
+of the perfectly natural toss and grimace with which Mrs. Blandford
+received this statement.
+
+"I think he's been pointed out to me somewhere," she said, thoughtfully;
+"he's a tall, dark, dissipated-looking man."
+
+"Nothing of the kind," laughed her husband. "He's middle-sized and as
+blond as your cousin Joe, only he's got a long yellow moustache, and
+has a quick, abrupt way of talking. He isn't at all fancy-looking; you'd
+take him for an energetic business man or a doctor, if you didn't know
+him. So you see, Joan, this correct little wife of mine has been a
+little, just a little, prejudiced."
+
+He drew her again gently backwards and nearer his seat, but she caught
+his wrists in her slim hands, and rising from the chair at the same
+moment, dexterously slipped from his embrace with her back towards him.
+"I do not know why I should be unprejudiced by anything you've told me,"
+she said, sharply closing the book of sermons, and, with her back still
+to her husband, reinstating it formally in its place on the cabinet.
+"It's probably one of his many scandalous pursuits of defenceless and
+believing women, and he, no doubt, goes off to Boston, laughing at you
+for thinking him in earnest; and as ready to tell his story to anybody
+else and boast of his double deceit." Her voice had a touch of human
+asperity in it now, which he had never before noticed, but recognizing,
+as he thought, the human cause, it was far from exciting his
+displeasure.
+
+"Wrong again, Joan; he's waiting here at the Independence House for me
+to see him to-morrow," he returned, cheerfully. "And I believe him so
+much in earnest that I would be ready to swear that not another person
+will ever know the story but you and I and he. No, it is a real thing
+with him; he's dead in love, and it's your duty as a Christian to help
+him."
+
+There was a moment of silence. Mrs. Blandford remained by the cabinet,
+methodically arranging some small articles displaced by the return of
+the book. "Well," she said, suddenly, "you don't tell me what mother had
+to say. Of course, as you came home earlier than you expected, you had
+time to stop THERE--only four doors from this house."
+
+"Well, no, Joan," replied Blandford, in awkward discomfiture. "You see I
+met Dick first, and then--then I hurried here to you--and--and--I clean
+forgot it. I'm very sorry," he added, dejectedly.
+
+"And I more deeply so," she returned, with her previous bloodless moral
+precision, "for she probably knows by this time, Edward, why you have
+omitted your usual Sabbath visit, and with WHOM you were."
+
+"But I can pull on my boots again and run in there for a moment," he
+suggested, dubiously, "if you think it necessary. It won't take me a
+moment."
+
+"No," she said, positively; "it is so late now that your visit would
+only show it to be a second thought. I will go myself--it will be a call
+for us both."
+
+"But shall I go with you to the door? It is dark and sleeting,"
+suggested Blandford, eagerly.
+
+"No," she replied, peremptorily. "Stay where you are, and when Ezekiel
+and Bridget come in send them to bed, for I have made everything fast in
+the kitchen. Don't wait up for me."
+
+She left the room, and in a few moments returned, wrapped from head to
+foot in an enormous plaid shawl. A white woollen scarf thrown over her
+bare brown head, and twice rolled around her neck, almost concealed her
+face from view. When she had parted from her husband, and reached the
+darkened hall below, she drew from beneath the folds of her shawl a
+thick blue veil, with which she completely enveloped her features. As
+she opened the front door and peered out into the night, her own husband
+would have scarcely recognized her.
+
+With her head lowered against the keen wind she walked rapidly down
+the street and stopped for an instant at the door of the fourth house.
+Glancing quickly back at the house she had left and then at the closed
+windows of the one she had halted before, she gathered her skirts with
+one hand and sped away from both, never stopping until she reached the
+door of the Independence Hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mrs. Blandford entered the side door boldly. Luckily for her, the
+austerities of the Sabbath were manifest even here; the bar-room was
+closed, and the usual loungers in the passages were absent. Without
+risking the recognition of her voice in an inquiry to the clerk, she
+slipped past the office, still muffled in her veil, and quickly mounted
+the narrow staircase. For an instant she hesitated before the public
+parlor, and glanced dubiously along the half-lit corridor. Chance
+befriended her; the door of a bedroom opened at that moment, and Richard
+Demorest, with his overcoat and hat on, stepped out in the hall.
+
+With a quick and nervous gesture of her hand she beckoned him to
+approach. He came towards her leisurely, with an amused curiosity that
+suddenly changed to utter astonishment as she hurriedly lifted her veil,
+dropped it, turned, and glided down the staircase into the street again.
+He followed rapidly, but did not overtake her until she had reached the
+corner, when she slackened her pace an instant for him to join her.
+
+"Lulu," he said eagerly; "is it you?"
+
+"Not a word here," she said, breathlessly. "Follow me at a distance."
+
+She started forward again in the direction of her own house. He followed
+her at a sufficient interval to keep her faintly distinguishable figure
+in sight until she had crossed three streets, and near the end of the
+next block glided up the steps of a house not far from the one where
+he remembered to have left Blandford. As he joined her, she had just
+succeeded in opening the door with a pass-key, and was awaiting him.
+With a gesture of silence she took his hand in her cold fingers, and
+leading him softly through the dark hall and passage, quickly entered
+the kitchen. Here she lit a candle, turned, and faced him. He could see
+that the outside shutters were bolted, and the kitchen evidently closed
+for the night.
+
+As she removed the veil from her face he made a movement as if to regain
+her hand again, but she drew it away.
+
+"You have forced this upon me," she said hurriedly, "and it may be ruin
+to us both. Why have you betrayed me?"
+
+"Betrayed you, Lulu--Good God! what do you mean?"
+
+She looked him full in the eye, and then said slowly, "Do you mean to
+say that you have told no one of our meetings?"
+
+"Only one--my old friend Blandford, who lives--Ah, yes! I see it now.
+You are neighbors. He has betrayed me. This house is--"
+
+"My father's!" she replied boldly.
+
+The momentary uneasiness passed from Demorest's resolute face. His old
+self-sufficiency returned. "Good," he said, with a frank laugh, "that
+will do for me. Open the door there, Lulu, and take me to him. I'm not
+ashamed of anything I've done, my girl, nor need you be. I'll tell him
+my real name is Dick Demorest, as I ought to have told you before, and
+that I want to marry you, fairly and squarely, and let him make the
+conditions. I'm not a vagabond nor a thief, Lulu, if I have met you on
+the sly. Come, dear, let us end this now. Come--"
+
+But she had thrown herself before him and placed her hand upon his lips.
+"Hush! are you mad? Listen to me, I tell you--please--oh, do--no you
+must not!" He had covered her hand with kisses and was drawing her face
+towards his own. "No--not again, it was wrong then, it is monstrous now.
+I implore you, listen, if you love me, stop."
+
+He released her. She sank into a chair by the kitchen-table, and buried
+her flushed face in her hands.
+
+He stood for a moment motionless before her. "Lulu, if that is your
+name," he said slowly, but gently, "tell me all now. Be frank with me,
+and trust me. If there is anything stands in the way, let me know what
+it is and I can overcome it. If it is my telling Ned Blandford, don't
+let that worry you, he's as loyal a fellow as ever breathed, and I'm a
+dog to ever think he willingly betrayed us. His wife, well, she's one of
+those pious saints--but no, she would not be such a cursed hypocrite and
+bigot as this."
+
+"Hush, I tell you! WILL you hush," she said, in a frantic whisper,
+springing to her feet and grasping him convulsively by the lapels of
+his overcoat. "Not a word more, or I'll kill myself. Listen! Do you know
+what I brought you here for? why I left my--this house and dragged you
+out of your hotel? Well, it was to tell you that you must leave me,
+leave HERE--go out of this house and out of this town at once, to-night!
+And never look on it or me again! There! you have said we must end this
+now. It is ended, as only it could and ever would end. And if you open
+that door except to go, or if you attempt to--to touch me again, I'll do
+something desperate. There!"
+
+She threw him off again and stepped back, strangely beautiful in the
+loosened shackles of her long repressed human emotion. It was as if the
+passion-rent robes of the priestess had laid bare the flesh of the woman
+dazzling and victorious. Demorest was fascinated and frightened.
+
+"Then you do not love me?" he said with a constrained smile, "and I am a
+fool?"
+
+"Love you!" she repeated. "Love you," she continued, bowing her brown
+head over her hanging arms and clasped hands. "What then has brought me
+to this? Oh," she said suddenly, again seizing him by his two arms, and
+holding him from her with a half-prudish, half-passionate gesture, "why
+could you not have left things as they were; why could we not have met
+in the same old way we used to meet, when I was so foolish and so happy?
+Why could you spoil that one dream I have clung to? Why didn't you leave
+me those few days of my wretched life when I was weak, silly, vain, but
+not the unhappy woman I am now. You were satisfied to sit beside me and
+talk to me then. You respected my secret, my reserve. My God! I used
+to think you loved me as I loved you--for THAT! Why did you break your
+promise and follow me here? I believed you the first day we met, when
+you said there was no wrong in my listening to you; that it should go no
+further; that you would never seek to renew it without my consent. You
+tell me I don't love you, and I tell you now that we must part, that
+frightened as I was, foolish as I was, that day was the first day I had
+ever lived and felt as other women live and feel. If I ran away from you
+then it was because I was running away from my old self too. Don't you
+understand me? Could you not have trusted me as I trusted you?"
+
+"I broke my promise only when you broke yours. When you would not meet
+me I followed you here, because I loved you."
+
+"And that is why you must leave me now," she said, starting from his
+outstretched arms again. "Do not ask me why, but go, I implore you. You
+must leave this town to-night, to-morrow will be too late."
+
+He cast a hurried glance around him, as if seeking to gather some reason
+for this mysterious haste, or a clue for future identification. He saw
+only the Sabbath-sealed cupboards, the cold white china on the dresser,
+and the flicker of the candle on the partly-opened glass transom above
+the door. "As you wish," he said, with quiet sadness. "I will go now,
+and leave the town to-night; but"--his voice struck its old imperative
+note--"this shall not end here, Lulu. There will be a next time, and I
+am bound to win you yet, in spite of all and everything."
+
+She looked at him with a half-frightened, half-hysterical light in her
+eyes. "God knows!"
+
+"And you will be frank with me then, and tell me all?"
+
+"Yes, yes, another time; but go now." She had extinguished the candle,
+turned the handle of the door noiselessly, and was holding it open. A
+faint light stole through the dark passage. She drew back hastily.
+"You have left the front door open," she said in a frightened voice. "I
+thought you had shut it behind me," he returned quickly. "Good night."
+He drew her towards him. She resisted slightly. They were for an instant
+clasped in a passionate embrace; then there was a sudden collapse of the
+light and a dull jar. The front door had swung to.
+
+With a desperate bound she darted into the passage and through the hall,
+dragging him by the hand, and threw the front door open. Without, the
+street was silent and empty.
+
+"Go," she whispered frantically.
+
+Demorest passed quickly down the steps and disappeared. At the same
+moment a voice came from the banisters of the landing above. "Who's
+there?"
+
+"It's I, mother."
+
+"I thought so. And it's like Edward to bring you and sneak off in that
+fashion."
+
+Mrs. Blandford gave a quick sigh of relief. Demorest's flight had been
+mistaken for her husband's habitual evasion. Knowing that her mother
+would not refer to the subject again, she did not reply, but slowly
+mounted the dark staircase with an assumption of more than usual
+hesitating precaution, in order to recover her equanimity.
+
+
+The clocks were striking eleven when she left her mother's house and
+re-entered her own. She was surprised to find a light burning in the
+kitchen, and Ezekiel, their hired man, awaiting her in a dominant and
+nasal key of religious and practical disapprobation. "Pity you wern't
+tu hum afore, ma'am, considerin' the doins that's goin' on in perfessed
+Christians' houses arter meetin' on the Sabbath Day."
+
+"What's the difficulty now, Ezekiel?" said Mrs. Blandford, who had
+regained her rigorous precision once more under the decorous security of
+her own roof.
+
+"Wa'al, here comes an entire stranger axin for Squire Blandford. And
+when I tells he warn't tu hum--"
+
+"Not at home?" interrupted Mrs. Blandford, with a slight start. "I left
+him here."
+
+"Mebbee so, but folks nowadays don't 'pear to keer much whether they
+break the Sabbath or not, trapsen' raound town in and arter meetin'
+hours, ez if 'twor gin'ral tranin' day--and hez gone out agin."
+
+"Go on," said Mrs. Blandford, curtly.
+
+"Wa'al, the stranger sez, sez he, 'Show me the way to the stables,' sez
+he, and without taken' no for an answer, ups and meanders through the
+hall, outer the kitchen inter the yard, ez if he was justice of the
+peace; and when he gets there he sez, 'Fetch out his hoss and harness
+up, and be blamed quick about it, and tell Ned Blandford that Dick
+Demorest hez got to leave town to-night, and ez ther ain't a blamed
+puritanical shadbelly in this hull town ez would let a hoss go on hire
+Sunday night, he guesses he'll hev to borry his.' And afore I could
+say Jack Robinson, he tackles the hoss up and drives outer the yard,
+flinging this two-dollar-and-a-half-piece behind him ez if I wur a
+Virginia slave and he was John C. Calhoun hisself. I'd a chucked it
+after him if it hadn't been the Lord's Day, and it mout hev provoked
+disturbance."
+
+"Mr. Demorest is worldly, but one of Edward's old friends," said Mrs.
+Blandford, with a slight kindling of her eyes, "and he would not have
+refused to aid him in what might be an errand of grace or necessity. You
+can keep the money, Ezekiel, as a gift, not as a wage. And go to bed. I
+will sit up for Mr. Blandford."
+
+She passed out and up the staircase into her bedroom, pausing on her way
+to glance into the empty back parlor and take the lamp from the table.
+Here she noticed that her husband had evidently changed his clothes
+again and taken a heavier overcoat from the closet. Removing her own
+wraps she again descended to the lower apartment, brought out the volume
+of sermons, placed it and the lamp in the old position, and with
+her abstracted eyes on the page fell into her former attitude. Every
+suggestion of the passionate, half-frenzied woman in the kitchen of the
+house only four doors away, had vanished; one would scarcely believe she
+had ever stirred from the chair in which she had formally received
+her husband two hours before. And yet she was thinking of herself and
+Demorest in that kitchen.
+
+His prompt and decisive response to her appeal, as shown in this last
+bold and characteristic action, relieved, while it half piqued her. But
+the overruling destiny which had enabled her to bring him from his hotel
+to her mother's house unnoticed, had protected them while there, had
+arrested a dangerous meeting between him and herself and her husband in
+her own house, impressed her more than all. It imparted to her a hideous
+tranquillity born of the doctrines of her youth--Predestination! She
+reflected with secret exultation that her moral resolution to fly from
+him and her conscientiously broken promise had been the direct means of
+bringing him there; that step by step circumstances not in themselves
+evil or to be combated had led her along; that even her husband and
+mother had felt it their duty to assist towards this fateful climax! If
+Edward had never kept up his worldly friendship, if she had never been
+restricted and compassed in her own; if she had ever known the freedom
+of other girls,--all this might not have happened. She had been elected
+to share with Demorest and her husband the effects of their ungodliness.
+She was no longer a free agent; what availed her resolutions? To
+Demorest's imperious hope, she had said, "God knows." What more could
+she say? Her small red lips grew white and compressed; her face rigid,
+her eyes hollow and abstracted; she looked like the genius of asceticism
+as she sat there, grimly formulating a dogmatic explanation of her
+lawless and unlicensed passion.
+
+The wind had risen to a gale without, and stirred even the sealed
+sepulchre of the fireplace with dull rumblings and muffled moans. At
+times the hot-air drum in the corner seemed to expand as with some
+pent-up emotion. Strange currents of air crossed the empty room like the
+passage of unseen spirits, and she even fancied she heard whispers at
+the window. This caused her to rise and open it, when she found that the
+sleet had given way to a dry feathery snow that was swarming through
+the slits of the shutter; a faint reflection from the already whitened
+fences glimmered in the panes. She shut the window hastily, with a
+little shiver of cold. Where was Demorest in this storm? Would it
+stop him? She thought with pride now of the dominant energy that had
+frightened her, and knew it would not. But her husband?--what kept him?
+It was twelve o'clock; he had seldom stayed out so late before. During
+the first half hour of her reflections she had been relieved by his
+absence; she had even believed that he had met Demorest in the town,
+and was not alarmed by it, for she knew that the latter would avoid
+any further confidence, and cut short any return to it. But why had not
+Edward returned? For an instant the terrible thought that something had
+happened, and that they might both return together, took possession
+of her, and she trembled. But no; Demorest, who had already taken such
+extreme measures, could not consistently listen to any suggestion for
+delay. As her only danger lay in Demorest's presence, the absence of her
+husband caused her more undefinable uneasiness than actual alarm.
+
+The room had become cold with the dying out of the dining-room fire that
+warmed the drum. She would go to bed. She nevertheless arranged the room
+again with a singular impression that she was doing it for the last time
+in her present existing circumstances, and placing the lamp on the table
+in the hall, went up to her own room. By the light of a single candle
+she undressed herself hastily, said her prayers punctiliously, and got
+into bed, with an unexpected relief at finding herself still occupying
+it alone. Then she fell asleep and dreamed of Demorest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When Edward Blandford found himself alone after his wife had undertaken
+to fulfil his abandoned filial duty at her parents' house, he felt a
+slight twinge of self-reproach. He could not deny that this was not
+the first time he had evaded the sterile Sabbath evenings at his
+mother-in-law's, or that even at other times he was not in accord with
+the cold and colorless sanctity of the family. Yet he remembered that
+when he picked out from the budding womanhood of North Liberty
+this pure, scentless blossom, he had endured the privations of its
+surroundings with a sense of security in inhaling the atmosphere in
+which it grew, and knowing the integrity of its descent. There was a
+certain pleasure also in invading this seclusion with human passion; the
+first pressure of her hand when they were kneeling together at family
+prayers had the zest without the sin of a forbidden pleasure; the first
+kiss he had given her with their heads over the family Bible had fairly
+intoxicated him in the thin, rarefied air of their surroundings. In
+transplanting this blossom to his own home with the fond belief that it
+would eventually borrow the hues and color of his own passion, he had
+no further interest in the house he had left behind. When he found,
+however, that the ancestral influence was stronger than he expected,
+that the young wife, instead of assimilating to his conditions, had
+imported into their little household the rigors of her youthful home,
+he had been chilled and disappointed. But he could not help also
+remembering that his own boyhood had been spent in an atmosphere like
+her own in everything but its sincerity and deep conviction. His father
+had recognized the business value of placating the narrow tyranny of the
+respectable well-to-do religious community, and had become a conscious
+hypocrite and a popular citizen. He had himself been under that
+influence, and it was partly a conviction of this that had drawn him
+towards her as something genuine and real. It occurred to him now for
+the first time, as he looked around upon that compromise of their two
+lives in this chilly artificial home, that it was only natural that she
+would prefer the more truthful austerities of her mother's house. Had
+she detected the sham, and did she despise him for it?
+
+These were questions which seemed to bring another self-accusing doubt
+in his own mind, although, without his being conscious of it, they had
+been really the outcome of that doubt. He could not help dwelling on the
+singular human interest she had taken in Demorest's love affair, and
+the utterly unexpected emotion she had shown. He had never seen her as
+charmingly illogical, capricious, and bewitchingly feminine. Had he not
+made a radical mistake in not giving her a frequent provocation for this
+innocent emotion--in fact, in not taking her out into a world of broader
+sympathies and experiences? What a household they might have had--if
+necessary in some other town--away from those cramped prejudices and
+limitations! What friends she might have been with Dick and his other
+worldly acquaintances; what social pleasures--guiltless amusements
+for her pure mind--in theatres, parties, and concerts! Would she have
+objected to them?--had he ever seriously proposed them to her? No! if
+she had objected there would have been time enough to have made this
+present compromise; she would have at least respected and understood his
+sacrifice--and his friends.
+
+Even the artificial externals of his household had never before so
+visibly impressed him. Now that she was no longer in the room it did not
+even bear a trace of her habitation, it certainly bore no suggestion of
+his own. Why had he bought that hideous horsehair furniture? To remind
+her of the old provincial heirlooms of her father's sitting-room. Did
+it remind her of it? The stiff and stony emptiness of this room had
+been fashioned upon the decorous respectability of his own father's
+parlor--in which his father, who usually spent his slippered leisure
+in the family sitting-room, never entered except on visits from the
+minister. It had chilled his own youthful soul--why had he perpetuated
+it here?
+
+He could only answer these questions by moodily wandering about the
+house, and regretting he had not gone with her. After a vain attempt to
+establish social and domestic relations with the hot-air drum by putting
+his feet upon it--after an equally futile attempt to extract interest
+from the book of sermons by opening its pages at random--he glanced at
+the clock and suddenly resolved to go and fetch her. It would remind him
+of the old times when he used to accompany her from church, and, after
+her parents had retired, spend a blissful half-hour alone with her. With
+what a mingling of fear and childish curiosity she used to accept his
+equally timid caresses! Yes, he would go and fetch her; and he would
+recall it to her in a whisper while they were there.
+
+Filled with this idea, when he changed his clothes again he put on a
+certain heavy beaver overcoat, on whose shaggy sleeve her little, hand
+had so often rested when he escorted her from meeting; and he even
+selected the gray muffler she had knit for him in the old ante-nuptial
+days. It was lying in the half-opened drawer from where she had not long
+before taken her disguising veil.
+
+It was still blowing in sudden, capricious gusts; and when he opened the
+front door the wind charged fiercely upon him, as if to drive him back.
+When he had finally forced his way into the street, a return current
+closed the door as suddenly and sharply behind him as if it had ejected
+him from his home for ever.
+
+He reached the fourth house quickly, and as quickly ran up the steps;
+his hand was upon the bell when his eye suddenly caught sight of his
+wife's pass-key still in the lock. She had evidently forgotten it. Here
+was a chance to mischievously banter that habitually careful little
+woman! He slipped it into his pocket and quietly entered the dark but
+perfectly familiar hall. He reached the staircase without a stumble
+and began to ascend softly. Halfway up he heard the sound of his wife's
+hurried voice and another that startled him. He ascended hastily two
+steps, which brought him to the level of the half-opened transom of
+the kitchen. A candle was burning on the kitchen table; he could see
+everything that passed in the room; he could hear distinctly every word
+that was uttered.
+
+He did not utter a cry or sound; he did not even tremble. He remained
+so rigid and motionless, clutching the banisters with his stiffened
+fingers, that when he did attempt to move, all life, as well as all that
+had made life possible to him, seemed to have died from him for
+ever. There was no nervous illusion, no dimming of his senses; he saw
+everything with a hideous clarity of perception. By some diabolical
+instantaneous photography of the brain, little actions, peculiarities,
+touches of gesture, expression and attitude never before noted by him in
+his wife, were clearly fixed and bitten in his consciousness. He saw the
+color of his friend's overcoat, the reddish tinge of his wife's brown
+hair, till then unnoticed; in that supreme moment he was aware of a
+sudden likeness to her mother; but more terrible than all, there seemed
+to be a nameless sympathetic resemblance that the guilty pair had to
+each other in gesture and movement as of some unhallowed relationship
+beyond his ken. He knew not how long he stood there without breath,
+without reflection, without one connected thought. He saw her suddenly
+put her hand on the handle of the door. He knew that in another moment
+they would pass almost before him. He made a convulsive effort to move,
+with an inward cry to God for support, and succeeded in staggering with
+outstretched palms against the wall, down the staircase, and blindly
+forward through the hall to the front door. As yet he had been able to
+formulate only one idea--to escape before them, for it seemed to him
+that their contact meant the ruin of them both, of that house, of all
+that was near to him--a catastrophe that struck blindly at his whole
+visible world. He had reached the door and opened it at the moment that
+the handle of the kitchen-door was turned. He mechanically fell back
+behind the open door that hid him, while it let the cruel light glimmer
+for a moment on their clasped figures. The door slipped from his
+nerveless fingers and swung to with a dull sound. Crouching still in the
+corner, he heard the quick rush of hurrying feet in the darkness, saw
+the door open and Demorest glide out--saw her glance hurriedly after
+him, close the door, and involve herself and him in the blackness of the
+hall. Her dress almost touched him in his corner; he could feel the
+near scent of her clothes, and the air stirred by her figure retreating
+towards the stairs; could hear the unlocking of a door above and the
+voice of her mother from the landing, his wife's reply, the slow fading
+of her footsteps on the stairs and overhead, the closing of a door, and
+all was quiet again. Still stooping, he groped for the handle of the
+door, opened it, and the next moment reeled like a drunken man down the
+steps into the street.
+
+It was well for him that a fierce onset of wind and sleet at that
+instant caught him savagely--stirred his stagnated blood into action,
+and beat thought once more into his brain. He had mechanically turned
+towards his own home; his first effort of recovering will hurried
+him furiously past it and into a side street. He walked rapidly, but
+undeviatingly on to escape observation and secure some solitude for his
+returning thoughts. Almost before he knew it he was in the open fields.
+
+The idea of vengeance had never crossed his mind. He was neither a
+physical nor a moral coward, but he had never felt the merely animal
+fury of disputed animal possession which the world has chosen to
+recognize as a proof of outraged sentiment, nor had North Liberty
+accepted the ethics that an exchange of shots equalized a transferred
+affection. His love had been too pure and too real to be moved like
+the beasts of the field, to seek in one brutal passion compensation for
+another. Killing--what was there to kill? All that he had to live for
+had been already slain. With the love that was in him--in them--already
+dead at his feet, what was it to him whether these two hollow lives
+moved on and passed him, or mingled their emptiness elsewhere? Only let
+them henceforth keep out of his way!
+
+For in his first feverish flow of thought--the reaction to his benumbed
+will within and the beating sleet without--he believed Demorest as
+treacherous as his wife. He recalled his sudden and unexpected intrusion
+into the buggy only a few hours before, his mysterious confidences, his
+assurance of Joan's favorable reception of his secret, and her consent
+to the Californian trip. What had all this meant if not that Demorest
+was using him, the husband, to assist his intrigue, and carry the news
+of his presence in the town to her? And this boldness, this assurance,
+this audacity of conception was like Demorest! While only certain
+passages of the guilty meeting he had just seen and overheard were
+distinctly impressed on his mind, he remembered now, with hideous
+and terrible clearness, all that had gone before. It was part of the
+disturbed and unequal exaltation of his faculties that he dwelt more
+upon this and his wife's previous deceit and manifest hypocrisy, than
+upon the actual evidence he had witnessed of her unfaithfulness. The
+corroboration of the fact was stronger to him than the fact itself. He
+understood the coldness, the uncongeniality now--the simulated increase
+of her aversion to Demorest--her journeys to Boston and Hartford to
+see her relatives, her acquiescence to his frequent absences; not an
+incident, not a characteristic of her married life was inconsistent with
+her guilt and her deceit. He went even back to her maidenhood: how did
+he know this was not the legitimate sequence of other secret schoolgirl
+escapades. The bitter worldly light that had been forced upon his simple
+ingenuous nature had dazzled and blinded him. He passed from fatuous
+credulity to equally fatuous distrust.
+
+He stopped suddenly with the roaring of water before him. In the furious
+following of his rapid thought through storm and darkness he had come,
+he knew not how, upon the bank of the swollen river, whose endangered
+bridge Demorest had turned from that evening. A few steps more and he
+would have fallen into it. He drew nearer and looked at it with vague
+curiosity. Had he come there with any definite intention? The thought
+sobered without frightening him. There was always THAT culmination
+possible, and to be considered coolly.
+
+He turned and began to retrace his steps. On his way thither he had been
+fighting the elements step by step; now they seemed to him to have taken
+possession of him and were hurrying him quickly away. But where? and to
+what? He was always thinking of the past. He had wandered he knew not
+how long, always thinking of that. It was the future he had to consider.
+What was to be done?
+
+He had heard of such cases before; he had read of them in newspapers
+and talked of them with cold curiosity. But they were of worldly, sinful
+people, of dissolute men whose characters he could not conceive--of
+silly, vain, frivolous, and abandoned women whom he had never even met.
+But Joan--O God! It was the first time since his mute prayer on the
+staircase that the Divine name had been wrested from his lips. It came
+with his wife's--and his first tears! But the wind swept the one away
+and dried the others upon his hot cheeks.
+
+It had ceased to rain, and the wind, which was still high, had shifted
+more to the north and was bitterly cold. He could feel the roadway
+stiffening under his feet. When he reached the pavement of the outskirts
+once more he was obliged to take the middle of the street, to avoid the
+treacherous films of ice that were beginning to glaze the sidewalks. Yet
+this very inclemency, added to the usual Sabbath seclusion, had left the
+streets deserted. He was obliged to proceed more slowly, but he met no
+one and could pursue his bewildering thoughts unchecked. As he passed
+between the lines of cold, colorless houses, from which all light and
+life had vanished, it seemed to him that their occupants were dead
+as his love, or had fled their ruined houses as he had. Why should he
+remain? Yet what was his duty now as a man--as a Christian? His eye fell
+on the hideous facade of the church he was passing--her church! He gave
+a bitter laugh and stumbled on again.
+
+With one of the gusts he fancied he heard a familiar sound--the rattling
+of buggy wheels over the stiffening road. Or was it merely the fanciful
+echo of an idea that only at that moment sprung up in his mind? If it
+was real it came from the street parallel with the one he was in. Who
+could be driving out at this time? What other buggy than his own could
+be found to desecrate this Christian Sabbath? An irresistible thought
+impelled him at the risk of recognition to quicken his pace and turn the
+corner as Richard Demorest drove up to the Independence Hotel, sprang
+from his buggy, throwing the reins over the dashboard, and disappeared
+into the hotel!
+
+Blandford stood still, but for an instant only. He had been wandering
+for an hour aimlessly, hopelessly, without consecutive idea, coherent
+thought or plan of action; without the faintest inspiration or
+suggestion of escape from his bewildering torment, without--he had begun
+to fear--even the power to conceive or the will to execute; when a wild
+idea flashed upon him with the rattle of his buggy wheels. And even
+as Demorest disappeared into the hotel, he had conceived his plan and
+executed it. He crossed the street swiftly, leaped into his buggy,
+lifted the reins and brought down the whip simultaneously, and the next
+instant was dashing down the street in the direction of the Warensboro
+turnpike. So sudden was the action that by the time the astonished hall
+porter had rushed into the street, horse and buggy had already vanished
+in the darkness.
+
+Presently it began to snow. So lightly at first that it seemed a mere
+passing whisper to the ear, the brush of some viewless insect upon the
+cheek, or the soft tap of unseen fingers on the shoulders. But by the
+time the porter returned from his hopeless and invisible chase of
+the "runaway," he came in out of a swarming cloud of whirling flakes,
+blinded and whitened. There was a hurried consultation with the
+landlord, the exhibition of much imperious energy and some bank-notes
+from Demorest, and with a glance at the clock that marked the expiring
+limit of the Puritan Sabbath, the landlord at last consented. By the
+time the falling snow had muffled the street from the indiscreet clamor
+of Sabbath-breaking hoofs, the landlord's noiseless sledge was at the
+door and Demorest had departed.
+
+The snow fell all that night; with fierce gusts of wind that moaned in
+the chimneys of North Liberty and sorely troubled the Sabbath sleep of
+its decorous citizens; with deep, passionless silences, none the
+less fateful, that softly precipitated a spotless mantle of merciful
+obliteration equally over their precise or their straying footprints,
+that would have done them good to heed and to remember; and when morning
+broke upon a world of week-day labor, it was covered as far as their
+eyes could reach as with a clear and unwritten tablet, on which they
+might record their lives anew. Near the wreck of the broken bridge on
+the Warensboro turnpike an overturned buggy lay imbedded in the drift
+and debris of the river hurrying silently towards the sea, and a horse
+with fragments of broken and icy harness still clinging to him was found
+standing before the stable-door of Edward Blandford. But to any further
+knowledge of the fate of its owner, North Liberty awoke never again.
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The last note of the Angelus had just rung out of the crumbling fissures
+in the tower of the mission chapel of San Buena-ventura. The sun which
+had beamed that day and indeed every day for the whole dry season over
+the red-tiled roofs of that old and happily ventured pueblo seemed to
+broaden to a smile as it dipped below the horizon, as if in undiminished
+enjoyment of its old practical joke of suddenly plunging the Southern
+California coast in darkness without any preliminary twilight. The olive
+and fig trees at once lost their characteristic outlines in formless
+masses of shadow; only the twisted trunks of the old pear trees in the
+mission garden retained their grotesque shapes and became gruesome in
+the gathering gloom. The encircling pines beyond closed up their serried
+files; a cool breeze swept down from the coast range and, passing
+through them, sent their day-long heated spices through the town.
+
+If there was any truth in the local belief that the pious incantation of
+the Angelus bell had the power of excluding all evil influence abroad
+at that perilous hour within its audible radius, and comfortably keeping
+all unbelieving wickedness at a distance, it was presumably ineffective
+as regarded the innovating stage-coach from Monterey that twice a
+week at that hour brought its question-asking, revolver-persuading and
+fortune-seeking load of passengers through the sleepy Spanish town. On
+the night of the 3d of August, 1856, it had not only brought but set
+down at the Posada one of those passengers. It was a Mr. Ezekiel
+Corwin, formerly known to these pages as "hired man" to the late Squire
+Blandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut, but now a shrewd, practical,
+self-sufficient, and self-asserting unit of the more cautious later
+Californian immigration. As the stage rattled away again with more or
+less humorous and open disparagement of the town and the Posada from its
+"outsiders," he lounged with lazy but systematic deliberation towards
+Mateo Morez, the proprietor.
+
+"I guess that some of your folks here couldn't direct me to Dick
+Demorest's house, could ye?"
+
+The Senor Mateo Morez was at once perplexed and pained. Pained at the
+ignorance thus forced upon him by a caballero; perplexed as to its
+intention. Between the two he smiled apologetically but gravely, and
+said: "No sabe, Senor. I 'ave not understood."
+
+"No more hev I," returned Ezekiel, with patronizing recognition of his
+obtuseness. "I guess ez heow you ain't much on American. You folks orter
+learn the language if you kalkilate to keep a hotel."
+
+But the momentary vision of a waistless woman with a shawl gathered over
+her head and shoulders at the back door attracted his attention. She
+said something to Mateo in Spanish, and the yellowish-white of Mateo's
+eyes glistened with intelligent comprehension.
+
+"Ah, posiblemente; it is Don Ricardo Demorest you wish?"
+
+Mr. Ezekiel's face and manner expressed a mingling of grateful curiosity
+and some scorn at the discovery. "Wa'al," he said, looking around as if
+to take the entire Posada into his confidence, "way up in North Liberty,
+where I kem from, he was allus known as Dick Demorest, and didn't
+tack any forrin titles to his name. Et wouldn't hev gone down there, I
+reckon, 'mongst free-born Merikin citizens, no mor'n aliases would in
+court--and I kinder guess for the same reason. But folks get peart
+and sassy when they're way from hum, and put on ez many airs as a buck
+nigger. And so he calls hisself Don Ricardo here, does he?"
+
+"The Senor knows Don Ricardo?" said Mateo politely.
+
+"Ef you mean me--wa'al, yes--I should say so. He was a partiklar friend
+of a man I've known since he was knee-high to a grasshopper."
+
+Ezekiel had actually never seen Demorest but once in his life. He would
+have scorned to lie, but strict accuracy was not essential with an
+ignorant foreign audience.
+
+He took up his carpet-bag.
+
+"I reckon I kin find his house, ef it's anyway handy."
+
+But the Senor Mateo was again politely troubled. The house of Don
+Ricardo was of a truth not more than a mile distant. It was even
+possible that the Senor had observed it above a wall and vineyard as he
+came into the pueblo. But it was late--it was also dark, as the Senor
+would himself perceive--and there was still to-morrow. To-morrow--ah, it
+was always there! Meanwhile there were beds of a miraculous quality
+at the Posada, and a supper such as a caballero might order in his own
+house. Health, discretion, solicitude for oneself--all pointed clearly
+to to-morrow.
+
+What part of this speech Ezekiel understood affected him only as an
+innkeeper's bid for custom, and as such to be steadily exposed and
+disposed of. With the remark that he guessed Dick Demorest's was "a good
+enough hotel for HIM," and that he'd better be "getting along there," he
+walked down the steps, carpet-bag in hand, and coolly departed, leaving
+Mateo pained, but smiling, on the doorstep.
+
+"An animal with a pig's head--without doubt," said Mateo, sententiously.
+
+"Clearly a brigand with the liver of a chicken," responded his wife.
+
+The subject of this ambiguous criticism, happily oblivious, meantime
+walked doggedly back along the road the stage-coach had just brought
+him. It was badly paved and hollowed in the middle with the worn ruts of
+a century of slow undeviating ox carts, and the passage of water
+during the rainy season. The low adobe houses on each side, with bright
+cinnamon-colored tiles relieving their dark-brown walls, had the regular
+outlines of their doors and windows obliterated by the crumbling of
+years, until they looked as if they had been afterthoughts of the
+builder, rudely opened by pick and crowbar, and finished by the gentle
+auxiliary architecture of birds and squirrels. Yet these openings at
+times permitted glimpses of a picturesque past in the occasional view
+of a lace-edged pillow or silken counterpane, striped hangings, or dyed
+Indian rugs, the flitting of a flounced petticoat or flower-covered
+head, or the indolent leaning figure framed in a doorway of a man in
+wide velvet trousers and crimson-barred serape, whose brown face
+was partly hidden in a yellow nimbus of cigarette smoke. Even in the
+semi-darkness, Ezekiel's penetrating and impertinent eyes took eager
+note of these facts with superior complacency, quite unmindful, after
+the fashion of most critical travellers, of the hideous contrast of his
+own long shapeless nankeen duster, his stiff half-clerical brown straw
+hat, his wisp of gingham necktie, his dusty boots, his outrageous
+carpet-bag, and his straggling goat-like beard. A few looked at him in
+grave, discreet wonder. Whether they recognized in him the advent of a
+civilization that was destined to supplant their own ignorant, sensuous,
+colorful life with austere intelligence and rigid practical improvement,
+did not appear. He walked steadily on. As he passed the low arched door
+of the mission church and saw a faint light glimmering from the side
+windows, he had indeed a weak human desire to go in and oppose in his
+own person a debased and idolatrous superstition with some happily
+chosen question that would necessarily make the officiating priest and
+his congregation exceedingly uncomfortable. But he resisted; partly in
+the hope of meeting some idolater on his way to Benediction, and, in
+the guise of a stranger seeking information, dropping a few unpalatable
+truths; and partly because he could unbosom himself later to Demorest,
+who he was not unwilling to believe had embraced Popery with his
+adoption of a Spanish surname and title.
+
+It had become quite dark when he reached the long wall that enclosed
+Demorest's premises. The wall itself excited his resentment, not only
+as indicating an exclusiveness highly objectionable in a man who
+had emigrated from a free State, but because he, Ezekiel Corwin, had
+difficulty in discovering the entrance. When he succeeded, he found
+himself before an iron gate, happily open, but savoring offensively of
+feudalism and tyrannical proprietorship, and passed through and entered
+an avenue of trees scarcely distinguishable in the darkness, whose
+mysterious shapes and feathery plumes were unknown to him. Numberless
+odors equally vague and mysterious were heavy in the air, strange and
+delicate plants rose dimly on either hand; enormous blossoms, like
+ghostly faces, seemed to peer at him from the shadows. For an instant
+Ezekiel succumbed to an unprofitable sense of beauty, and acquiesced in
+this reckless extravagance of Nature that was so unlike North Liberty.
+But the next moment he recovered himself, with the reflection that it
+was probably unhealthy, and doggedly approached the house. It was a
+long, one-storied, structure, apparently all roof, vine, and pillared
+veranda. Every window and door was open; the two or three grass hammocks
+swung emptily between the columns; the bamboo chairs and settees were
+vacant; his heavy footsteps on the floor had summoned no attendant; not
+even a dog had barked as he approached the house. It was shiftless, it
+was sinful--it boded no good to the future of Demorest.
+
+He put down his carpet-bag on the veranda and entered the broad hall,
+where an old-fashioned lantern was burning on a stand. Here, too, the
+doors of the various apartments were open, and the rooms themselves
+empty of occupants. An opportunity not to be lost by Ezekiel's inquiring
+mind thus offered itself. He took the lantern and deliberately examined
+the several apartments, the furniture, the bedding, and even the small
+articles that were on the tables and mantels. When he had completed the
+round--including a corridor opening on a dark courtyard, which he did
+not penetrate--he returned to the hall, and set down the lantern again.
+
+"Well," said a voice in his own familiar vernacular, "I hope you like
+it."
+
+Ezekiel was surprised, but not disconcerted. What he had taken in the
+shadow for a bundle of serapes lying on the floor of the veranda,
+was the recumbent figure of a man who now raised himself to a sitting
+posture.
+
+"Ez to that," drawled Ezekiel, with unshaken self-possession, "whether
+I like it or not ez only a question betwixt kempany manners and
+truth-telling. Beggars hadn't oughter be choosers, and transient
+visitors like myself needn't allus speak their mind. But if you mean to
+signify that with every door and window open and universal shiftlessness
+lying round everywhere temptin' Providence, you ain't lucky in havin' a
+feller-citizen of yours drop in on ye instead of some Mexican thief, I
+don't agree with ye--that's all."
+
+The man laughed shortly and rose up. In spite of his careless yet
+picturesque Mexican dress, Ezekiel instantly recognized Demorest. With
+his usual instincts he was naturally pleased to observe that he looked
+older and more careworn. The softer, sensuous climate had perhaps
+imparted a heaviness to his figure and a deliberation to his manner that
+was quite unlike his own potential energy.
+
+"That don't tell me who you are, and what you want," he said, coldly.
+
+"Wa'al then, I'm Ezekiel Corwin of North Liberty, ez used to live with
+my friend and YOURS too, I guess--seein' how the friendship was swapped
+into relationship--Squire Blandford."
+
+A slight shade passed over Demorest's face. "Well," he said,
+impatiently, "I don't remember you; what then?"
+
+"You don't remember me; that's likely," returned Ezekiel imperturbably,
+combing his straggling chin beard with three fingers, "but whether it's
+NAT'RAL or not, considerin' the sukumstances when we last met, ez a
+matter of op-pinion. You got me to harness up the hoss and buggy the
+night Squire Blandford left home, and never was heard of again. It's
+true that it kem out on enquiry that the hoss and buggy ran away from
+the hotel, and that you had to go out to Warensboro in a sleigh, and
+the theory is that poor Squire Blandford must have stopped the hoss
+and buggy somewhere, got in and got run away agin, and pitched over the
+bridge. But seein' your relationship to both Squire and Mrs. Blandford,
+and all the sukumstances, I reckoned you'd remember it."
+
+"I heard of it in Boston a month afterwards," said Demorest, dryly, "but
+I don't think I'd have recognized you. So you were the hired man who
+gave me the buggy. Well, I don't suppose they discharged you for it."
+
+"No," said Ezekiel, with undisturbed equanimity. "I kalkilate Joan would
+have stopped that. Considerin', too, that I knew her when she was Deacon
+Salisbury's darter, and our fam'lies waz thick az peas. She knew me well
+enough when I met her in Frisco the other day."
+
+"Have you seen Mrs. Demorest already?" said Demorest, with sudden
+vivacity. "Why didn't you say so before?" It was wonderful how quickly
+his face had lighted up with an earnestness that was not, however,
+without some undefinable uneasiness. The alert Ezekiel noticed it and
+observed that it was as totally unlike the irresistible dominance of the
+man of five years ago as it was different from the heavy abstraction of
+the man of five minutes before.
+
+"I reckon you didn't ax me," he returned coolly. "She told me where you
+were, and as I had business down this way she guessed I might drop in."
+
+"Yes, yes--it's all right, Mr. Corwin; glad you did," said Demorest,
+kindly but half nervously. "And you saw Mrs. Demorest? Where did you see
+her, and how did you think she was looking? As pretty as ever, eh?"
+
+But the coldly literal Ezekiel was not to be beguiled into polite or
+ambiguous fiction. He even went to the extent of insulting deliberation
+before he replied. "I've seen Joan Salisbury lookin' healthier and
+ez far ez I kin judge doin' more credit to her stock and raisin'
+gin'rally," he said, thoughtfully combing his beard, "and I've seen her
+when she was too poor to get the silks and satins, furbelows, fineries
+and vanities she's flauntin' in now, and that was in Squire Blandford's
+time, too, I reckon. Ez to her purtiness, that's a matter of taste. You
+think her purty, and I guess them fellows ez was escortin' and squirin'
+her round Frisco thought so too, or SHE thought they did to hev allowed
+it."
+
+"You are not very merciful to your townsfolk, Mr. Corwin," said
+Demorest, with a forced smile; "but what can I do for you?"
+
+It was the turn for Ezekiel's face to brighten, or rather to break up,
+like a cold passionless mirror suddenly cracked, into various amusing
+but distorted reflections on the person before him. "Townies ain't to
+be fooled by other townies, Mr. Demorest; at least that ain't my idea
+o' marcy, he-he! But seen you're pressin', I don't mind tellen you MY
+business. I'm the only agent of Seventeen Patent Medicine Proprietors
+in Connecticut represented by the firm of Dilworth & Dusenberry, of San
+Francisco. Mebbe you heard of 'em afore--A1 druggists and importers.
+Wa'al, I'm openin' a field for 'em and spreadin' 'em gin'rally through
+these air benighted and onhealthy districts, havin' the contract for
+the hull State--especially for Wozun's Universal Injin Panacea ez cures
+everything--bein' had from a recipe given by a Sachem to Dr. Wozun's
+gran'ther. That bag--leavin' out a dozen paper collars and socks--is all
+the rest samples. That's me, Ezekiel Corwin--only agent for Californy,
+and that's my mission."
+
+"Very well; but look here, Corwin," said Demorest, with a slight return
+of his old off-hand manner,--"I'd advise you to adopt a little more
+caution, and a little less criticism in your speech to the people about
+here, or I'm afraid you'll need the Universal Panacea for yourself.
+Better men than you have been shot in my presence for half your
+freedom."
+
+"I guess you've just hit the bull's-eye there," replied Ezekiel, coolly,
+"for it's that HALF-freedom and HALF-truth that doesn't pay. I kalkilate
+gin'rally to speak my hull mind--and I DO. Wot's the consequence? Why,
+when folks find I ain't afeard to speak my mind on their affairs, they
+kinder guess I'm tellin' the truth about my own. Folks don't like the
+man that truckles to 'em, whether it's in the sellin' of a box of pills
+or a principle. When they re-cognize Ezekiel Corwin ain't goin' to lie
+about 'em to curry favor with 'em, they're ready to believe he ain't
+goin' to lie about Jones' Bitters or Wozun's Panacea. And, wa'al, I've
+been on the road just about a fortnit, and I haven't yet discovered that
+the original independent style introduced by Ezekiel Corwin ever broke
+anybody's bones or didn't pay."
+
+And he told the truth. That remarkably unfair and unpleasant spoken man
+had actually frozen Hanley's Ford into icy astonishment at his
+audacity, and he had sold them an invoice of the Panacea before they had
+recovered; he had insulted Chipitas into giving an extensive order in
+bitters; he had left Hayward's Creek pledged to Burne's pills--with
+drawn revolvers still in their hands.
+
+At another time Demorest might have been amused at his guest's audacity,
+or have combated it with his old imperiousness, but he only remained
+looking at him in a dull sort of way as if yielding to his influence.
+It was part of the phenomenon that the two men seemed to have changed
+character since they last met, and when Ezekiel said confidentially: "I
+reckon you're goin' to show me what room I ken stow these duds o' mine
+in," Demorest replied hurriedly, "Yes, certainly," and taking up
+his guest's carpet-bag preceded him through the hall to one of the
+apartments.
+
+"I'll send Manuel to you presently," he said, putting down the bag
+mechanically; "the servants are not back from church, it's some saint's
+festival to-day."
+
+"And so you keep a pack of lazy idolaters to leave your house to take
+care of itself, whilst they worship graven images," said Ezekiel,
+delighted at this opportunity to improve the occasion.
+
+"If my memory isn't bad, Mr. Corwin," said Demorest dryly, "when I
+accompanied Mr. Blandford home the night he returned from his journey,
+we found YOU at church, and he had to put up his horse himself."
+
+"But that was the Sabbath--the seventh day of the command," retorted
+Ezekiel.
+
+"And here the Sabbath doesn't consist of only ONE day to serve God in,"
+said Demorest, sententiously.
+
+Ezekiel glanced under his white lashes at Demorest's thoughtful face.
+His fondest fears appeared to be confirmed; Demorest had evidently
+become a Papist. But that gentleman stopped any theological discussion
+by the abrupt inquiry:
+
+"Did Mrs. Demorest say when she thought of returning?"
+
+"She allowed she mout kem to-morrow--but--" added Ezekiel dubiously.
+
+"But what?"
+
+"Wa'al, wot with her enjyments of the vanities of this life and
+the kempany she keeps, I reckon she's in no hurry," said Ezekiel,
+cheerfully.
+
+The entrance of Manuel here cut short any response from Demorest,
+who after a few directions in Spanish to the peon, left his guest to
+himself.
+
+He walked to the veranda with the same dull preoccupation that Ezekiel
+had noticed as so different from his old decisive manner, and remained
+for a few moments abstractedly gazing into the dark garden. The strange
+and mystic shapes which had impressed even the practical Ezekiel, had
+become even more weird and ghost-like in the faint radiance of a rising
+moon.
+
+What memories evoked by his rude guest seemed to take form and outline
+in that dreamy and unreal expanse!
+
+He saw his wife again, standing as she had stood that night in her
+mother's house, with the white muffler around her head, and white face,
+imploring him to fly; he saw himself again hurrying through the driving
+storm to Warensboro, and reaching the train that bore him swiftly and
+safely miles away--that same night when her husband was perishing in the
+swollen river. He remembered with what strangely mingled sensations he
+had read the account of Blandford's death in the newspapers, and how the
+loss of his old friend was forgotten in the associations conjured up by
+his singular meeting that very night with the mysterious woman he had
+loved. He remembered that he had never dreamed how near and fateful
+were these associations; and how he had kept his promise not to seek
+her without her permission, until six months after, when she appointed
+a meeting, and revealed to him the whole truth. He could see her now,
+as he had seen her then, more beautiful and fascinating than ever in her
+black dress, and the pensive grace of refined suffering and restrained
+passion in her delicate face. He remembered, too, how the shock of
+her disclosure--the knowledge that she had been his old friend's
+wife--seemed only to accent her purity and suffering and his own wilful
+recklessness, and how it had stirred all the chivalry, generosity, and
+affection of his easy nature to take the whole responsibility of this
+innocent but compromising intrigue on his own shoulders. He had had no
+self-accusing sense of disloyalty to Blandford in his practical nature;
+he had never suspected the shy, proper girl of being his wife; he was
+willing to believe now, that had he known it, even that night, he would
+never have seen her again; he had been very foolish; he had made this
+poor woman participate in his folly; but he had never been dishonest or
+treacherous in thought or action. If Blandford had lived, even he
+would have admitted it. Yet he was guiltily conscious of a material
+satisfaction in Blandford's death, without his wife's religious
+conviction of the saving graces of predestination.
+
+They had been married quietly when the two years of her widowhood
+had expired; his former relations with her husband and the straitened
+circumstances in which Blandford's death had left her having been deemed
+sufficient excuse in the eyes of North Liberty for her more worldly
+union. They had come to California at her suggestion "to begin life
+anew," for she had not hesitated to make this dislocation of all her
+antecedent surroundings as a reason as well as a condition of this
+marriage. She wished to see the world of which he had been a passing
+glimpse; to expand under his protection beyond the limits of her
+fettered youth. He had bought this old Spanish estate, with its near
+vineyard and its outlying leagues covered with wild cattle, partly from
+that strange contradictory predilection for peaceful husbandry common to
+men who have led a roving life, and partly as a check to her growing and
+feverish desire for change and excitement. He had at first enjoyed with
+an almost parental affection her childish unsophisticated delight in
+that world he had already wearied of, and which he had been prepared
+to gladly resign for her. But as the months and even years had passed
+without any apparent diminution in her zest for these pleasures, he
+tried uneasily to resume his old interest in them, and spent ten months
+with her in the chaotic freedom of San Francisco hotel life. But to his
+discomfiture he found that they no longer diverted him; to his horror he
+discovered that those easy gallantries in which he had spent his youth,
+and in which he had seen no harm, were intolerable when exhibited to his
+wife, and he trembled between inquietude and indignation at the copies
+of his former self, whom he met in hotel parlors, at theatres, and
+in public conveyances. The next time she visited some friends in San
+Francisco he did not accompany her. Though he fondly cherished his
+experience of her power to resist even stronger temptation, he was too
+practical to subject himself to the annoyance of witnessing it. In her
+absence he trusted her completely; his scant imagination conjured up no
+disturbing picture of possibilities beyond what he actually knew. In his
+recent questions of Ezekiel he did not expect to learn anything more.
+Even his guest's uncomfortable comments added no sting that he had not
+already felt.
+
+With these thoughts called up by the unlooked-for advent of Ezekiel
+under his roof, he continued to gaze moodily into the garden. Near the
+house were scattered several uncouth varieties of cacti which seemed to
+have lost all semblance of vegetable growth, and had taken rude likeness
+to beasts and human figures. One high-shouldered specimen, partly hidden
+in the shadow, had the appearance of a man with a cloak or serape thrown
+over his left shoulder. As Demorest's wandering eyes at last became
+fixed upon it, he fancied he could trace the faint outlines of a pale
+face, the lower part of which was hidden by the folds of the serape.
+There certainly was the forehead, the curve of the dark eyebrows, the
+shadow of a nose, and even as he looked more steadily, a glistening of
+the eyes upturned to the moonlight. A sudden chill seized him. It was
+a horrible fancy, but it looked as might have looked the dead face
+of Edward Blandford! He started and ran quickly down the steps of the
+veranda. A slight wind at the same moment moved the long leaves and
+tendrils of a vine nearest him and sent a faint wave through the garden.
+He reached the cactus; its fantastic bulk stood plainly before him, but
+nothing more.
+
+"Whar are ye runnin' to?" said the inquiring voice of Ezekiel from the
+veranda.
+
+"I thought I saw some one in the garden," returned Demorest, quietly,
+satisfied of the illusion of his senses, "but it was a mistake."
+
+"It mout and it moutn't," said Ezekiel, dryly. "Thar's nothin' to keep
+any one out. It's only a wonder that you ain't overrun with thieves and
+sich like."
+
+"There are usually servants about the place," said Demorest, carelessly.
+
+"Ef they're the same breed ez that Manuel, I reckon I'd almost as leave
+take my chances in the road. Ef it's all the same to you I kalkilate to
+put a paytent fastener to my door and winder to-night. I allus travel
+with them." Seeing that Demorest only shrugged his shoulders without
+replying, he continued, "Et ain't far from here that some folks allow is
+the headquarters of that cattle-stealing gang. The driver of the coach
+went ez far ez to say that some of these high and mighty Dons hereabouts
+knows more of it than they keer to tell."
+
+"That's simply a yarn for greenhorns," said Demorest, contemptuously.
+"I know all the ranch proprietors for twenty leagues around, and they've
+lost as many cattle and horses as I have."
+
+"I wanter know," said Ezekiel, with grim interest. "Then you've already
+had consid'ble losses, eh? I kalkilate them cattle are vally'ble--about
+wot figger do you reckon yer out and injured?"
+
+"Three or four thousand dollars, I suppose, altogether," replied
+Demorest, shortly.
+
+"Then you don't take any stock in them yer yarns about the gang being
+run and protected by some first-class men in Frisco?" said Ezekiel,
+regretfully.
+
+"Not much," responded Demorest, dryly; "but if people choose to believe
+this bluff gotten up by the petty thieves themselves to increase their
+importance and secure their immunity--they can. But here's Manuel to
+tell us supper is ready."
+
+He led the way to the corridor and courtyard which Ezekiel had not
+penetrated on account of its obscurity and solitude, but which now
+seemed to be peopled with peons and household servants of both sexes. At
+the end of a long low-ceilinged room a table was spread with omelettes,
+chupa, cakes, chocolate, grapes, and melons, around which half a dozen
+attendants stood gravely in waiting. The size of the room, which to
+Ezekiel's eyes looked as large as the church at North Liberty, the
+profusion of the viands, the six attendants for the host and solitary
+guest, deeply impressed him. Morally rebelling against this feudal
+display and extravagance, he, who had disdained to even assist the
+Blandfords' servant-in-waiting at table and had always made his
+solitary meal on the kitchen dresser, was not above feeling a material
+satisfaction in sitting on equal terms with his master's friend and
+being served by these menials he despised. He did full justice to
+the victuals of which Demorest partook in sparing abstraction, and
+particularly to the fruit, which Demorest did not touch at all.
+Observant of his servants' eyes fixed in wonder on the strange guest who
+had just disposed of a second melon at supper, Demorest could not help
+remarking that he would lose credit as a medico with the natives unless
+he restrained a public exhibition of his tastes.
+
+"Ez ha'aw?" queried Ezekiel.
+
+"They have a proverb here that fruit is gold in the morning, silver at
+noon, and lead at night."
+
+"That'll do for lazy stomicks," said the unabashed Ezekiel. "When
+they're once fortified by Jones' bitters and hard work, they'll be able
+to tackle the Lord's nat'ral gifts of the airth at any time."
+
+Declining the cigarettes offered him by Demorest for a quid of
+tobacco, which he gravely took from a tin box in his pocket, and to
+the astonished eyes of the servants apparently obliterated any further
+remembrance of the meal, he accompanied his host to the veranda again,
+where, tilting his chair back and putting his feet on the railing, he
+gave himself up to unwonted and silent rumination.
+
+The silence was broken at last by Demorest, who, half-reclining on a
+settee, had once or twice glanced towards the misshapen cactus.
+
+"Was there any trace discovered of Blandford, other than we knew before
+we left the States?"
+
+"Wa'al, no," said Ezekiel, thoughtfully. "The last idea was that he'd
+got control of the hoss after passin' the bridge, and had managed to
+turn him back, for there was marks of buggy wheels on the snow on the
+far side, and that fearin' to trust the hoss or the bridge he tried to
+lead him over when the bridge gave way, and he was caught in the wreck
+and carried off down stream. That would account for his body not bein'
+found; they do tell that chunks of that bridge were picked up on the
+Sound beach near the mouth o' the river, nigh unto sixty miles away.
+That's about the last idea they had of it at North Liberty." He paused
+and then cleverly directing a stream of tobacco juice at an accurate
+curve over the railing, wiped his lips with the back of his hand,
+and added, slowly: "Thar's another idea--but I reckon it's only mine.
+Leastways I ain't heard it argued by anybody."
+
+"What is that?" asked Demorest.
+
+"Wa'al, it ain't exakly complimentary to E. Blandford, Esq., and it mout
+be orkard for YOU."
+
+"I don't think you're in the habit of letting such trifles interfere
+with your opinion," said Demorest, with a slightly forced laugh; "but
+what is your idea?"
+
+"That thar wasn't any accident."
+
+"No accident?" replied Demorest, raising himself on his elbow.
+
+"Nary accident," continued Ezekiel, deliberately, "and, if it comes to
+that, not much of a dead body either."
+
+"What the devil do you mean?" said Demorest, sitting up.
+
+"I mean," said Ezekiel, with momentous deliberation, "that E. Blandford,
+of the Winnipeg Mills, was in March, '50, ez nigh bein' bust up ez any
+man kin be without actually failin'; that he'd been down to Boston that
+day to get some extensions; that old Deacon Salisbury knew it, and had
+been pesterin' Mrs. Blandford to induce him to sell out and leave the
+place; and that the night he left he took about two hundred and fifty
+dollars in bank bills that they allus kept in the house, and Mrs.
+Blandford was in the habit o' hidin' in the breast-pocket of one of his
+old overcoats hangin' up in the closet. I mean that that air money and
+that air overcoat went off with him, ez Mrs. Blandford knows, for I
+heard her tell her ma about it. And when his affairs were wound up and
+his debts paid, I reckon that the two hundred and fifty was all there
+was left--and he scooted with it. It's orkard for you--ez I said
+afore--but I don't see wot on earth you need get riled for. Ef he ran
+off on account of only two hundred and fifty dollars he ain't goin'
+to run back again for the mere matter o' your marrying Joan. Ef he
+had--he'd a done it afore this. It's orkard ez I said--but the only
+orkardness is your feelin's. I reckon Joan's got used to hers."
+
+Demorest had risen angrily to his feet. But the next moment the utter
+impossibility of reaching this man's hidebound moral perception by even
+physical force hopelessly overcame him. It would only impress him with
+the effect of his own disturbing power, that to Ezekiel was equal to
+a proof of the truth of his opinions. It might even encourage him to
+repeat this absurd story elsewhere with his own construction upon his
+reception of it. After all it was only Ezekiel's opinion--an opinion too
+preposterous for even a moment's serious consideration. Blandford
+alive, and a petty defaulter! Blandford above the earth and complacently
+abandoning his wife and home to another! Blandford--perhaps a sneaking,
+cowardly Nemesis--hiding in the shadow for future--impossible! It really
+was enough to make him laugh.
+
+He did laugh, albeit with an uneasy sense that only a few years ago
+he would have struck down the man who had thus traduced his friend's
+memory.
+
+"You've been overtaxing your brain in patent-medicine circulars,
+Corwin," he said in a roughly rallying manner, "and you've got rather
+too much highfalutin and bitters mixed with your opinions. After that
+yarn of yours you must be dry. What'll you take? I haven't got any New
+England rum, but I can give you some ten-year-old aguardiente made on
+the place."
+
+As he spoke he lifted a decanter and glass from a small table which
+Manuel had placed in the veranda.
+
+"I guess not," said Ezekiel dryly. "It's now goin' on five years since
+I've been a consistent temperance man."
+
+"In everything but melons, and criticism of your neighbor, eh?" said
+Demorest, pouring out a glass of the liquor.
+
+"I hev my convictions," said Ezekiel with affected meekness.
+
+"And I have mine," said Demorest, tossing off the fiery liquor at a
+draft, "and it's that this is devilish good stuff. Sorry you can't take
+some. I'm afraid I'll have to get you to excuse me for a while. I have
+to take a ride over the ranch before turning in, to see if everything's
+right. The house is 'at your disposition,' as we say here. I'll see you
+later."
+
+He walked away with a slight exaggeration of unconcern. Ezekiel watched
+him narrowly with colorless eyes beneath his white lashes. When he
+had gone he examined the thoroughly emptied glass of aguardiente,
+and, taking the decanter, sniffed critically at its sharp and potent
+contents. A smile of gratified discernment followed. It was clear to him
+that Demorest was a heavy drinker.
+
+Contrary to his prognostication, however, Mrs. Demorest DID arrive the
+next day. But although he was to depart from Buenaventura by the same
+coach that had set her down at the gate of the casa, he had already left
+the house armed with some letters of introduction which Demorest had
+generously given him, to certain small traders in the pueblo and along
+the route. Demorest was not displeased to part with him before the
+arrival of his wife, and thus spare her the awkwardness of a repetition
+of Ezekiel's effrontery in her presence. Nor was he willing to have the
+impediment of a guest in the house to any explanation he might have to
+seek from her, or to the confidences that hereafter must be fuller
+and more mutual. For with all his deep affection for his wife, Richard
+Demorest unconsciously feared her. The strong man whose dominance over
+men and women alike had been his salient characteristic, had begun to
+feel an undefinable sense of some unrecognized quality in the woman he
+loved. He had once or twice detected it in a tone of her voice, in a
+remembered and perhaps even once idolized gesture, or in the accidental
+lapse of some bewildering word. With the generosity of a large nature he
+had put the thought aside, referring it to some selfish weakness of
+his own, or--more fatuous than all--to a possible diminution of his own
+affection.
+
+He was standing on the steps ready to receive her. Few of her
+appreciative sex could have remained indifferent to the tender and
+touching significance of his silent and subdued welcome. He had that
+piteous wistfulness of eye seen in some dogs and the husbands of many
+charming women--the affection that pardons beforehand the indifference
+it has learned to expect. She approached him smiling in her turn,
+meeting the sublime patience of being unloved with the equally resigned
+patience of being loved, and feeling that comforting sense of virtue
+which might become a bore, but never a self-reproach. For the rest, she
+was prettier than ever; her five years of expanded life had slightly
+rounded the elongated oval of her face, filled up the ascetic hollows
+of her temples, and freed the repression of her mouth and chin. A more
+genial climate had quickened the circulation that North Liberty had
+arrested, and suffused the transparent beauty of her skin with eloquent
+life. It seemed as if the long, protracted northern spring of her youth
+had suddenly burst into a summer of womanhood under those gentle skies;
+and yet enough of her puritan precision of manner, movement, and gesture
+remained to temper her fuller and more exuberant life and give it
+repose. In a community of pretty women more or less given to the license
+and extravagance of the epoch, she always looked like a lady.
+
+He took her in his arms and half-lifted her up the last step of the
+veranda. She resisted slightly with her characteristic action of
+catching his wrists in both her hands and holding him off with an
+awkward primness, and almost in the same tone that she had used to
+Edward Blandford five years before, said:
+
+"There, Dick, that will do."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Demorest's dream of a few days' conjugal seclusion and confidences with
+his wife was quickly dispelled by that lady. "I came down with Rosita
+Pico, whose father, you know, once owned this property," she said.
+"She's gone on to her cousins at Los Osos Rancho to-night, but comes
+here to-morrow for a visit. She knows the place well; in fact, she once
+had a romantic love affair here. But she is very entertaining. It will
+be a little change for us," she added, naively.
+
+Demorest kept back a sigh, without changing his gentle smile. "I'm glad
+for your sake, dear. But is she not a little flighty and inclined to
+flirt a good deal? I think I've heard so."
+
+"She's a young girl who has been severely tried, Richard, and perhaps is
+not to blame for endeavoring to forget it in such distraction as she can
+find," said Mrs. Demorest, with a slight return of her old manner. "I
+can understand her feelings perfectly." She looked pointedly at her
+husband as she spoke, it being one of her late habits to openly refer to
+their ante-nuptial acquaintance as a natural reaction from the martyrdom
+of her first marriage, with a quiet indifference that seemed almost
+an indelicacy. But her husband only said: "As you like, dear," vaguely
+remembering Dona Rosita as the alleged heroine of a forgotten romance
+with some earlier American adventurer who had disappeared, and trying
+vainly to reconcile his wife's sentimental description of her with his
+own recollection of the buxom, pretty, laughing, but dangerous-eyed
+Spanish girl he had, however, seen but once.
+
+She arrived the next day, flying into a protracted embrace of Joan,
+which included a smiling recognition of Demorest with an unoccupied blue
+eye, and a shake of her fan over his wife's shoulder. Then she drew
+back and seemed to take in the whole veranda and garden in another long
+caress of her eyes. "Ah-yess! I have recognized it, mooch. It es ze
+same. Of no change--not even of a leetle. No, she ess always--esso."
+She stopped, looked unutterable things at Joan, pressed her fan below
+a spray of roses on her full bodice as if to indicate some thrilling
+memory beneath it, shook her head again, suddenly caught sight of
+Demorest's serious face, said: "Ah, that brigand of our husband laughs
+himself at me," and then herself broke into a charming ripple of
+laughter.
+
+"But I was not laughing, Dona Rosita," said Demorest, smiling sadly,
+however, in spite of himself.
+
+She made a little grimace, and then raised her elbows, slightly lifting
+her shoulders. "As it shall please you, Senor. But he is gone--thees
+passion. Yess--what you shall call thees sentiment of lof--zo--as he
+came!" She threw her fingers in the air as if to illustrate the volatile
+and transitory passage of her affections, and then turned again to Joan
+with her back towards Demorest.
+
+"Do please go on--Dona Rosita," said he, "I never heard the real story.
+If there is any romance about my house, I'd like to know it," he added
+with a faint sigh.
+
+Dona Rosita wheeled upon him with an inquiring little look. "Ah, you
+have the sentiment, and YOU," she continued, taking Joan by the arms,
+"YOU have not. Eet ess good so. When a--the wife," she continued boldly,
+hazarding an extended English abstraction, "he has the sentimente and
+the hoosband he has nothing, eet is not good--for a-him--ze wife," she
+concluded triumphantly.
+
+"But I have great appreciation and I am dying to hear it," said
+Demorest, trying to laugh.
+
+"Well, poor one, you look so. But you shall lif till another time," said
+Dona Rosita, with a mock courtesy, gliding with Joan away.
+
+The "other time" came that evening when chocolate was served on the
+veranda, where Dona Rosita, mantilla-draped against the dry, clear,
+moonlit air, sat at the feet of Joan on the lowest step. Demorest,
+uneasily observant of the influence of the giddy foreigner on his wife,
+and conscious of certain confidences between them from which he was
+excluded, leaned against a pillar of the porch in half abstracted
+resignation; Joan, under the tutelage of Rosita, lit a cigarette;
+Demorest gazed at her wonderingly, trying to recall, in her fuller and
+more animated face, some memory of the pale, refined profile of the
+Puritan girl he had first met in the Boston train, the faint aurora of
+whose cheek in that northern clime seemed to come and go with his words.
+Becoming conscious at last of the eyes of Dona Rosita watching him from
+below, with an effort he recalled his duty as her host and gallantly
+reminded her that moonlight and the hour seemed expressly fitted for her
+promised love story.
+
+"Do tell it," said Joan, "I don't mind hearing it again."
+
+"Then you know it already?" said Demorest, surprised.
+
+Joan took the cigarette from her lips, laughed complacently, and
+exchanged a familiar glance with Rosita. "She told it me a year ago,
+when we first knew each other," she replied. "Go on, dear," to Rosita.
+
+Thus encouraged, Dona Rosita began, addressing herself first in Spanish
+to Demorest, who understood the language better than his wife, and
+lapsing into her characteristic English as she appealed to them both.
+It was really very little to interest Don Ricardo--this story of a silly
+muchacha like herself and a strange caballero. He would go to sleep
+while she was talking, and to-night he would say to his wife, "Mother of
+God! why have you brought here this chattering parrot who speaks but of
+one thing?" But she would go on always like the windmill, whether there
+was grain to grind or no. "It was four years ago. Ah! Don Ricardo did
+not remember the country then--it was when the first Americans came--now
+it is different. Then there were no coaches--in truth one travelled
+very little, and always on horseback, only to see one's neighbors. And
+suddenly, as if in one day, it was changed; there were strange men on
+the roads, and one was frightened, and one shut the gates of the pateo
+and drove the horses into the corral. One did not know much of the
+Americans then--for why? They were always going, going--never stopping,
+hurrying on to the gold mines, hurrying away from the gold mines,
+hurrying to look for other gold mines: but always going on foot, on
+horseback, in queer wagons--hurrying, pushing everywhere. Ah, it took
+away the breath. All, except one American--he did not hurry, he did not
+go with the others, he came and stayed here at Buenaventura. He was
+very quiet, very civil, very sad, and very discreet. He was not like
+the others, and always kept aloof from them. He came to see Don Andreas
+Pico, and wanted to beg a piece of land and an old vaquero's hut near
+the road for a trifle. Don Andreas would have given it, or a better
+house, to him, or have had him live at the casa here; but he would not.
+He was very proud and shy, so he took the vaquero's hut, a mere adobe
+affair, and lived in it, though a caballero like yourself, with white
+hands that knew not labor, and small feet that had seldom walked. In
+good time he learned to ride like the best vaquero, and helped Don
+Andreas to find the lost mustangs, and showed him how to improve the old
+mill. And his pride and his shyness wore off, and he would come to
+the casa sometimes. And Don Andreas got to love him very much, and his
+daughter, Dona Rosita--ah, well, yes truly--a leetle.
+
+"But he had strange moods and ways, this American, and at times they
+would have thought him a lunatico had they not believed it to be an
+American fashion. He would be very kind and gentle like one of the
+family, coming to the casa every day, playing with the children,
+advising Don Andreas and--yes--having a devotion--very discreet, very
+ceremonious, for Dona Rosita. And then, all in a moment, he would become
+as ill, without a word or gesture, until he would stalk out of the
+house, gallop away furiously, and for a week not be heard of. The first
+time it happened, Dona Rosita was piqued by his rudeness, Don Andreas
+was alarmed, for it was on an evening like the present, and Dona Rosita
+was teaching him a little song on the guitar when the fit came on him.
+And he snapped the guitar strings like thread and threw it down, and got
+up like a bear and walked away without a word."
+
+"I see it all," said Demorest, half seriously: "you were coquetting with
+him, and he was jealous."
+
+But Dona Rosita shook her head and turned impetuously, and said in
+English to Joan:
+
+"No, it was astutcia--a trick, a ruse. Because when my father have
+arrived at his house, he is agone. And so every time. When he have the
+fit he goes not to his house. No. And it ees not until after one time
+when he comes back never again, that we have comprehend what he do at
+these times. And what do you think? I shall tell to you."
+
+She composed herself comfortably, with her plump elbows on her knees,
+and her fan crossed on the palm of her hand before her, and began again:
+
+"It is a year he has gone, and the stagecoach is attack of brigands.
+Tiburcio, our vaquero, have that night made himself a pasear on the
+road, and he have seen HIM. He have seen, one, two, three men came from
+the wood with something on the face, and HE is of them. He has nothing
+on his face, and Tiburcio have recognize him. We have laugh at Tiburcio.
+We believe him not. It is improbable that this Senor Huanson--"
+
+"Senor who?" said Demorest.
+
+"Huanson--eet is the name of him. Ah, Carr!--posiblemente it is
+nothing--a Don Fulano--or an apodo--Huanson."
+
+"Oh, I see, JOHNSON, very likely."
+
+"We have said it is not possible that this good man, who have come to
+the house and ride on his back the children, is a thief and a brigand.
+And one night my father have come from the Monterey in the coach, and it
+was stopped. And the brigands have take from the passengers the money,
+the rings from the finger, and the watch--and my father was of the same.
+And my father, he have great dissatisfaction and anguish, for his watch
+is given to him of an old friend, and it is not like the other watch.
+But the watch he go all the same. And then when the robbers have made a
+finish comes to the window of the coach a mascara and have say, 'Who
+is the Don Andreas Pico?' And my father have say, 'It is I who am Don
+Andreas Pico.' And the mask have say, 'Behold, your watch is
+restore!' and he gif it to him. And my father say, 'To whom have I the
+distinguished honor to thank?' And the mask say--"
+
+"Johnson," interrupted Demorest.
+
+"No," said Dona Rosita in grave triumph, "he say Essmith. For this
+Essmith is like Huanson--an apodo--nothing."
+
+"Then you really think this man was your old friend?" asked Demorest.
+
+"I think."
+
+"And that he was a robber even when living here--and that it was not
+your cruelty that really drove him to take the road?"
+
+Dona Rosita shrugged her plump shoulders. "You will not comprehend. It
+was because of his being a brigand that he stayed not with us. My father
+would not have object if he have present himself to me for marriage in
+these times. I would not have object, for I was young, and we have knew
+nothing. It was he who have object. For why? Inside of his heart he have
+feel he was a brigand."
+
+"But you might have reformed him in time," said Demorest.
+
+She again shrugged her shoulders. "Quien sabe." After a pause she added
+with infinite gravity: "And before he have reform, it is bad for the
+menage. I should invite to my house some friend. They arrive, and one
+say, 'I have not the watch of my pocket,' and another, 'The ring of my
+finger, he is gone,' and another, 'My earrings, she is loss.' And I am
+obliged to say, 'They reside now in the pocket of my hoosband; patience!
+a little while--perhaps to-morrow--he will restore.' No," she continued,
+with an air of infinite conviction, "it is not good for the menage--the
+necessity of those explanation."
+
+"You told me he was handsome," said Joan, passing her arm carelessly
+around Dona Rosita's comfortable waist. "How did he look?"
+
+"As an angel! He have long curls to his back. His moustache was as
+silk, for he have had never a barber to his face. And his eyes--Santa
+Maria!--so soft and so--so melankoly. When he smile it is like the
+moonlight. But," she added, rising to her feet and tossing the end
+of her lace mantilla over her shoulder with a little laugh--"it is
+finish--Adelante! Dr-rrive on!"
+
+"I don't want to destroy your belief in the connection of your friend
+with the road agents," said Demorest grimly, "but if he belongs to
+their band it is in an inferior capacity. Most of them are known to
+the authorities, and I have heard it even said that their leader or
+organizer is a very unromantic speculator in San Francisco."
+
+But this suggestion was received coldly by the ladies, who
+superciliously turned their backs upon it and the suggester. Joan
+dropped her voice to a lower tone and turned to Dona Rosita. "And you
+have never seen him since?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"I should--at least, I wouldn't have let it end in THAT way," said Joan
+in a positive whisper.
+
+"Eh?" said Dona Rosita, laughing. "So eet is YOU, Juanita, that have the
+romance--eh? Ah, bueno! 'you have the house--so I gif to you the lover
+also.' I place him at your disposition." She made a mock gesture of
+elaborate and complete abnegation. "But," she added in Joan's ear, with
+a quick glance at Demorest, "do not let our hoosband eat him. Even now
+he have the look to strangle ME. Make to him a little lof, quickly, when
+I shall walk in the garden." She turned away with a pretty wave of her
+fan to Demorest, and calling out, "I go to make an assignation with my
+memory," laughed again, and lazily passed into the shadow. An ominous
+silence on the veranda followed, broken finally by Mrs. Demorest.
+
+"I don't think it was necessary for you to show your dislike to Dona
+Rosita quite so plainly," she said, coldly, slightly accenting the
+Puritan stiffness, which any conjugal tete-a-tete lately revived in her
+manner.
+
+"I show dislike of Dona Rosita?" stammered Demorest, in surprise. "Come,
+Joan," he added, with a forgiving smile, "you don't mean to imply that
+I dislike her because I couldn't get up a thrilling interest in an old
+story I've heard from every gossip in the pueblo since I can remember."
+
+"It's not an old story to HER," said Joan, dryly, "and even if it were,
+you might reflect that all people are not as anxious to forget the past
+as you are."
+
+Demorest drew back to let the shaft glance by. "The story is old enough,
+at least for her to have had a dozen flirtations, as you know, since
+then," he returned gently, "and I don't think she herself seriously
+believes in it. But let that pass. I am sorry I offended her. I had no
+idea of doing so. As a rule, I think she is not so easily offended. But
+I shall apologize to her." He stopped and approached nearer his wife in
+a half-timid, half-tentative affection. "As to my forgetfulness of the
+past, Joan, even if it were true, I have had little cause to forget it
+lately. Your friend, Corwin--"
+
+"I must insist upon your not calling him MY friend, Richard,"
+interrupted Joan, sharply, "considering that it was through YOUR
+indiscretion in coming to us for the buggy that night, that he
+suspected--"
+
+She stopped suddenly, for at that moment a startled little shriek,
+quickly subdued, rang through the garden. Demorest ran hurriedly down
+the steps in the direction of the outcry. Joan followed more cautiously.
+At the first turning of the path Dona Rosita almost fell into his arms.
+She was breathless and trembling, but broke into a hysterical laugh.
+
+"I have such a fear come to me--I cry out! I think I have seen a man;
+but it was nothing--nothing! I am a fool. It is no one here."
+
+"But where did you see anything?" said Joan, coming up.
+
+Rosita flew to her side. "Where? Oh, here!--everywhere! Ah, I am a
+fool!" She was laughing now, albeit there were tears glistening on her
+lashes when she laid her head on Joan's shoulder.
+
+"It was some fancy--some resemblance you saw in that queer cactus," said
+Demorest, gently. "It is quite natural, I was myself deceived the other
+night. But I'll look around to satisfy you. Take Dona Rosita back to the
+veranda, Joan. But don't be alarmed, dear--it was only an illusion."
+
+He turned away. When his figure was lost in the entwining foliage, Dona
+Rosita seized Joan's shoulder and dragged her face down to a level with
+her own.
+
+"It was something!" she whispered quickly.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"It was--HIM!"
+
+"Nonsense," groaned Joan, nevertheless casting a hurried glance around
+her.
+
+"Have no fear," said Dona Rosita quickly, "he is gone--I saw him pass
+away--so! But it was HE--Huanson. I recognize him. I forget him never."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Have I the eyes? the memory? Madre de Dios! Am I a lunatico too? Look!
+He have stood there--so."
+
+"Then you think he knew you were here?"
+
+"Quien sabe?"
+
+"And that he came here to see you?"
+
+Dona Rosita caught her again by the shoulders, and with her lips to
+Joan's ear, said with the intensest and most deliberate of emphasis:
+
+"NO!"
+
+"What in Heaven's name brought him here then?"
+
+"You!"
+
+"Are you crazy?"
+
+"You! you! YOU!" repeated Dona Rosita, with crescendo energy. "I have
+come upon him here; where he stood and look at the veranda, absorrrb of
+YOU. You move--he fly."
+
+"Hush!"
+
+"Ah, yes! I have said I give him to you. And he came, Bueno," murmured
+Dona Rosita, with a half-resigned, half-superstitious gesture.
+
+"WILL you be quiet!"
+
+It was the sound of Demorest's feet on the gravel path, returning
+from his fruitless search. He had seen nothing. It must have been Dona
+Rosita's fancy.
+
+"She was just saying she thought she had been mistaken," said Joan,
+quietly. "Let us go in--it is rather chilly here, and I begin to feel
+creepy too."
+
+Nevertheless, as they entered the house again, and the light of the
+hall lantern fell upon her face, Demorest thought he had never but once
+before seen her look so nervously and animatedly beautiful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The following day, when Mr. Ezekiel Corwin had delivered his letters of
+introduction, and thoroughly canvassed the scant mercantile community of
+San Buenaventura with considerable success, he deposited his carpet-bag
+at the stage office in the posada, and found to his chagrin that he had
+still two hours to wait before the coach arrived. After a vain attempt
+to impart cheerful but disparaging criticism of the pueblo and its
+people to Senor Mateo and his wife--whose external courtesy had been
+visibly increased by a line from Demorest, but whose confidence towards
+the stranger had not been extended in the same proportion--he gave it
+up, and threw himself lazily on a wooden bench in the veranda, already
+hacked with the initials of his countrymen, and drawing a jack-knife
+from his pocket, he began to add to that emblazonry the trade-mark of
+the Panacea--as a casual advertisement. During its progress, however,
+he was struck by the fact that while no one seemed to enter the posada
+through the stage office, the number of voices in the adjoining room
+seemed to increase, and the ministrations of Mateo and his wife became
+more feverishly occupied with their invisible guests. It seemed to
+Ezekiel that consequently there must be a second entrance which he had
+not seen, and this added to the circumstance that one or two lounging
+figures who had been approaching unaccountably disappeared before
+reaching the veranda, induced him to rise and examine the locality. A
+few paces beyond was an alley, but it appeared to be already blocked by
+several cigarette-smoking, short-jacketed men who were leaning against
+its walls, and showed no inclination to make way for him. Checked, but
+not daunted, Ezekiel coolly returned to the stage office, and taking the
+first opportunity when Mateo passed through the rear door, followed him.
+As he expected, the innkeeper turned to the left and entered a large
+room filled with tobacco smoke and the local habitues of the posada.
+But Ezekiel, shrewdly surmising that the private entrance must be in the
+opposite direction, turned to the right along the passage until he came
+unexpectedly upon the corridor of the usual courtyard, or patio, of
+every Mexican hostelry, closed at one end by a low adobe wall, in which
+there was a door. The free passage around the corridor was interrupted
+by wide partitions, fitted up with tables and benches, like stalls,
+opening upon the courtyard where a few stunted fig and orange trees
+still grew. As the courtyard seemed to be the only communication between
+the passage he had left and the door in the wall, he was about to cross
+it, when the voices of two men in the compartment struck his ears.
+Although one was evidently an American's, Ezekiel was instinctively
+convinced that they were speaking in English only for greater security
+against being understood by the frequenters of the posada. It is
+unnecessary to say that this was an innocent challenge to the curiosity
+of Ezekiel that he instantly accepted. He drew back carefully into the
+shadow of the partition as one of the voices asked--
+
+"Wasn't that Johnson just come in?"
+
+There was a movement as if some one had risen to look over the
+compartment, but the gathering twilight completely hid Ezekiel.
+
+"No!"
+
+"He's late. Suppose he don't come--or back out?"
+
+The other man broke into a grim laugh. "I reckon you don't know Johnson
+yet, or you'd understand this yer little game o' his is just the one
+idea o' his life. He's been two years on that man's track, and he ain't
+goin' to back out now that he's got a dead sure thing on him."
+
+"But why is he so keen about it, anyway? It don't seem nat'ral for a
+business man built after Johnson's style, and a rich man to boot, to go
+into this detective business. It ain't the reward, we know that. Is it
+an old grudge?"
+
+"You bet!" The speaker paused, and then in a lower voice, which taxed
+Ezekial's keen ear to the uttermost, resumed: "It's said up in Frisco
+that Cherokee Bob knew suthin' agin Johnson way back in the States;
+anyhow, I believe it's understood that they came across the plains
+together in '50--and Bob hounded Johnson and blackmailed him here where
+he was livin', even to the point of makin' him help him on the road or
+give information, until one day Johnson bucked against it--kicked over
+the traces--and swore he'd be revenged on Bob, and then just settled
+himself down to that business. Wotever he'd been and done himself he
+made it all right with the sheriff here; and I've heard ez it wasn't
+anything criminal or that sort, but that it was o' some private trouble
+that he'd confided to that hound Bob, and Bob had threatened to tell
+agen him. That's the grudge they say Johnson has, and that's why he's
+allowed to be the head devil in this yer affair. It's an understood
+thing, too, that the sheriff and the police ain't goin' to interfere if
+Johnson accidentally blows the top of Bob's head off in the scrimmage of
+a capter."
+
+"And I reckon Bob wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing to him when he
+finds out that Johnson has given him away?"
+
+"I reckon," said the other, sententiously, "for it's Johnson's knowledge
+of the country and the hoss-stealers that are in with Bob's gang of road
+agents that made it easy for him to buy up and win over Bob's friends
+here, so that they'd help to trap him."
+
+"It's pretty rough on Bob to be sold out in that way," said the second
+speaker, sympathizingly.
+
+"If they were white men, p'rhaps," returned his companion,
+contemptuously, "but this yer's a case of Injin agen Injin, ez the men
+are Mexican half-breeds just as Bob's a half Cherokee. The sooner that
+kind o' cross cattle exterminate each other the better it'll be for the
+country. It takes a white man like Johnson to set 'em by the ears."
+
+A silence followed. Ezekiel, beginning to be slightly bored with his
+cheaply acquired but rather impractical information, was about to slip
+back into the passage again when he was arrested by a laugh from the
+first speaker.
+
+"What's the matter?" growled the other. "Do you want to bring the whole
+posada out here?"
+
+"I was only thinkin' what a skeer them innocent greenhorn passengers
+will get just ez they're snoozing off for the night, ten miles from
+here," responded his friend, with a chuckle. "Wonder ef anybody's goin'
+up from here besides that patent medicine softy."
+
+Ezekiel stopped as if petrified.
+
+"Ef the ---- fools keep quiet they won't be hurt, for our men will be
+ready to chip in the moment of the attack. But we've got to let the
+attack be made for the sake of the evidence. And if we warn off the
+passengers from going this trip, and let the stage go up empty, Bob
+would suspect something and vamose. But here's Johnson!"
+
+The door in the adobe wall had suddenly opened, and a figure in a serape
+entered the patio. Ezekiel, whose curiosity was whetted with indignation
+at the ignominious part assigned to him in this comedy, forgot even
+his risk of detection by the newcomer, who advanced quickly towards the
+compartment. When he had reached it he said, in a tone of bitterness:
+
+"The game is up, gentlemen, and the whole thing is blown. The scoundrel
+has got some confederate here--for he's been seen openly on the road
+near Demorest's ranch, and the band have had warning and dispersed. We
+must find out the traitor, and take our precautions for the next time.
+Who is that there? I don't know him."
+
+He was pointing to Ezekiel, who had started eagerly forward at the first
+sound of his voice. The two occupants of the compartment rose at
+the same moment, leaped into the courtyard, and confronted Ezekiel.
+Surrounded by the three menacing figures he did not quail, but remained
+intently gazing upon the newcomer. Then his mouth opened, and he drawled
+lazily:
+
+"Wa'al, ef it ain't Squire Blandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut, I'm
+a treed coon. Squire Blandford, how DO you do?"
+
+The stranger drew back in undisguised amazement; the two men glanced
+hurriedly at each other; Ezekiel alone remained cool, smiling,
+imperturbable, and triumphant.
+
+"Who are YOU, sir? I do not know you," demanded the newcomer, roughly.
+
+"Like ez not," said Corwin dryly, "it's a matter o' four year sense I
+lived in your house. Even Dick Demorest--you knew Dick?--didn't know me;
+but I reckon that Mrs. Blandford as used to be--"
+
+"That's enough," said Blandford--for it was he--suddenly mastering both
+himself and Corwin by a supreme emphasis of will and gesture. "Wait!"
+Then turning to the two others who were discreetly regarding the
+blank adobe wall before them, he said: "Excuse me for a few minutes,
+gentlemen. There is no hurry now. I will see you later;" and with an
+imperative wave of his hand motioned Ezekiel to precede him into the
+passage, and followed him.
+
+He did not speak until they entered the stage office, when, passing
+through it, he said peremptorily: "Follow me." The few loungers, who
+seemed to recognize him, made way for him with a singular deference that
+impressed Ezekiel, already dominated by his manner. The first perception
+in his mind was that Blandford had in some strange way succeeded to
+Demorest's former imperious character. There was no trace left of the
+old, gentle subjection to Joan's prim precision. Ezekiel followed him
+out of the office as unresistingly as he had followed Demorest into the
+stables on that eventful night. They passed down the narrow street until
+Blandford suddenly stopped short and turned into the crumbling doorway
+of one of the low adobe buildings and entered an apartment. It seemed
+to be the ordinary living-room of the house, made more domestic by
+the presence of a silk counterpaned bed in one corner, a prie Dieu and
+crucifix, and one or two articles of bedchamber furniture. A woman
+was sitting in deshabille by the window; a man was smoking on a lounge
+against the wall. Blandford, in the same peremptory manner, addressed
+a command in Spanish to the inmates, who immediately abandoned the
+apartment to the seeming trespasser.
+
+Motioning his companion to a seat on the lounge just vacated, Blandford
+folded his arms and stood erect before him.
+
+"Well," he said, with quick, business conciseness, "what do you want?"
+
+Ezekiel was staggered out of his complacency.
+
+"Wa'al," he stammered, "I only reckoned to ask the news, ez we are old
+friends--I--"
+
+"How much do you want?" repeated Blandford, impatiently.
+
+Ezekiel was mystified, yet expectant. "I can't say ez I exakly
+understand," he began.
+
+"How--much--money--do--you--want," continued Blandford, with frigid
+accuracy, "to get up and get out of this place?"
+
+"Wa'al, consideren ez I'm travellin' here ez the only authorized agent
+of a first-class Frisco Drug House," said Ezekiel, with a mingling of
+mortification, pride, and hopefulness, "unless you're travellin' in the
+opposition business, I don't see what's that to you."
+
+Blandford regarded him searchingly for an instant. "Who sent you here?"
+
+"Dilworth & Dusenberry, Battery Street, San Francisco. Hev their card?"
+said Ezekiel, taking one from his waistcoat pocket.
+
+"Corwin," said Blandford, sternly, "whatever your business is here
+you'll find it will pay you better, a ---- sight, to be frank with
+me and stop this Yankee shuffling. You say you have been with
+Demorest--what has HE got to do with your business here?"
+
+"Nothin'," said Ezekiel. "I reckon he wos ez astonished to see me ez you
+are."
+
+"And didn't he send you here to seek me?" said Blandford, impatiently.
+
+"Considerin' he believes you a dead man, I reckon not."
+
+Blandford gave a hard, constrained laugh. After a pause, still keeping
+his eyes fixed on Ezekiel, he said:
+
+"Then your recognition of me was accidental?"
+
+"Wa'al, yes. And ez I never took much stock in the stories that you were
+washed off the Warensboro Bridge, I ain't much astonished at finding you
+agin."
+
+"What did you believe happened to me?" said Blandford, less brusquely.
+
+Ezekiel noticed the softening; he felt his own turn coming. "I
+kalkilated you had reasons for going off, leaving no address behind
+you," he drawled.
+
+"What reasons?" asked Blandford, with a sudden relapse of his former
+harshness.
+
+"Wa'al, Squire Blandford, sens you wanter know--I reckon your business
+wasn't payin', and there was a matter of two hundred and fifty dollars
+ye took with ye, that your creditors would hev liked to hev back."
+
+"Who dare say that?" demanded Blandford, angrily.
+
+"Your wife that was--Mrs. Demorest ez is--told it to her mother,"
+returned Ezekiel, lazily.
+
+The blow struck deeper than even Ezekiel's dry malice imagined. For an
+instant, Blandford remained stupefied. In the five years' retrospect of
+his resolution on that fatal night, whatever doubt of its wisdom might
+have obtruded itself upon him, he had never thought of THIS. He had been
+willing to believe that his wife had quietly forgotten him as well as
+her treachery to him, he had passively acquiesced in the results of that
+forgetfulness and his own silence; he had been conscious that his
+wound had healed sooner than he expected, but if this consciousness
+had enabled him to extend a certain passive forgiveness to his wife
+and Demorest, it was always with the conviction that his mysterious
+effacement had left an inexplicable shadow upon them which their
+consciences alone could explain. But for this unjust, vulgar, and
+degrading interpretation of his own act of expiation, he was totally
+unprepared. It completely crushed whatever sentiment remained of that
+act in the horrible irony of finding himself put upon his defence before
+the world, without being able now to offer the real cause. The anguish
+of that night had gone forever; but the ridiculous interpretation of it
+had survived, and would survive it. In the eyes of the man before him
+he was not a wronged husband, but an absconding petty defaulter, whom he
+had just detected!
+
+His mind was quickly made up. In that instant he had resolved upon a
+step as fateful as his former one, and a fitting climax to its results.
+For five years he had clearly misunderstood his attitude towards his
+treacherous wife and perjured friend. Thanks to this practical, selfish
+machine before him, he knew it now.
+
+"Look here, Corwin," he said, turning upon Ezekiel a colorless face,
+but a steady, merciless eye. "I can guess, without your telling me, what
+lies may be circulated about me by the man and woman who know that I
+have only to declare myself alive to convict them of infamy--perhaps
+even of criminality before the law. You are not MY friend, or you would
+not have believed them; if you are THEIRS, you have two courses open to
+you now. Keep this meeting to yourself and trust to my mercy to keep it
+a secret also; or, tell Mrs. Demorest that you have seen Mr. Johnson,
+who is not afraid to come forward at any moment and proclaim that he
+is Edward Blandford, her only lawful husband. Choose which course you
+like--it is nothing more to me."
+
+"Wa'al, I reckon that, as far as I know Mrs. Demorest," said Ezekiel,
+dryly, "it don't make the least difference to her either; but if you
+want to know my opinion o' this matter, it is that neither you nor
+Demorest exactly understand that woman. I've known Joan Salisbury since
+she was so high, but if ye expected me to tell you wot she was goin' to
+do next, I'd be able to tell ye where the next flash o' lightnin' would
+strike. It's wot you don't expect of Joan Salisbury that she does. And
+the best proof of it is that she filed papers for a divorce agin you
+in Chicago and got it by default a few weeks afore she married
+Demorest--and you don't know it."
+
+Blandford recoiled. "Impossible," he said, but his voice too plainly
+showed how clearly its possibility struck him now.
+
+"It's so, but it was kept secret by Deacon Salisbury. I overheerd it.
+Wa'al, that's a proof that you don't understand Joan, I reckon. And
+considerin' that Demorest HIMSELF don't know it, ez I found out only the
+other day in talking to him, I kalkilate I'm safe in sayin' that
+you're neither o' you quite up to Deacon Salisbury's darter in nat'ral
+cuteness. I don't like to obtrude my opinion, Squire Blandford, ez we're
+old friends, but I do say, that wot with Demorest's prematooriness and
+yer own hangfiredness, it's a good thing that you two worldly men hev
+got Joan Salisbury to stand up for North Liberty and keep it from bein'
+scandalized by the ungodly. Ef it hadn't been for her smartness, whar
+y'd both be landed now? There's a heap in Christian bringin' up, and a
+power in grace, Squire Blandford."
+
+His hard, dry face was for an instant transfigured by a grim fealty and
+the dull glow of some sectarian clannishness. Or was it possible that
+this woman's personality had in some mysterious way disturbed his rooted
+selfishness?
+
+During his speech Blandford had walked to the window. When Corwin had
+ceased speaking, Blandford turned towards him with an equally changed
+face and cold imperturbability that astonished him, and held out his
+hand. "Let bygones be bygones, Corwin--whether we ever meet again or
+not. Yet if I can do anything for you for the sake of old times, I
+am ready to do it. I have some power here and in San Francisco," he
+continued, with a slight touch of pride, "that isn't dependent upon the
+mere name I may travel under. I have a purpose in coming here."
+
+"I know it," said Ezekiel, dryly. "I heard it all from your two friends.
+You're huntin' some man that did you an injury."
+
+"I'm hunting down a dog who, suspecting I had some secret in emigrating
+here, tried to blackmail and ruin me," said Blandford, with a sudden
+expression of hatred that seemed inconsistent with anything that Ezekiel
+had ever known of his old master's character--"a scoundrel who tried to
+break up my new life as another had broken up the old." He stopped and
+recovered himself with a short laugh. "Well, Ezekiel, I don't know as
+his opinion of me was any worse than yours or HERS. And until I catch
+HIM to clear my name again, I let the other slanderers go."
+
+"Wa'al, I reckon you might lay hands on that devil yet, and not far
+away, either. I was up at Demorest's to-day, and I heard Joan and a
+skittish sort o' Mexican young lady talkin' about some tramp that had
+frightened her. And Miss Pico said--"
+
+"What! Who did you say?" demanded Blandford, with a violent start.
+
+"Wa'al, I reckoned I heerd the first name too--Rosita."
+
+A quick flush crossed Blandford's face, and left it glowing like a
+boy's.
+
+"Is SHE there?"
+
+"Wa'al, I reckon she's visitin' Joan," said Ezekiel, narrowly attentive
+of Blandford's strange excitement; "but wot of it?"
+
+But Blandford had utterly forgotten Ezekiel's presence. He had
+remained speechless and flushed. And then, as if suddenly dazzled by an
+inspiration, he abruptly dashed from the room. Ezekiel heard him call to
+his passive host with a Spanish oath, but before he could follow, they
+had both hurriedly left the house.
+
+Ezekiel glanced around him and contemplatively ran his fingers through
+his beard. "It ain't Joan Salisbury nor Dick Demorest ez giv' him that
+start! Humph! Wa'al--I wanter know!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Mrs. Demorest was so fascinated by the company of Dona Rosita Pico and
+her romantic memories, that she prevailed upon that heart-broken but
+scarcely attenuated young lady to prolong her visit beyond the fortnight
+she had allotted to communion with the past. For a day or two following
+her singular experience in the garden, Mrs. Demorest plied her with
+questions regarding the apparition she had seen, and finally extorted
+from her the admission that she could not positively swear to its being
+the real Johnson, or even a perfectly consistent shade of that faithless
+man. When Joan pointed out to her that such masculine perfections
+as curling raven locks, long silken mustachios, and dark eyes, were
+attributes by no means exclusive to her lover, but were occasionally
+seen among other less favored and even equally dangerous Americans, Dona
+Rosita assented with less objection than Joan anticipated. "Besides,
+dear," said Joan, eying her with feline watchfulness, "it is four years
+since you've seen him, and surely the man has either shaved since, or
+else he took a ridiculous vow never to do it, and then he would be more
+fully bearded."
+
+But Dona Rosita only shook her pretty head. "Ah, but he have an air--a
+something I know not what you call--so." She threw her shawl over her
+left shoulder, and as far as a pair of soft blue eyes and comfortably
+pacific features would admit, endeavored to convey an idea of wicked and
+gloomy abstraction.
+
+"You child," said Joan,--"that's nothing; they all of them do that. Why,
+there was a stranger at the Oriental Hotel whom I met twice when I was
+there--just as mysterious, romantic, and wicked-looking. And in fact
+they hinted terrible things about him. Well! so much so, that Mr.
+Demorest was quite foolish about my being barely civil to him--you
+understand--and--" She stopped suddenly, with a heightened color under
+the fire of Rosita's laughing eyes.
+
+"Ah--so--Dona Discretion! Tell to me all. Did our hoosband eat him?"
+
+Joan's features suddenly tightened to their old puritan rigidity. "Mr.
+Demorest has reasons--abundant reasons--to thoroughly understand and
+trust me," she replied in an austere voice.
+
+Rosita looked at her a moment in mystification and then shrugged her
+shoulders. The conversation dropped. Nevertheless, it is worthy of being
+recorded that from that moment the usual familiar allusions, playful and
+serious, to Rosita's mysterious visitor began to diminish in frequency
+and finally ceased. Even the news brought by Demorest of some vague
+rumor in the pueblo that an intended attack on the stage-coach had been
+frustrated by the authorities, and that the vicinity had been haunted by
+incognitos of both parties, failed to revive the discussion.
+
+Meantime the slight excitement that had stirred the sluggish life of the
+pueblo of San Buenaventura had subsided. The posada of Senor Mateo
+had lost its feverish and perplexing dual life; the alley behind it
+no longer was congested by lounging cigarette smokers; the compartment
+looking upon the silent patio was unoccupied, and its chairs and tables
+were empty. The two deputy sheriffs, of whom Senor Mateo presumably
+knew very little, had fled; and the mysterious Senor Johnson, of whom
+he--still presumably--knew still less, had also disappeared. For Senor
+Mateo's knowledge of what transpired in and about his posada, and of
+the character and purposes of those who frequented it, was tinctured by
+grave and philosophical doubts. This courteous and dignified scepticism
+generally took the formula of quien sabe to all frivolous and mundane
+inquiry. He would affirm with strict verity that his omelettes were
+unapproachable, his beds miraculous, his aguardiente supreme, his house
+was even as your own. Beyond these were questions with which the simply
+finite and always discreet human intellect declined to grapple.
+
+The disturbing effect of Senor Corwin upon a mind thus gravely
+constituted may be easily imagined. Besides Ezekiel's inordinate
+capacity for useless or indiscreet information, it was undeniable that
+his patent medicines had effected a certain peaceful revolutionary
+movement in San Buenaventura. A simple and superstitious community that
+had steadily resisted the practical domestic and agricultural American
+improvements, succumbed to the occult healing influences of the Panacea
+and Jones's Bitters. The virtues of a mysterious balsam, more or less
+illuminated with a colored mythological label, deeply impressed them;
+and the exhibition of a circular, whereon a celestial visitant was
+represented as descending with a gross of Rogers' Pills to a suffering
+but admiring multitude, touched their religious sympathies to such an
+extent that the good Padre Jose was obliged to warn them from the pulpit
+of the diabolical character of their heresies of healing--with the
+natural result of yet more dangerously advertising Ezekiel. There were
+those too who spoke under their breath of the miraculous efficacy
+of these nostrums. Had not Don Victor Arguello, whose respectable
+digestion, exhausted by continuous pepper and garlic, failed him
+suddenly, received an unexpected and pleasurable stimulus from the
+New England rum, which was the basis of the Jones Bitters? Had not the
+baker, tremulous from excessive aguardiente, been soothed and sustained
+by the invisible morphia, judiciously hidden in Blogg's Nerve Tonic?
+Nor had the wily Ezekiel forgotten the weaker sex in their maiden
+and maternal requirements. Unguents, that made silken their black but
+somewhat coarsely fibrous tresses, opened charming possibilities to
+the Senoritas; while soothing syrups lent a peaceful repose to many a
+distracted mother's household. The success of Ezekiel was so marked as
+to justify his return at the end of three weeks with a fresh assortment
+and an undiminished audacity.
+
+It was on his second visit that the sceptical, non-committal policy of
+Senor Mateo was sorely tried. Arriving at the posada one night, Ezekiel
+became aware that his host was engaged in some mysterious conference
+with a visitor who had entered through the ordinary public room. The
+view which the acute Ezekiel managed to get of the stranger, however,
+was productive of no further discovery than that he bore a faint
+and disreputable resemblance to Blandford, and was handsome after a
+conscious, reckless fashion, with an air of mingled bravado and conceit.
+But an hour later, as Corwin was taking the cooler air of the veranda
+before retiring to one of the miraculous beds of the posada, he was
+amazed at seeing what was apparently Blandford himself emerge on
+horseback from the alley, and after a quick glance towards the veranda,
+canter rapidly up the street. Ezekiel's first impression was to call to
+him, but the sudden recollection that he parted from his old master on
+confidential terms only three days before in San Francisco, and that it
+was impossible for him to be in the pueblo, stopped him with his fingers
+meditatively in his beard. Then he turned in to the posada, and hastily
+summoned Mateo.
+
+The gentleman presented himself in a state of such profound scepticism
+that it seemed to have already communicated itself to his shoulders, and
+gave him the appearance of having shrugged himself into the room.
+
+"Ha'ow long ago did Mr. Johnson get here?" asked Corwin, lazily.
+
+"Ah--possibly--then there has been a Mr. Johnson?" This is a polite
+doubt of his own perceptions and a courteous acceptance of his
+questioner's.
+
+"Wa'al, I guess so. Considerin' I jest saw him with my own eyes,"
+returned Ezekiel.
+
+"Ah!" Mateo was relieved. Might he congratulate the Senor Corwin, who
+must be also relieved, and shake his respected hand. Bueno. And then he
+had met this Senor Johnson? doubtless a friend? And he was well? and all
+were happy?
+
+"Look yer, Mattayo! What I wanter know ez THIS. When did that man, who
+has just ridden out of your alley, come here? Sabe that--it's a plain
+question."
+
+Ah surely, of the clearest comprehension. Bueno. It may have been last
+week--or even this week--or perhaps yesterday--or of a possibility
+to-day. The Senor Corwin, who was wise and omniscient, would comprehend
+that the difficulty lay in deciding WHO was that man. Perhaps a friend
+of the Senor Corwin--perhaps only one who LOOKED like him. There
+existed--might Mateo point out--a doubt.
+
+Ezekiel regarded Mateo with a certain grim appreciation. "Wa'al, is
+there anybody here who looks like Johnson?"
+
+Again there were the difficulty of ascertaining perfectly how the Senor
+Johnson looked. If the Senor Johnson was Americano, doubtless there
+were other Americanos who had resembled him. It was possible. The Senor
+Corwin had doubtless observed for a little space a caballero who was
+here, as it were, in the instant of the appearance of Senor Johnson?
+Possibly there was a resemblance, and yet--
+
+Corwin had certainly noticed this resemblance, but it did not suit his
+cautious intellect to fall in with any prevailing scepticism of his
+host. Satisfied in his mind that Mateo was concealing something from
+him, and equally satisfied that he would sooner or later find it out,
+he grinned diabolically in the face of that worthy man, and sought the
+meditation of his miraculous couch. When he had departed, the sceptic
+turned to his wife:
+
+"This animal has been sniffing at the trail."
+
+"Truly--but Mother of God--where is the discretion of our friend. If he
+will continue to haunt the pueblo like a lovesick chicken, he will get
+his neck wrung yet."
+
+Following out an ingenious idea of his own, Ezekiel called the next day
+on the Demorests, and in some occult fashion obtained an invitation to
+stay under their hospitable roof during his sojourn in Buenaventura.
+Perfectly aware that he owed this courtesy more to Joan than to her
+husband, it is probable that his grim enjoyment was not diminished by
+the fact; while Joan, for reasons of her own, preferred the constraint
+which the presence of another visitor put upon Demorest's uxoriousness.
+Of late, too, there were times when Dona Rosita's naive intelligence,
+which was not unlike the embarrassing perceptions of a bright and
+half-spoiled child, was in her way, and she would willingly have
+shared the young lady's company with her husband had Demorest shown any
+sympathy for the girl. It was in the faint hope that Ezekiel might in
+some way beguile Rosita's wandering attention that she had invited him.
+The only difficulty lay in his uncouthness, and in presenting to the
+heiress of the Picos a man who had been formerly her own servant. Had
+she attempted to conceal that fact she was satisfied that Ezekiel's
+independence and natural predilection for embarrassing situations would
+have inevitably revealed it. She had even gone so far as to consider the
+propriety of investing him with a poor relationship to her family, when
+Dona Rosita herself happily stopped all further trouble. On her very
+first introduction to him, that charming young lady at once accepted him
+as a lunatic whose brains were turned by occult, scientific, and medical
+study! Ah! she, Rosita, had heard of such cases before. Had not a
+paternal ancestor of hers, one Don Diego Castro, believed he had
+discovered the elixir of youth. Had he not to that end refused even to
+wash him the hand, to cut him the nail of the finger and the hair of
+the head! Exalted by that discovery, had he not been unsparingly
+uncomplimentary to all humanity, especially to the weaker sex? Even as
+the Senor Corwin!
+
+Far from being offended at this ingenious interpretation of his
+character, Ezekiel exhibited a dry gratification over it, and even
+conceived an unwholesome admiration of the fair critic; he haunted her
+presence and preoccupied her society far beyond Joan's most sanguine
+expectations. He sat in open-mouthed enjoyment of her at the table,
+he waylaid her in the garden, he attempted to teach her English. Dona
+Rosita received these extraordinary advances in a no less extraordinary
+manner. In the scant masculine atmosphere of the house, and the somewhat
+rigid New England reserve that still pervaded it, perhaps she languished
+a little, and was not averse to a slight flirtation, even with a madman.
+Besides, she assumed the attitude of exercising a wholesome restraint
+over him. "If we are not found dead in our bed one morning, and
+extracted of our blood for a cordial, you shall thank to me for it," she
+said to Joan. "Also for the not empoisoning of the coffee!"
+
+So she permitted him to carry a chair or hammock for her into the
+garden, to fetch the various articles which she was continually losing,
+and which he found with his usual penetration; and to supply her with
+information, in which, however, he exercised an unwonted caution. On
+the other hand, certain naive recollections and admissions, which in the
+quality of a voluble child she occasionally imparted to this "madman" in
+return, were in the proportion of three to one.
+
+It had been a hot day, and even the usual sunset breeze had failed that
+evening to rock the tops of the outlying pine-trees or cool the heated
+tiles of the pueblo roofs. There was a hush and latent expectancy in the
+air that reacted upon the people with feverish unrest and uneasiness;
+even a lull in the faintly whispering garden around the Demorests' casa
+had affected the spirits of its inmates, causing them to wander about
+in vague restlessness. Joan had disappeared; Dona Rosita, under an
+olive-tree in one of the deserted paths, and attended by the faithful
+Ezekiel, had said it was "earthquake weather," and recalled, with a sign
+of the cross, a certain dreadful day of her childhood, when el temblor
+had shaken down one of the Mission towers. "You shall see it now, as
+he have left it so it has remain always," she added with superstitious
+gravity.
+
+"That's just the lazy shiftlessness of your folks," responded Ezekiel
+with prompt ungallantry. "It ain't no wonder the Lord Almighty hez to
+stir you up now and then to keep you goin'."
+
+Dona Rosita gazed at him with simple childish pity. "Poor man; it have
+affect you also in the head, this weather. So! It was even so with
+the uncle of my father. Hush up yourself, and bring to me the box of
+chocolates of my table. I will gif to you one. You shall for one time
+have something pleasant on the end of your tongue, even if you must
+swallow him after."
+
+Ezekiel grinned. "Ye ain't afraid o' bein' left alone with the ghost
+that haunts the garden, Miss Rosita?"
+
+"After YOU--never-r-r."
+
+"I'll find Mrs. Demorest and send her to ye," said Ezekiel,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"Eh, to attract here the ghost? Thank you, no, very mooch."
+
+Ezekiel's face contracted until nothing but his bright peering gray eyes
+could be seen. "Attract the ghost!" he echoed. "Then you kalkilate that
+it's--" he stopped, insinuatingly.
+
+Rosita brought her fan sharply over his knuckles, and immediately opened
+it again over her half-embarrassed face. "I comprehend not anything to
+'ekalkilate.' WILL you go, Don Fantastico; or is it for me to bring to
+you?"
+
+Ezekiel flew. He quickly found the chocolates and returned, but was
+disconcerted on arriving under the olive-tree to find Dona Rosita no
+longer in the hammock. He turned into a by-path, where an extraordinary
+circumstance attracted his attention. The air was perfectly still, but
+the leaves of a manzanita bush near the misshapen cactus were slightly
+agitated. Presently Ezekiel saw the stealthy figure of a man emerge from
+behind it and approach the cactus. Reaching his hand cautiously towards
+the plant, the stranger detached something from one of its thorns, and
+instantly disappeared. The quick eyes of Ezekiel had seen that it was a
+letter, his unerring perception of faces recognized at the same moment
+that the intruder was none other than the handsome, reckless-looking man
+he had seen the other day in conference with Mateo.
+
+But Ezekiel was not the only witness of this strange intrusion. A few
+paces from him, Dona Rosita, unconscious of his return, was gazing in
+a half-frightened, breathless absorption in the direction of the
+stranger's flight.
+
+"Wa'al!" drawled Ezekiel lazily.
+
+She started and turned towards him. Her face was pale and alarmed, and
+yet to the critical eye of Ezekiel it seemed to wear an expression of
+gratified relief. She laughed faintly.
+
+"Ef that's the kind o' ghost you hev about yer, it's a healthy one,"
+drawled Ezekiel. He turned and fixed his keen eyes on Rosita's face. "I
+wonder what kind o' fruit grows on the cactus that he's so fond of?"
+
+Either she had not seen the abstraction of the letter, or his acting was
+perfect, for she returned his look unwaveringly. "The fruit, eh? I have
+not comprehend."
+
+"Wa'al, I reckon I will," said Ezekiel. He walked towards the cactus;
+there was nothing to be seen but its thorny spikes. He was confronted,
+however, by the sudden apparition of Joan from behind the manzanita at
+its side. She looked up and glanced from Ezekiel to Dona Rosita with an
+agitated air.
+
+"Oh, you saw him too?" she said eagerly.
+
+"I reckon," answered Ezekiel, with his eyes still on Rosita. "I was
+wondering what on airth he was so taken with that air cactus for."
+
+Rosita had become slightly pale again in the presence of her friend.
+Joan quietly pushed Ezekiel aside and put her arm around her. "Are you
+frightened again?" she asked, in a low whisper.
+
+"Not mooch," returned Rosita, without lifting her eyes.
+
+"It was only some peon, trespassing to pick blossoms for his
+sweetheart," she said significantly, with a glance towards Ezekiel. "Let
+us go in."
+
+She passed her hand through Rosita's passive arm and led her towards
+the house, Ezekiel's penetrating eyes still following Rosita with an
+expression of gratified doubt.
+
+For once, however, that astute observer was wrong. When Mrs. Demorest
+had reached the house she slipped into her own room, and, bolting the
+door, drew from her bosom a letter which SHE had picked from the cactus
+thorn, and read it with a flushed face and eager eyes.
+
+It may have been the effect of the phenomenal weather, but the next day
+a malign influence seemed to pervade the Demorest household. Dona Rosita
+was confined to her room by an attack of languid nerves, superinduced,
+as she was still voluble enough to declare, by the narcotic effect of
+some unknown herb which the lunatic Ezekiel had no doubt mysteriously
+administered to her with a view of experimenting on its properties. She
+even avowed that she must speedily return to Los Osos, before Ezekiel
+should further compromise her reputation by putting her on a colored
+label in place of the usual Celestial Distributer of the Panacea.
+Ezekiel himself, who had been singularly abstracted and reticent,
+and had absolutely foregone one or two opportunities of disagreeable
+criticism, had gone to the pueblo early that morning. The house was
+comparatively silent and deserted when Demorest walked into his wife's
+boudoir.
+
+It was a pretty room, looking upon the garden, furnished with a singular
+mingling of her own inherited formal tastes and the more sensuous
+coloring and abandon of her new life. There were a great many rugs
+and hangings scattered in disorder around the room, and apparently
+purposeless, except for color; there was a bamboo lounge as large as a
+divan, with two or three cushions disposed on it, and a low chair that
+seemed the incarnation of indolence. Opposed to this, on the wall, was
+the rigid picture of her grandfather, who had apparently retired with
+his volume further into the canvas before the spectacle of this ungodly
+opulence; a large Bible on a funereal trestle-like stand, and the
+primmest and barest of writing-tables, before which she was standing as
+at a sacrificial altar. With an almost mechanical movement she closed
+her portfolio as her husband entered, and also shut the lid of a
+small box with a slight snap. This suggested exclusion of him from her
+previous occupation, whatever it might have been, caused a faint shadow
+of pain to pass across his loving eyes. He cast a glance at his wife
+as if mutely asking her to sit beside him, but she drew a chair to the
+table, and with her elbow resting on the box, resignedly awaited his
+speech.
+
+"I don't mean to disturb you, darling," he said, gently, "but as we were
+alone, I thought we might have one of our old-fashioned talks, and--"
+
+"Don't let it be so old-fashioned as to include North Liberty again,"
+she interrupted, wearily. "We've had quite enough of that since I
+returned."
+
+"I thought you found fault with me then for forgetting the past. But
+let that pass, dear; it is not OUR affairs I wanted to talk to you about
+now," he said, stifling a sigh, "it's about your friend. Please don't
+misunderstand what I am going to say; nor that I interpose except from
+necessity."
+
+She turned her dark brown eyes in his direction, but her glance passed
+abstractedly over his head into the garden.
+
+"It's a matter perfectly well known to me--and, I fear, to all our
+servants also--that somebody is making clandestine visits to our garden.
+I would not trouble you before, until I ascertained the object of these
+visits. It is quite plain to me now that Dona Rosita is that object, and
+that communications are secretly carried on between her and some unknown
+stranger. He has been here once or twice before; he was here again
+yesterday. Ezekiel saw him and saw her."
+
+"Together?" asked Mrs. Demorest, sharply.
+
+"No; but it was evident that there was some understanding, and that some
+communication passed between them."
+
+"Well?" said Mrs. Demorest, with repressed impatience.
+
+"It is equally evident, Joan, that this stranger is a man who does not
+dare to approach your friend in her own house, nor more openly in this;
+but who, with her connivance, uses us to carry on an intrigue which may
+be perfectly innocent, but is certainly compromising to all concerned.
+I am quite willing to believe that Dona Rosita is only romantic and
+reckless, but that will not prevent her from becoming a dupe of some
+rascal who dare not face us openly, and who certainly does not act as
+her equal."
+
+"Well, Rosita is no chicken, and you are not her guardian."
+
+There was a vague heartlessness, more in her voice than in her words,
+that touched him as her cold indifference to himself had never done,
+and for an instant stung his crushed spirit to revolt. "No" he said,
+sternly, "but I am her father's FRIEND, and I shall not allow his
+daughter to be compromised under my roof."
+
+Her eyes sprang up to meet his in hatred as promptly as they once had
+met in love. "And since when, Richard Demorest, have you become so
+particular?" she began, with dry asperity. "Since you lured ME from the
+side of my wedded husband? Since you met ME clandestinely in trains and
+made love to ME under an assumed name? Since you followed ME to my house
+under the pretext of being my husband's friend, and forced me--yes,
+forced me--to see you secretly under my mother's roof? Did you think of
+compromising ME then? Did you think of ruining my reputation, of driving
+my husband from his home in despair? Did you call yourself a rascal
+then? Did you--"
+
+"Stop!" he said, in a voice that shook the rafters; "I command you,
+stop!"
+
+She had gradually worked herself from a deliberately insulting precision
+into an hysterical, and it is to be feared a virtuous, conviction of
+her wrongs. Beginning only with the instinct to taunt and wound the man
+before her, she had been led by a secret consciousness of something else
+he did not know to anticipate his reproach and justify herself in a wild
+feminine abandonment of emotion. But she stopped at his words. For a
+moment she was even thrilled again by the strength and imperiousness she
+had loved.
+
+They were facing each other after five years of mistaken passion, even
+as they had faced each other that night in her mother's kitchen. But the
+grave of that dead passion yawned between them. It was Joan who broke
+the silence, that after her single outburst seemed to fill and oppress
+the room.
+
+"As far as Rosita is concerned," she said, with affected calmness, "she
+is going to-night. And you probably will not be troubled any longer by
+your mysterious visitor."
+
+Whether he heeded the sarcastic significance of her last sentence, or
+even heard her at all, he did not reply. For a moment he turned his
+blazing eyes full upon her, and then without a word strode from the
+room.
+
+She walked to the door and stood uneasily listening in the passage until
+she heard the clatter of hoofs in the paved patio, and knew that he had
+ordered his horse. Then she turned back relieved to her room.
+
+It was already sunset when Demorest drew rein again at the entrance
+of the corral, and the last stroke of the Angelus was ringing from
+the Mission tower. He looked haggard and exhausted, and his horse was
+flecked with foam and dirt. Wherever he had been, or for what object, or
+whether, objectless and dazed, he had simply sought to lose himself in
+aimlessly wandering over the dry yellow hills or in careering furiously
+among his own wild cattle on the arid, brittle plain; whether he had
+beaten all thought from his brain with the jarring leap of his horse, or
+whether he had pursued some vague and elusive determination to his own
+door, is not essential to this brief chronicle. Enough that when he
+dismounted he drew a pistol from his holster and replaced it in his
+pocket.
+
+He had just pushed open the gate of the corral as he led in his horse
+by the bridle, when he noticed another horse tethered among some cotton
+woods that shaded the outer wall of his garden. As he gazed, the figure
+of a man swung lightly from one of the upper boughs of a cotton-wood
+on the wall and disappeared on the other side. It was evidently the
+clandestine visitor. Demorest was in no mood for trifling. Hurriedly
+driving his horse into the enclosure with a sharp cut of his riata, he
+closed the gate upon him, slipped past the intervening space into the
+patio, and then unnoticed into the upper part of the garden. Taking a
+narrow by-path in the direction of the cotton woods that could be seen
+above the wall, he presently came in sight of the object of his search
+moving stealthily towards the house. It was the work of a moment only to
+dash forward and seize him, to find himself engaged in a sharp wrestle,
+to half draw his pistol as he struggled with his captive in the open.
+But once in the clearer light, he started, his grasp of the stranger
+relaxed, and he fell back in bewildered terror.
+
+"Edward Blandford! Good God!"
+
+The pistol had dropped from his hand as he leaned breathless against a
+tree. The stranger kicked the weapon contemptuously aside. Then quietly
+adjusting his disordered dress, and picking the brambles from his
+sleeve, he said with the same air of disdain, "Yes! Edward Blandford,
+whom you thought dead! There! I'm not a ghost--though you tried to make
+me one this time," he said, pointing to the pistol.
+
+Demorest passed his hand across his white face. "Then it's you--and you
+have come here for--for--Joan?"
+
+"For Joan?" echoed Blandford, with a quick scornful laugh, that made the
+blood flow back into Demorest's face as from a blow, and recalled his
+scattered senses. "For Joan," he repeated. "Not much!"
+
+The two men were facing each other in irreconcilable yet confused
+antagonism. Both were still excited and combative from their late
+physical struggle, but with feelings so widely different that it would
+have been impossible for either to have comprehended the other. In the
+figure that had apparently risen from the dead to confront him, Demorest
+only saw the man he had unconsciously wronged--the man who had it in his
+power to claim Joan and exact a terrible retribution! But it was part of
+this monstrous and irreconcilable situation that Blandford had ceased
+to contemplate it, and in his preoccupation only saw the actual
+interference of a man whom he no longer hated, but had begun to pity and
+despise.
+
+He glanced coolly around him. "Whatever we've got to say to each other,"
+he said deliberately, "had better not be overheard. At least what I have
+got to say to you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Demorest, now as self-possessed as his adversary, haughtily waved his
+hand towards the path. They walked on in silence, without even looking
+at each other, until they reached a small summer-house that stood in the
+angle of the wall. Demorest entered. "We cannot be heard here," he said
+curtly.
+
+"And we can see what is going on. Good," said Blandford, coolly
+following him. The summer-house contained a bench and a table. Blandford
+seated himself on the bench. Demorest remained standing beside the
+table. There was a moment's silence.
+
+"I came here with no desire to see you or avoid you," said Blandford,
+with cold indifference. "A few weeks ago I might perhaps have avoided
+you, for your own sake. But since then I have learned that among the
+many things I owe to--to your wife is the fact that five years ago she
+secretly DIVORCED ME, and that consequently my living presence could
+neither be a danger nor a menace to you. I see," he added, dryly, with
+a quick glance at Demorest's horror-stricken face, "that I was also told
+the truth when they said you were as ignorant of the divorce as I was."
+
+He stopped, half in pity of his adversary's shame, half in surprise of
+his own calmness. Five years before, in the tumultuous consciousness of
+his wrongs, he would have scarcely trusted himself face to face with
+the cooler and more self-controlled Demorest. He wondered at and partly
+admired his own coolness now, in the presence of his enemy's confusion.
+
+"As your mind is at rest on that point," he continued, sarcastically,
+"I don't suppose you care to know what became of ME when I left North
+Liberty. But as it happens to have something to do with my being here
+to-night, and is a part of my business with you, you'll have to listen
+to it. Sit down! Very well, then--stand up! It's your own house."
+
+His half cynical, wholly contemptuous ignoring of the real issue between
+them was more crushing to Demorest than the keenest reproach or most
+tragic outburst. He did not lift his eyes as Blandford resumed in a dry,
+business-like way:
+
+"When I came across the plains to California, I fell in with a man about
+my own age--an emigrant also. I suppose I looked and acted like a crazy
+fool through all the journey, for he satisfied himself that I had some
+secret reason for leaving the States, and suspected that I was, like
+himself--a criminal. I afterwards learned that he was an escaped thief
+and assassin. Well, he played upon me all the way here, for I didn't
+care to reveal my real trouble to him, lest it should get back to North
+liberty--" He interrupted himself with a sarcastic laugh. "Of course,
+you understand that all this while Joan was getting her divorce unknown
+to me, and you were marrying her--yet as I didn't know anything about it
+I let him compromise me to save her. But"--he stopped, his eye kindled,
+and, losing his self-control in what to Demorest seemed some incoherent
+passion, went on excitedly: "that man continued his persecution
+HERE--yes, HERE, in this very house, where I was a trusted and honored
+guest, and threatened to expose me to a pure, innocent, simple girl
+who had taken pity on me--unless I helped him in a conspiracy of
+cattle-stealers and road agents, of which he was chief. I was such a
+cursed sentimental fool then, that believing him capable of doing this,
+believing myself still the husband of that woman, your wife, and to
+spare that innocent girl the shame of thinking me a villain, I purchased
+his silence by consenting. May God curse me for it!"
+
+He had started to his feet with flashing eyes, and the indication of an
+overmastering passion that to Demorest, absorbed only in the stupefying
+revelation of his wife's divorce and the horrible doubt it implied,
+seemed utterly vacant and unmeaning.
+
+He had often dreamed of Blandford as standing before him, reproachful,
+indignant, and even desperate over his wife's unfaithfulness; but
+this insane folly and fury over some trivial wrong done to that plump,
+baby-faced, flirting Dona Rosita, crushed him by its unconscious but
+degrading obliteration of Joan and himself more than the most violent
+denunciation. Dazed and bewildered, yet with the instinct of a helpless
+man, he clung only to that part of Blandford's story which indicated
+that he had come there for Rosita, and not to separate him from Joan,
+and even turned to his former friend with a half-embarrassed gesture of
+apology as he stammered--
+
+"Then it was YOU who were Rosita's lover, and you who have been here
+to see her. Forgive me, Ned--if I had only known it." He stopped and
+timidly extended his hand. But Blandford put it aside with a cold
+gesture and folded his arms.
+
+"You have forgotten all you ever knew of me, Demorest! I am not in
+the habit of making clandestine appointments with helpless women whose
+natural protectors I dare not face. I have never pursued an innocent
+girl to the house I dared not enter. When I found that I could not
+honorably retain Dona Rosita's affection, I fled her roof. When I
+believed that even if I broke with this scoundrel--as I did--I was still
+legally if not morally tied to your wife, and could not marry Rosita, I
+left her never to return. And I tore my heart out to do it."
+
+The tears were standing in his eyes. Demorest regarded him again with
+vacant wonder. Tears!--not for Joan's unfaithfulness to him--but for
+this silly girl's transitory sentimentalism. It was horrible!
+
+And yet what was Joan to Blandford now? Why should he weep for the woman
+who had never loved him--whom he loved no longer? The woman who had
+deceived him--who had deceived them BOTH. Yes! for Joan must have
+suspected that Blandford was living to have sought her secret
+divorce--and yet she had never told him--him--the man for whom she got
+it. Ah! he must not forget THAT! It was to marry him that she had taken
+that step. It was perhaps a foolish caution--a mistaken reservation; but
+it was the folly--the mistake of a loving woman. He hugged this belief
+the closer, albeit he was conscious at the same time of following
+Blandford's story of his alienated affection with a feeling of wonder
+and envy.
+
+"And what was the result of this touching sacrifice?" continued
+Blandford, trying to resume his former cynical indifference. "I'll tell
+you. This scoundrel set himself about to supplant me. Taking advantage
+of my absence, his knowledge that her affection for me was heightened by
+the mystery of my life, and trusting to profit by a personal resemblance
+he is said to bear to me, he began to haunt her. Lately he has grown
+bolder, and he dared even to communicate with her here. For it is he,"
+he continued, again giving way to his passion, "this dog, this sneaking
+coward, who visits the place unknown to you, and thinks to entrap the
+poor girl through her memory of me. And it is he that I came here to
+prevent, to expose--if necessary to kill! Don't misunderstand me. I have
+made myself a deputy of the law for that purpose. I've a warrant in my
+pocket, and I shall take him, this mongrel, half-breed Cherokee Bob, by
+fair means or foul!"
+
+The energy and presence of his passion was so infectious that it
+momentarily swept away Demorest's doubts of the past. "And I will help
+you, before God, Blandford," he said eagerly. "And Joan shall, too. She
+will find out from Rosita how far--"
+
+"Thank you," interrupted Blandford, dryly; "but your wife has already
+interfered in this matter, to my cost. It is to her, I believe, I owe
+this wretch's following Rosita here. She already knows this man--has met
+him twice in San Francisco; he even boasts of YOUR jealousy. You know
+best how far he lied."
+
+But Demorest had braced himself against the chill sensation that had
+begun to creep over him as Blandford spoke. He nerved himself and said,
+proudly, "I forbade her knowing him on account of his reputation solely.
+I have no reason to believe she has ever even wished to disobey me."
+
+A smile of scorn that had kindled in Blandford's eyes, darkened with a
+swift shadow of compassion as he glanced at Demorest's hard, ashen
+face. He held out his hand with a sudden impulse. "Enough, I accept your
+offer, and shall put it to the test this very night. I know--if you do
+not--that Rosita is to leave here for Los Osos an hour from now in a
+private carriage, which your wife has ordered especially for her. The
+same information tells me that this villain and another of his gang will
+be in wait for the carriage three miles out of the pueblo to attack it
+and carry off the young girl."
+
+"Are you mad!" said Demorest, in unfeigned amazement. "Do you believe
+them capable of attacking a private carriage and carrying off a
+solitary, defenceless woman? Come, Blandford, this is a school-girl
+romance--not an act of mercenary highwaymen--least of all Cherokee Bob
+and his gang. This is some madness of Rosita's, surely," he continued
+with a forced laugh.
+
+"Does this mean that you think better of your promise?" asked Blandford,
+dryly.
+
+"I said I was at your service," said Demorest, reproachfully.
+
+"Then hear my plan to prevent it, and yet take that dog in the act,"
+said Blandford. "But we must first wait here till the last moment to
+ascertain if he makes any signal to show that his plan is altered,
+or that he has discovered he is watched." He turned, and in his
+preoccupation laid his hand for an instant upon Demorest's shoulder with
+the absent familiarity of old days. Unconscious as the action was, it
+thrilled them both--from its very unconsciousness--and impelled them to
+throw themselves into the new alliance with such feverish and excited
+activity in order to preclude any dangerous alien reflection, that when
+they rose a few moments later and cautiously left the garden arm-in-arm
+through the outer gates, no one would have believed they had ever been
+estranged, least of all the clever woman who had separated them.
+
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock when the two friends, accompanied by the
+sheriff of the county, left San Buenaventura turnpike and turned into
+a thicket of alders to wait the coming of the carriage they were to
+henceforth follow cautiously and unseen in a parallel trail to the main
+road. The moon had risen, and with it the long withheld wind that now
+swept over the distant stretch of gleaming road and partly veiled it
+at times with flying dust unchecked by any dew from the clear cold sky.
+Demorest shivered even with his ready hand on his revolver. Suddenly the
+sheriff uttered an exclamation of disgust.
+
+"Blasted if thar ain't some one in the road between us and their
+ambush."
+
+"It's one of their gang--scouting. Lie close."
+
+"Scout be darned. Look at him bucking round there in the dust. He can't
+even ride! It's some blasted greenhorn taking a pasear on a hoss for the
+first time. Damnation! he's ruined everything. They'll take the alarm."
+
+"I'll push on and clear him out," said Blandford, excitedly. "Even if
+they're off, I may yet get a shot at the Cherokee."
+
+"Quick then," said Demorest, "for here comes the carriage." He pointed
+to a dark spot on the road occasionally emerging from the driven dust
+clouds.
+
+In another moment Blandford was at the heels of the awkward horseman,
+who wheeled clumsily at his approach and revealed the lank figure of
+Ezekiel Corwin!
+
+"You here!" said Blandford, in stupefied fury.
+
+"Wa'al, yes, squire," said Ezekiel lazily, in spite of his uneasy seat.
+"I kalkilated ef there was suthin' goin' on, I'd like to see it."
+
+"You cursed prying fool! you've spoiled all. There!" he shouted
+despairingly, as the quick clatter of hoofs rang from the arroyo behind
+them, "there they go! That's your work, blockhead! Out of my way, or by
+God--" but the sentence was left unfinished as, joined by the sheriff,
+who had galloped up at the sound of the robbers' flight, he darted past
+the unconcerned Ezekiel. Demorest would have followed, but Blandford,
+with a warning cry to him to remain and protect the carriage, halted him
+at the side of Corwin as the vehicle now rapidly approached.
+
+But Ezekiel was before him even then, and as the driver pulled up, that
+inquiring man tumbled from his horse, ran to the door and opened it.
+Demorest rode up, glanced into the carriage, and fell back in blank
+amazement.
+
+It was his wife who was sitting there alone, pale, erect, and beautiful.
+By some illusion of the moonlight, her face and figure, covered with
+soft white wrappings for a journey, looked as he remembered to have seen
+her the first night they had met in the Boston train. The picture was
+completed by the traveling bag and rug that lay on the seat before her.
+Another terrible foreboding seized him; his brain reeled. Was he going
+mad?
+
+"Joan!" he stammered. "You? What is the meaning of this?"
+
+Ezekiel whom but for his dazed condition he might have seen
+violently contorting his features in Joan's face, presumably in equal
+astonishment--broke into a series of discordant chuckles.
+
+"Wa'al, ef that ain't Deacon Salisbury's darter all over. Ha! Here are
+ye two men folks makin' no end o' fuss to save that Mexican gal
+with pistols and ambushes and plots and counterplots, and yer's Joan
+Salisbury shows ye the way ha'ow to do it. And so, ma'am, you succeeded
+in fixin' it up with Dona Rosita to take her place and just sell them
+robbers cheap! Wa'al, ma'am, yer sold this yer party, too--for"--he
+advanced his face close to hers--"I never let on a word, though I knew
+it, and although they nearly knocked me off my hoss in their fuss and
+fury. Ha! ha! They wanted to know what I was doin' here, he-he! Tell
+'em, Joan, tell 'em."
+
+Demorest gazed from one to another with a troubled face, yet one on
+which a faint relief was breaking.
+
+"What does he mean, Joan? Speak," he said, almost imploringly.
+
+Joan, whose color was slightly returning, drew herself up with her old
+cold Puritan precision.
+
+"After the scene you made this morning, Richard, when you chose to
+accuse your wife of unfaithfulness to her friend, her guest, and even
+your reputation, I resolved to go myself with Dona Rosita to Los Osos
+and explain the matter to her father. Some rumor of the ridiculous farce
+I have just witnessed reached us through Ezekiel, and frightened the
+poor girl so that she declined--and properly, too to face the hoax which
+you and some nameless impersonator of a disgraced fugitive have gotten
+up for purposes of your own! I wish you joy of your work! If the play is
+over now, I presume I may be allowed to proceed on my journey?"
+
+"Not yet," said Demorest slowly, with a face over which the chasing
+doubts had at last settled in a grayish pallor. "Believe what you like,
+misunderstand me if you will, laugh at the danger you perhaps comprehend
+better than I do, but upon this road, wherever or to whatever it was
+leading you--to-night you go no further!"
+
+"Then I suppose I may return home," she said coldly. "Ezekiel will
+accompany me back to protect me from--robbers. Come, Ezekiel. Mr.
+Demorest and his friends can be safely trusted to take care of--your
+horse."
+
+And as the grinning Ezekiel sprang into the carriage beside her, she
+pulled up the glass in the fateful and set face of her once trusting
+husband; the carriage turned and drove off, leaving him like a statue in
+the road.
+
+*****
+
+The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just ceased
+ringing. But in the last five years it had rung out the bass viol and
+harmonium, and rung in an organ and choir; and the old austere interior
+had been subjected at the hands of the rising generation to an invasion
+of youthful warmth and color. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the
+choir itself, where the bright spring sunshine, piercing a newly-opened
+stained-glass window, picked out the new spring bonnet of Mrs. Demorest
+and settled upon it during the singing of the hymn. Perhaps that was
+the reason why a few eyes were curiously directed in that direction, and
+that even the minister himself strayed from the precise path of doctrine
+to allude with ecclesiastical vagueness to certain shining examples of
+the Christian virtues that were "again in our midst." The shrewd face
+and white eyelashes of Ezekiel Corwin, junior partner in the firm of
+Dilworth & Dusenberry, of San Francisco, were momentarily raised
+towards the choir, and then relapsed into an expression of fatigued
+self-righteousness.
+
+When the service was over a few worshipers lingered near the choir
+staircase, mindful of the spring bonnet.
+
+"It looks quite nat'ral," said Deacon Fairchild, "ter see Joan Salisbury
+attendin' the ministration of the Word agin. And I ain't sorry she
+didn't bring that second husband of hers with her. It kinder looks like
+old times--afore Edward Blandford was gathered to the Lord."
+
+"That's so," replied his auditor meekly, "and they do say ez ha'ow
+Demorest got more powerful worldly and unregenerate in that heathen
+country, and that Joan ez a professin' Christian had to leave him.
+I've heerd tell thet he'd got mixed up, out thar, with some half-breed
+outlaw, of the name o' Johnson, ez hez a purty, high-flyin' Mexican
+wife. It was fort'nit for Joan that she found a friend in grace in
+Brother Corwin to look arter her share in the property and bring her
+back tu hum."
+
+"She's lookin' peart," said Sister Bradley, "though to my mind that
+bonnet savors still o' heathen vanities."
+
+"Et's the new idees--crept in with that organ," groaned Deacon
+Fairchild; "but--sho--thar she comes."
+
+She shone for an instant--a charming vision--out of the shadow of the
+choir stairs, and then glided primly into the street.
+
+The old sexton, still in waiting with his hand on the half-closed door,
+paused and looked after her with a troubled brow. A singular and utterly
+incomprehensible recollection and resemblance had just crossed his mind.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Argonauts of North Liberty, by Bret Harte
+
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+
+THE ARGONAUTS OF NORTH LIBERTY
+
+by Bret Harte
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just
+ceased ringing.  North Liberty, Connecticut, never on any day a
+cheerful town, was always bleaker and more cheerless on the
+seventh, when the Sabbath sun, after vainly trying to coax a smile
+of reciprocal kindliness from the drawn curtains and half-closed
+shutters of the austere dwellings and the equally sealed and hard-
+set churchgoing faces of the people, at last settled down into a
+blank stare of stony astonishment.  On this chilly March evening of
+the year 1850, that stare had kindled into an offended sunset and
+an angry night that furiously spat sleet and hail in the faces of
+the worshippers, and made them fight their way to the church, step
+by step, with bent heads and fiercely compressed lips, until they
+seemed to be carrying its forbidding portals at the point of their
+umbrellas.
+
+Within that sacred but graceless edifice, the rigors of the hour
+and occasion reached their climax.  The shivering gas-jets lit up
+the austere pallor of the bare walls, and the hollow, shell-like
+sweep of colorless vacuity behind the cold communion table.
+The chill of despair and hopeless renunciation was in the air,
+untempered by any glow from the sealed air-tight stove that seemed
+only to bring out a lukewarm exhalation of wet clothes and cheaply
+dyed umbrellas.  Nor did the presence of the worshippers themselves
+impart any life to the dreary apartment.  Scattered throughout the
+white pews, in dull, shapeless, neutral blotches, rigidly separated
+from each other, they seemed only to accent the colorless church
+and the emptiness of all things.  A few children, who had huddled
+together for warmth in one of the back benches and who had became
+glutinous and adherent through moisture, were laboriously drawn out
+and painfully picked apart by a watchful deacon.
+
+The dry, monotonous disturbance of the bell had given way to the
+strain of a bass viol, that had been apparently pitched to the key
+of the east wind without, and the crude complaint of a new
+harmonium that seemed to bewail its limited prospect of ever
+becoming seasoned or mellowed in its earthly tabernacle, and then
+the singing began.  Here and there a human voice soared and
+struggled above the narrow text and the monotonous cadence with a
+cry of individual longing, but was borne down by the dull,
+trampling precision of the others' formal chant.  This and a
+certain muffled raking of the stove by the sexton brought the
+temperature down still lower.  A sermon, in keeping with the
+previous performance, in which the chill east wind of doctrine was
+not tempered to any shorn lamb within that dreary fold, followed.
+A spark of human and vulgar interest was momentarily kindled by the
+collection and the simultaneous movement of reluctant hands towards
+their owners' pockets; but the coins fell on the baize-covered
+plates with a dull thud, like clods on a coffin, and the dreariness
+returned.  Then there was another hymn and a prolonged moan from
+the harmonium, to which mysterious suggestion the congregation rose
+and began slowly to file into the aisle.  For a moment they
+mingled; there was the silent grasping of damp woollen mittens and
+cold black gloves, and the whispered interchange of each other's
+names with the prefix of "Brother" or "Sister," and an utter
+absence of fraternal geniality, and then the meeting slowly
+dispersed.
+
+The few who had waited until the minister had resumed his hat,
+overcoat, and overshoes, and accompanied him to the door, had
+already passed out; the sexton was turning out the flickering gas
+jets one by one, when the cold and austere silence was broken by a
+sound--the unmistakable echo of a kiss of human passion.
+
+As the horror-stricken official turned angrily, the figure of a man
+glided from the shadow of the stairs below the organ loft, and
+vanished through the open door.  Before the sexton could follow,
+the figure of a woman slipped out of the same portal and with a
+hurried glance after the first retreating figure, turned in the
+opposite direction and was lost in the darkness.  By the time the
+indignant and scandalized custodian had reached the portal, they
+had both melted in the troubled sea of tossing umbrellas already to
+the right and left of him, and pursuit and recognition were
+hopeless.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The male figure, however, after mingling with his fellow-worshippers
+to the corner of the block, stopped a moment under the lamp-post
+as if uncertain as to the turning, but really to cast a long,
+scrutinizing look towards the scattered umbrellas now almost lost
+in the opposite direction.  He was still gazing and apparently
+hesitating whether to retrace his steps, when a horse and buggy
+rapidly driven down the side street passed him.  In a brief glance
+he evidently recognized the driver, and stepping over the curbstone
+called in a brief authoritative voice:
+
+"Ned!"
+
+The occupant of the vehicle pulled up suddenly, leaned from the
+buggy, and said in an astonished tone:
+
+"Dick Demorest!  Well!  I declare! hold on, and I'll drive up to
+the curb."
+
+"No; stay where you are."
+
+The speaker approached the buggy, jumped in beside the occupant,
+refastened the apron, and coolly taking the reins from his
+companion's hand, started the horse forward.  The action was that
+of an habitually imperious man; and the only recognition he made
+of the other's ownership was the question:
+
+"Where were you going?"
+
+"Home--to see Joan," replied the other.  "Just drove over from
+Warensboro Station.  But what on earth are YOU doing here?"
+
+Without answering the question, Demorest turned to his companion
+with the same good-natured, half humorous authority.  "Let your
+wife wait; take a drive with me.  I want to talk to you.  She'll be
+just as glad to see you an hour later, and it's her fault if I
+can't come home with you now."
+
+"I know it," returned his companion, in a tone of half-annoyed
+apology.  "She still sticks to her old compact when we first
+married, that she shouldn't be obliged to receive my old worldly
+friends.  And, see here, Dick, I thought I'd talked her out of it
+as regards YOU at least, but Parson Thomas has been raking up all
+the old stories about you--you know that affair of the Fall River
+widow, and that breaking off of Garry Spofferth's match--and about
+your horse-racing--until--you know, she's more set than ever
+against knowing you."
+
+"That's not a bad sort of horse you've got there," interrupted
+Demorest, who usually conducted conversation without reference to
+alien topics suggested by others.  "Where did you get him?  He's
+good yet for a spin down the turnpike and over the bridge.  We'll
+do it, and I'll bring you home safely to Mrs. Blandford inside the
+hour."
+
+Blandford knew little of horseflesh, but like all men he was not
+superior to this implied compliment to his knowledge.  He resigned
+himself to his companion as he had been in the habit of doing, and
+Demorest hurried the horse at a rapid gait down the street until
+they left the lamps behind, and were fully on the dark turnpike.
+The sleet rattled against the hood and leathern apron of the buggy,
+gusts of fierce wind filled the vehicle and seemed to hold it back,
+but Demorest did not appear to mind it.  Blandford thrust his hands
+deeply into his pockets for warmth, and contracted his shoulders as
+if in dogged patience.  Yet, in spite of the fact that he was
+tired, cold, and anxious to see his wife, he was conscious of a
+secret satisfaction in submitting to the caprices of this old
+friend of his boyhood.  After all, Dick Demorest knew what he was
+about, and had never led him astray by his autocratic will.  It was
+safe to let Dick have his way.  It was true it was generally Dick's
+own way--but he made others think it was theirs too--or would have
+been theirs had they had the will and the knowledge to project it.
+He looked up comfortably at the handsome, resolute profile of the
+man who had taken selfish possession of him.  Many women had done
+the same.
+
+"Suppose if you were to tell your wife I was going to reform," said
+Demorest, "it might be different, eh?  She'd want to take me into
+the church--'another sinner saved,' and all that, eh?"
+
+"No," said Blandford, earnestly.  "Joan isn't as rigid as all that,
+Dick.  What she's got against you is the common report of your free
+way of living, and that--come now, you know yourself, Dick, that
+isn't exactly the thing a woman brought up in her style can stand.
+Why, she thinks I'm unregenerate, and--well, a man can't carry on
+business always like a class meeting.  But are you thinking of
+reforming?" he continued, trying to get a glimpse of his
+companion's eyes.
+
+"Perhaps.  It depends.  Now--there's a woman I know--"
+
+"What, another? and you call this going to reform?" interrupted
+Blandford, yet not without a certain curiosity in his manner.
+
+"Yes; that's just why I think of reforming.  For this one isn't
+exactly like any other--at least as far as I know."
+
+"That means you don't know anything about her."
+
+"Wait, and I'll tell you."  He drew the reins tightly to accelerate
+the horse's speed, and, half turning to his companion, without,
+however, moving his eyes from the darkness before him, spoke
+quickly between the blasts: "I've seen her only half a dozen times.
+Met her first in 6.40 train out from Boston last fall.  She sat
+next to me.  Covered up with wraps and veils; never looked twice at
+her.  She spoke first--kind of half bold, half frightened way.
+Then got more comfortable and unwound herself, you know, and I saw
+she was young and not bad-looking.  Thought she was some school-
+girl out for a lark--but rather new at it.  Inexperienced, you
+know, but quite able to take care of herself, by George! and
+although she looked and acted as if she'd never spoken to a
+stranger all her life, didn't mind the kind of stuff I talked to
+her.  Rather encouraged it; and laughed--such a pretty little odd
+laugh, as if laughing wasn't in her usual line, either, and she
+didn't know how to manage it.  Well, it ended in her slipping out
+at one end of the car when we arrived, while I was looking out for
+a cab for her at the other."  He stopped to recover from a stronger
+gust of wind.  "I--I thought it a good joke on me, and let the
+thing drop out of my mind, although, mind you, she'd promised to
+meet me a month afterwards at the same time and place.  Well, when
+the day came I happened to be in Boston, and went to the station.
+Don't know why I went, for I didn't for a moment think she'd keep
+her appointment.  First, I couldn't find her in the train, but
+after we'd started she came along out of some seat in the corner,
+prettier than ever, holding out her hand."  He drew a long
+inspiration.  "You can bet your life, Ned, I didn't let go that
+little hand the rest of the journey."
+
+His passion, or what passed for it, seemed to impart its warmth to
+the vehicle, and even stirred the chilled pulses of the man beside
+him.
+
+"Well, who and what was she?"
+
+"Didn't find out; don't know now.  For the first thing she made me
+promise was not to follow her, nor to try to know her name.  In
+return she said she would meet me again on another train near
+Hartford.  She did--and again and again--but always on the train
+for about an hour, going or coming.  Then she missed an appointment.
+I was regularly cut up, I tell you, and swore as she hadn't kept her
+word, I wouldn't keep mine, and began to hunt for her.  In the midst
+of it I saw her accidentally; no matter where; I followed her
+to--well, that's no matter to you, either.  Enough that I saw her
+again--and, well, Ned, such is the influence of that girl over me
+that, by George! she made me make the same promise again!"
+
+Blandford, a little disappointed at his friend's dogmatic
+suppression of certain material facts, shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"If that's all your story," he said, "I must say I see no prospect
+of your reforming.  It's the old thing over again, only this time
+you are evidently the victim.  She's some designing creature who
+will have you if she hasn't already got you completely in her
+power."
+
+"You don't know what you're talking about, Ned, and you'd better
+quit," returned Demorest, with cheerful authoritativeness.  "I tell
+you that that's the sort of girl I'm going to marry, if I can, and
+settle down upon.  You can make a memorandum of that, old man, if
+you like."
+
+"Then I don't really see why you want to talk to ME about it.  And
+if you are thinking that such a story would go down for a moment
+with Joan as an evidence of your reformation, you're completely
+out, Dick.  Was that your idea?"
+
+"Yes--and I can tell you, you're wrong again, Ned.  You don't know
+anything about women.  You do just as I say--do you understand?--
+and don't interfere with your own wrong-headed opinions of what
+other people will think, and I'll take the risks of Mrs. Blandford
+giving me good advice.  Your wife has got a heap more sense on
+these subjects than you have, you bet.  You just tell her that I
+want to marry the girl and want her to help me--that I mean
+business, this time--and you'll see how quick she'll come down.
+That's all I want of you.  Will you or won't you?"
+
+With an outward expression of sceptical consideration and an inward
+suspicion of the peculiar force of this man's dogmatic insight,
+Blandford assented, with, I fear, the mental reservation of telling
+the story to his wife in his own way.  He was surprised when his
+friend suddenly drew the horse up sharply, and after a moment's
+pause began to back him, cramp the wheels of the buggy and then
+skilfully, in the almost profound darkness, turn the vehicle and
+horse completely round to the opposite direction.
+
+"Then you are not going over the bridge?" said Blandford.
+
+Demorest made an imperative gesture of silence.  The tumultuous
+rush and roar of swollen and rapid water came from the darkness
+behind them.  "There's been another break-out somewhere, and I
+reckon the bridge has got all it can do to-night to keep itself out
+of water without taking us over.  At least, as I promised to set
+you down at your wife's door inside of the hour, I don't propose to
+try."  As the horse now travelled more easily with the wind behind
+him, Demorest, dismissing abruptly all other subjects, laid his
+hand with brusque familiarity on his companion's knee, and as if
+the hour for social and confidential greeting had only just then
+arrived, said: "Well, Neddy, old boy, how are you getting on?"
+
+"So, so," said Blandford, dubiously.  "You see," he began,
+argumentatively, "in my business there's a good deal of
+competition, and I was only saying this morning--"
+
+But either Demorest was already familiar with his friend's
+arguments, or had as usual exhausted his topic, for without paying
+the slightest attention to him, he again demanded abruptly, "Why
+don't you go to California?  Here everything's played out.  That's
+the country for a young man like you--just starting into life, and
+without incumbrances.  If I was free and fixed in my family affairs
+like you I'd go to-morrow."
+
+There was such an occult positivism in Demorest's manner that for
+an instant Blandford, who had been married two years, and was
+transacting a steady and fairly profitable manufacturing business
+in the adjacent town, actually believed he was more fitted for
+adventurous speculation than the grimly erratic man of energetic
+impulses and pleasures beside him.  He managed to stammer
+hesitatingly:
+
+"But there's Joan--she--"
+
+"Nonsense!  Let her stay with her mother; you sell out your
+interest in the business, put the money into an assorted cargo, and
+clap it and yourself into the first ship out of Boston--and there
+you are.  You've been married going on two years now, and a little
+separation until you've built up a business out there, won't do
+either of you any harm."
+
+Blandford, who was very much in love with his wife, was not,
+however, above putting the onus of embarrassing affection upon HER.
+"You don't know, Joan, Dick," he replied.  "She'd never consent to
+a separation, even for a short time."
+
+"Try her.  She's a sensible woman--a deuced sight more than you
+are.  You don't understand women, Ned.  That's what's the matter
+with you."
+
+It required all of Blandford's fond memories of his wife's
+conservative habits, Puritan practicality, religious domesticity,
+and strong family attachments, to withstand Demorest's dogmatic
+convictions.  He smiled, however, with a certain complacency, as
+he also recalled the previous autumn when the first news of the
+California gold discovery had penetrated North Liberty, and he had
+expressed to her his belief that it would offer an outlet to
+Demorest's adventurous energy.  She had received it with ill-
+disguised satisfaction, and the remark that if this exodus of
+Mammon cleared the community of the godless and unregenerate it
+would only be another proof of God's mysterious providence.
+
+With the tumultuous wind at their backs it was not long before the
+buggy rattled once more over the cobble-stones of the town.  Under
+the direction of his friend, Demorest, who still retained possession
+of the reins, drove briskly down a side street of more pretentious
+dwellings, where Blandford lived.  One or two wayfarers looked up.
+
+"Not so fast, Dick."
+
+"Why?  I want to bring you up to your door in style."
+
+"Yes--but--it's Sunday.  That's my house, the corner one."
+
+They had stopped before a square, two-storied brick house, with an
+equally square wooden porch supported by two plain, rigid wooden
+columns, and a hollow sweep of dull concavity above the door,
+evidently of the same architectural order as the church.  There was
+no corner or projection to break the force of the wind that swept
+its smooth glacial surface; there was no indication of light or
+warmth behind its six closed windows.
+
+"There seems to be nobody at home," said Demorest, briefly.  "Come
+along with me to the hotel."
+
+"Joan sits in the back parlor, Sundays," explained the husband.
+
+"Shall I drive round to the barn and leave the horse and buggy
+there while you go in?" continued Demorest, good-humoredly,
+pointing to the stable gate at the side.
+
+"No, thank you," returned Blandford, "it's locked, and I'll have to
+open it from the other side after I go in.  The horse will stand
+until then.  I think I'll have to say good-night, now," he added,
+with a sudden half-ashamed consciousness of the forbidding aspect
+of the house, and his own inhospitality.  "I'm sorry I can't ask
+you in--but you understand why."
+
+"All right," returned Demorest, stoutly, turning up his coat-
+collar, and unfurling his umbrella.  "The hotel is only four blocks
+away--you'll find me there to-morrow morning if you call.  But mind
+you tell your wife just what I told you--and no meandering of your
+own--you hear!  She'll strike out some idea with her woman's wits,
+you bet.  Good-night, old man!  He reached out his hand, pressed
+Blandford's strongly and potentially, and strode down the street.
+
+Blandford hitched his steaming horse to a sleet-covered horse block
+with a quick sigh of impatient sympathy over the animal and
+himself, and after fumbling in his pocket for a latchkey, opened
+the front door.  A vista of well-ordered obscurity with shadowy
+trestle-like objects against the walls, and an odor of chill
+decorum, as if of a damp but respectable funeral, greeted him on
+entering.  A faint light, like a cold dawn, broke through the glass
+pane of a door leading to the kitchen.  Blandford paused in the
+mid-darkness and hesitated.  Should he first go to his wife in the
+back parlor, or pass silently through the kitchen, open the back
+gate, and mercifully bestow his sweating beast in the stable?  With
+the reflection that an immediate conjugal greeting, while his horse
+was still exposed to the fury of the blast in the street, would
+necessarily be curtailed and limited, he compromised by quickly
+passing through the kitchen into the stable yard, opening the gate,
+and driving horse and vehicle under the shed to await later and
+more thorough ministration.  As he entered the back door, a faint
+hope that his wife might have heard him and would be waiting for
+him in the hall for an instant thrilled him; but he remembered it
+was Sunday, and that she was probably engaged in some devotional
+reading or exercise.  He hesitatingly opened the back-parlor door
+with a consciousness of committing some unreasonable trespass, and
+entered.
+
+She was there, sitting quietly before a large, round, shining
+centre-table, whose sterile emptiness was relieved only by a shaded
+lamp and a large black and gilt open volume.  A single picture on
+the opposite wall--the portrait of an elderly gentleman stiffened
+over a corresponding volume, which he held in invincible mortmain
+in his rigid hand, and apparently defied posterity to take from
+him--seemed to offer a not uncongenial companionship.  Yet the
+greenish light of the shade fell upon a young and pretty face,
+despite the color it extracted from it, and the hand that supported
+her low white forehead over which her full hair was simply parted,
+like a brown curtain, was slim and gentle-womanly.  In spite of her
+plain lustreless silk dress, in spite of the formal frame of sombre
+heavy horsehair and mahogany furniture that seemed to set her off,
+she diffused an atmosphere of cleanly grace and prim refinement
+through the apartment.  The priestess of this ascetic temple, the
+femininity of her closely covered arms, her pink ears, and a little
+serviceable morocco house-shoe that was visible lower down, resting
+on the carved lion's paw that upheld the centre-table, appeared to
+be only the more accented.  And the precisely rounded but softly
+heaving bosom, that was pressed upon the edges of the open book of
+sermons before her, seemed to assert itself triumphantly over the
+rigors of the volume.
+
+At least so her husband and lover thought, as he moved tenderly
+towards her.  She met his first kiss on her forehead; the second,
+a supererogatory one, based on some supposed inefficiency in the
+first, fell upon a shining band of her hair, beside her neck.  She
+reached up her slim hands, caught his wrists firmly, and, slightly
+putting him aside, said:
+
+"There, Edward?"
+
+"I drove out from Warensboro, so as to get here to-night, as I have
+to return to the city on Tuesday.  I thought it would give me a
+little more time with you, Joan," he said, looking around him, and,
+at last, hesitatingly drawing an apparently reluctant chair from
+its formal position at the window.  The remembrance that he had
+ever dared to occupy the same chair with her, now seemed hardly
+possible of credence.
+
+"If it was a question of your travelling on the Lord's Day, Edward,
+I would rather you should have waited until to-morrow," she said,
+with slow precision.
+
+"But--I--I thought I'd get here in time for the meeting," he said,
+weakly.
+
+"And instead, you have driven through the town, I suppose, where
+everybody will see you and talk about it.  But," she added, raising
+her dark eyes suddenly to his, "where else have you been?  The
+train gets into Warensboro at six, and it's only half an hour's
+drive from there.  What have you been doing, Edward?"
+
+It was scarcely a felicitous moment for the introduction of
+Demorest's name, and he would have avoided it.  But he reflected
+that he had been seen, and he was naturally truthful.  "I met Dick
+Demorest near the church, and as he had something to tell me, we
+drove down the turnpike a little way--so as to be out of the town,
+you know, Joan--and--and--"
+
+He stopped.  Her face had taken upon itself that appalling and
+exasperating calmness of very good people who never get angry, but
+drive others to frenzy by the simple occlusion of an adamantine
+veil between their own feelings and their opponents'.  "I'll tell
+you all about it after I've put up the horse," he said hurriedly,
+glad to escape until the veil was lifted again.  "I suppose the
+hired man is out."
+
+"I should hope he was in church, Edward, but I trust YOU won't
+delay taking care of that poor dumb brute who has been obliged to
+minister to your and Mr. Demorest's Sabbath pleasures."
+
+Blandford did not wait for a further suggestion.  When the door had
+closed behind him, Mrs. Blandford went to the mantel-shelf, where a
+grimly allegorical clock cut down the hours and minutes of men with
+a scythe, and consulted it with a slight knitting of her pretty
+eyebrows.  Then she fell into a vague abstraction, standing before
+the open book on the centre-table.  Then she closed it with a snap,
+and methodically putting it exactly in the middle of the top of a
+black cabinet in the corner, lifted the shaded lamp in her hand and
+passed slowly with it up the stairs to her bedroom, where her light
+steps were heard moving to and fro.  In a few moments she reappeared,
+stopping for a moment in the hall with the lighted lamp as if to
+watch and listen for her husband's return.  Seen in that favorable
+light, her cheeks had caught a delicate color, and her dark eyes
+shone softly.  Putting the lamp down in exactly the same place as
+before, she returned to the cabinet for the book, brought it again
+to the table, opened it at the page where she had placed her
+perforated cardboard book-marker, sat down beside it, and with her
+hands in her lap and her eyes on the page began abstractedly to tear
+a small piece of paper into tiny fragments.  When she had reduced it
+to the smallest shreds, she scraped the pieces out of her silk lap
+and again collected them in the pink hollow of her little hand,
+kneeling down on the scrupulously well-swept carpet to peck up with
+a bird-like action of her thumb and forefinger an escaped atom here
+and there.  These and the contents of her hand she poured into the
+chilly cavity of a sepulchral-looking alabaster vase that stood on
+the etagere.  Returning to her old seat, and making a nest for her
+clasped fingers in the lap of her dress, she remained in that
+attitude, her shoulders a little narrowed and bent forward, until
+her husband returned.
+
+"I've lit the fire in the bedroom for you to change your clothes
+by," she said, as he entered; then evading the caress which this
+wifely attention provoked, by bending still more primly over her
+book, she added, "Go at once.  You're making everything quite damp
+here."
+
+He returned in a few moments in his slippers and jacket, but
+evidently found the same difficulty in securing a conjugal and
+confidential contiguity to his wife.  There was no apparent social
+centre or nucleus of comfort in the apartment; its fireplace,
+sealed by an iron ornament like a monumental tablet over dead
+ashes, had its functions superseded by an air-tight drum in the
+corner, warmed at second-hand from the dining-room below, and
+offered no attractive seclusion; the sofa against the wall was
+immovable and formally repellent.  He was obliged to draw a chair
+beside the table, whose every curve seemed to facilitate his wife's
+easy withdrawal from side-by-side familiarity.
+
+"Demorest has been urging me very strongly to go to California,
+but, of course, I spoke of you," he said, stealing his hand into
+his wife's lap, and possessing himself of her fingers.
+
+Mrs. Blandford slowly lifted her fingers enclosed in his clasping
+hand and placed them in shameless publicity on the volume before
+her.  This implied desecration was too much for Blandford; he
+withdrew his hand.
+
+"Does that man propose to go with you?" asked Mrs. Blandford,
+coldly.
+
+"No; he's preoccupied with other matters that he wanted me to talk
+to you about," said her husband, hesitatingly.  "He is--"
+
+"Because"--continued Mrs. Blandford in the same measured tone, "if
+he does not add his own evil company to his advice, it is the best
+he has ever given yet.  I think he might have taken another day
+than the Lord's to talk about it, but we must not despise the means
+nor the hour whence the truth comes.  Father wanted me to take some
+reasonable moment to prepare you to consider it seriously, and I
+thought of talking to you about it to-morrow.  He thinks it would
+be a very judicious plan.  Even Deacon Truesdail--"
+
+"Having sold his invoice of damaged sugar kettles for mining
+purposes, is converted," said Blandford, goaded into momentary
+testiness by his wife's unexpected acquiescence and a sudden
+recollection of Demorest's prophecy.  "You have changed your
+opinion, Joan, since last fall, when you couldn't bear to think of
+my leaving you," he added reproachfully.
+
+"I couldn't bear to think of your joining the mob of lawless and
+sinful men who use that as an excuse for leaving their wives and
+families.  As for my own feelings, Edward, I have never allowed
+them to stand between me and what I believed best for our home and
+your Christian welfare.  Though I have no cause to admire the
+influence that I find this man, Demorest, still holds over you, I
+am willing to acquiesce, as you see, in what he advises for your
+good.  You can hardly reproach ME, Edward, for worldly or selfish
+motives.
+
+Blandford felt keenly the bitter truth of his wife's speech.  For
+the moment he would gladly have exchanged it for a more illogical
+and selfish affection, but he reflected that he had married this
+religious girl for the security of an affection which he felt was
+not subject to the temptations of the world--or even its own
+weakness--as was too often the case with the giddy maidens whom he
+had known through Demorest's companionship.  It was, therefore,
+more with a sense of recalling this distinctive quality of his wife
+than any loyalty to Demorest that he suddenly resolved to confide
+to her the latter's fatuous folly.
+
+"I know it, dear," he said, apologetically, "and we'll talk it over
+to-morrow, and it may be possible to arrange it so that you shall
+go with me.  But, speaking of Demorest, I think you don't quite do
+HIM justice.  He really respects YOUR feelings and your knowledge
+of right and wrong more than you imagine.  I actually believe he
+came here to-night merely to get me to interest you in an
+extraordinary love affair of his.  I mean, Joan," he added hastily,
+seeing the same look of dull repression come over her face, "I
+mean, Joan--that is, you know, from all I can judge--it is
+something really serious this time.  He intends to reform.  And
+this is because he has become violently smitten with a young woman
+whom he has only seen half a dozen times, at long intervals, whom
+he first met in a railway train, and whose name and residence he
+don't even know."
+
+There was an ominous silence--so hushed that the ticking of the
+allegorical clock came like a grim monitor.  "Then," said Mrs.
+Blandford, in a hard, dry voice that her alarmed husband scarcely
+recognized, "he proposed to insult your wife by taking her into his
+shameful confidence."
+
+"Good heavens!  Joan, no--you don't understand.  At the worst, this
+is some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be
+intending only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man
+actually and deeply in love with her.  Yes; it is a fact, Joan.  I
+know Dick Demorest, and if ever there was a man honestly in love,
+it is he."
+
+"Then you mean to say that this man--an utter stranger to me--a man
+whom I've never laid my eyes on--whom I wouldn't know if I met in
+the street--expects me to advise him--to--to--"  She stopped.
+Blandford could scarcely believe his senses.  There were tears in
+her eyes--this woman who never cried; her voice trembled--she who
+had always controlled her emotions.
+
+He took advantage of this odd but opportune melting.  He placed his
+arm around her shoulders.  She tried to escape it, but with a coy,
+shy movement, half hysterical, half girlish, unlike her usual
+stony, moral precision.  "Yes, Joan," he repeated, laughingly, "but
+whose fault is it?  Not HIS, remember!  And I firmly believe he
+thinks you can do him good."
+
+"But he has never seen me," she continued, with a nervous little
+laugh, "and probably considers me some old Gorgon--like--like--
+Sister Jemima Skerret."
+
+Blandford smiled with the complacency of far-reaching masculine
+intuition.  Ah! that shrewd fellow, Demorest, was right.  Joan,
+dear Joan, was only a woman after all.
+
+"Then he'll be the more agreeably astonished," he returned, gayly,
+"and I think YOU will, too, Joan.  For Dick isn't a bad-looking
+fellow; most women like him.  It's true," he continued, much amused
+at the novelty of the perfectly natural toss and grimace with which
+Mrs. Blandford received this statement.
+
+"I think he's been pointed out to me somewhere," she said,
+thoughtfully; "he's a tall, dark, dissipated-looking man."
+
+"Nothing of the kind," laughed her husband.  "He's middle-sized and
+as blond as your cousin Joe, only he's got a long yellow moustache,
+and has a quick, abrupt way of talking.  He isn't at all fancy-
+looking; you'd take him for an energetic business man or a doctor,
+if you didn't know him.  So you see, Joan, this correct little wife
+of mine has been a little, just a little, prejudiced."
+
+He drew her again gently backwards and nearer his seat, but she
+caught his wrists in her slim hands, and rising from the chair at
+the same moment, dexterously slipped from his embrace with her back
+towards him.  "I do not know why I should be unprejudiced by
+anything you've told me," she said, sharply closing the book of
+sermons, and, with her back still to her husband, reinstating it
+formally in its place on the cabinet.  "It's probably one of his
+many scandalous pursuits of defenceless and believing women, and
+he, no doubt, goes off to Boston, laughing at you for thinking him
+in earnest; and as ready to tell his story to anybody else and
+boast of his double deceit."  Her voice had a touch of human
+asperity in it now, which he had never before noticed, but
+recognizing, as he thought, the human cause, it was far from
+exciting his displeasure.
+
+"Wrong again, Joan; he's waiting here at the Independence House for
+me to see him to-morrow," he returned, cheerfully.  "And I believe
+him so much in earnest that I would be ready to swear that not
+another person will ever know the story but you and I and he.  No,
+it is a real thing with him; he's dead in love, and it's your duty
+as a Christian to help him."
+
+There was a moment of silence.  Mrs. Blandford remained by the
+cabinet, methodically arranging some small articles displaced by
+the return of the book.  "Well," she said, suddenly, "you don't
+tell me what mother had to say.  Of course, as you came home
+earlier than you expected, you had time to stop THERE--only four
+doors from this house."
+
+"Well, no, Joan," replied Blandford, in awkward discomfiture.  "You
+see I met Dick first, and then--then I hurried here to you--and--
+and--I clean forgot it.  I'm very sorry," he added, dejectedly.
+
+"And I more deeply so," she returned, with her previous bloodless
+moral precision, "for she probably knows by this time, Edward, why
+you have omitted your usual Sabbath visit, and with WHOM you were."
+
+"But I can pull on my boots again and run in there for a moment,"
+he suggested, dubiously, "if you think it necessary.  It won't take
+me a moment."
+
+"No," she said, positively; "it is so late now that your visit
+would only show it to be a second thought.  I will go myself--it
+will be a call for us both."
+
+"But shall I go with you to the door?  It is dark and sleeting,"
+suggested Blandford, eagerly.
+
+"No," she replied, peremptorily.  "Stay where you are, and when
+Ezekiel and Bridget come in send them to bed, for I have made
+everything fast in the kitchen.  Don't wait up for me."
+
+She left the room, and in a few moments returned, wrapped from head
+to foot in an enormous plaid shawl.  A white woollen scarf thrown
+over her bare brown head, and twice rolled around her neck, almost
+concealed her face from view.  When she had parted from her
+husband, and reached the darkened hall below, she drew from beneath
+the folds of her shawl a thick blue veil, with which she completely
+enveloped her features.  As she opened the front door and peered
+out into the night, her own husband would have scarcely recognized
+her.
+
+With her head lowered against the keen wind she walked rapidly down
+the street and stopped for an instant at the door of the fourth
+house.  Glancing quickly back at the house she had left and then at
+the closed windows of the one she had halted before, she gathered
+her skirts with one hand and sped away from both, never stopping
+until she reached the door of the Independence Hotel.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mrs. Blandford entered the side door boldly.  Luckily for her, the
+austerities of the Sabbath were manifest even here; the bar-room
+was closed, and the usual loungers in the passages were absent.
+Without risking the recognition of her voice in an inquiry to the
+clerk, she slipped past the office, still muffled in her veil, and
+quickly mounted the narrow staircase.  For an instant she hesitated
+before the public parlor, and glanced dubiously along the half-lit
+corridor.  Chance befriended her; the door of a bedroom opened at
+that moment, and Richard Demorest, with his overcoat and hat on,
+stepped out in the hall.
+
+With a quick and nervous gesture of her hand she beckoned him to
+approach.  He came towards her leisurely, with an amused curiosity
+that suddenly changed to utter astonishment as she hurriedly lifted
+her veil, dropped it, turned, and glided down the staircase into
+the street again.  He followed rapidly, but did not overtake her
+until she had reached the corner, when she slackened her pace an
+instant for him to join her.
+
+"Lulu," he said eagerly; "is it you?"
+
+"Not a word here," she said, breathlessly.  "Follow me at a
+distance."
+
+She started forward again in the direction of her own house.
+He followed her at a sufficient interval to keep her faintly
+distinguishable figure in sight until she had crossed three
+streets, and near the end of the next block glided up the steps of
+a house not far from the one where he remembered to have left
+Blandford.  As he joined her, she had just succeeded in opening the
+door with a pass-key, and was awaiting him.  With a gesture of
+silence she took his hand in her cold fingers, and leading him
+softly through the dark hall and passage, quickly entered the
+kitchen.  Here she lit a candle, turned, and faced him.  He could
+see that the outside shutters were bolted, and the kitchen
+evidently closed for the night.
+
+As she removed the veil from her face he made a movement as if to
+regain her hand again, but she drew it away.
+
+"You have forced this upon me," she said hurriedly, "and it may be
+ruin to us both.  Why have you betrayed me?"
+
+"Betrayed you, Lulu--Good God! what do you mean?"
+
+She looked him full in the eye, and then said slowly, "Do you mean
+to say that you have told no one of our meetings?"
+
+"Only one--my old friend Blandford, who lives--  Ah, yes!  I see it
+now.  You are neighbors.  He has betrayed me.  This house is--"
+
+"My father's!" she replied boldly.
+
+The momentary uneasiness passed from Demorest's resolute face.  His
+old self-sufficiency returned.  "Good," he said, with a frank
+laugh, "that will do for me.  Open the door there, Lulu, and take
+me to him.  I'm not ashamed of anything I've done, my girl, nor
+need you be.  I'll tell him my real name is Dick Demorest, as I
+ought to have told you before, and that I want to marry you, fairly
+and squarely, and let him make the conditions.  I'm not a vagabond
+nor a thief, Lulu, if I have met you on the sly.  Come, dear, let
+us end this now.  Come--"
+
+But she had thrown herself before him and placed her hand upon his
+lips.  "Hush! are you mad?  Listen to me, I tell you--please--oh,
+do--no you must not!"  He had covered her hand with kisses and was
+drawing her face towards his own.  "No--not again, it was wrong
+then, it is monstrous now.  I implore you, listen, if you love me,
+stop."
+
+He released her.  She sank into a chair by the kitchen-table, and
+buried her flushed face in her hands.
+
+He stood for a moment motionless before her.  "Lulu, if that is
+your name," he said slowly, but gently, "tell me all now.  Be frank
+with me, and trust me.  If there is anything stands in the way, let
+me know what it is and I can overcome it.  If it is my telling Ned
+Blandford, don't let that worry you, he's as loyal a fellow as ever
+breathed, and I'm a dog to ever think he willingly betrayed us.
+His wife, well, she's one of those pious saints--but no, she would
+not be such a cursed hypocrite and bigot as this."
+
+"Hush, I tell you!  WILL you hush," she said, in a frantic whisper,
+springing to her feet and grasping him convulsively by the lapels
+of his overcoat.  "Not a word more, or I'll kill myself.  Listen!
+Do you know what I brought you here for? why I left my--this house
+and dragged you out of your hotel?  Well, it was to tell you that
+you must leave me, leave HERE--go out of this house and out of this
+town at once, to-night!  And never look on it or me again!  There!
+you have said we must end this now.  It is ended, as only it could
+and ever would end.  And if you open that door except to go, or if
+you attempt to--to touch me again, I'll do something desperate.
+There!"
+
+She threw him off again and stepped back, strangely beautiful in
+the loosened shackles of her long repressed human emotion.  It was
+as if the passion-rent robes of the priestess had laid bare the
+flesh of the woman dazzling and victorious.  Demorest was
+fascinated and frightened.
+
+"Then you do not love me?" he said with a constrained smile, "and I
+am a fool?"
+
+"Love you!" she repeated.  "Love you," she continued, bowing her
+brown head over her hanging arms and clasped hands.  "What then has
+brought me to this?  Oh," she said suddenly, again seizing him by
+his two arms, and holding him from her with a half-prudish, half-
+passionate gesture, "why could you not have left things as they
+were; why could we not have met in the same old way we used to
+meet, when I was so foolish and so happy?  Why could you spoil that
+one dream I have clung to?  Why didn't you leave me those few days
+of my wretched life when I was weak, silly, vain, but not the
+unhappy woman I am now.  You were satisfied to sit beside me and
+talk to me then.  You respected my secret, my reserve.  My God! I
+used to think you loved me as I loved you--for THAT!  Why did you
+break your promise and follow me here?  I believed you the first
+day we met, when you said there was no wrong in my listening to
+you; that it should go no further; that you would never seek to
+renew it without my consent.  You tell me I don't love you, and I
+tell you now that we must part, that frightened as I was, foolish
+as I was, that day was the first day I had ever lived and felt as
+other women live and feel.  If I ran away from you then it was
+because I was running away from my old self too.  Don't you
+understand me?  Could you not have trusted me as I trusted you?"
+
+"I broke my promise only when you broke yours.  When you would not
+meet me I followed you here, because I loved you."
+
+"And that is why you must leave me now," she said, starting from
+his outstretched arms again.  "Do not ask me why, but go, I implore
+you.  You must leave this town to-night, to-morrow will be too
+late."
+
+He cast a hurried glance around him, as if seeking to gather
+some reason for this mysterious haste, or a clue for future
+identification.  He saw only the Sabbath-sealed cupboards, the cold
+white china on the dresser, and the flicker of the candle on the
+partly-opened glass transom above the door.  "As you wish," he
+said, with quiet sadness.  "I will go now, and leave the town to-
+night; but"--his voice struck its old imperative note--"this shall
+not end here, Lulu.  There will be a next time, and I am bound to
+win you yet, in spite of all and everything."
+
+She looked at him with a half-frightened, half-hysterical light in
+her eyes.  "God knows!"
+
+"And you will be frank with me then, and tell me all?"
+
+"Yes, yes, another time; but go now."  She had extinguished the
+candle, turned the handle of the door noiselessly, and was holding
+it open.  A faint light stole through the dark passage.  She drew
+back hastily.  "You have left the front door open," she said in a
+frightened voice.  "I thought you had shut it behind me," he
+returned quickly.  "Good night."  He drew her towards him.  She
+resisted slightly.  They were for an instant clasped in a
+passionate embrace; then there was a sudden collapse of the light
+and a dull jar.  The front door had swung to.
+
+With a desperate bound she darted into the passage and through the
+hall, dragging him by the hand, and threw the front door open.
+Without, the street was silent and empty.
+
+"Go," she whispered frantically.
+
+Demorest passed quickly down the steps and disappeared.  At the
+same moment a voice came from the banisters of the landing above.
+"Who's there?"
+
+"It's I, mother."
+
+"I thought so.  And it's like Edward to bring you and sneak off in
+that fashion."
+
+Mrs. Blandford gave a quick sigh of relief.  Demorest's flight had
+been mistaken for her husband's habitual evasion.  Knowing that her
+mother would not refer to the subject again, she did not reply, but
+slowly mounted the dark staircase with an assumption of more than
+usual hesitating precaution, in order to recover her equanimity.
+
+
+The clocks were striking eleven when she left her mother's house
+and re-entered her own.  She was surprised to find a light burning
+in the kitchen, and Ezekiel, their hired man, awaiting her in a
+dominant and nasal key of religious and practical disapprobation.
+"Pity you wern't tu hum afore, ma'am, considerin' the doins that's
+goin' on in perfessed Christians' houses arter meetin' on the
+Sabbath Day."
+
+"What's the difficulty now, Ezekiel?" said Mrs. Blandford, who had
+regained her rigorous precision once more under the decorous
+security of her own roof.
+
+"Wa'al, here comes an entire stranger axin for Squire Blandford.
+And when I tells he warn't tu hum--"
+
+"Not at home?" interrupted Mrs. Blandford, with a slight start.  "I
+left him here."
+
+"Mebbee so, but folks nowadays don't 'pear to keer much whether
+they break the Sabbath or not, trapsen' raound town in and arter
+meetin' hours, ez if 'twor gin'ral tranin' day--and hez gone out
+agin."
+
+"Go on," said Mrs. Blandford, curtly.
+
+"Wa'al, the stranger sez, sez he, 'Show me the way to the stables,'
+sez he, and without taken' no for an answer, ups and meanders
+through the hall, outer the kitchen inter the yard, ez if he was
+justice of the peace; and when he gets there he sez, 'Fetch out his
+hoss and harness up, and be blamed quick about it, and tell Ned
+Blandford that Dick Demorest hez got to leave town to-night, and ez
+ther ain't a blamed puritanical shadbelly in this hull town ez
+would let a hoss go on hire Sunday night, he guesses he'll hev to
+borry his.'  And afore I could say Jack Robinson, he tackles the
+hoss up and drives outer the yard, flinging this two-dollar-and-a-
+half-piece behind him ez if I wur a Virginia slave and he was John
+C. Calhoun hisself.  I'd a chucked it after him if it hadn't been
+the Lord's Day, and it mout hev provoked disturbance."
+
+"Mr. Demorest is worldly, but one of Edward's old friends," said
+Mrs. Blandford, with a slight kindling of her eyes, "and he would
+not have refused to aid him in what might be an errand of grace or
+necessity.  You can keep the money, Ezekiel, as a gift, not as a
+wage.  And go to bed.  I will sit up for Mr. Blandford."
+
+She passed out and up the staircase into her bedroom, pausing on
+her way to glance into the empty back parlor and take the lamp from
+the table.  Here she noticed that her husband had evidently changed
+his clothes again and taken a heavier overcoat from the closet.
+Removing her own wraps she again descended to the lower apartment,
+brought out the volume of sermons, placed it and the lamp in the
+old position, and with her abstracted eyes on the page fell into
+her former attitude.  Every suggestion of the passionate, half-
+frenzied woman in the kitchen of the house only four doors away,
+had vanished; one would scarcely believe she had ever stirred from
+the chair in which she had formally received her husband two hours
+before.  And yet she was thinking of herself and Demorest in that
+kitchen.
+
+His prompt and decisive response to her appeal, as shown in this
+last bold and characteristic action, relieved, while it half piqued
+her.  But the overruling destiny which had enabled her to bring him
+from his hotel to her mother's house unnoticed, had protected them
+while there, had arrested a dangerous meeting between him and
+herself and her husband in her own house, impressed her more than
+all.  It imparted to her a hideous tranquillity born of the
+doctrines of her youth--Predestination!  She reflected with secret
+exultation that her moral resolution to fly from him and her
+conscientiously broken promise had been the direct means of
+bringing him there; that step by step circumstances not in
+themselves evil or to be combated had led her along; that even her
+husband and mother had felt it their duty to assist towards this
+fateful climax!  If Edward had never kept up his worldly
+friendship, if she had never been restricted and compassed in her
+own; if she had ever known the freedom of other girls,--all this
+might not have happened.  She had been elected to share with
+Demorest and her husband the effects of their ungodliness.  She
+was no longer a free agent; what availed her resolutions?  To
+Demorest's imperious hope, she had said, "God knows."  What more
+could she say?  Her small red lips grew white and compressed; her
+face rigid, her eyes hollow and abstracted; she looked like the
+genius of asceticism as she sat there, grimly formulating a
+dogmatic explanation of her lawless and unlicensed passion.
+
+The wind had risen to a gale without, and stirred even the sealed
+sepulchre of the fireplace with dull rumblings and muffled moans.
+At times the hot-air drum in the corner seemed to expand as with
+some pent-up emotion.  Strange currents of air crossed the empty
+room like the passage of unseen spirits, and she even fancied she
+heard whispers at the window.  This caused her to rise and open it,
+when she found that the sleet had given way to a dry feathery snow
+that was swarming through the slits of the shutter; a faint
+reflection from the already whitened fences glimmered in the panes.
+She shut the window hastily, with a little shiver of cold.  Where
+was Demorest in this storm?  Would it stop him?  She thought with
+pride now of the dominant energy that had frightened her, and knew
+it would not.  But her husband?--what kept him?  It was twelve
+o'clock; he had seldom stayed out so late before.  During the first
+half hour of her reflections she had been relieved by his absence;
+she had even believed that he had met Demorest in the town, and was
+not alarmed by it, for she knew that the latter would avoid any
+further confidence, and cut short any return to it.  But why had
+not Edward returned?  For an instant the terrible thought that
+something had happened, and that they might both return together,
+took possession of her, and she trembled.  But no; Demorest, who
+had already taken such extreme measures, could not consistently
+listen to any suggestion for delay.  As her only danger lay in
+Demorest's presence, the absence of her husband caused her more
+undefinable uneasiness than actual alarm.
+
+The room had become cold with the dying out of the dining-room fire
+that warmed the drum.  She would go to bed.  She nevertheless
+arranged the room again with a singular impression that she was
+doing it for the last time in her present existing circumstances,
+and placing the lamp on the table in the hall, went up to her own
+room.  By the light of a single candle she undressed herself
+hastily, said her prayers punctiliously, and got into bed, with an
+unexpected relief at finding herself still occupying it alone.
+Then she fell asleep and dreamed of Demorest.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+When Edward Blandford found himself alone after his wife had
+undertaken to fulfil his abandoned filial duty at her parents'
+house, he felt a slight twinge of self-reproach.  He could not deny
+that this was not the first time he had evaded the sterile Sabbath
+evenings at his mother-in-law's, or that even at other times he was
+not in accord with the cold and colorless sanctity of the family.
+Yet he remembered that when he picked out from the budding
+womanhood of North Liberty this pure, scentless blossom, he had
+endured the privations of its surroundings with a sense of security
+in inhaling the atmosphere in which it grew, and knowing the
+integrity of its descent.  There was a certain pleasure also in
+invading this seclusion with human passion; the first pressure of
+her hand when they were kneeling together at family prayers had the
+zest without the sin of a forbidden pleasure; the first kiss he
+had given her with their heads over the family Bible had fairly
+intoxicated him in the thin, rarefied air of their surroundings.  In
+transplanting this blossom to his own home with the fond belief that
+it would eventually borrow the hues and color of his own passion, he
+had no further interest in the house he had left behind.  When he
+found, however, that the ancestral influence was stronger than he
+expected, that the young wife, instead of assimilating to his
+conditions, had imported into their little household the rigors of
+her youthful home, he had been chilled and disappointed.  But he
+could not help also remembering that his own boyhood had been spent
+in an atmosphere like her own in everything but its sincerity and
+deep conviction.  His father had recognized the business value of
+placating the narrow tyranny of the respectable well-to-do religious
+community, and had become a conscious hypocrite and a popular
+citizen.  He had himself been under that influence, and it was
+partly a conviction of this that had drawn him towards her as
+something genuine and real.  It occurred to him now for the first
+time, as he looked around upon that compromise of their two lives in
+this chilly artificial home, that it was only natural that she would
+prefer the more truthful austerities of her mother's house. Had she
+detected the sham, and did she despise him for it?
+
+These were questions which seemed to bring another self-accusing
+doubt in his own mind, although, without his being conscious of it,
+they had been really the outcome of that doubt.  He could not help
+dwelling on the singular human interest she had taken in Demorest's
+love affair, and the utterly unexpected emotion she had shown.  He
+had never seen her as charmingly illogical, capricious, and
+bewitchingly feminine.  Had he not made a radical mistake in not
+giving her a frequent provocation for this innocent emotion--in
+fact, in not taking her out into a world of broader sympathies and
+experiences?  What a household they might have had--if necessary
+in some other town--away from those cramped prejudices and
+limitations!  What friends she might have been with Dick and his
+other worldly acquaintances; what social pleasures--guiltless
+amusements for her pure mind--in theatres, parties, and concerts!
+Would she have objected to them?--had he ever seriously proposed
+them to her?  No! if she had objected there would have been time
+enough to have made this present compromise; she would have at
+least respected and understood his sacrifice--and his friends.
+
+Even the artificial externals of his household had never before so
+visibly impressed him.  Now that she was no longer in the room it
+did not even bear a trace of her habitation, it certainly bore no
+suggestion of his own.  Why had he bought that hideous horsehair
+furniture?  To remind her of the old provincial heirlooms of her
+father's sitting-room.  Did it remind her of it?  The stiff and
+stony emptiness of this room had been fashioned upon the decorous
+respectability of his own father's parlor--in which his father, who
+usually spent his slippered leisure in the family sitting-room,
+never entered except on visits from the minister.  It had chilled
+his own youthful soul--why had he perpetuated it here?
+
+He could only answer these questions by moodily wandering about the
+house, and regretting he had not gone with her.  After a vain
+attempt to establish social and domestic relations with the hot-air
+drum by putting his feet upon it--after an equally futile attempt
+to extract interest from the book of sermons by opening its pages
+at random--he glanced at the clock and suddenly resolved to go and
+fetch her.  It would remind him of the old times when he used to
+accompany her from church, and, after her parents had retired,
+spend a blissful half-hour alone with her.  With what a mingling of
+fear and childish curiosity she used to accept his equally timid
+caresses!  Yes, he would go and fetch her; and he would recall it
+to her in a whisper while they were there.
+
+Filled with this idea, when he changed his clothes again he put on
+a certain heavy beaver overcoat, on whose shaggy sleeve her little,
+hand had so often rested when he escorted her from meeting; and he
+even selected the gray muffler she had knit for him in the old
+ante-nuptial days.  It was lying in the half-opened drawer from
+where she had not long before taken her disguising veil.
+
+It was still blowing in sudden, capricious gusts; and when he
+opened the front door the wind charged fiercely upon him, as if to
+drive him back.  When he had finally forced his way into the
+street, a return current closed the door as suddenly and sharply
+behind him as if it had ejected him from his home for ever.
+
+He reached the fourth house quickly, and as quickly ran up the
+steps; his hand was upon the bell when his eye suddenly caught
+sight of his wife's pass-key still in the lock.  She had evidently
+forgotten it.  Here was a chance to mischievously banter that
+habitually careful little woman!  He slipped it into his pocket and
+quietly entered the dark but perfectly familiar hall.  He reached
+the staircase without a stumble and began to ascend softly.
+Halfway up he heard the sound of his wife's hurried voice and
+another that startled him.  He ascended hastily two steps, which
+brought him to the level of the half-opened transom of the kitchen.
+A candle was burning on the kitchen table; he could see everything
+that passed in the room; he could hear distinctly every word that
+was uttered.
+
+He did not utter a cry or sound; he did not even tremble.  He
+remained so rigid and motionless, clutching the banisters with his
+stiffened fingers, that when he did attempt to move, all life, as
+well as all that had made life possible to him, seemed to have died
+from him for ever.  There was no nervous illusion, no dimming of
+his senses; he saw everything with a hideous clarity of perception.
+By some diabolical instantaneous photography of the brain, little
+actions, peculiarities, touches of gesture, expression and attitude
+never before noted by him in his wife, were clearly fixed and
+bitten in his consciousness.  He saw the color of his friend's
+overcoat, the reddish tinge of his wife's brown hair, till then
+unnoticed; in that supreme moment he was aware of a sudden likeness
+to her mother; but more terrible than all, there seemed to be a
+nameless sympathetic resemblance that the guilty pair had to each
+other in gesture and movement as of some unhallowed relationship
+beyond his ken.  He knew not how long he stood there without
+breath, without reflection, without one connected thought.  He saw
+her suddenly put her hand on the handle of the door.  He knew that
+in another moment they would pass almost before him.  He made a
+convulsive effort to move, with an inward cry to God for support,
+and succeeded in staggering with outstretched palms against the
+wall, down the staircase, and blindly forward through the hall to
+the front door.  As yet he had been able to formulate only one
+idea--to escape before them, for it seemed to him that their
+contact meant the ruin of them both, of that house, of all that was
+near to him--a catastrophe that struck blindly at his whole visible
+world.  He had reached the door and opened it at the moment that
+the handle of the kitchen-door was turned.  He mechanically fell
+back behind the open door that hid him, while it let the cruel
+light glimmer for a moment on their clasped figures.  The door
+slipped from his nerveless fingers and swung to with a dull sound.
+Crouching still in the corner, he heard the quick rush of hurrying
+feet in the darkness, saw the door open and Demorest glide out--saw
+her glance hurriedly after him, close the door, and involve herself
+and him in the blackness of the hall.  Her dress almost touched him
+in his corner; he could feel the near scent of her clothes, and the
+air stirred by her figure retreating towards the stairs; could hear
+the unlocking of a door above and the voice of her mother from the
+landing, his wife's reply, the slow fading of her footsteps on the
+stairs and overhead, the closing of a door, and all was quiet
+again.  Still stooping, he groped for the handle of the door,
+opened it, and the next moment reeled like a drunken man down the
+steps into the street.
+
+It was well for him that a fierce onset of wind and sleet at that
+instant caught him savagely--stirred his stagnated blood into
+action, and beat thought once more into his brain.  He had
+mechanically turned towards his own home; his first effort of
+recovering will hurried him furiously past it and into a side
+street.  He walked rapidly, but undeviatingly on to escape
+observation and secure some solitude for his returning thoughts.
+Almost before he knew it he was in the open fields.
+
+The idea of vengeance had never crossed his mind.  He was neither
+a physical nor a moral coward, but he had never felt the merely
+animal fury of disputed animal possession which the world has
+chosen to recognize as a proof of outraged sentiment, nor had North
+Liberty accepted the ethics that an exchange of shots equalized a
+transferred affection.  His love had been too pure and too real to
+be moved like the beasts of the field, to seek in one brutal
+passion compensation for another.  Killing--what was there to kill?
+All that he had to live for had been already slain.  With the love
+that was in him--in them--already dead at his feet, what was it to
+him whether these two hollow lives moved on and passed him, or
+mingled their emptiness elsewhere?  Only let them henceforth keep
+out of his way!
+
+For in his first feverish flow of thought--the reaction to his
+benumbed will within and the beating sleet without--he believed
+Demorest as treacherous as his wife.  He recalled his sudden and
+unexpected intrusion into the buggy only a few hours before, his
+mysterious confidences, his assurance of Joan's favorable reception
+of his secret, and her consent to the Californian trip.  What had
+all this meant if not that Demorest was using him, the husband, to
+assist his intrigue, and carry the news of his presence in the town
+to her?  And this boldness, this assurance, this audacity of
+conception was like Demorest!  While only certain passages of the
+guilty meeting he had just seen and overheard were distinctly
+impressed on his mind, he remembered now, with hideous and terrible
+clearness, all that had gone before.  It was part of the disturbed
+and unequal exaltation of his faculties that he dwelt more upon
+this and his wife's previous deceit and manifest hypocrisy, than
+upon the actual evidence he had witnessed of her unfaithfulness.
+The corroboration of the fact was stronger to him than the fact
+itself.  He understood the coldness, the uncongeniality now--the
+simulated increase of her aversion to Demorest--her journeys to
+Boston and Hartford to see her relatives, her acquiescence to his
+frequent absences; not an incident, not a characteristic of her
+married life was inconsistent with her guilt and her deceit.  He
+went even back to her maidenhood: how did he know this was not the
+legitimate sequence of other secret schoolgirl escapades.  The
+bitter worldly light that had been forced upon his simple ingenuous
+nature had dazzled and blinded him.  He passed from fatuous
+credulity to equally fatuous distrust.
+
+He stopped suddenly with the roaring of water before him.  In the
+furious following of his rapid thought through storm and darkness
+he had come, he knew not how, upon the bank of the swollen river,
+whose endangered bridge Demorest had turned from that evening.  A
+few steps more and he would have fallen into it.  He drew nearer
+and looked at it with vague curiosity.  Had he come there with any
+definite intention?  The thought sobered without frightening him.
+There was always THAT culmination possible, and to be considered
+coolly.
+
+He turned and began to retrace his steps.  On his way thither he
+had been fighting the elements step by step; now they seemed to him
+to have taken possession of him and were hurrying him quickly away.
+But where? and to what?  He was always thinking of the past.  He
+had wandered he knew not how long, always thinking of that.  It was
+the future he had to consider.  What was to be done?
+
+He had heard of such cases before; he had read of them in
+newspapers and talked of them with cold curiosity.  But they were
+of worldly, sinful people, of dissolute men whose characters he
+could not conceive--of silly, vain, frivolous, and abandoned women
+whom he had never even met.  But Joan--O God!  It was the first
+time since his mute prayer on the staircase that the Divine name
+had been wrested from his lips.  It came with his wife's--and his
+first tears!  But the wind swept the one away and dried the others
+upon his hot cheeks.
+
+It had ceased to rain, and the wind, which was still high, had
+shifted more to the north and was bitterly cold.  He could feel the
+roadway stiffening under his feet.  When he reached the pavement of
+the outskirts once more he was obliged to take the middle of the
+street, to avoid the treacherous films of ice that were beginning
+to glaze the sidewalks.  Yet this very inclemency, added to the
+usual Sabbath seclusion, had left the streets deserted.  He was
+obliged to proceed more slowly, but he met no one and could pursue
+his bewildering thoughts unchecked.  As he passed between the lines
+of cold, colorless houses, from which all light and life had
+vanished, it seemed to him that their occupants were dead as his
+love, or had fled their ruined houses as he had.  Why should he
+remain?  Yet what was his duty now as a man--as a Christian?  His
+eye fell on the hideous facade of the church he was passing--her
+church!  He gave a bitter laugh and stumbled on again.
+
+With one of the gusts he fancied he heard a familiar sound--the
+rattling of buggy wheels over the stiffening road.  Or was it
+merely the fanciful echo of an idea that only at that moment sprung
+up in his mind?  If it was real it came from the street parallel
+with the one he was in.  Who could be driving out at this time?
+What other buggy than his own could be found to desecrate this
+Christian Sabbath?  An irresistible thought impelled him at the
+risk of recognition to quicken his pace and turn the corner as
+Richard Demorest drove up to the Independence Hotel, sprang from
+his buggy, throwing the reins over the dashboard, and disappeared
+into the hotel!
+
+Blandford stood still, but for an instant only.  He had been
+wandering for an hour aimlessly, hopelessly, without consecutive
+idea, coherent thought or plan of action; without the faintest
+inspiration or suggestion of escape from his bewildering torment,
+without--he had begun to fear--even the power to conceive or the
+will to execute; when a wild idea flashed upon him with the rattle
+of his buggy wheels.  And even as Demorest disappeared into the
+hotel, he had conceived his plan and executed it.  He crossed the
+street swiftly, leaped into his buggy, lifted the reins and brought
+down the whip simultaneously, and the next instant was dashing down
+the street in the direction of the Warensboro turnpike.  So sudden
+was the action that by the time the astonished hall porter had
+rushed into the street, horse and buggy had already vanished in the
+darkness.
+
+Presently it began to snow.  So lightly at first that it seemed a
+mere passing whisper to the ear, the brush of some viewless insect
+upon the cheek, or the soft tap of unseen fingers on the shoulders.
+But by the time the porter returned from his hopeless and invisible
+chase of the "runaway," he came in out of a swarming cloud of
+whirling flakes, blinded and whitened.  There was a hurried
+consultation with the landlord, the exhibition of much imperious
+energy and some bank-notes from Demorest, and with a glance at the
+clock that marked the expiring limit of the Puritan Sabbath, the
+landlord at last consented.  By the time the falling snow had
+muffled the street from the indiscreet clamor of Sabbath-breaking
+hoofs, the landlord's noiseless sledge was at the door and Demorest
+had departed.
+
+The snow fell all that night; with fierce gusts of wind that moaned
+in the chimneys of North Liberty and sorely troubled the Sabbath
+sleep of its decorous citizens; with deep, passionless silences,
+none the less fateful, that softly precipitated a spotless mantle
+of merciful obliteration equally over their precise or their
+straying footprints, that would have done them good to heed and to
+remember; and when morning broke upon a world of week-day labor, it
+was covered as far as their eyes could reach as with a clear and
+unwritten tablet, on which they might record their lives anew.
+Near the wreck of the broken bridge on the Warensboro turnpike an
+overturned buggy lay imbedded in the drift and debris of the river
+hurrying silently towards the sea, and a horse with fragments of
+broken and icy harness still clinging to him was found standing
+before the stable-door of Edward Blandford.  But to any further
+knowledge of the fate of its owner, North Liberty awoke never
+again.
+
+
+PART II
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The last note of the Angelus had just rung out of the crumbling
+fissures in the tower of the mission chapel of San Buena-ventura.
+The sun which had beamed that day and indeed every day for the
+whole dry season over the red-tiled roofs of that old and happily
+ventured pueblo seemed to broaden to a smile as it dipped below the
+horizon, as if in undiminished enjoyment of its old practical joke
+of suddenly plunging the Southern California coast in darkness
+without any preliminary twilight.  The olive and fig trees at once
+lost their characteristic outlines in formless masses of shadow;
+only the twisted trunks of the old pear trees in the mission garden
+retained their grotesque shapes and became gruesome in the
+gathering gloom.  The encircling pines beyond closed up their
+serried files; a cool breeze swept down from the coast range and,
+passing through them, sent their day-long heated spices through the
+town.
+
+If there was any truth in the local belief that the pious
+incantation of the Angelus bell had the power of excluding all evil
+influence abroad at that perilous hour within its audible radius,
+and comfortably keeping all unbelieving wickedness at a distance,
+it was presumably ineffective as regarded the innovating stage-
+coach from Monterey that twice a week at that hour brought its
+question-asking, revolver-persuading and fortune-seeking load of
+passengers through the sleepy Spanish town.  On the night of the 3d
+of August, 1856, it had not only brought but set down at the Posada
+one of those passengers.  It was a Mr. Ezekiel Corwin, formerly
+known to these pages as "hired man" to the late Squire Blandford,
+of North Liberty, Connecticut, but now a shrewd, practical, self-
+sufficient, and self-asserting unit of the more cautious later
+Californian immigration.  As the stage rattled away again with more
+or less humorous and open disparagement of the town and the Posada
+from its "outsiders," he lounged with lazy but systematic
+deliberation towards Mateo Morez, the proprietor.
+
+"I guess that some of your folks here couldn't direct me to Dick
+Demorest's house, could ye?"
+
+The Senor Mateo Morez was at once perplexed and pained.  Pained at
+the ignorance thus forced upon him by a caballero; perplexed as to
+its intention.  Between the two he smiled apologetically but
+gravely, and said: "No sabe, Senor.  I 'ave not understood."
+
+"No more hev I," returned Ezekiel, with patronizing recognition of
+his obtuseness.  "I guess ez heow you ain't much on American.  You
+folks orter learn the language if you kalkilate to keep a hotel."
+
+But the momentary vision of a waistless woman with a shawl gathered
+over her head and shoulders at the back door attracted his
+attention.  She said something to Mateo in Spanish, and the
+yellowish-white of Mateo's eyes glistened with intelligent
+comprehension.
+
+"Ah, posiblemente; it is Don Ricardo Demorest you wish?"
+
+Mr. Ezekiel's face and manner expressed a mingling of grateful
+curiosity and some scorn at the discovery.  "Wa'al," he said,
+looking around as if to take the entire Posada into his confidence,
+"way up in North Liberty, where I kem from, he was allus known as
+Dick Demorest, and didn't tack any forrin titles to his name.  Et
+wouldn't hev gone down there, I reckon, 'mongst free-born Merikin
+citizens, no mor'n aliases would in court--and I kinder guess for
+the same reason.  But folks get peart and sassy when they're way
+from hum, and put on ez many airs as a buck nigger.  And so he
+calls hisself Don Ricardo here, does he?"
+
+"The Senor knows Don Ricardo?" said Mateo politely.
+
+"Ef you mean me--wa'al, yes--I should say so.  He was a partiklar
+friend of a man I've known since he was knee-high to a grasshopper."
+
+Ezekiel had actually never seen Demorest but once in his life.  He
+would have scorned to lie, but strict accuracy was not essential
+with an ignorant foreign audience.
+
+He took up his carpet-bag.
+
+"I reckon I kin find his house, ef it's anyway handy."
+
+But the Senor Mateo was again politely troubled.  The house of Don
+Ricardo was of a truth not more than a mile distant.  It was even
+possible that the Senor had observed it above a wall and vineyard
+as he came into the pueblo.  But it was late--it was also dark, as
+the Senor would himself perceive--and there was still to-morrow.
+To-morrow--ah, it was always there!  Meanwhile there were beds of a
+miraculous quality at the Posada, and a supper such as a caballero
+might order in his own house.  Health, discretion, solicitude for
+oneself--all pointed clearly to to-morrow.
+
+What part of this speech Ezekiel understood affected him only as an
+innkeeper's bid for custom, and as such to be steadily exposed and
+disposed of.  With the remark that he guessed Dick Demorest's was
+"a good enough hotel for HIM," and that he'd better be "getting
+along there," he walked down the steps, carpet-bag in hand, and
+coolly departed, leaving Mateo pained, but smiling, on the doorstep.
+
+"An animal with a pig's head--without doubt," said Mateo,
+sententiously.
+
+"Clearly a brigand with the liver of a chicken," responded his
+wife.
+
+The subject of this ambiguous criticism, happily oblivious,
+meantime walked doggedly back along the road the stage-coach had
+just brought him.  It was badly paved and hollowed in the middle
+with the worn ruts of a century of slow undeviating ox carts, and
+the passage of water during the rainy season.  The low adobe houses
+on each side, with bright cinnamon-colored tiles relieving their
+dark-brown walls, had the regular outlines of their doors and
+windows obliterated by the crumbling of years, until they looked as
+if they had been afterthoughts of the builder, rudely opened by
+pick and crowbar, and finished by the gentle auxiliary architecture
+of birds and squirrels.  Yet these openings at times permitted
+glimpses of a picturesque past in the occasional view of a lace-
+edged pillow or silken counterpane, striped hangings, or dyed
+Indian rugs, the flitting of a flounced petticoat or flower-covered
+head, or the indolent leaning figure framed in a doorway of a man
+in wide velvet trousers and crimson-barred serape, whose brown face
+was partly hidden in a yellow nimbus of cigarette smoke.  Even in
+the semi-darkness, Ezekiel's penetrating and impertinent eyes took
+eager note of these facts with superior complacency, quite
+unmindful, after the fashion of most critical travellers, of the
+hideous contrast of his own long shapeless nankeen duster, his
+stiff half-clerical brown straw hat, his wisp of gingham necktie,
+his dusty boots, his outrageous carpet-bag, and his straggling
+goat-like beard.  A few looked at him in grave, discreet wonder.
+Whether they recognized in him the advent of a civilization that
+was destined to supplant their own ignorant, sensuous, colorful
+life with austere intelligence and rigid practical improvement, did
+not appear.  He walked steadily on.  As he passed the low arched
+door of the mission church and saw a faint light glimmering from
+the side windows, he had indeed a weak human desire to go in and
+oppose in his own person a debased and idolatrous superstition with
+some happily chosen question that would necessarily make the
+officiating priest and his congregation exceedingly uncomfortable.
+But he resisted; partly in the hope of meeting some idolater on his
+way to Benediction, and, in the guise of a stranger seeking
+information, dropping a few unpalatable truths; and partly because
+be could unbosom himself later to Demorest, who he was not
+unwilling to believe had embraced Popery with his adoption of a
+Spanish surname and title.
+
+It had become quite dark when he reached the long wall that
+enclosed Demorest's premises.  The wall itself excited his
+resentment, not only as indicating an exclusiveness highly
+objectionable in a man who had emigrated from a free State, but
+because he, Ezekiel Corwin, had difficulty in discovering the
+entrance.  When he succeeded, he found himself before an iron gate,
+happily open, but savoring offensively of feudalism and tyrannical
+proprietorship, and passed through and entered an avenue of trees
+scarcely distinguishable in the darkness, whose mysterious shapes
+and feathery plumes were unknown to him.  Numberless odors equally
+vague and mysterious were heavy in the air, strange and delicate
+plants rose dimly on either hand; enormous blossoms, like ghostly
+faces, seemed to peer at him from the shadows.  For an instant
+Ezekiel succumbed to an unprofitable sense of beauty, and
+acquiesced in this reckless extravagance of Nature that was so
+unlike North Liberty.  But the next moment he recovered himself,
+with the reflection that it was probably unhealthy, and doggedly
+approached the house.  It was a long, one-storied, structure,
+apparently all roof, vine, and pillared veranda.  Every window and
+door was open; the two or three grass hammocks swung emptily
+between the columns; the bamboo chairs and settees were vacant; his
+heavy footsteps on the floor had summoned no attendant; not even a
+dog had barked as he approached the house.  It was shiftless, it
+was sinful--it boded no good to the future of Demorest.
+
+He put down his carpet-bag on the veranda and entered the broad
+hall, where an old-fashioned lantern was burning on a stand.  Here,
+too, the doors of the various apartments were open, and the rooms
+themselves empty of occupants.  An opportunity not to be lost by
+Ezekiel's inquiring mind thus offered itself.  He took the lantern
+and deliberately examined the several apartments, the furniture,
+the bedding, and even the small articles that were on the tables
+and mantels.  When he had completed the round--including a corridor
+opening on a dark courtyard, which he did not penetrate--he
+returned to the hall, and set down the lantern again.
+
+"Well," said a voice in his own familiar vernacular, "I hope you
+like it."
+
+Ezekiel was surprised, but not disconcerted.  What he had taken
+in the shadow for a bundle of serapes lying on the floor of the
+veranda, was the recumbent figure of a man who now raised himself
+to a sitting posture.
+
+"Ez to that," drawled Ezekiel, with unshaken self-possession,
+"whether I like it or not ez only a question betwixt kempany
+manners and truth-telling.  Beggars hadn't oughter be choosers, and
+transient visitors like myself needn't allus speak their mind.  But
+if you mean to signify that with every door and window open and
+universal shiftlessness lying round everywhere temptin' Providence,
+you ain't lucky in havin' a feller-citizen of yours drop in on ye
+instead of some Mexican thief, I don't agree with ye--that's all."
+
+The man laughed shortly and rose up.  In spite of his careless yet
+picturesque Mexican dress, Ezekiel instantly recognized Demorest.
+With his usual instincts he was naturally pleased to observe that
+he looked older and more careworn.  The softer, sensuous climate
+had perhaps imparted a heaviness to his figure and a deliberation
+to his manner that was quite unlike his own potential energy.
+
+"That don't tell me who you are, and what you want," he said,
+coldly.
+
+"Wa'al then, I'm Ezekiel Corwin of North Liberty, ez used to live
+with my friend and YOURS too, I guess--seein' how the friendship
+was swapped into relationship--Squire Blandford."
+
+A slight shade passed over Demorest's face.  "Well," he said,
+impatiently, "I don't remember you; what then?"
+
+"You don't remember me; that's likely," returned Ezekiel
+imperturbably, combing his straggling chin beard with three fingers,
+"but whether it's NAT'RAL or not, considerin' the sukumstances when
+we last met, ez a matter of op-pinion.  You got me to harness up the
+hoss and buggy the night Squire Blandford left home, and never was
+heard of again.  It's true that it kem out on enquiry that the hoss
+and buggy ran away from the hotel, and that you had to go out to
+Warensboro in a sleigh, and the theory is that poor Squire Blandford
+must have stopped the hoss and buggy somewhere, got in and got run
+away agin, and pitched over the bridge.  But seein' your relationship
+to both Squire and Mrs. Blandford, and all the sukumstances, I
+reckoned you'd remember it."
+
+"I heard of it in Boston a month afterwards," said Demorest, dryly,
+"but I don't think I'd have recognized you.  So you were the hired
+man who gave me the buggy.  Well, I don't suppose they discharged
+you for it."
+
+"No," said Ezekiel, with undisturbed equanimity.  "I kalkilate Joan
+would have stopped that.  Considerin', too, that I knew her when
+she was Deacon Salisbury's darter, and our fam'lies waz thick az
+peas.  She knew me well enough when I met her in Frisco the other
+day."
+
+"Have you seen Mrs. Demorest already?" said Demorest, with sudden
+vivacity.  "Why didn't you say so before?"  It was wonderful how
+quickly his face had lighted up with an earnestness that was not,
+however, without some undefinable uneasiness.  The alert Ezekiel
+noticed it and observed that it was as totally unlike the
+irresistible dominance of the man of five years ago as it was
+different from the heavy abstraction of the man of five minutes
+before.
+
+"I reckon you didn't ax me," he returned coolly.  "She told me
+where you were, and as I had business down this way she guessed I
+might drop in."
+
+"Yes, yes--it's all right, Mr. Corwin; glad you did," said
+Demorest, kindly but half nervously.  "And you saw Mrs. Demorest?
+Where did you see her, and how did you think she was looking?  As
+pretty as ever, eh?"
+
+But the coldly literal Ezekiel was not to be beguiled into polite
+or ambiguous fiction.  He even went to the extent of insulting
+deliberation before he replied.  "I've seen Joan Salisbury lookin'
+healthier and ez far ez I kin judge doin' more credit to her stock
+and raisin' gin'rally," he said, thoughtfully combing his beard,
+"and I've seen her when she was too poor to get the silks and
+satins, furbelows, fineries and vanities she's flauntin' in now,
+and that was in Squire Blandford's time, too, I reckon.  Ez to her
+purtiness, that's a matter of taste.  You think her purty, and I
+guess them fellows ez was escortin' and squirin' her round Frisco
+thought so too, or SHE thought they did to hev allowed it."
+
+"You are not very merciful to your townsfolk, Mr. Corwin," said
+Demorest, with a forced smile; "but what can I do for you?"
+
+It was the turn for Ezekiel's face to brighten, or rather to break
+up, like a cold passionless mirror suddenly cracked, into various
+amusing but distorted reflections on the person before him.
+"Townies ain't to be fooled by other townies, Mr. Demorest; at
+least that ain't my idea o' marcy, he-he!  But seen you're
+pressin', I don't mind tellen you MY business.  I'm the only agent
+of Seventeen Patent Medicine Proprietors in Connecticut represented
+by the firm of Dilworth & Dusenberry, of San Francisco.  Mebbe you
+heard of 'em afore--A1 druggists and importers.  Wa'al, I'm openin'
+a field for 'em and spreadin' 'em gin'rally through these air
+benighted and onhealthy districts, havin' the contract for the hull
+State--especially for Wozun's Universal Injin Panacea ez cures
+everything--bein' had from a recipe given by a Sachem to Dr.
+Wozun's gran'ther.  That bag--leavin' out a dozen paper collars and
+socks--is all the rest samples.  That's me, Ezekiel Corwin--only
+agent for Californy, and that's my mission."
+
+"Very well; but look here, Corwin," said Demorest, with a slight
+return of his old off-hand manner,--"I'd advise you to adopt a
+little more caution, and a little less criticism in your speech to
+the people about here, or I'm afraid you'll need the Universal
+Panacea for yourself.  Better men than you have been shot in my
+presence for half your freedom."
+
+"I guess you've just hit the bull's-eye there," replied Ezekiel,
+coolly, "for it's that HALF-freedom and HALF-truth that doesn't
+pay.  I kalkilate gin'rally to speak my hull mind--and I DO.  Wot's
+the consequence?  Why, when folks find I ain't afeard to speak my
+mind on their affairs, they kinder guess I'm tellin' the truth
+about my own.  Folks don't like the man that truckles to 'em,
+whether it's in the sellin' of a box of pills or a principle.  When
+they re-cognize Ezekiel Corwin ain't goin' to lie about 'em to
+curry favor with 'em, they're ready to believe he ain't goin' to
+lie about Jones' Bitters or Wozun's Panacea.  And, wa'al, I've been
+on the road just about a fortnit, and I haven't yet discovered that
+the original independent style introduced by Ezekiel Corwin ever
+broke anybody's bones or didn't pay."
+
+And he told the truth.  That remarkably unfair and unpleasant
+spoken man had actually frozen Hanley's Ford into icy astonishment
+at his audacity, and he had sold them an invoice of the Panacea
+before they had recovered; he had insulted Chipitas into giving an
+extensive order in bitters; he had left Hayward's Creek pledged to
+Burne's pills--with drawn revolvers still in their hands.
+
+At another time Demorest might have been amused at his guest's
+audacity, or have combated it with his old imperiousness, but he
+only remained looking at him in a dull sort of way as if yielding
+to his influence.  It was part of the phenomenon that the two men
+seemed to have changed character since they last met, and when
+Ezekiel said confidentially: "I reckon you're goin' to show me what
+room I ken stow these duds o' mine in," Demorest replied hurriedly,
+"Yes, certainly," and taking up his guest's carpet-bag preceded him
+through the hall to one of the apartments.
+
+"I'll send Manuel to you presently," he said, putting down the bag
+mechanically; "the servants are not back from church, it's some
+saint's festival to-day."
+
+"And so you keep a pack of lazy idolaters to leave your house to
+take care of itself, whilst they worship graven images," said
+Ezekiel, delighted at this opportunity to improve the occasion.
+
+"If my memory isn't bad, Mr. Corwin," said Demorest dryly, "when I
+accompanied Mr. Blandford home the night he returned from his
+journey, we found YOU at church, and he had to put up his horse
+himself."
+
+"But that was the Sabbath--the seventh day of the command,"
+retorted Ezekiel.
+
+"And here the Sabbath doesn't consist of only ONE day to serve God
+in," said Demorest, sententiously.
+
+Ezekiel glanced under his white lashes at Demorest's thoughtful
+face.  His fondest fears appeared to be confirmed; Demorest had
+evidently become a Papist.  But that gentleman stopped any
+theological discussion by the abrupt inquiry:
+
+"Did Mrs. Demorest say when she thought of returning?"
+
+"She allowed she mout kem to-morrow--but--" added Ezekiel dubiously.
+
+"But what?"
+
+"Wa'al, wot with her enjyments of the vanities of this life and the
+kempany she keeps, I reckon she's in no hurry," said Ezekiel,
+cheerfully.
+
+The entrance of Manuel here cut short any response from Demorest,
+who after a few directions in Spanish to the peon, left his guest
+to himself.
+
+He walked to the veranda with the same dull preoccupation that
+Ezekiel had noticed as so different from his old decisive manner,
+and remained for a few moments abstractedly gazing into the dark
+garden.  The strange and mystic shapes which had impressed even the
+practical Ezekiel, had become even more weird and ghost-like in the
+faint radiance of a rising moon.
+
+What memories evoked by his rude guest seemed to take form and
+outline in that dreamy and unreal expanse!
+
+He saw his wife again, standing as she had stood that night in her
+mother's house, with the white muffler around her head, and white
+face, imploring him to fly; he saw himself again hurrying through
+the driving storm to Warensboro, and reaching the train that bore
+him swiftly and safely miles away--that same night when her husband
+was perishing in the swollen river.  He remembered with what
+strangely mingled sensations he had read the account of Blandford's
+death in the newspapers, and how the loss of his old friend was
+forgotten in the associations conjured up by his singular meeting
+that very night with the mysterious woman he had loved.  He
+remembered that he had never dreamed how near and fateful were
+these associations; and how he had kept his promise not to seek her
+without her permission, until six months after, when she appointed
+a meeting, and revealed to him the whole truth.  He could see her
+now, as he had seen her then, more beautiful and fascinating than
+ever in her black dress, and the pensive grace of refined suffering
+and restrained passion in her delicate face.  He remembered, too,
+how the shock of her disclosure--the knowledge that she had been
+his old friend's wife--seemed only to accent her purity and
+suffering and his own wilful recklessness, and how it had stirred
+all the chivalry, generosity, and affection of his easy nature to
+take the whole responsibility of this innocent but compromising
+intrigue on his own shoulders.  He had had no self-accusing sense
+of disloyalty to Blandford in his practical nature; he had never
+suspected the shy, proper girl of being his wife; he was willing to
+believe now, that had he known it, even that night, he would never
+have seen her again; he had been very foolish; he had made this
+poor woman participate in his folly; but he had never been
+dishonest or treacherous in thought or action.  If Blandford had
+lived, even he would have admitted it.  Yet he was guiltily
+conscious of a material satisfaction in Blandford's death, without
+his wife's religious conviction of the saving graces of
+predestination.
+
+They had been married quietly when the two years of her widowhood
+had expired; his former relations with her husband and the
+straitened circumstances in which Blandford's death had left her
+having been deemed sufficient excuse in the eyes of North Liberty
+for her more worldly union.  They had come to California at her
+suggestion "to begin life anew," for she had not hesitated to make
+this dislocation of all her antecedent surroundings as a reason as
+well as a condition of this marriage.  She wished to see the world
+of which he had been a passing glimpse; to expand under his
+protection beyond the limits of her fettered youth.  He had bought
+this old Spanish estate, with its near vineyard and its outlying
+leagues covered with wild cattle, partly from that strange
+contradictory predilection for peaceful husbandry common to men who
+have led a roving life, and partly as a check to her growing and
+feverish desire for change and excitement.  He had at first enjoyed
+with an almost parental affection her childish unsophisticated
+delight in that world he had already wearied of, and which he had
+been prepared to gladly resign for her.  But as the months and even
+years had passed without any apparent diminution in her zest for
+these pleasures, he tried uneasily to resume his old interest in
+them, and spent ten months with her in the chaotic freedom of San
+Francisco hotel life.  But to his discomfiture he found that they
+no longer diverted him; to his horror he discovered that those easy
+gallantries in which he had spent his youth, and in which he had
+seen no harm, were intolerable when exhibited to his wife, and he
+trembled between inquietude and indignation at the copies of his
+former self, whom he met in hotel parlors, at theatres, and in
+public conveyances.  The next time she visited some friends in San
+Francisco he did not accompany her.  Though he fondly cherished his
+experience of her power to resist even stronger temptation, he was
+too practical to subject himself to the annoyance of witnessing it.
+In her absence he trusted her completely; his scant imagination
+conjured up no disturbing picture of possibilities beyond what he
+actually knew.  In his recent questions of Ezekiel he did not
+expect to learn anything more.  Even his guest's uncomfortable
+comments added no sting that he had not already felt.
+
+With these thoughts called up by the unlooked-for advent of Ezekiel
+under his roof, he continued to gaze moodily into the garden.  Near
+the house were scattered several uncouth varieties of cacti which
+seemed to have lost all semblance of vegetable growth, and had
+taken rude likeness to beasts and human figures.  One high-
+shouldered specimen, partly hidden in the shadow, had the
+appearance of a man with a cloak or serape thrown over his left
+shoulder.  As Demorest's wandering eyes at last became fixed upon
+it, he fancied he could trace the faint outlines of a pale face,
+the lower part of which was hidden by the folds of the serape.
+There certainly was the forehead, the curve of the dark eyebrows,
+the shadow of a nose, and even as he looked more steadily, a
+glistening of the eyes upturned to the moonlight.  A sudden chill
+seized him.  It was a horrible fancy, but it looked as might have
+looked the dead face of Edward Blandford!  He started and ran
+quickly down the steps of the veranda.  A slight wind at the same
+moment moved the long leaves and tendrils of a vine nearest him and
+sent a faint wave through the garden.  He reached the cactus; its
+fantastic bulk stood plainly before him, but nothing more.
+
+"Whar are ye runnin' to?" said the inquiring voice of Ezekiel from
+the veranda.
+
+"I thought I saw some one in the garden," returned Demorest,
+quietly, satisfied of the illusion of his senses, "but it was a
+mistake."
+
+"It mout and it moutn't," said Ezekiel, dryly.  "Thar's nothin' to
+keep any one out.  It's only a wonder that you ain't overrun with
+thieves and sich like."
+
+"There are usually servants about the place," said Demorest,
+carelessly.
+
+"Ef they're the same breed ez that Manuel, I reckon I'd almost as
+leave take my chances in the road.  Ef it's all the same to you I
+kalkilate to put a paytent fastener to my door and winder to-night.
+I allus travel with them."  Seeing that Demorest only shrugged his
+shoulders without replying, he continued, "Et ain't far from here
+that some folks allow is the headquarters of that cattle-stealing
+gang.  The driver of the coach went ez far ez to say that some of
+these high and mighty Dons hereabouts knows more of it than they
+keer to tell."
+
+"That's simply a yarn for greenhorns," said Demorest, contemptuously.
+"I know all the ranch proprietors for twenty leagues around, and
+they've lost as many cattle and horses as I have."
+
+"I wanter know," said Ezekiel, with grim interest.  "Then you've
+already had consid'ble losses, eh?  I kalkilate them cattle are
+vally'ble--about wot figger do you reckon yer out and injured?"
+
+"Three or four thousand dollars, I suppose, altogether," replied
+Demorest, shortly.
+
+"Then you don't take any stock in them yer yarns about the gang
+being run and protected by some first-class men in Frisco?" said
+Ezekiel, regretfully.
+
+"Not much," responded Demorest, dryly; "but if people choose to
+believe this bluff gotten up by the petty thieves themselves to
+increase their importance and secure their immunity--they can.  But
+here's Manuel to tell us supper is ready."
+
+He led the way to the corridor and courtyard which Ezekiel had not
+penetrated on account of its obscurity and solitude, but which now
+seemed to be peopled with peons and household servants of both
+sexes.  At the end of a long low-ceilinged room a table was spread
+with omelettes, chupa, cakes, chocolate, grapes, and melons, around
+which half a dozen attendants stood gravely in waiting.  The size
+of the room, which to Ezekiel's eyes looked as large as the church
+at North Liberty, the profusion of the viands, the six attendants
+for the host and solitary guest, deeply impressed him.  Morally
+rebelling against this feudal display and extravagance, he, who had
+disdained to even assist the Blandfords' servant-in-waiting at
+table and had always made his solitary meal on the kitchen dresser,
+was not above feeling a material satisfaction in sitting on equal
+terms with his master's friend and being served by these menials he
+despised.  He did full justice to the victuals of which Demorest
+partook in sparing abstraction, and particularly to the fruit,
+which Demorest did not touch at all.  Observant of his servants'
+eyes fixed in wonder on the strange guest who had just disposed of
+a second melon at supper, Demorest could not help remarking that he
+would lose credit as a medico with the natives unless he restrained
+a public exhibition of his tastes.
+
+"Ez ha'aw?" queried Ezekiel.
+
+"They have a proverb here that fruit is gold in the morning, silver
+at noon, and lead at night."
+
+"That'll do for lazy stomicks," said the unabashed Ezekiel.  "When
+they're once fortified by Jones' bitters and hard work, they'll be
+able to tackle the Lord's nat'ral gifts of the airth at any time."
+
+Declining the cigarettes offered him by Demorest for a quid of
+tobacco, which he gravely took from a tin box in his pocket, and to
+the astonished eyes of the servants apparently obliterated any
+further remembrance of the meal, he accompanied his host to the
+veranda again, where, tilting his chair back and putting his feet
+on the railing, he gave himself up to unwonted and silent rumination.
+
+The silence was broken at last by Demorest, who, half-reclining on
+a settee, had once or twice glanced towards the misshapen cactus.
+
+"Was there any trace discovered of Blandford, other than we knew
+before we left the States?"
+
+"Wa'al, no," said Ezekiel, thoughtfully.  "The last idea was that
+he'd got control of the hoss after passin' the bridge, and had
+managed to turn him back, for there was marks of buggy wheels on
+the snow on the far side, and that fearin' to trust the hoss or the
+bridge he tried to lead him over when the bridge gave way, and he
+was caught in the wreck and carried off down stream.  That would
+account for his body not bein' found; they do tell that chunks of
+that bridge were picked up on the Sound beach near the mouth o' the
+river, nigh unto sixty miles away.  That's about the last idea they
+had of it at North Liberty."  He paused and then cleverly directing
+a stream of tobacco juice at an accurate curve over the railing,
+wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and added, slowly:
+"Thar's another idea--but I reckon it's only mine.  Leastways I
+ain't heard it argued by anybody."
+
+"What is that?" asked Demorest.
+
+"Wa'al, it ain't exakly complimentary to E. Blandford, Esq., and it
+mout be orkard for YOU."
+
+"I don't think you're in the habit of letting such trifles
+interfere with your opinion," said Demorest, with a slightly forced
+laugh; "but what is your idea?"
+
+"That thar wasn't any accident."
+
+"No accident?" replied Demorest, raising himself on his elbow.
+
+"Nary accident," continued Ezekiel, deliberately, "and, if it comes
+to that, not much of a dead body either."
+
+"What the devil do you mean?" said Demorest, sitting up.
+
+"I mean," said Ezekiel, with momentous deliberation, "that E.
+Blandford, of the Winnipeg Mills, was in March, '50, ez nigh bein'
+bust up ez any man kin be without actually failin'; that he'd been
+down to Boston that day to get some extensions; that old Deacon
+Salisbury knew it, and had been pesterin' Mrs. Blandford to induce
+him to sell out and leave the place; and that the night he left he
+took about two hundred and fifty dollars in bank bills that they
+allus kept in the house, and Mrs. Blandford was in the habit o'
+hidin' in the breast-pocket of one of his old overcoats hangin' up
+in the closet.  I mean that that air money and that air overcoat
+went off with him, ez Mrs. Blandford knows, for I heard her tell
+her ma about it.  And when his affairs were wound up and his debts
+paid, I reckon that the two hundred and fifty was all there was
+left--and he scooted with it.  It's orkard for you--ez I said
+afore--but I don't see wot on earth you need get riled for.  Ef he
+ran off on account of only two hundred and fifty dollars he ain't
+goin' to run back again for the mere matter o' your marrying Joan.
+Ef he had--he'd a done it afore this.  It's orkard ez I said--but
+the only orkardness is your feelin's.  I reckon Joan's got used to
+hers."
+
+Demorest had risen angrily to his feet.  But the next moment the
+utter impossibility of reaching this man's hidebound moral
+perception by even physical force hopelessly overcame him.  It
+would only impress him with the effect of his own disturbing power,
+that to Ezekiel was equal to a proof of the truth of his opinions.
+It might even encourage him to repeat this absurd story elsewhere
+with his own construction upon his reception of it.  After all it
+was only Ezekiel's opinion--an opinion too preposterous for even a
+moment's serious consideration.  Blandford alive, and a petty
+defaulter!  Blandford above the earth and complacently abandoning
+his wife and home to another!  Blandford--perhaps a sneaking,
+cowardly Nemesis--hiding in the shadow for future--impossible!  It
+really was enough to make him laugh.
+
+He did laugh, albeit with an uneasy sense that only a few years
+ago he would have struck down the man who had thus traduced his
+friend's memory.
+
+"You've been overtaxing your brain in patent-medicine circulars,
+Corwin," he said in a roughly rallying manner, "and you've got
+rather too much highfalutin and bitters mixed with your opinions.
+After that yarn of yours you must be dry.  What'll you take?  I
+haven't got any New England rum, but I can give you some ten-year-
+old aguardiente made on the place."
+
+As he spoke he lifted a decanter and glass from a small table which
+Manuel had placed in the veranda.
+
+"I guess not," said Ezekiel dryly.  "It's now goin' on five years
+since I've been a consistent temperance man."
+
+"In everything but melons, and criticism of your neighbor, eh?"
+said Demorest, pouring out a glass of the liquor.
+
+"I hev my convictions," said Ezekiel with affected meekness.
+
+"And I have mine," said Demorest, tossing off the fiery liquor at a
+draft, "and it's that this is devilish good stuff.  Sorry you can't
+take some.  I'm afraid I'll have to get you to excuse me for a
+while.  I have to take a ride over the ranch before turning in, to
+see if everything's right.  The house is 'at your disposition,' as
+we say here.  I'll see you later."
+
+He walked away with a slight exaggeration of unconcern.  Ezekiel
+watched him narrowly with colorless eyes beneath his white lashes.
+When he had gone he examined the thoroughly emptied glass of
+aguardiente, and, taking the decanter, sniffed critically at its
+sharp and potent contents.  A smile of gratified discernment
+followed.  It was clear to him that Demorest was a heavy drinker.
+
+Contrary to his prognostication, however, Mrs. Demorest DID arrive
+the next day.  But although he was to depart from Buenaventura by
+the same coach that had set her down at the gate of the casa, he
+had already left the house armed with some letters of introduction
+which Demorest had generously given him, to certain small traders
+in the pueblo and along the route.  Demorest was not displeased to
+part with him before the arrival of his wife, and thus spare her
+the awkwardness of a repetition of Ezekiel's effrontery in her
+presence.  Nor was he willing to have the impediment of a guest in
+the house to any explanation he might have to seek from her, or to
+the confidences that hereafter must be fuller and more mutual.
+For with all his deep affection for his wife, Richard Demorest
+unconsciously feared her.  The strong man whose dominance over men
+and women alike had been his salient characteristic, had begun to
+feel an undefinable sense of some unrecognized quality in the woman
+he loved.  He had once or twice detected it in a tone of her voice,
+in a remembered and perhaps even once idolized gesture, or in the
+accidental lapse of some bewildering word.  With the generosity of
+a large nature he had put the thought aside, referring it to some
+selfish weakness of his own, or--more fatuous than all--to a
+possible diminution of his own affection.
+
+He was standing on the steps ready to receive her.  Few of her
+appreciative sex could have remained indifferent to the tender and
+touching significance of his silent and subdued welcome.  He had
+that piteous wistfulness of eye seen in some dogs and the husbands
+of many charming women--the affection that pardons beforehand the
+indifference it has learned to expect.  She approached him smiling
+in her turn, meeting the sublime patience of being unloved with
+the equally resigned patience of being loved, and feeling that
+comforting sense of virtue which might become a bore, but never a
+self-reproach.  For the rest, she was prettier than ever; her five
+years of expanded life had slightly rounded the elongated oval of
+her face, filled up the ascetic hollows of her temples, and freed
+the repression of her mouth and chin.  A more genial climate had
+quickened the circulation that North Liberty had arrested, and
+suffused the transparent beauty of her skin with eloquent life.  It
+seemed as if the long, protracted northern spring of her youth had
+suddenly burst into a summer of womanhood under those gentle skies;
+and yet enough of her puritan precision of manner, movement, and
+gesture remained to temper her fuller and more exuberant life and
+give it repose.  In a community of pretty women more or less given
+to the license and extravagance of the epoch, she always looked
+like a lady.
+
+He took her in his arms and half-lifted her up the last step of the
+veranda.  She resisted slightly with her characteristic action of
+catching his wrists in both her hands and holding him off with an
+awkward primness, and almost in the same tone that she had used to
+Edward Blandford five years before, said:
+
+"There, Dick, that will do."
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Demorest's dream of a few days' conjugal seclusion and confidences
+with his wife was quickly dispelled by that lady.  "I came down
+with Rosita Pico, whose father, you know, once owned this
+property," she said.  "She's gone on to her cousins at Los Osos
+Rancho to-night, but comes here to-morrow for a visit.  She knows
+the place well; in fact, she once had a romantic love affair here.
+But she is very entertaining.  It will be a little change for us,"
+she added, naively.
+
+Demorest kept back a sigh, without changing his gentle smile.  "I'm
+glad for your sake, dear.  But is she not a little flighty and
+inclined to flirt a good deal?  I think I've heard so."
+
+"She's a young girl who has been severely tried, Richard, and
+perhaps is not to blame for endeavoring to forget it in such
+distraction as she can find," said Mrs. Demorest, with a slight
+return of her old manner.  "I can understand her feelings
+perfectly."  She looked pointedly at her husband as she spoke, it
+being one of her late habits to openly refer to their ante-nuptial
+acquaintance as a natural reaction from the martyrdom of her first
+marriage, with a quiet indifference that seemed almost an
+indelicacy.  But her husband only said: "As you like, dear,"
+vaguely remembering Dona Rosita as the alleged heroine of a
+forgotten romance with some earlier American adventurer who had
+disappeared, and trying vainly to reconcile his wife's sentimental
+description of her with his own recollection of the buxom, pretty,
+laughing, but dangerous-eyed Spanish girl he had, however, seen but
+once.
+
+She arrived the next day, flying into a protracted embrace of Joan,
+which included a smiling recognition of Demorest with an unoccupied
+blue eye, and a shake of her fan over his wife's shoulder.  Then
+she drew back and seemed to take in the whole veranda and garden in
+another long caress of her eyes.  "Ah-yess!  I have recog-nized it,
+mooch.  It es ze same.  Of no change--not even of a leetle.  No,
+she ess always--esso."  She stopped, looked unutterable things at
+Joan, pressed her fan below a spray of roses on her full bodice as
+if to indicate some thrilling memory beneath it, shook her head
+again, suddenly caught sight of Demorest's serious face, said: "Ah,
+that brigand of our husband laughs himself at me," and then herself
+broke into a charming ripple of laughter.
+
+"But I was not laughing, Dona Rosita," said Demorest, smiling
+sadly, however, in spite of himself.
+
+She made a little grimace, and then raised her elbows, slightly
+lifting her shoulders.  "As it shall please you, Senor.  But he is
+gone--thees passion.  Yess--what you shall call thees sentiment of
+lof--zo--as he came!"  She threw her fingers in the air as if to
+illustrate the volatile and transitory passage of her affections,
+and then turned again to Joan with her back towards Demorest.
+
+"Do please go on--Dona Rosita," said he, "I never heard the real
+story.  If there is any romance about my house, I'd like to know
+it," he added with a faint sigh.
+
+Dona Rosita wheeled upon him with an inquiring little look.  "Ah,
+you have the sentiment, and YOU," she continued, taking Joan by the
+arms, "YOU have not.  Eet ess good so.  When a--the wife," she
+continued boldly, hazarding an extended English abstraction, "he
+has the sentimente and the hoosband he has nothing, eet is not
+good--for a-him--ze wife," she concluded triumphantly.
+
+"But I have great appreciation and I am dying to hear it," said
+Demorest, trying to laugh.
+
+"Well, poor one, you look so.  But you shall lif till another
+time," said Dona Rosita, with a mock courtesy, gliding with Joan
+away.
+
+The "other time" came that evening when chocolate was served on the
+veranda, where Dona Rosita, mantilla-draped against the dry, clear,
+moonlit air, sat at the feet of Joan on the lowest step.  Demorest,
+uneasily observant of the influence of the giddy foreigner on his
+wife, and conscious of certain confidences between them from which
+he was excluded, leaned against a pillar of the porch in half
+abstracted resignation; Joan, under the tutelage of Rosita, lit a
+cigarette; Demorest gazed at her wonderingly, trying to recall, in
+her fuller and more animated face, some memory of the pale, refined
+profile of the Puritan girl he had first met in the Boston train,
+the faint aurora of whose cheek in that northern clime seemed to
+come and go with his words.  Becoming conscious at last of the eyes
+of Dona Rosita watching him from below, with an effort he recalled
+his duty as her host and gallantly reminded her that moonlight and
+the hour seemed expressly fitted for her promised love story.
+
+"Do tell it," said Joan, "I don't mind hearing it again."
+
+"Then you know it already?" said Demorest, surprised.
+
+Joan took the cigarette from her lips, laughed complacently, and
+exchanged a familiar glance with Rosita.  "She told it me a year
+ago, when we first knew each other," she replied.  "Go on, dear,"
+to Rosita.
+
+Thus encouraged, Dona Rosita began, addressing herself first in
+Spanish to Demorest, who understood the language better than his
+wife, and lapsing into her characteristic English as she appealed
+to them both.  It was really very little to interest Don Ricardo--
+this story of a silly muchacha like herself and a strange
+caballero.  He would go to sleep while she was talking, and to-
+night he would say to his wife, "Mother of God! why have you
+brought here this chattering parrot who speaks but of one thing?"
+But she would go on always like the windmill, whether there was
+grain to grind or no.  "It was four years ago.  Ah! Don Ricardo did
+not remember the country then--it was when the first Americans
+came--now it is different.  Then there were no coaches--in truth
+one travelled very little, and always on horseback, only to see
+one's neighbors.  And suddenly, as if in one day, it was changed;
+there were strange men on the roads, and one was frightened, and
+one shut the gates of the pateo and drove the horses into the
+corral.  One did not know much of the Americans then--for why?
+They were always going, going--never stopping, hurrying on to the
+gold mines, hurrying away from the gold mines, hurrying to look for
+other gold mines: but always going on foot, on horseback, in queer
+wagons--hurrying, pushing everywhere.  Ah, it took away the breath.
+All, except one American--he did not hurry, he did not go with the
+others, he came and stayed here at Buenaventura.  He was very
+quiet, very civil, very sad, and very discreet.  He was not like
+the others, and always kept aloof from them.  He came to see Don
+Andreas Pico, and wanted to beg a piece of land and an old
+vaquero's hut near the road for a trifle.  Don Andreas would have
+given it, or a better house, to him, or have had him live at the
+casa here; but he would not.  He was very proud and shy, so he took
+the vaquero's hut, a mere adobe affair, and lived in it, though a
+caballero like yourself, with white hands that knew not labor, and
+small feet that had seldom walked.  In good time he learned to ride
+like the best vaquero, and helped Don Andreas to find the lost
+mustangs, and showed him how to improve the old mill.  And his
+pride and his shyness wore off, and he would come to the casa
+sometimes.  And Don Andreas got to love him very much, and his
+daughter, Dona Rosita--ah, well, yes truly--a leetle.
+
+"But he had strange moods and ways, this American, and at times
+they would have thought him a lunatico had they not believed it to
+be an American fashion.  He would be very kind and gentle like one
+of the family, coming to the casa every day, playing with the
+children, advising Don Andreas and--yes--having a devotion--very
+discreet, very ceremonious, for Dona Rosita.  And then, all in a
+moment, he would become as ill, without a word or gesture, until he
+would stalk out of the house, gallop away furiously, and for a week
+not be heard of.  The first time it happened, Dona Rosita was
+piqued by his rudeness, Don Andreas was alarmed, for it was on an
+evening like the present, and Dona Rosita was teaching him a little
+song on the guitar when the fit came on him.  And he snapped the
+guitar strings like thread and threw it down, and got up like a
+bear and walked away without a word."
+
+"I see it all," said Demorest, half seriously: "you were coquetting
+with him, and he was jealous."
+
+But Dona Rosita shook her head and turned impetuously, and said in
+English to Joan:
+
+"No, it was astutcia--a trick, a ruse.  Because when my father have
+arrived at his house, he is agone.  And so every time.  When he
+have the fit he goes not to his house.  No.  And it ees not until
+after one time when he comes back never again, that we have
+comprehend what he do at these times.  And what do you think?  I
+shall tell to you."
+
+She composed herself comfortably, with her plump elbows on her
+knees, and her fan crossed on the palm of her hand before her, and
+began again:
+
+"It is a year he has gone, and the stagecoach is attack of
+brigands.  Tiburcio, our vaquero, have that night made himself a
+pasear on the road, and he have seen HIM.  He have seen, one, two,
+three men came from the wood with something on the face, and HE is
+of them.  He has nothing on his face, and Tiburcio have recognize
+him.  We have laugh at Tiburcio.  We believe him not.  It is
+improbable that this Senor Huanson--"
+
+"Senor who?" said Demorest.
+
+"Huanson--eet is the name of him.  Ah, Carr!--posiblemente it is
+nothing--a Don Fulano--or an apodo--Huanson."
+
+"Oh, I see, JOHNSON, very likely."
+
+"We have said it is not possible that this good man, who have come
+to the house and ride on his back the children, is a thief and a
+brigand.  And one night my father have come from the Monterey in
+the coach, and it was stopped.  And the brigands have take from the
+passengers the money, the rings from the finger, and the watch--
+and my father was of the same.  And my father, he have great
+dissatisfaction and anguish, for his watch is given to him of an
+old friend, and it is not like the other watch.  But the watch he
+go all the same.  And then when the robbers have made a finish
+comes to the window of the coach a mascara and have say, 'Who is
+the Don Andreas Pico?'  And my father have say, 'It is I who am Don
+Andreas Pico.'  And the mask have say, 'Behold, your watch is
+restore!' and he gif it to him.  And my father say, 'To whom have I
+the distinguished honor to thank?'  And the mask say--"
+
+"Johnson," interrupted Demorest.
+
+"No," said Dona Rosita in grave triumph, "he say Essmith.  For this
+Essmith is like Huanson--an apodo--nothing."
+
+"Then you really think this man was your old friend?" asked
+Demorest.
+
+"I think."
+
+"And that he was a robber even when living here--and that it was
+not your cruelty that really drove him to take the road?"
+
+Dona Rosita shrugged her plump shoulders.  "You will not
+comprehend.  It was because of his being a brigand that he stayed
+not with us.  My father would not have object if he have present
+himself to me for marriage in these times.  I would not have
+object, for I was young, and we have knew nothing.  It was he who
+have object.  For why?  Inside of his heart he have feel he was a
+brigand."
+
+"But you might have reformed him in time," said Demorest.
+
+She again shrugged her shoulders.  "Quien sabe."  After a pause she
+added with infinite gravity: "And before he have reform, it is bad
+for the menage.  I should invite to my house some friend.  They
+arrive, and one say, 'I have not the watch of my pocket,' and
+another, 'The ring of my finger, he is gone,' and another, 'My
+earrings, she is loss.'  And I am obliged to say, 'They reside now
+in the pocket of my hoosband; patience! a little while--perhaps to-
+morrow--he will restore.'  No," she continued, with an air of
+infinite conviction, "it is not good for the menage--the necessity
+of those explanation."
+
+"You told me he was handsome," said Joan, passing her arm
+carelessly around Dona Rosita's comfortable waist.  "How did he
+look?"
+
+"As an angel!  He have long curls to his back.  His moustache was
+as silk, for he have had never a barber to his face.  And his eyes--
+Santa Maria!--so soft and so--so melankoly.  When he smile it is
+like the moonlight.  But," she added, rising to her feet and
+tossing the end of her lace mantilla over her shoulder with a
+little laugh--"it is finish--Adelante!  Dr-rrive on!"
+
+"I don't want to destroy your belief in the connection of your
+friend with the road agents," said Demorest grimly, "but if he
+belongs to their band it is in an inferior capacity.  Most of them
+are known to the authorities, and I have heard it even said that
+their leader or organizer is a very unromantic speculator in San
+Francisco."
+
+But this suggestion was received coldly by the ladies, who
+superciliously turned their backs upon it and the suggester.  Joan
+dropped her voice to a lower tone and turned to Dona Rosita.  "And
+you have never seen him since?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"I should--at least, I wouldn't have let it end in THAT way," said
+Joan in a positive whisper.
+
+"Eh?" said Dona Rosita, laughing.  "So eet is YOU, Juanita, that
+have the romance--eh?  Ah, bueno! 'you have the house--so I gif to
+you the lover also.'  I place him at your disposition."  She made a
+mock gesture of elaborate and complete abnegation.  "But," she
+added in Joan's ear, with a quick glance at Demorest, "do not let
+our hoosband eat him.  Even now he have the look to strangle ME.
+Make to him a little lof, quickly, when I shall walk in the
+garden."  She turned away with a pretty wave of her fan to
+Demorest, and calling out, "I go to make an assignation with my
+memory," laughed again, and lazily passed into the shadow.  An
+ominous silence on the veranda followed, broken finally by Mrs.
+Demorest.
+
+"I don't think it was necessary for you to show your dislike to
+Dona Rosita quite so plainly," she said, coldly, slightly accenting
+the Puritan stiffness, which any conjugal tete-a-tete lately
+revived in her manner.
+
+"I show dislike of Dona Rosita?" stammered Demorest, in surprise.
+"Come, Joan," he added, with a forgiving smile, "you don't mean to
+imply that I dislike her because I couldn't get up a thrilling
+interest in an old story I've heard from every gossip in the pueblo
+since I can remember."
+
+"It's not an old story to HER," said Joan, dryly, "and even if it
+were, you might reflect that all people are not as anxious to
+forget the past as you are."
+
+Demorest drew back to let the shaft glance by.  "The story is old
+enough, at least for her to have had a dozen flirtations, as you
+know, since then," he returned gently, "and I don't think she
+herself seriously believes in it.  But let that pass.  I am sorry I
+offended her.  I had no idea of doing so.  As a rule, I think she
+is not so easily offended.  But I shall apologize to her."  He
+stopped and approached nearer his wife in a half-timid, half-
+tentative affection.  "As to my forgetfulness of the past, Joan,
+even if it were true, I have had little cause to forget it lately.
+Your friend, Corwin--"
+
+"I must insist upon your not calling him MY friend, Richard,"
+interrupted Joan, sharply, "considering that it was through YOUR
+indiscretion in coming to us for the buggy that night, that he
+suspected--"
+
+She stopped suddenly, for at that moment a startled little shriek,
+quickly subdued, rang through the garden.  Demorest ran hurriedly
+down the steps in the direction of the outcry.  Joan followed more
+cautiously.  At the first turning of the path Dona Rosita almost
+fell into his arms.  She was breathless and trembling, but broke
+into a hysterical laugh.
+
+"I have such a fear come to me--I cry out!  I think I have seen a
+man; but it was nothing--nothing!  I am a fool.  It is no one
+here."
+
+"But where did you see anything?" said Joan, coming up.
+
+Rosita flew to her side.  "Where?  Oh, here!--everywhere!  Ah, I am
+a fool!"  She was laughing now, albeit there were tears glistening
+on her lashes when she laid her head on Joan's shoulder.
+
+"It was some fancy--some resemblance you saw in that queer cactus,"
+said Demorest, gently.  "It is quite natural, I was myself deceived
+the other night.  But I'll look around to satisfy you.  Take Dona
+Rosita back to the veranda, Joan.  But don't be alarmed, dear--it
+was only an illusion."
+
+He turned away.  When his figure was lost in the entwining foliage,
+Dona Rosita seized Joan's shoulder and dragged her face down to a
+level with her own.
+
+"It was something!" she whispered quickly.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"It was--HIM!"
+
+"Nonsense," groaned Joan, nevertheless casting a hurried glance
+around her.
+
+"Have no fear," said Dona Rosita quickly, "he is gone--I saw him
+pass away--so!  But it was HE--Huanson.  I recognize him.  I forget
+him never."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Have I the eyes? the memory?  Madre de Dios!  Am I a lunatico too?
+Look!  He have stood there--so."
+
+"Then you think he knew you were here?"
+
+"Quien sabe?"
+
+"And that he came here to see you?"
+
+Dona Rosita caught her again by the shoulders, and with her lips
+to Joan's ear, said with the intensest and most deliberate of
+emphasis:
+
+"NO!"
+
+"What in Heaven's name brought him here then?"
+
+"You!"
+
+"Are you crazy?"
+
+"You! you! YOU!" repeated Dona Rosita, with crescendo energy.  "I
+have come upon him here; where he stood and look at the veranda,
+absorrrb of YOU.  You move--he fly."
+
+"Hush!"
+
+"Ah, yes!  I have said I give him to you.  And he came, Bueno,"
+murmured Dona Rosita, with a half-resigned, half-superstitious
+gesture.
+
+"WILL you be quiet!"
+
+It was the sound of Demorest's feet on the gravel path, returning
+from his fruitless search.  He had seen nothing.  It must have been
+Dona Rosita's fancy.
+
+"She was just saying she thought she had been mistaken," said Joan,
+quietly.  "Let us go in--it is rather chilly here, and I begin to
+feel creepy too."
+
+Nevertheless, as they entered the house again, and the light of the
+hall lantern fell upon her face, Demorest thought he had never but
+once before seen her look so nervously and animatedly beautiful.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The following day, when Mr. Ezekiel Corwin had delivered his
+letters of introduction, and thoroughly canvassed the scant
+mercantile community of San Buenaventura with considerable success,
+he deposited his carpet-bag at the stage office in the posada, and
+found to his chagrin that he had still two hours to wait before the
+coach arrived.  After a vain attempt to impart cheerful but
+disparaging criticism of the pueblo and its people to Senor Mateo
+and his wife--whose external courtesy had been visibly increased by
+a line from Demorest, but whose confidence towards the stranger had
+not been extended in the same proportion--he gave it up, and threw
+himself lazily on a wooden bench in the veranda, already hacked
+with the initials of his countrymen, and drawing a jack-knife from
+his pocket, he began to add to that emblazonry the trade-mark of
+the Panacea--as a casual advertisement.  During its progress,
+however, he was struck by the fact that while no one seemed to
+enter the posada through the stage office, the number of voices in
+the adjoining room seemed to increase, and the ministrations of
+Mateo and his wife became more feverishly occupied with their
+invisible guests.  It seemed to Ezekiel that consequently there
+must be a second entrance which he had not seen, and this added to
+the circumstance that one or two lounging figures who had been
+approaching unaccountably disappeared before reaching the veranda,
+induced him to rise and examine the locality.  A few paces beyond
+was an alley, but it appeared to be already blocked by several
+cigarette-smoking, short-jacketed men who were leaning against its
+walls, and showed no inclination to make way for him.  Checked, but
+not daunted, Ezekiel coolly returned to the stage office, and
+taking the first opportunity when Mateo passed through the rear
+door, followed him.  As he expected, the innkeeper turned to the
+left and entered a large room filled with tobacco smoke and the
+local habitues of the posada.  But Ezekiel, shrewdly surmising that
+the private entrance must be in the opposite direction, turned to
+the right along the passage until he came unexpectedly upon the
+corridor of the usual courtyard, or patio, of every Mexican
+hostelry, closed at one end by a low adobe wall, in which there was
+a door.  The free passage around the corridor was interrupted by
+wide partitions, fitted up with tables and benches, like stalls,
+opening upon the courtyard where a few stunted fig and orange trees
+still grew.  As the courtyard seemed to be the only communication
+between the passage he had left and the door in the wall, he was
+about to cross it, when the voices of two men in the compartment
+struck his ears.  Although one was evidently an American's, Ezekiel
+was instinctively convinced that they were speaking in English only
+for greater security against being understood by the frequenters of
+the posada.  It is unnecessary to say that this was an innocent
+challenge to the curiosity of Ezekiel that he instantly accepted.
+He drew back carefully into the shadow of the partition as one of
+the voices asked--
+
+"Wasn't that Johnson just come in?"
+
+There was a movement as if some one had risen to look over the
+compartment, but the gathering twilight completely hid Ezekiel.
+
+"No!"
+
+"He's late.  Suppose he don't come--or back out?"
+
+The other man broke into a grim laugh.  "I reckon you don't know
+Johnson yet, or you'd understand this yer little game o' his is
+just the one idea o' his life.  He's been two years on that man's
+track, and he ain't goin' to back out now that he's got a dead sure
+thing on him."
+
+"But why is he so keen about it, anyway?  It don't seem nat'ral for
+a business man built after Johnson's style, and a rich man to boot,
+to go into this detective business.  It ain't the reward, we know
+that.  Is it an old grudge?"
+
+"You bet!"  The speaker paused, and then in a lower voice, which
+taxed Ezekial's keen ear to the uttermost, resumed: "It's said up
+in Frisco that Cherokee Bob knew suthin' agin Johnson way back in
+the States; anyhow, I believe it's understood that they came across
+the plains together in '50--and Bob hounded Johnson and blackmailed
+him here where he was livin', even to the point of makin' him help
+him on the road or give information, until one day Johnson bucked
+against it--kicked over the traces--and swore he'd be revenged on
+Bob, and then just settled himself down to that business.  Wotever
+he'd been and done himself he made it all right with the sheriff
+here; and I've heard ez it wasn't anything criminal or that sort,
+but that it was o' some private trouble that he'd confided to that
+hound Bob, and Bob had threatened to tell agen him.  That's the
+grudge they say Johnson has, and that's why he's allowed to be the
+head devil in this yer affair.  It's an understood thing, too, that
+the sheriff and the police ain't goin' to interfere if Johnson
+accidentally blows the top of Bob's head off in the scrimmage of a
+capter."
+
+"And I reckon Bob wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing to him
+when he finds out that Johnson has given him away?"
+
+"I reckon," said the other, sententiously, "for it's Johnson's
+knowledge of the country and the hoss-stealers that are in with
+Bob's gang of road agents that made it easy for him to buy up and
+win over Bob's friends here, so that they'd help to trap him."
+
+"It's pretty rough on Bob to be sold out in that way," said the
+second speaker, sympathizingly.
+
+"If they were white men, p'rhaps," returned his companion,
+contemptuously, "but this yer's a case of Injin agen Injin, ez the
+men are Mexican half-breeds just as Bob's a half Cherokee.  The
+sooner that kind o' cross cattle exterminate each other the better
+it'll be for the country.  It takes a white man like Johnson to set
+'em by the ears."
+
+A silence followed.  Ezekiel, beginning to be slightly bored with
+his cheaply acquired but rather impractical information, was about
+to slip back into the passage again when he was arrested by a laugh
+from the first speaker.
+
+"What's the matter?" growled the other.  "Do you want to bring the
+whole posada out here?"
+
+"I was only thinkin' what a skeer them innocent greenhorn
+passengers will get just ez they're snoozing off for the night, ten
+miles from here," responded his friend, with a chuckle.  "Wonder ef
+anybody's goin' up from here besides that patent medicine softy."
+
+Ezekiel stopped as if petrified.
+
+"Ef the ---- fools keep quiet they won't be hurt, for our men will
+be ready to chip in the moment of the attack.  But we've got to let
+the attack be made for the sake of the evidence.  And if we warn
+off the passengers from going this trip, and let the stage go up
+empty, Bob would suspect something and vamose.  But here's
+Johnson!"
+
+The door in the adobe wall had suddenly opened, and a figure in a
+serape entered the patio.  Ezekiel, whose curiosity was whetted
+with indignation at the ignominious part assigned to him in this
+comedy, forgot even his risk of detection by the newcomer, who
+advanced quickly towards the compartment.  When he had reached it
+he said, in a tone of bitterness:
+
+"The game is up, gentlemen, and the whole thing is blown.  The
+scoundrel has got some confederate here--for he's been seen openly
+on the road near Demorest's ranch, and the band have had warning
+and dispersed.  We must find out the traitor, and take our
+precautions for the next time.  Who is that there?  I don't know
+him."
+
+He was pointing to Ezekiel, who had started eagerly forward at the
+first sound of his voice.  The two occupants of the compartment
+rose at the same moment, leaped into the courtyard, and confronted
+Ezekiel.  Surrounded by the three menacing figures he did not
+quail, but remained intently gazing upon the newcomer.  Then his
+mouth opened, and he drawled lazily:
+
+"Wa'al, ef it ain't Squire Blandford, of North Liberty, Connecticut,
+I'm a treed coon.  Squire Blandford, how DO you do?"
+
+The stranger drew back in undisguised amazement; the two men
+glanced hurriedly at each other; Ezekiel alone remained cool,
+smiling, imperturbable, and triumphant.
+
+"Who are YOU, sir?  I do not know you," demanded the newcomer,
+roughly.
+
+"Like ez not," said Corwin dryly, "it's a matter o' four year sense
+I lived in your house.  Even Dick Demorest--you knew Dick?--didn't
+know me; but I reckon that Mrs. Blandford as used to be--"
+
+"That's enough," said Blandford--for it was he--suddenly mastering
+both himself and Corwin by a supreme emphasis of will and gesture.
+"Wait!"  Then turning to the two others who were discreetly
+regarding the blank adobe wall before them, he said: "Excuse me for
+a few minutes, gentlemen.  There is no hurry now.  I will see you
+later;" and with an imperative wave of his hand motioned Ezekiel to
+precede him into the passage, and followed him.
+
+He did not speak until they entered the stage office, when, passing
+through it, he said peremptorily: "Follow me."  The few loungers,
+who seemed to recognize him, made way for him with a singular
+deference that impressed Ezekiel, already dominated by his manner.
+The first perception in his mind was that Blandford had in some
+strange way succeeded to Demorest's former imperious character.
+There was no trace left of the old, gentle subjection to Joan's
+prim precision.  Ezekiel followed him out of the office as
+unresistingly as he had followed Demorest into the stables on that
+eventful night.  They passed down the narrow street until Blandford
+suddenly stopped short and turned into the crumbling doorway of one
+of the low adobe buildings and entered an apartment.  It seemed to
+be the ordinary living-room of the house, made more domestic by the
+presence of a silk counterpaned bed in one corner, a prie Dieu and
+crucifix, and one or two articles of bedchamber furniture.  A woman
+was sitting in deshabille by the window; a man was smoking on a
+lounge against the wall.  Blandford, in the same peremptory manner,
+addressed a command in Spanish to the inmates, who immediately
+abandoned the apartment to the seeming trespasser.
+
+Motioning his companion to a seat on the lounge just vacated,
+Blandford folded his arms and stood erect before him.
+
+"Well," he said, with quick, business conciseness, "what do you
+want?"
+
+Ezekiel was staggered out of his complacency.
+
+"Wa'al," he stammered, "I only reckoned to ask the news, ez we are
+old friends--I--"
+
+"How much do you want?" repeated Blandford, impatiently.
+
+Ezekiel was mystified, yet expectant.  "I can't say ez I exakly
+understand," he began.
+
+"How--much--money--do--you--want," continued Blandford, with frigid
+accuracy, "to get up and get out of this place?"
+
+"Wa'al, consideren ez I'm travellin' here ez the only authorized
+agent of a first-class Frisco Drug House," said Ezekiel, with a
+mingling of mortification, pride, and hopefulness, "unless you're
+travellin' in the opposition business, I don't see what's that to
+you."
+
+Blandford regarded him searchingly for an instant.  "Who sent you
+here?"
+
+"Dilworth & Dusenberry, Battery Street, San Francisco.  Hev their
+card?" said Ezekiel, taking one from his waistcoat pocket.
+
+"Corwin," said Blandford, sternly, "whatever your business is here
+you'll find it will pay you better, a ---- sight, to be frank with
+me and stop this Yankee shuffling.  You say you have been with
+Demorest--what has HE got to do with your business here?"
+
+"Nothin'," said Ezekiel.  "I reckon he wos ez astonished to see me
+ez you are."
+
+"And didn't he send you here to seek me?" said Blandford,
+impatiently.
+
+"Considerin' he believes you a dead man, I reckon not."
+
+Blandford gave a hard, constrained laugh.  After a pause, still
+keeping his eyes fixed on Ezekiel, he said:
+
+"Then your recognition of me was accidental?"
+
+"Wa'al, yes.  And ez I never took much stock in the stories that
+you were washed off the Warensboro Bridge, I ain't much astonished
+at finding you agin."
+
+"What did you believe happened to me?" said Blandford, less
+brusquely.
+
+Ezekiel noticed the softening; he felt his own turn coming.  "I
+kalkilated you had reasons for going off, leaving no address behind
+you," he drawled.
+
+"What reasons?" asked Blandford, with a sudden relapse of his
+former harshness.
+
+"Wa'al, Squire Blandford, sens you wanter know--I reckon your
+business wasn't payin', and there was a matter of two hundred and
+fifty dollars ye took with ye, that your creditors would hev liked
+to hev back."
+
+"Who dare say that?" demanded Blandford, angrily.
+
+"Your wife that was--Mrs. Demorest ez is--told it to her mother,"
+returned Ezekiel, lazily.
+
+The blow struck deeper than even Ezekiel's dry malice imagined.
+For an instant, Blandford remained stupefied.  In the five years'
+retrospect of his resolution on that fatal night, whatever doubt
+of its wisdom might have obtruded itself upon him, he had never
+thought of THIS.  He had been willing to believe that his wife had
+quietly forgotten him as well as her treachery to him, he had
+passively acquiesced in the results of that forgetfulness and his
+own silence; he had been conscious that his wound had healed sooner
+than he expected, but if this consciousness had enabled him to
+extend a certain passive forgiveness to his wife and Demorest, it
+was always with the conviction that his mysterious effacement had
+left an inexplicable shadow upon them which their consciences alone
+could explain.  But for this unjust, vulgar, and degrading
+interpretation of his own act of expiation, he was totally
+unprepared.  It completely crushed whatever sentiment remained of
+that act in the horrible irony of finding himself put upon his
+defence before the world, without being able now to offer the real
+cause.  The anguish of that night had gone forever; but the
+ridiculous interpretation of it had survived, and would survive it.
+In the eyes of the man before him he was not a wronged husband, but
+an absconding petty defaulter, whom he had just detected!
+
+His mind was quickly made up.  In that instant he had resolved upon
+a step as fateful as his former one, and a fitting climax to its
+results.  For five years he had clearly misunderstood his attitude
+towards his treacherous wife and perjured friend.  Thanks to this
+practical, selfish machine before him, he knew it now.
+
+"Look here, Corwin," he said, turning upon Ezekiel a colorless
+face, but a steady, merciless eye.  "I can guess, without your
+telling me, what lies may be circulated about me by the man and
+woman who know that I have only to declare myself alive to convict
+them of infamy--perhaps even of criminality before the law.  You
+are not MY friend, or you would not have believed them; if you are
+THEIRS, you have two courses open to you now.  Keep this meeting to
+yourself and trust to my mercy to keep it a secret also; or, tell
+Mrs. Demorest that you have seen Mr. Johnson, who is not afraid
+to come forward at any moment and proclaim that he is Edward
+Blandford, her only lawful husband.  Choose which course you like--
+it is nothing more to me."
+
+"Wa'al, I reckon that, as far as I know Mrs. Demorest," said
+Ezekiel, dryly, "it don't make the least difference to her either;
+but if you want to know my opinion o' this matter, it is that
+neither you nor Demorest exactly understand that woman.  I've known
+Joan Salisbury since she was so high, but if ye expected me to tell
+you wot she was goin' to do next, I'd be able to tell ye where the
+next flash o' lightnin' would strike.  It's wot you don't expect of
+Joan Salisbury that she does.  And the best proof of it is that she
+filed papers for a divorce agin you in Chicago and got it by
+default a few weeks afore she married Demorest--and you don't know
+it."
+
+Blandford recoiled.  "Impossible," he said, but his voice too
+plainly showed how clearly its possibility struck him now.
+
+"It's so, but it was kept secret by Deacon Salisbury.  I overheerd
+it.  Wa'al, that's a proof that you don't understand Joan, I
+reckon.  And considerin' that Demorest HIMSELF don't know it, ez I
+found out only the other day in talking to him, I kalkilate I'm
+safe in sayin' that you're neither o' you quite up to Deacon
+Salisbury's darter in nat'ral cuteness.  I don't like to obtrude my
+opinion, Squire Blandford, ez we're old friends, but I do say, that
+wot with Demorest's prematooriness and yer own hangfiredness, it's
+a good thing that you two worldly men hev got Joan Salisbury to
+stand up for North Liberty and keep it from bein' scandalized by
+the ungodly.  Ef it hadn't been for her smartness, whar y'd both be
+landed now?  There's a heap in Christian bringin' up, and a power
+in grace, Squire Blandford."
+
+His hard, dry face was for an instant transfigured by a grim fealty
+and the dull glow of some sectarian clannishness.  Or was it
+possible that this woman's personality had in some mysterious way
+disturbed his rooted selfishness?
+
+During his speech Blandford had walked to the window.  When Corwin
+had ceased speaking, Blandford turned towards him with an equally
+changed face and cold imperturbability that astonished him, and
+held out his hand.  "Let bygones be bygones, Corwin--whether we
+ever meet again or not.  Yet if I can do anything for you for the
+sake of old times, I am ready to do it.  I have some power here and
+in San Francisco," he continued, with a slight touch of pride,
+"that isn't dependent upon the mere name I may travel under.  I
+have a purpose in coming here."
+
+"I know it," said Ezekiel, dryly.  "I heard it all from your two
+friends.  You're huntin' some man that did you an injury."
+
+"I'm hunting down a dog who, suspecting I had some secret in
+emigrating here, tried to blackmail and ruin me," said Blandford,
+with a sudden expression of hatred that seemed inconsistent with
+anything that Ezekiel had ever known of his old master's character--
+"a scoundrel who tried to break up my new life as another had
+broken up the old."  He stopped and recovered himself with a short
+laugh.  "Well, Ezekiel, I don't know as his opinion of me was any
+worse than yours or HERS.  And until I catch HIM to clear my name
+again, I let the other slanderers go."
+
+"Wa'al, I reckon you might lay hands on that devil yet, and not far
+away, either.  I was up at Demorest's to-day, and I heard Joan and
+a skittish sort o' Mexican young lady talkin' about some tramp that
+had frightened her.  And Miss Pico said--"
+
+"What!  Who did you say?" demanded Blandford, with a violent start.
+
+"Wa'al, I reckoned I heerd the first name too--Rosita."
+
+A quick flush crossed Blandford's face, and left it glowing like a
+boy's.
+
+"Is SHE there?"
+
+"Wa'al, I reckon she's visitin' Joan," said Ezekiel, narrowly
+attentive of Blandford's strange excitement; "but wot of it?"
+
+But Blandford had utterly forgotten Ezekiel's presence.  He had
+remained speechless and flushed.  And then, as if suddenly dazzled
+by an inspiration, he abruptly dashed from the room.  Ezekiel heard
+him call to his passive host with a Spanish oath, but before he
+could follow, they had both hurriedly left the house.
+
+Ezekiel glanced around him and contemplatively ran his fingers
+through his beard.  "It ain't Joan Salisbury nor Dick Demorest ez
+giv' him that start!  Humph!  Wa'al--I wanter know!"
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Mrs. Demorest was so fascinated by the company of Dona Rosita Pico
+and her romantic memories, that she prevailed upon that heart-
+broken but scarcely attenuated young lady to prolong her visit
+beyond the fortnight she had allotted to communion with the past.
+For a day or two following her singular experience in the garden,
+Mrs. Demorest plied her with questions regarding the apparition she
+had seen, and finally extorted from her the admission that she
+could not positively swear to its being the real Johnson, or even
+a perfectly consistent shade of that faithless man.  When Joan
+pointed out to her that such masculine perfections as curling raven
+locks, long silken mustachios, and dark eyes, were attributes by no
+means exclusive to her lover, but were occasionally seen among
+other less favored and even equally dangerous Americans, Dona
+Rosita assented with less objection than Joan anticipated.
+"Besides, dear," said Joan, eying her with feline watchfulness, "it
+is four years since you've seen him, and surely the man has either
+shaved since, or else he took a ridiculous vow never to do it, and
+then he would be more fully bearded."
+
+But Dona Rosita only shook her pretty head.  "Ah, but he have an
+air--a something I know not what you call--so."  She threw her
+shawl over her left shoulder, and as far as a pair of soft blue
+eyes and comfortably pacific features would admit, endeavored to
+convey an idea of wicked and gloomy abstraction.
+
+"You child," said Joan,--"that's nothing; they all of them do that.
+Why, there was a stranger at the Oriental Hotel whom I met twice
+when I was there--just as mysterious, romantic, and wicked-looking.
+And in fact they hinted terrible things about him.  Well! so much
+so, that Mr. Demorest was quite foolish about my being barely civil
+to him--you understand--and--"  She stopped suddenly, with a
+heightened color under the fire of Rosita's laughing eyes.
+
+"Ah--so--Dona Discretion!  Tell to me all.  Did our hoosband eat
+him?"
+
+Joan's features suddenly tightened to their old puritan rigidity.
+"Mr. Demorest has reasons--abundant reasons--to thoroughly
+understand and trust me," she replied in an austere voice.
+
+Rosita looked at her a moment in mystification and then shrugged
+her shoulders.  The conversation dropped.  Nevertheless, it is
+worthy of being recorded that from that moment the usual familiar
+allusions, playful and serious, to Rosita's mysterious visitor
+began to diminish in frequency and finally ceased.  Even the news
+brought by Demorest of some vague rumor in the pueblo that an
+intended attack on the stage-coach had been frustrated by the
+authorities, and that the vicinity had been haunted by incognitos
+of both parties, failed to revive the discussion.
+
+Meantime the slight excitement that had stirred the sluggish life
+of the pueblo of San Buenaventura had subsided.  The posada of
+Senor Mateo had lost its feverish and perplexing dual life; the
+alley behind it no longer was congested by lounging cigarette
+smokers; the compartment looking upon the silent patio was
+unoccupied, and its chairs and tables were empty.  The two deputy
+sheriffs, of whom Senor Mateo presumably knew very little, had
+fled; and the mysterious Senor Johnson, of whom he--still
+presumably--knew still less, had also disappeared.  For Senor
+Mateo's knowledge of what transpired in and about his posada, and
+of the character and purposes of those who frequented it, was
+tinctured by grave and philosophical doubts.  This courteous and
+dignified scepticism generally took the formula of quien sabe to
+all frivolous and mundane inquiry.  He would affirm with strict
+verity that his omelettes were unapproachable, his beds miraculous,
+his aguardiente supreme, his house was even as your own.  Beyond
+these were questions with which the simply finite and always
+discreet human intellect declined to grapple.
+
+The disturbing effect of Senor Corwin upon a mind thus gravely
+constituted may be easily imagined.  Besides Ezekiel's inordinate
+capacity for useless or indiscreet information, it was undeniable
+that his patent medicines had effected a certain peaceful
+revolutionary movement in San Buenaventura.  A simple and
+superstitious community that had steadily resisted the practical
+domestic and agricultural American improvements, succumbed to the
+occult healing influences of the Panacea and Jones's Bitters.  The
+virtues of a mysterious balsam, more or less illuminated with a
+colored mythological label, deeply impressed them; and the
+exhibition of a circular, whereon a celestial visitant was
+represented as descending with a gross of Rogers' Pills to a
+suffering but admiring multitude, touched their religious
+sympathies to such an extent that the good Padre Jose was obliged
+to warn them from the pulpit of the diabolical character of their
+heresies of healing--with the natural result of yet more
+dangerously advertising Ezekiel.  There were those too who spoke
+under their breath of the miraculous efficacy of these nostrums.
+Had not Don Victor Arguello, whose respectable digestion, exhausted
+by continuous pepper and garlic, failed him suddenly, received an
+unexpected and pleasurable stimulus from the New England rum, which
+was the basis of the Jones Bitters?  Had not the baker, tremulous
+from excessive aguardiente, been soothed and sustained by the
+invisible morphia, judiciously hidden in Blogg's Nerve Tonic?  Nor
+had the wily Ezekiel forgotten the weaker sex in their maiden and
+maternal requirements.  Unguents, that made silken their black but
+somewhat coarsely fibrous tresses, opened charming possibilities to
+the Senoritas; while soothing syrups lent a peaceful repose to many
+a distracted mother's household.  The success of Ezekiel was so
+marked as to justify his return at the end of three weeks with a
+fresh assortment and an undiminished audacity.
+
+It was on his second visit that the sceptical, non-committal policy
+of Senor Mateo was sorely tried.  Arriving at the posada one night,
+Ezekiel became aware that his host was engaged in some mysterious
+conference with a visitor who had entered through the ordinary
+public room.  The view which the acute Ezekiel managed to get of
+the stranger, however, was productive of no further discovery than
+that he bore a faint and disreputable resemblance to Blandford, and
+was handsome after a conscious, reckless fashion, with an air of
+mingled bravado and conceit.  But an hour later, as Corwin was
+taking the cooler air of the veranda before retiring to one of the
+miraculous beds of the posada, he was amazed at seeing what was
+apparently Blandford himself emerge on horseback from the alley,
+and after a quick glance towards the veranda, canter rapidly up the
+street.  Ezekiel's first impression was to call to him, but the
+sudden recollection that he parted from his old master on
+confidential terms only three days before in San Francisco, and
+that it was impossible for him to be in the pueblo, stopped him
+with his fingers meditatively in his beard.  Then he turned in to
+the posada, and hastily summoned Mateo.
+
+The gentleman presented himself in a state of such profound
+scepticism that it seemed to have already communicated itself to
+his shoulders, and gave him the appearance of having shrugged
+himself into the room.
+
+"Ha'ow long ago did Mr. Johnson get here?" asked Corwin, lazily.
+
+"Ah--possibly--then there has been a Mr. Johnson?"  This is a
+polite doubt of his own perceptions and a courteous acceptance of
+his questioner's.
+
+"Wa'al, I guess so.  Considerin' I jest saw him with my own eyes,"
+returned Ezekiel.
+
+"Ah!"  Mateo was relieved.  Might he congratulate the Senor Corwin,
+who must be also relieved, and shake his respected hand.  Bueno.
+And then he had met this Senor Johnson? doubtless a friend?  And he
+was well? and all were happy?
+
+"Look yer, Mattayo!  What I wanter know ez THIS.  When did that
+man, who has just ridden out of your alley, come here?  Sabe that--
+it's a plain question."
+
+Ah surely, of the clearest comprehension.  Bueno.  It may have been
+last week--or even this week--or perhaps yesterday--or of a
+possibility to-day.  The Senor Corwin, who was wise and omniscient,
+would comprehend that the difficulty lay in deciding WHO was that
+man.  Perhaps a friend of the Senor Corwin--perhaps only one who
+LOOKED like him.  There existed--might Mateo point out--a doubt.
+
+Ezekiel regarded Mateo with a certain grim appreciation.  "Wa'al,
+is there anybody here who looks like Johnson?"
+
+Again there were the difficulty of ascertaining perfectly how the
+Senor Johnson looked.  If the Senor Johnson was Americano,
+doubtless there were other Americanos who had resembled him.  It
+was possible.  The Senor Corwin had doubtless observed for a little
+space a caballero who was here, as it were, in the instant of the
+appearance of Senor Johnson?  Possibly there was a resemblance, and
+yet--
+
+Corwin had certainly noticed this resemblance, but it did not suit
+his cautious intellect to fall in with any prevailing scepticism of
+his host.  Satisfied in his mind that Mateo was concealing
+something from him, and equally satisfied that he would sooner or
+later find it out, he grinned diabolically in the face of that
+worthy man, and sought the meditation of his miraculous couch.
+When he had departed, the sceptic turned to his wife:
+
+"This animal has been sniffing at the trail."
+
+"Truly--but Mother of God--where is the discretion of our friend.
+If he will continue to haunt the pueblo like a lovesick chicken, he
+will get his neck wrung yet."
+
+Following out an ingenious idea of his own, Ezekiel called the next
+day on the Demorests, and in some occult fashion obtained an
+invitation to stay under their hospitable roof during his sojourn
+in Buenaventura.  Perfectly aware that he owed this courtesy more
+to Joan than to her husband, it is probable that his grim enjoyment
+was not diminished by the fact; while Joan, for reasons of her own,
+preferred the constraint which the presence of another visitor put
+upon Demorest's uxoriousness.  Of late, too, there were times when
+Dona Rosita's naive intelligence, which was not unlike the
+embarrassing perceptions of a bright and half-spoiled child, was in
+her way, and she would willingly have shared the young lady's
+company with her husband had Demorest shown any sympathy for the
+girl.  It was in the faint hope that Ezekiel might in some way
+beguile Rosita's wandering attention that she had invited him.  The
+only difficulty lay in his uncouthness, and in presenting to the
+heiress of the Picos a man who had been formerly her own servant.
+Had she attempted to conceal that fact she was satisfied that
+Ezekiel's independence and natural predilection for embarrassing
+situations would have inevitably revealed it.  She had even gone so
+far as to consider the propriety of investing him with a poor
+relationship to her family, when Dona Rosita herself happily
+stopped all further trouble.  On her very first introduction to
+him, that charming young lady at once accepted him as a lunatic
+whose brains were turned by occult, scientific, and medical study!
+Ah! she, Rosita, had heard of such cases before.  Had not a
+paternal ancestor of hers, one Don Diego Castro, believed he had
+discovered the elixir of youth.  Had he not to that end refused
+even to wash him the hand, to cut him the nail of the finger and
+the hair of the head!  Exalted by that discovery, had he not been
+unsparingly uncomplimentary to all humanity, especially to the
+weaker sex?  Even as the Senor Corwin!
+
+Far from being offended at this ingenious interpretation of his
+character, Ezekiel exhibited a dry gratification over it, and even
+conceived an unwholesome admiration of the fair critic; he haunted
+her presence and preoccupied her society far beyond Joan's most
+sanguine expectations.  He sat in open-mouthed enjoyment of her at
+the table, he waylaid her in the garden, he attempted to teach her
+English.  Dona Rosita received these extraordinary advances in a no
+less extraordinary manner.  In the scant masculine atmosphere of
+the house, and the somewhat rigid New England reserve that still
+pervaded it, perhaps she languished a little, and was not averse to
+a slight flirtation, even with a madman.  Besides, she assumed the
+attitude of exercising a wholesome restraint over him.  "If we are
+not found dead in our bed one morning, and extracted of our blood
+for a cordial, you shall thank to me for it," she said to Joan.
+"Also for the not empoisoning of the coffee!"
+
+So she permitted him to carry a chair or hammock for her into the
+garden, to fetch the various articles which she was continually
+losing, and which he found with his usual penetration; and to
+supply her with information, in which, however, he exercised an
+unwonted caution.  On the other hand, certain naive recollections
+and admissions, which in the quality of a voluble child she
+occasionally imparted to this "madman" in return, were in the
+proportion of three to one.
+
+It had been a hot day, and even the usual sunset breeze had failed
+that evening to rock the tops of the outlying pine-trees or cool
+the heated tiles of the pueblo roofs.  There was a hush and latent
+expectancy in the air that reacted upon the people with feverish
+unrest and uneasiness; even a lull in the faintly whispering garden
+around the Demorests' casa had affected the spirits of its inmates,
+causing them to wander about in vague restlessness.  Joan had
+disappeared; Dona Rosita, under an olive-tree in one of the
+deserted paths, and attended by the faithful Ezekiel, had said it
+was "earthquake weather," and recalled, with a sign of the cross, a
+certain dreadful day of her childhood, when el temblor had shaken
+down one of the Mission towers.  "You shall see it now, as he have
+left it so it has remain always," she added with superstitious
+gravity.
+
+"That's just the lazy shiftlessness of your folks," responded
+Ezekiel with prompt ungallantry.  "It ain't no wonder the Lord
+Almighty hez to stir you up now and then to keep you goin'."
+
+Dona Rosita gazed at him with simple childish pity.  "Poor man; it
+have affect you also in the head, this weather.  So!  It was even
+so with the uncle of my father.  Hush up yourself, and bring to me
+the box of chocolates of my table.  I will gif to you one.  You
+shall for one time have something pleasant on the end of your
+tongue, even if you must swallow him after."
+
+Ezekiel grinned.  "Ye ain't afraid o' bein' left alone with the
+ghost that haunts the garden, Miss Rosita?"
+
+"After YOU--never-r-r."
+
+"I'll find Mrs. Demorest and send her to ye," said Ezekiel,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"Eh, to attract here the ghost?  Thank you, no, very mooch."
+
+Ezekiel's face contracted until nothing but his bright peering gray
+eyes could be seen.  "Attract the ghost!" he echoed.  "Then you
+kalkilate that it's--" he stopped, insinuatingly.
+
+Rosita brought her fan sharply over his knuckles, and immediately
+opened it again over her half-embarrassed face.  "I comprehend not
+anything to 'ekalkilate.'  WILL you go, Don Fantastico; or is it
+for me to bring to you?"
+
+Ezekiel flew.  He quickly found the chocolates and returned, but
+was disconcerted on arriving under the olive-tree to find Dona
+Rosita no longer in the hammock.  He turned into a by-path, where
+an extraordinary circumstance attracted his attention.  The air
+was perfectly still, but the leaves of a manzanita bush near the
+misshapen cactus were slightly agitated.  Presently Ezekiel saw the
+stealthy figure of a man emerge from behind it and approach the
+cactus.  Reaching his hand cautiously towards the plant, the
+stranger detached something from one of its thorns, and instantly
+disappeared.  The quick eyes of Ezekiel had seen that it was a
+letter, his unerring perception of faces recognized at the same
+moment that the intruder was none other than the handsome,
+reckless-looking man he had seen the other day in conference with
+Mateo.
+
+But Ezekiel was not the only witness of this strange intrusion.  A
+few paces from him, Dona Rosita, unconscious of his return, was
+gazing in a half-frightened, breathless absorption in the direction
+of the stranger's flight.
+
+"Wa'al!" drawled Ezekiel lazily.
+
+She started and turned towards him.  Her face was pale and alarmed,
+and yet to the critical eye of Ezekiel it seemed to wear an
+expression of gratified relief.  She laughed faintly.
+
+"Ef that's the kind o' ghost you hev about yer, it's a healthy
+one," drawled Ezekiel.  He turned and fixed his keen eyes on
+Rosita's face.  "I wonder what kind o' fruit grows on the cactus
+that he's so fond of?"
+
+Either she had not seen the abstraction of the letter, or his
+acting was perfect, for she returned his look unwaveringly.  "The
+fruit, eh?  I have not comprehend."
+
+"Wa'al, I reckon I will," said Ezekiel.  He walked towards the
+cactus; there was nothing to be seen but its thorny spikes.  He was
+confronted, however, by the sudden apparition of Joan from behind
+the manzanita at its side.  She looked up and glanced from Ezekiel
+to Dona Rosita with an agitated air.
+
+"Oh, you saw him too?" she said eagerly.
+
+"I reckon," answered Ezekiel, with his eyes still on Rosita.  "I
+was wondering what on airth he was so taken with that air cactus
+for."
+
+Rosita had become slightly pale again in the presence of her
+friend.  Joan quietly pushed Ezekiel aside and put her arm around
+her.  "Are you frightened again?" she asked, in a low whisper.
+
+"Not mooch," returned Rosita, without lifting her eyes.
+
+"It was only some peon, trespassing to pick blossoms for his
+sweetheart," she said significantly, with a glance towards Ezekiel.
+"Let us go in."
+
+She passed her hand through Rosita's passive arm and led her
+towards the house, Ezekiel's penetrating eyes still following
+Rosita with an expression of gratified doubt.
+
+For once, however, that astute observer was wrong.  When Mrs.
+Demorest had reached the house she slipped into her own room, and,
+bolting the door, drew from her bosom a letter which SHE had picked
+from the cactus thorn, and read it with a flushed face and eager
+eyes.
+
+It may have been the effect of the phenomenal weather, but the next
+day a malign influence seemed to pervade the Demorest household.
+Dona Rosita was confined to her room by an attack of languid
+nerves, superinduced, as she was still voluble enough to declare,
+by the narcotic effect of some unknown herb which the lunatic
+Ezekiel had no doubt mysteriously administered to her with a view
+of experimenting on its properties.  She even avowed that she must
+speedily return to Los Osos, before Ezekiel should further
+compromise her reputation by putting her on a colored label in
+place of the usual Celestial Distributer of the Panacea.  Ezekiel
+himself, who had been singularly abstracted and reticent, and had
+absolutely foregone one or two opportunities of disagreeable
+criticism, had gone to the pueblo early that morning.  The house
+was comparatively silent and deserted when Demorest walked into his
+wife's boudoir.
+
+It was a pretty room, looking upon the garden, furnished with a
+singular mingling of her own inherited formal tastes and the more
+sensuous coloring and abandon of her new life.  There were a great
+many rugs and hangings scattered in disorder around the room, and
+apparently purposeless, except for color; there was a bamboo lounge
+as large as a divan, with two or three cushions disposed on it, and
+a low chair that seemed the incarnation of indolence.  Opposed to
+this, on the wall, was the rigid picture of her grandfather, who
+had apparently retired with his volume further into the canvas
+before the spectacle of this ungodly opulence; a large Bible on a
+funereal trestle-like stand, and the primmest and barest of
+writing-tables, before which she was standing as at a sacrificial
+altar.  With an almost mechanical movement she closed her portfolio
+as her husband entered, and also shut the lid of a small box with a
+slight snap.  This suggested exclusion of him from her previous
+occupation, whatever it might have been, caused a faint shadow of
+pain to pass across his loving eyes.  He cast a glance at his wife
+as if mutely asking her to sit beside him, but she drew a chair to
+the table, and with her elbow resting on the box, resignedly
+awaited his speech.
+
+"I don't mean to disturb you, darling," he said, gently, "but as we
+were alone, I thought we might have one of our old-fashioned talks,
+and--"
+
+"Don't let it be so old-fashioned as to include North Liberty
+again," she interrupted, wearily.  "We've had quite enough of that
+since I returned."
+
+"I thought you found fault with me then for forgetting the past.
+But let that pass, dear; it is not OUR affairs I wanted to talk to
+you about now," he said, stifling a sigh, "it's about your friend.
+Please don't misunderstand what I am going to say; nor that I
+interpose except from necessity."
+
+She turned her dark brown eyes in his direction, but her glance
+passed abstractedly over his head into the garden.
+
+"It's a matter perfectly well known to me--and, I fear, to all our
+servants also--that somebody is making clandestine visits to our
+garden.  I would not trouble you before, until I ascertained the
+object of these visits.  It is quite plain to me now that Dona
+Rosita is that object, and that communications are secretly carried
+on between her and some unknown stranger.  He has been here once or
+twice before; he was here again yesterday.  Ezekiel saw him and saw
+her."
+
+"Together?" asked Mrs. Demorest, sharply.
+
+"No; but it was evident that there was some understanding, and that
+some communication passed between them."
+
+"Well?" said Mrs. Demorest, with repressed impatience.
+
+"It is equally evident, Joan, that this stranger is a man who does
+not dare to approach your friend in her own house, nor more openly
+in this; but who, with her connivance, uses us to carry on an
+intrigue which may be perfectly innocent, but is certainly
+compromising to all concerned.  I am quite willing to believe that
+Dona Rosita is only romantic and reckless, but that will not
+prevent her from becoming a dupe of some rascal who dare not face
+us openly, and who certainly does not act as her equal."
+
+"Well, Rosita is no chicken, and you are not her guardian."
+
+There was a vague heartlessness, more in her voice than in her
+words, that touched him as her cold indifference to himself had
+never done, and for an instant stung his crushed spirit to revolt.
+"No" he said, sternly, "but I am her father's FRIEND, and I shall
+not allow his daughter to be compromised under my roof."
+
+Her eyes sprang up to meet his in hatred as promptly as they once
+had met in love.  "And since when, Richard Demorest, have you
+become so particular?" she began, with dry asperity.  "Since you
+lured ME from the side of my wedded husband?  Since you met ME
+clandestinely in trains and made love to ME under an assumed name?
+Since you followed ME to my house under the pretext of being my
+husband's friend, and forced me--yes, forced me--to see you
+secretly under my mother's roof?  Did you think of compromising ME
+then?  Did you think of ruining my reputation, of driving my
+husband from his home in despair?  Did you call yourself a rascal
+then?  Did you--"
+
+"Stop!" he said, in a voice that shook the rafters; "I command you,
+stop!"
+
+She had gradually worked herself from a deliberately insulting
+precision into an hysterical, and it is to be feared a virtuous,
+conviction of her wrongs.  Beginning only with the instinct to
+taunt and wound the man before her, she had been led by a secret
+consciousness of something else he did not know to anticipate his
+reproach and justify herself in a wild feminine abandonment of
+emotion.  But she stopped at his words.  For a moment she was even
+thrilled again by the strength and imperiousness she had loved.
+
+They were facing each other after five years of mistaken passion,
+even as they had faced each other that night in her mother's
+kitchen.  But the grave of that dead passion yawned between them.
+It was Joan who broke the silence, that after her single outburst
+seemed to fill and oppress the room.
+
+"As far as Rosita is concerned," she said, with affected calmness,
+"she is going to-night.  And you probably will not be troubled any
+longer by your mysterious visitor."
+
+Whether he heeded the sarcastic significance of her last sentence,
+or even heard her at all, he did not reply.  For a moment he turned
+his blazing eyes full upon her, and then without a word strode from
+the room.
+
+She walked to the door and stood uneasily listening in the passage
+until she heard the clatter of hoofs in the paved patio, and knew
+that he had ordered his horse.  Then she turned back relieved to
+her room.
+
+It was already sunset when Demorest drew rein again at the entrance
+of the corral, and the last stroke of the Angelus was ringing from
+the Mission tower.  He looked haggard and exhausted, and his horse
+was flecked with foam and dirt.  Wherever he had been, or for what
+object, or whether, objectless and dazed, he had simply sought to
+lose himself in aimlessly wandering over the dry yellow hills or in
+careering furiously among his own wild cattle on the arid, brittle
+plain; whether he had beaten all thought from his brain with the
+jarring leap of his horse, or whether he had pursued some vague and
+elusive determination to his own door, is not essential to this
+brief chronicle.  Enough that when he dismounted he drew a pistol
+from his holster and replaced it in his pocket.
+
+He had just pushed open the gate of the corral as he led in his
+horse by the bridle, when he noticed another horse tethered among
+some cotton woods that shaded the outer wall of his garden.  As he
+gazed, the figure of a man swung lightly from one of the upper
+boughs of a cotton-wood on the wall and disappeared on the other
+side.  It was evidently the clandestine visitor.  Demorest was
+in no mood for trifling.  Hurriedly driving his horse into the
+enclosure with a sharp cut of his riata, he closed the gate upon
+him, slipped past the intervening space into the patio, and then
+unnoticed into the upper part of the garden.  Taking a narrow by-
+path in the direction of the cotton woods that could be seen above
+the wall, he presently came in sight of the object of his search
+moving stealthily towards the house.  It was the work of a moment
+only to dash forward and seize him, to find himself engaged in a
+sharp wrestle, to half draw his pistol as he struggled with his
+captive in the open.  But once in the clearer light, he started,
+his grasp of the stranger relaxed, and he fell back in bewildered
+terror.
+
+"Edward Blandford!  Good God!"
+
+The pistol had dropped from his hand as he leaned breathless
+against a tree.  The stranger kicked the weapon contemptuously
+aside.  Then quietly adjusting his disordered dress, and picking
+the brambles from his sleeve, he said with the same air of disdain,
+"Yes!  Edward Blandford, whom you thought dead!  There!  I'm not a
+ghost--though you tried to make me one this time," he said,
+pointing to the pistol.
+
+Demorest passed his hand across his white face.  "Then it's you--
+and you have come here for--for--Joan?"
+
+"For Joan?" echoed Blandford, with a quick scornful laugh, that
+made the blood flow back into Demorest's face as from a blow, and
+recalled his scattered senses.  "For Joan," he repeated.  "Not
+much!"
+
+The two men were facing each other in irreconcilable yet confused
+antagonism.  Both were still excited and combative from their late
+physical struggle, but with feelings so widely different that it
+would have been impossible for either to have comprehended the
+other.  In the figure that had apparently risen from the dead to
+confront him, Demorest only saw the man he had unconsciously
+wronged--the man who had it in his power to claim Joan and exact a
+terrible retribution!  But it was part of this monstrous and
+irreconcilable situation that Blandford had ceased to contemplate
+it, and in his preoccupation only saw the actual interference of a
+man whom he no longer hated, but had begun to pity and despise.
+
+He glanced coolly around him.  "Whatever we've got to say to each
+other," he said deliberately, "had better not be overheard.  At
+least what I have got to say to you."
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Demorest, now as self-possessed as his adversary, haughtily waved
+his hand towards the path.  They walked on in silence, without even
+looking at each other, until they reached a small summer-house that
+stood in the angle of the wall.  Demorest entered.  "We cannot be
+heard here," he said curtly.
+
+"And we can see what is going on.  Good," said Blandford, coolly
+following him.  The summer-house contained a bench and a table.
+Blandford seated himself on the bench.  Demorest remained standing
+beside the table.  There was a moment's silence.
+
+"I came here with no desire to see you or avoid you," said
+Blandford, with cold indifference.  "A few weeks ago I might
+perhaps have avoided you, for your own sake.  But since then I have
+learned that among the many things I owe to--to your wife is the
+fact that five years ago she secretly DIVORCED ME, and that
+consequently my living presence could neither be a danger nor a
+menace to you.  I see," he added, dryly, with a quick glance at
+Demorest's horror-stricken face, "that I was also told the truth
+when they said you were as ignorant of the divorce as I was."
+
+He stopped, half in pity of his adversary's shame, half in surprise
+of his own calmness.  Five years before, in the tumultuous
+consciousness of his wrongs, he would have scarcely trusted himself
+face to face with the cooler and more self-controlled Demorest.  He
+wondered at and partly admired his own coolness now, in the
+presence of his enemy's confusion.
+
+"As your mind is at rest on that point," he continued, sarcastically,
+"I don't suppose you care to know what became of ME when I left
+North Liberty.  But as it happens to have something to do with my
+being here to-night, and is a part of my business with you, you'll
+have to listen to it.  Sit down!  Very well, then--stand up!  It's
+your own house."
+
+His half cynical, wholly contemptuous ignoring of the real issue
+between them was more crushing to Demorest than the keenest
+reproach or most tragic outburst.  He did not lift his eyes as
+Blandford resumed in a dry, business-like way:
+
+"When I came across the plains to California, I fell in with a man
+about my own age--an emigrant also.  I suppose I looked and acted
+like a crazy fool through all the journey, for he satisfied himself
+that I had some secret reason for leaving the States, and suspected
+that I was, like himself--a criminal.  I afterwards learned that he
+was an escaped thief and assassin.  Well, he played upon me all the
+way here, for I didn't care to reveal my real trouble to him, lest
+it should get back to North liberty--"  He interrupted himself with
+a sarcastic laugh.  "Of course, you understand that all this while
+Joan was getting her divorce unknown to me, and you were marrying
+her--yet as I didn't know anything about it I let him compromise me
+to save her.  But"--he stopped, his eye kindled, and, losing his
+self-control in what to Demorest seemed some incoherent passion,
+went on excitedly: "that man continued his persecution HERE--yes,
+HERE, in this very house, where I was a trusted and honored guest,
+and threatened to expose me to a pure, innocent, simple girl who
+had taken pity on me--unless I helped him in a conspiracy of
+cattle-stealers and road agents, of which he was chief.  I was such
+a cursed sentimental fool then, that believing him capable of doing
+this, believing myself still the husband of that woman, your wife,
+and to spare that innocent girl the shame of thinking me a villain,
+I purchased his silence by consenting.  May God curse me for it!"
+
+He had started to his feet with flashing eyes, and the indication
+of an overmastering passion that to Demorest, absorbed only in the
+stupefying revelation of his wife's divorce and the horrible doubt
+it implied, seemed utterly vacant and unmeaning.
+
+He had often dreamed of Blandford as standing before him,
+reproachful, indignant, and even desperate over his wife's
+unfaithfulness; but this insane folly and fury over some trivial
+wrong done to that plump, baby-faced, flirting Dona Rosita, crushed
+him by its unconscious but degrading obliteration of Joan and
+himself more than the most violent denunciation.  Dazed and
+bewildered, yet with the instinct of a helpless man, he clung only
+to that part of Blandford's story which indicated that he had come
+there for Rosita, and not to separate him from Joan, and even
+turned to his former friend with a half-embarrassed gesture of
+apology as he stammered--
+
+"Then it was YOU who were Rosita's lover, and you who have been
+here to see her.  Forgive me, Ned--if I had only known it."  He
+stopped and timidly extended his hand.  But Blandford put it aside
+with a cold gesture and folded his arms.
+
+"You have forgotten all you ever knew of me, Demorest!  I am not in
+the habit of making clandestine appointments with helpless women
+whose natural protectors I dare not face.  I have never pursued an
+innocent girl to the house I dared not enter.  When I found that I
+could not honorably retain Dona Rosita's affection, I fled her
+roof.  When I believed that even if I broke with this scoundrel--as
+I did--I was still legally if not morally tied to your wife, and
+could not marry Rosita, I left her never to return.  And I tore my
+heart out to do it."
+
+The tears were standing in his eyes.  Demorest regarded him again
+with vacant wonder.  Tears!--not for Joan's unfaithfulness to him--
+but for this silly girl's transitory sentimentalism.  It was
+horrible!
+
+And yet what was Joan to Blandford now?  Why should he weep for the
+woman who had never loved him--whom he loved no longer?  The woman
+who had deceived him--who had deceived them BOTH.  Yes! for Joan
+must have suspected that Blandford was living to have sought her
+secret divorce--and yet she had never told him--him--the man for
+whom she got it.  Ah! he must not forget THAT!  It was to marry him
+that she had taken that step.  It was perhaps a foolish caution--a
+mistaken reservation; but it was the folly--the mistake of a loving
+woman.  He hugged this belief the closer, albeit he was conscious
+at the same time of following Blandford's story of his alienated
+affection with a feeling of wonder and envy.
+
+"And what was the result of this touching sacrifice?" continued
+Blandford, trying to resume his former cynical indifference.  "I'll
+tell you.  This scoundrel set himself about to supplant me.  Taking
+advantage of my absence, his knowledge that her affection for me
+was heightened by the mystery of my life, and trusting to profit by
+a personal resemblance he is said to bear to me, he began to haunt
+her.  Lately he has grown bolder, and he dared even to communicate
+with her here.  For it is he," he continued, again giving way to
+his passion, "this dog, this sneaking coward, who visits the place
+unknown to you, and thinks to entrap the poor girl through her
+memory of me.  And it is he that I came here to prevent, to expose--
+if necessary to kill!  Don't misunderstand me.  I have made myself
+a deputy of the law for that purpose.  I've a warrant in my pocket,
+and I shall take him, this mongrel, half-breed Cherokee Bob, by
+fair means or foul!"
+
+The energy and presence of his passion was so infectious that it
+momentarily swept away Demorest's doubts of the past.  "And I will
+help you, before God, Blandford," he said eagerly.  "And Joan
+shall, too.  She will find out from Rosita how far--"
+
+"Thank you," interrupted Blandford, dryly; "but your wife has
+already interfered in this matter, to my cost.  It is to her, I
+believe, I owe this wretch's following Rosita here.  She already
+knows this man--has met him twice in San Francisco; he even boasts
+of YOUR jealousy.  You know best how far he lied."
+
+But Demorest had braced himself against the chill sensation that
+had begun to creep over him as Blandford spoke.  He nerved himself
+and said, proudly, "I forbade her knowing him on account of his
+reputation solely.  I have no reason to believe she has ever even
+wished to disobey me."
+
+A smile of scorn that had kindled in Blandford's eyes, darkened
+with a swift shadow of compassion as he glanced at Demorest's hard,
+ashen face.  He held out his hand with a sudden impulse.  "Enough,
+I accept your offer, and shall put it to the test this very night.
+I know--if you do not--that Rosita is to leave here for Los Osos an
+hour from now in a private carriage, which your wife has ordered
+especially for her.  The same information tells me that this
+villain and another of his gang will be in wait for the carriage
+three miles out of the pueblo to attack it and carry off the young
+girl."
+
+"Are you mad!" said Demorest, in unfeigned amazement.  "Do you
+believe them capable of attacking a private carriage and carrying
+off a solitary, defenceless woman?  Come, Blandford, this is a
+school-girl romance--not an act of mercenary highwaymen--least of
+all Cherokee Bob and his gang.  This is some madness of Rosita's,
+surely," he continued with a forced laugh.
+
+"Does this mean that you think better of your promise?" asked
+Blandford, dryly.
+
+"I said I was at your service," said Demorest, reproachfully.
+
+"Then hear my plan to prevent it, and yet take that dog in the act,"
+said Blandford.  "But we must first wait here till the last moment
+to ascertain if he makes any signal to show that his plan is altered,
+or that he has discovered he is watched."  He turned, and in his
+preoccupation laid his hand for an instant upon Demorest's shoulder
+with the absent familiarity of old days.  Unconscious as the action
+was, it thrilled them both--from its very unconsciousness--and
+impelled them to throw themselves into the new alliance with such
+feverish and excited activity in order to preclude any dangerous
+alien reflection, that when they rose a few moments later and
+cautiously left the garden arm-in-arm through the outer gates, no
+one would have believed they had ever been estranged, least of all
+the clever woman who had separated them.
+
+
+It was nearly nine o'clock when the two friends, accompanied by the
+sheriff of the county, left San Buenaventura turnpike and turned
+into a thicket of alders to wait the coming of the carriage they
+were to henceforth follow cautiously and unseen in a parallel trail
+to the main road.  The moon had risen, and with it the long
+withheld wind that now swept over the distant stretch of gleaming
+road and partly veiled it at times with flying dust unchecked by
+any dew from the clear cold sky.  Demorest shivered even with his
+ready hand on his revolver.  Suddenly the sheriff uttered an
+exclamation of disgust.
+
+"Blasted if thar ain't some one in the road between us and their
+ambush."
+
+"It's one of their gang--scouting.  Lie close."
+
+"Scout be darned.  Look at him bucking round there in the dust.  He
+can't even ride!  It's some blasted greenhorn taking a pasear on a
+hoss for the first time.  Damnation! he's ruined everything.
+They'll take the alarm."
+
+"I'll push on and clear him out," said Blandford, excitedly.  "Even
+if they're off, I may yet get a shot at the Cherokee."
+
+"Quick then," said Demorest, "for here comes the carriage."  He
+pointed to a dark spot on the road occasionally emerging from the
+driven dust clouds.
+
+In another moment Blandford was at the heels of the awkward
+horseman, who wheeled clumsily at his approach and revealed the
+lank figure of Ezekiel Corwin!
+
+"You here!" said Blandford, in stupefied fury.
+
+"Wa'al, yes, squire," said Ezekiel lazily, in spite of his uneasy
+seat.  "I kalkilated ef there was suthin' goin' on, I'd like to see
+it."
+
+"You cursed prying fool! you've spoiled all.  There!" he shouted
+despairingly, as the quick clatter of hoofs rang from the arroyo
+behind them, "there they go!  That's your work, blockhead!  Out of
+my way, or by God--" but the sentence was left unfinished as,
+joined by the sheriff, who had galloped up at the sound of the
+robbers' flight, he darted past the unconcerned Ezekiel.  Demorest
+would have followed, but Blandford, with a warning cry to him to
+remain and protect the carriage, halted him at the side of Corwin
+as the vehicle now rapidly approached.
+
+But Ezekiel was before him even then, and as the driver pulled up,
+that inquiring man tumbled from his horse, ran to the door and
+opened it.  Demorest rode up, glanced into the carriage, and fell
+back in blank amazement.
+
+It was his wife who was sitting there alone, pale, erect, and
+beautiful.  By some illusion of the moonlight, her face and figure,
+covered with soft white wrappings for a journey, looked as he
+remembered to have seen her the first night they had met in the
+Boston train.  The picture was completed by the traveling bag and
+rug that lay on the seat before her.  Another terrible foreboding
+seized him; his brain reeled.  Was he going mad?
+
+"Joan!" he stammered.  "You?  What is the meaning of this?"
+
+Ezekiel whom but for his dazed condition he might have seen violently
+contorting his features in Joan's face, presumably in equal
+astonishment--broke into a series of discordant chuckles.
+
+"Wa'al, ef that ain't Deacon Salisbury's darter all over.  Ha!  Here
+are ye two men folks makin' no end o' fuss to save that Mexican gal
+with pistols and ambushes and plots and counterplots, and yer's Joan
+Salisbury shows ye the way ha'ow to do it.  And so, ma'am, you
+succeeded in fixin' it up with Dona Rosita to take her place and just
+sell them robbers cheap!  Wa'al, ma'am, yer sold this yer party,
+too--for"--he advanced his face close to hers--"I never let on a
+word, though I knew it, and although they nearly knocked me off my
+hoss in their fuss and fury.  Ha! ha!  They wanted to know what I
+was doin' here, he-he!  Tell 'em, Joan, tell 'em."
+
+Demorest gazed from one to another with a troubled face, yet one on
+which a faint relief was breaking.
+
+"What does he mean, Joan?  Speak," he said, almost imploringly.
+
+Joan, whose color was slightly returning, drew herself up with her
+old cold Puritan precision.
+
+"After the scene you made this morning, Richard, when you chose to
+accuse your wife of unfaithfulness to her friend, her guest, and
+even your reputation, I resolved to go myself with Dona Rosita to
+Los Osos and explain the matter to her father.  Some rumor of the
+ridiculous farce I have just witnessed reached us through Ezekiel,
+and frightened the poor girl so that she declined--and properly, too
+to face the hoax which you and some nameless impersonator of a
+disgraced fugitive have gotten up for purposes of your own!  I wish
+you joy of your work!  If the play is over now, I presume I may be
+allowed to proceed on my journey?"
+
+"Not yet," said Demorest slowly, with a face over which the chasing
+doubts had at last settled in a grayish pallor.  "Believe what you
+like, misunderstand me if you will, laugh at the danger you perhaps
+comprehend better than I do, but upon this road, wherever or to
+whatever it was leading you--to-night you go no further!"
+
+"Then I suppose I may return home," she said coldly.  "Ezekiel will
+accompany me back to protect me from--robbers.  Come, Ezekiel.
+Mr. Demorest and his friends can be safely trusted to take care of--
+your horse."
+
+And as the grinning Ezekiel sprang into the carriage beside her, she
+pulled up the glass in the fateful and set face of her once trusting
+husband; the carriage turned and drove off, leaving him like a statue
+in the road.
+
+        .        .        .        .        .        .
+
+The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just
+ceased ringing.  But in the last five years it had rung out the bass
+viol and harmonium, and rung in an organ and choir; and the old
+austere interior had been subjected at the hands of the rising
+generation to an invasion of youthful warmth and color.  Nowhere was
+this more apparent than in the choir itself, where the bright spring
+sunshine, piercing a newly-opened stained-glass window, picked out
+the new spring bonnet of Mrs. Demorest and settled upon it during the
+singing of the hymn.  Perhaps that was the reason why a few eyes were
+curiously directed in that direction, and that even the minister
+himself strayed from the precise path of doctrine to allude with
+ecclesiastical vagueness to certain shining examples of the Christian
+virtues that were "again in our midst."  The shrewd face and white
+eyelashes of Ezekiel Corwin, junior partner in the firm of Dilworth &
+Dusenberry, of San Francisco, were momentarily raised towards the
+choir, and then relapsed into an expression of fatigued self-
+righteousness.
+
+When the service was over a few worshipers lingered near the choir
+staircase, mindful of the spring bonnet.
+
+"It looks quite nat'ral," said Deacon Fairchild, "ter see Joan
+Salisbury attendin' the ministration of the Word agin.  And I ain't
+sorry she didn't bring that second husband of hers with her.  It
+kinder looks like old times--afore Edward Blandford was gathered to
+the Lord."
+
+"That's so," replied his auditor meekly, "and they do say ez ha'ow
+Demorest got more powerful worldly and unregenerate in that heathen
+country, and that Joan ez a professin' Christian had to leave him.
+I've heerd tell thet he'd got mixed up, out thar, with some
+half-breed outlaw, of the name o' Johnson, ez hez a purty, high-
+flyin' Mexican wife.  It was fort'nit for Joan that she found a
+friend in grace in Brother Corwin to look arter her share in the
+property and bring her back tu hum."
+
+"She's lookin' peart," said Sister Bradley, "though to my mind that
+bonnet savors still o' heathen vanities."
+
+"Et's the new idees--crept in with that organ," groaned Deacon
+Fairchild; "but--sho--thar she comes."
+
+She shone for an instant--a charming vision--out of the shadow of the
+choir stairs, and then glided primly into the street.
+
+The old sexton, still in waiting with his hand on the half-closed
+door, paused and looked after her with a troubled brow.  A singular
+and utterly incomprehensible recollection and resemblance had just
+crossed his mind.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Argonauts of North Liberty, by Harte
+
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