BOOK IV.
DRIFTING.
CHAPTER I.
MR. AND MRS. CONROY AT HOME.
The manner in which One Horse Gulch received the news of Gabriel Conroy's marriage was characteristic of that frank and outspoken community. Without entering upon the question of his previous shameless flirtation with Mrs. Markle—the baleful extent of which was generally unknown to the camp—the nearer objections were based upon the fact that the bride was a stranger and consequently an object of suspicion, and that Gabriel's sphere of usefulness in a public philanthropic capacity would be seriously impaired and limited. His very brief courtship did not excite any surprise in a climate where the harvest so promptly followed the sowing, and the fact, now generally known, that it was he who saved the woman's life after the breaking of the dam at Black Cañon, was accepted as a sufficient reason for his success in that courtship. It may be remarked here that a certain grim disbelief in feminine coyness obtained at One Horse Gulch. That the conditions of life there were as near the perfect and original condition of mankind as could be found anywhere, and that the hollow shams of society and weak artifices of conventionalism could not exist in that sincere atmosphere, were two beliefs that One Horse Gulch never doubted.
Possibly there was also some little envy of Gabriel's success, an envy not based upon any evidence of his superior courage, skill, or strength, but only of the peculiar "luck," opportunity, or providence, that had enabled him to turn certain qualities very common to One Horse Gulch to such favourable account.
"Toe think," said Jo. Briggs, "thet I was allowin'—only thet very afternoon—to go up that cañon arter game, and didn't go from some derned foolishness or other, and yer's Gabe, hevin' no call to go thar, jest comes along, accidental like, and, dern my skin! but he strikes onto a purty gal and a wife the first lick!"
"Thet's so," responded Barker, "it's all luck. Thar's thet Cy. Dudley, with plenty o' money and wantin' a wife bad, and ez is goin' to Sacramento to-morrow to prospect fur one, and he hez been up and down that cañon time outer mind, and no dam ever said 'break' to him! No, sir! Or take my own case; on'y last week when the Fiddletown coach went over the bank at Dry Creek, wasn't I the fust man thar ez cut the leaders adrift and bruk open the coach-door and helped out the passengers? And wot passengers? Six Chinymen by Jinks—and a Greaser! Thet's my luck."
There were few preliminaries to the marriage. The consent of Olly was easily gained. As an act of aggression and provocation towards Mrs. Markle, nothing could offer greater inducements. The superior gentility of the stranger, the fact of her being a stranger, and the expeditiousness of the courtship coming so hard upon Mrs. Markle's fickleness commended itself to the child's sense of justice and feminine retaliation. For herself, Olly hardly knew if she liked her prospective sister; she was gentle, she was kind, she seemed to love Gabriel—but Olly was often haunted by a vague instinct that Mrs. Markle would have been a better match—and with true feminine inconsistency she hated her the more for it. Possibly she tasted also something of the disappointment of the baffled match-maker in the depths of her childish consciousness.
It may be fairly presumed that the former Mrs. Devarges had confided to no one but her lawyer the secret of her assumption of the character of Grace Conroy. How far or how much more she had confided to that gentleman was known only to himself; he kept her secret, whatever might have been its extent, and received the announcement of her intended marriage to Gabriel with the superior smile of one to whom all things are possible from the unprofessional sex.
"Now that you are about to enter into actual possession," said Mr. Maxwell, quietly buttoning up his pocket again, "I suppose you will not require my services immediately."
It is said, upon what authority I know not, that Madame Devarges blushed slightly, heaved the least possible sigh as she shook her head and said, "I hope not," with an evident sincerity that left her legal adviser in some slight astonishment.
How far her intended husband participated in this confidence I do not know. He was evidently proud of alluding to her in the few brief days of his courtship as the widow of the "great Doctor Devarges," and his knowledge of her former husband to some extent mitigated in the public mind the apparent want of premeditation in the courtship.
"To think of the artfulness of that man," said Sal, confidentially, to Mrs. Markle, "and he a-gettin' up sympathy about his sufferin's at Starvation Camp, and all the while a-carryin' on with the widder of one o' them onfortunets. No wonder that man was queer! Wot you allowed in the innocents o' yer heart was bashfulness was jest conscience. I never let on to ye, Mrs. Markle, but I allus noticed thet thet Gabe never could meet my eye."
The flippant mind might have suggested that as both of Miss Sarah's eyes were afflicted with a cast, there might have been a physical impediment to this exchange of frankness, but then the flippant mind never enjoyed the confidence of this powerful young woman.
It was a month after the wedding, and Mrs. Markle was sitting alone in her parlour, whither she had retired after the professional duties of supper were over, when the front door opened, and Sal entered. It was Sunday evening, and Sal had been enjoying the brief recreation of gossip with the neighbours, and, as was alleged by the flippant mind before alluded to, some coquettish conversation and dalliance with certain youth of One Horse Gulch.
Mrs. Markle watched her handmaid slowly remove an immense straw "flat" trimmed with tropical flowers, and then proceed to fold away an enormous plaid shawl which represented quite another zone, and then her curiosity got the better of her prudence.
"Well, and how did ye find the young couple gettin' on, Sal?"
Sal too well understood the value of coyly-withheld information to answer at once, and with the instincts of a true artist, she affected to misunderstand her mistress. When Mrs. Markle had repeated her question Sal replied, with a a sarcastic laugh—
"Axin yer pardin fur manners, but you let on about the young couple, and she forty if she's anythin'."
"Oh, no, Sal," remonstrated Mrs. Markle, with reproachful accents, and yet a certain self-satisfaction; "you're mistaken, sure."
"Well," said Sal, breathlessly slapping her hands on her lap, "if pearl powder and another woman's har and fancy doin's beggiles folks, it ain't Sal ez is among the folks fooled. No, Sue Markle. Ef I ain't lived long enough with a woman ez owns to thirty-three and hez—ef it wuz my last words and God is my jedge—the neck and arms of a gal of sixteen, not to know when a woman is trying to warm over the scraps of forty year with a kind o' hash o' twenty, then Sal Clark ain't got no eyes, thet's all."
Mrs. Markle blushed slightly under the direct flattery of Sal, and continued—
"Some folks says she's purty."
"Some men's meat is other men's pizen," responded Sal, sententiously, unfastening an enormous black velvet zone, and apparently permitting her figure to fall into instant ruin.
"How did they look?" said Mrs. Markle, after a pause, recommencing her darning, which she had put down.
"Well, purty much as I allowed they would from the first. Thar ain't any love wasted over thar. My opinion is thet he's sick of his bargin. She runs the house and ev'ry thing that's in it. Jest look at the critter! She's just put that thar Gabe up to prospecting all along the ledge here, and that fool's left his diggin's and hez been running hither and yon, making ridiklus holes all over the hill jest to satisfy thet woman, and she ain't satisfied neither. Take my word for it, Sue Markle, thar's suthin' wrong thar. And then thar's thet Olly"——
Mrs. Markle raised her eyes quickly, and put down her work. "Olly," she repeated, with great animation—"poor little Olly! what's gone of her?"
"Well," said Sal, with an impatient toss of her head, "I never did see what thar wuz in that peart and sassy piece for any one to take to—leastwise a woman with a child of her own. The airs and graces thet thet Olly would put on wuz too much. Why, she hedn't been nigh us for a month, and the day afore the wedding what does that limb do but meet me and sez, sez she, 'Sal, ye kin tell Mrs. Markle as my brother Gabe ez goin' to marry a lady—a lady,' sez she. 'Thar ain't goin' to be enny Pikes about our cabin.' And thet child only eight years! Oh, git out thar! I ain't no patience!"
To the infinite credit of a much abused sex, be it recorded that Mrs. Markle overlooked the implied slur, and asked—
"But what about Olly?"
"I mean to say," said Sal, "thet thet child hain't no place in thet house, and thet Gabe is jest thet weak and mean spirited ez to let thet woman have her own way. No wonder thet the child was crying when I met her out in the woods yonder."
Mrs. Markle instantly flushed, and her black eyes snapped ominously. "I should jest like to ketch—" she began quickly, and then stopped and looked at her companion. "Sal," she said, with swift vehemence, "I must see thet child."
"How?"
The word in Sal's dialect had a various, large, and catholic significance. Mrs. Markle understood it, and repeated briefly—
"Olly—I must see her—right off!"
"Which?" continued Sal.
"Here," replied Mrs. Markle; "anywhere. Fetch her when ye kin."
"She won't come."
"Then I'll go to her," said Mrs. Markle, with a sudden and characteristic determination that closed the conversation and sent Sal back viciously to her unwashed dishes.
Whatever might have been the truth of Sal's report, there was certainly no general external indication of the facts. The newly-married couple were, to all appearances, as happy and contented, and as enviable to the masculine inhabitants of One Horse Gulch, as any who had ever built a nest within its pastoral close. If a majority of Gabriel's visitor were gentlemen, it was easily attributed to the preponderance of males in the settlement. If these gentlemen were unanimously extravagant in their praise of Mrs. Conroy, it was as easily attributable to the same cause. That Gabriel should dig purposeless holes over the hill-side, that he should for the time abandon his regular occupation in his little modest claim in the cañon, was quite consistent with the ambition of a newly-married man.
A few evenings after this, Gabriel Conroy was sitting alone by the hearth of that new house, which popular opinion and the tastes of Mrs. Conroy seemed to think was essential to his new condition. It was a larger, more ambitious, more expensive, and perhaps less comfortable dwelling than the one in which he has been introduced to the reader. It was projected upon that credit which a man of family was sure to obtain in One Horse Gulch, where the immigration and establishment of families and household centres were fostered even at pecuniary risks. It contained, beside the chambers, the gratuitous addition of a parlour, which at this moment was adorned and made attractive by the presence of Mrs. Conroy, who was entertaining a few visitors that, under her attractions, had prolonged their sitting until late. When the laugh had ceased and the door closed on the last lingering imbecile, Mrs. Conroy returned to the sitting-room. It was dark, for Gabriel had not lighted a candle yet, and he was occupying his favourite seat and attitude before the fire.
"Why! are you there?" said Mrs. Conroy, gaily.
Gabriel looked up, and with that seriousness which was habitual to him, replied—
"Yes."
Mrs. Conroy approached her lord and master, and ran her thin, claw-like fingers through his hair with married audacity. He caught them, held them for a moment with a kindly, caressing, and yet slightly embarrassed air that the lady did not like. She withdrew them quickly.
"Why didn't you come into the parlour?" she said, examining him curiously.
"I didn't admire to to-night," returned Gabriel, with grave simplicity, "and I reckoned you'd get on as well without me."
There was not the slightest trace of bitterness nor aggrieved sensitiveness in his tone or manner, and although Mrs. Conroy eyed him sharply for any latent spark of jealousy, she was forced to admit to herself that it did not exist in the quiet, serious man before her. Vaguely aware of some annoyance in his wife's face, Gabriel reached out his arm, and, lightly taking her around her waist, drew her to his knee. But the very act was so evidently a recognition of a certain kind of physical and moral weakness in the creature before him—so professional—so, as Mrs. Conroy put it to herself,—"like as if I were a sick man," that her irritation was not soothed. She rose quickly and seated herself on the other side of the fireplace. With the same implied toleration Gabriel had already displayed, he now made no attempt to restrain her.
Mrs. Conroy did not pout as another woman might have done. She only smiled a haggard smile that deepened the line of her nostril into her cheek, and pinched her thin, straight nose. Then she said, looking at the fire—
"Ain't you well?"
"I reckon not—not overly well."
There was a silence, both looking at the fire.
"You don't get anything out of that hill-side?" asked Mrs. Conroy at last, pettishly.
"No," said Gabriel.
"You have prospected all over the ridge?" continued the woman, impatiently.
"All over!"
"And you don't find anything?"
"Nothin'," said Gabriel. "Nary. Thet is," he added with his usual cautious deliberation, "thet is, nothin' o' any account. The gold, ef there is any, lies lower down in the gulch, whar I used to dig. But I kept at it jest to satisfy your whim. You know, July, it was a whim of yours," he continued, with a certain gentle deprecatoriness of manner.
A terrible thought flashed suddenly upon Mrs. Conroy. Could Dr. Devarges have made a mistake? Might he not have been delirious or insane when he wrote of the treasure? Or had the Secretary deceived her as to its location? A swift and sickening sense that all she had gained, or was to gain, from her scheme, was the man before her—and that he did not love her as other men had—asserted itself through her trembling consciousness. Mrs. Conroy had already begun to fear that she loved this husband, and it was with a new sense of yearning and dependence that she in her turn looked deprecatingly and submissively into his face and said—
"It was only a whim, dear—I dare say a foolish one. It's gone now. Don't mind it!"
"I don't," said Gabriel, simply.
Mrs. Conroy winced.
"I thought you looked disappointed," she said after a pause.
"It ain't that I was thinkin' on, July; it's Olly," said Gabriel.
There is a limit even to a frightened woman's submission.
"Of course," she said, sharply; "Olly, Olly again and always. I ought to have remembered that."
"Thet's so," said Gabriel with the same exasperating quiet. "I was reckonin' jest now, ez there don't seem to be any likeliness of you and Olly's gettin' on together, you'd better separate. Thar ain't no sense goin' on this way, July—no sense et all. And the worst o' the hull thing ez thet Olly ain't gettin' no kinder good outer it, no way!"
Mrs. Conroy was very pale and dangerously quiet as Mr. Conroy went on.
"I've allers allowed to send that child to school, but she don't keer to go. She's thet foolish, thet Olly is, thet she doesn't like to leave me, and I reckon I'm thet foolish too thet I don't like to hev her go. The only way to put things square ez this"——
Mrs. Conroy turned and fixed her grey eyes upon her husband, but she did not speak.
"You'd better go away," continued Gabriel, quietly, "for a while. I've heerd afore now that it's the reg'lar thing fur a bride to go away and visit her mother. You hain't got no mother," said Gabriel thoughtfully, "hev ye?—that's bad. But you was a sayin' the other day suthin' about some business you had down at 'Frisco. Now it would be about the nateral sort o' thing for ye to go thar fur two or three months, jest till things get round square with Olly and me."
It is probable that Gabriel was the only man from whom Mrs. Conroy could have received this humiliating proposition without interrupting him with a burst of indignation. Yet she only turned a rigid face towards the fire again with a hysterical laugh.
"Why limit my stay to two or three months?" she said.
"Well, it might be four," said Gabriel, simply—"it would give me and Olly a longer time to get things in shape."
Mrs. Conroy rose and walked rigidly to her husband's side.
"What," she said huskily, "what if I were to refuse?"
Gabriel looked as if this suggestion would not have been startling or inconsistent as an abstract possibility in woman, but said nothing.
"What," continued Mrs. Conroy, more rapidly and huskily, "what if I were to tell you and that brat to go! What," she said, suddenly raising her voice to a thin high soprano, "what if I were to turn you both out of this house—my house! off this land—my land! Eh? eh? eh?" she almost screamed, emphasising each interrogatory with her thin hand on Gabriel's shoulder, in a desperate but impotent attempt to shake him.
"Certingly, certingly," said Gabriel calmly. "But thar's somebody at the door, July," he continued quietly, as he rose slowly and walked into the hall.
His quick ear had detected a knocking without, above the truculent pitch of Mrs. Conroy's voice. He threw open the door, and disclosed Olly and Sal standing upon the threshold.
It is scarcely necessary to say that Sal was first to recover the use of that noble organ, the tongue.
"With chills and ager in every breath—it's an hour if it's five minutes that we've stood here," she began, "pounding at that door. 'You're interrupting the young couple, Sal,' sez I, 'comin' yer this time o' night, breakin' in, so to speak, on the holiest confidences,' sez I; 'but it's business, and onless you hev thet to back you, Sarah Clark,' I sez, 'and you ain't a woman ez ever turned her back on thet or them, you ain't no call there.' But I was to fetch this child home, Mrs. Conroy," continued Sal, pushing her way into the little sitting-room, "and"——
She paused, for the room was vacant. Mrs. Conroy had disappeared.
"I thought I heerd"——said Sal, completely taken aback.
"It was only Gabe," said Olly, with the ready mendacity of swift feminine tact. "I told you so. Thank you, Sal, for seeing me home. Good night, Sal," and, with a dexterity that smote Gabriel into awesome and admiring silence, she absolutely led the breathless Sal to the door and closed it upon her before that astonished female could recover her speech.
Then she returned quietly, took off her hat and shawl, and taking the unresisting hand of her brother, led him back to his former seat by the fire. Drawing a low stool in front of him, she proceeded to nestle between his knees—an old trick of hers—and once more taking his hand, stroked it between her brown fingers, looked up into his face, and said—
"Dear old Gabe!"
The sudden smile that irradiated Gabriel's serious face would have been even worse provocation to Mrs. Conroy than his previous conduct.
"What was the matter, Gabe?" said Olly; "what was she saying when we came in?"
Gabriel had not, since the entrance of his sister, thought of Mrs. Conroy's parting speech and manner. Even now its full significance did not appear to have reached him.
"I disremember, Olly," he replied, looking down into Olly's earnest eyes, "suthin' or other; she was techy, thet's all."
"But wot did she mean by saying that the house and lands was hers?" persisted the child.
"Married folks, Olly," said Gabriel, with the lazy, easy manner of vast matrimonial experience, "married folks hev little jokes and ways o' thar own. Bein' onmarried yourself, ye don't know. 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' thet's all—thet's what she meant, Olly. 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow.' Did you hev a good time down there?"
"Yes," said Olly.
"You'll hev a nice time here soon, Olly," said Gabriel.
Olly looked incredulously across the hall toward the door of Mrs. Conroy's chamber.
"Thet's it, Olly," said Gabriel, "Mrs. Conroy's goin' to 'Frisco to see some friends. She's thet bent on goin' thet nothin' 'il stop her. Ye see, Olly, it's the fashion fur new married folks to kinder go way and visit absent and sufferin' friends. Thar's them little ways about the married state, that, bein' onmarried yourself, you don't sabe. But it's all right, she's goin'. Bein' a lady, and raised, so to speak, 'mong fashi'n'ble people, she's got to folly the fashin. She's goin' for three months, mebbe four. I disremember now wot's the fashi'n'ble time. But she'll do it, Olly."
Olly cast a penetrating look at her brother.
"She ain't goin' on my account, Gabe?"
"Lord love the child, no! Wot put thet into your head, Olly? Why," said Gabriel with cheerful mendacity, "she's been takin' a shine to ye o' late. On'y to-night she was wonderin' whar you be."
As if to give credence to his words, and much to his inward astonishment, the door of Mrs. Conroy's room opened, and the lady herself, with a gracious smile on her lips and a brightly beaming eye, albeit somewhat reddened around the lids, crossed the hall, and, going up to Olly, kissed her round cheek.
"I thought it was your voice, and although I was just going to bed," she added gaily, with a slightly apologetic look at her charming dishabille, "I had to come in and be sure it was you. And where have you been, you naughty girl? Do you know I shall be dreadfully jealous of this Mrs. Markle. Come and tell me all about her. Come. You shall stay with me to-night and we won't let brother Gabe hear our little secrets—shall we? Come!"
And before the awe-struck Gabriel could believe his own senses she had actually whisked the half-pleased, half-frightened child into her own room, and he was left standing alone. Nor was he the less amazed, although relieved of a certain undefined anxiety for the child, when, a moment later, Olly herself thrust her curly head out of the door, and, calling out, "Good-night, old Gabe," with a mischievous accent, shut and locked the door in his face. For a moment Gabriel stood petrified on his own hearthstone. Was he mistaken, and had Mrs. Conroy's anger actually been nothing but a joke? Was Olly really sincere in her dislike of his wife? There was but one apparent solution to these various and perplexing problems, and that was the general incomprehensibility of the sex.
"The ways o' woman is awful onsartin," said Gabriel, as he sought the solitary little room which had been set apart for Olly, "and somehow I ain't the man ez hez the gift o' findin' them out."
And with these reflections he went apologetically, yet, to a certain extent, contentedly, as was his usual habit, to bed.
CHAPTER II.
IN WHICH THE TREASURE IS FOUND—AND LOST.
As no word has been handed down of the conversation that night between Olly and her sister-in-law, I fear the masculine reader must view their subsequent conduct in the light of Gabriel's abstract proportion. The feminine reader—to whose well-known sense of justice and readiness to acknowledge a characteristic weakness, I chiefly commend these pages—will of course require no further explanation, and will be quite ready to believe that the next morning Olly and Mrs. Conroy were apparently firm friends, and that Gabriel was incontinently snubbed by both of these ladies as he deserved.
"You don't treat July right," said Olly, one morning, to Gabriel, during five minutes that she had snatched from the inseparable company of Mrs. Conroy.
Gabriel opened his eyes in wonder. "I hain't been 'round the house much, because I allowed you and July didn't want my kempany," he began apologetically, "and ef it's shortness of provisions, I've fooled away so much time, Olly, in prospectin' that ledge that I had no time to clar up and get any dust. I reckon, may be the pork bar'l is low. But I'll fix thet straight soon, Olly, soon."
"But it ain't thet, Gabe—it ain't provisions—it's—it's—O! you ain't got no sabe ez a husband—thar!" burst out the direct Olly at last.
Without the least sign of resentment, Gabriel looked thoughtfully at his sister.
"Thet's so—I reckon thet is the thing. Not hevin' been married afore, and bein', so to speak, strange and green-handed, like as not I don't exactly come up to the views of a woman ez hez hed thet experience. And her husband a savang! a savang! Olly, and a larned man."
"You're as good as him!" ejaculated Olly, hastily, whose parts of speech were less accurately placed than her feelings, "and I reckon she loves you a heap better, Gabe. But you ain't quite lovin' enough," she added, as Gabriel started. "Why, thar was thet young couple thet came up from Simpson's last week, and stayed over at Mrs. Markle's. Thar was no end of the attentions thet thet man paid to thet thar woman—fixin' her shawl, histin' the winder and puttin' it down, and askin' after her health every five minnits—and they'd sit and sit, just like this,"——here Olly, in the interests of domestic felicity, improvised the favourite attitude of the bridegroom, as far as the great girth of Gabriel's waist and chest could be "clipped" by her small arms.
"Wot! afore folks?" asked Gabriel, looking down a little shamefully on the twining arms of his sister.
"Yes—in course—afore folks. Why, they want it to be known thet they're married."
"Olly," broke out Gabriel desperately, "your sister-in-law ain't thet kind of woman. She'd reckon thet kind o' thing was low."
But Olly only replied by casting a mischievous look at her brother, shaking her curls, and with the mysterious admonition, "Try it!" left him, and went back to Mrs. Conroy.
Happily for Gabriel, Mrs. Conroy did not offer an opportunity for the exhibition of any tenderness on Gabriel's part. Although she did not make any allusion to the past, and even utterly ignored any previous quarrel, she still preserved a certain coy demeanour toward him, that, while it relieved him of an onerous duty, very greatly weakened his faith in the infallibility of Olly's judgment. When, out of respect to that judgment, he went so far as to throw his arms ostentatiously around his wife's waist one Sunday, while perambulating the single long public street of One Horse Gulch, and that lady, with great decision, quietly slipped out of his embrace, he doubted still more.
"I did it on account o' what you said, Olly, and darn my skin if she seemed to like it at all, and even the boys hangin' around seemed to think it was queer. Jo Hobson snickered right out."
"When was it?" said Olly.
"Sunday."
Olly, sharply—"Where?"
Gabriel—"On Main Street."
Olly, apostrophising heaven with her blue eyes—"Ef thar ever was a blunderin' mule, Gabe, it's YOU!"
Gabriel, mildly and thoughtfully—"Thet's so."
Howbeit, some kind of a hollow truce was patched up between these three belligerents, and Mrs. Conroy did not go to San Francisco on business. It is presumed that the urgency of her affairs there was relieved by correspondence, for during the next two weeks she expressed much anxiety on the arrival of the regular tri-weekly mails. And one day it brought her not only a letter, but an individual of some importance in this history.
He got down from the Wingdam coach amid considerable local enthusiasm. Apart from the fact that it was well known that he was a rich San Francisco banker and capitalist, his brusque, sharp energy, his easy, sceptical familiarity and general contempt for and ignoring of everything but the practical and material, and, above all, his reputation for success, which seemed to make that success a wholesome business principal rather than good fortune, had already fascinated the passengers who had listened to his curt speech and half oracular axioms. They had forgiven dogmatisms voiced in such a hearty manner, and emphasised possibly with a slap on the back of the listener. He had already converted them to his broad materialism—less, perhaps, by his curt rhetoric than by the logic of his habitual business success, and the respectability that it commanded. It was easy to accept scepticism from a man who evidently had not suffered by it. Radicalism and democracy are much more fascinating to us when the apostle is in comfortable case and easy circumstances, than when he is clad in fustian, and consistently out of a situation. Human nature thirsts for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but would prefer to receive it from the happy owner of a latch-key to the Garden of Eden, rather than from the pilferer who had just been ejected from the premises.
It is probable, however, that the possessor of these admirable qualities had none of that fine scorn for a mankind accessible to this weakness which at present fills the breast of the writer, and, I trust, the reader, of these pages. If he had, I doubt if he would have been successful. Like a true hero, he was quite unconscious of the quality of his heroism, and utterly unable to analyse it. So that, without any previous calculations or pre-arranged plan, he managed to get rid of his admirers, and apply himself to the business he had in hand without either wilfully misleading the public of One Horse Gulch, or giving the slightest intimation of what that real business was. That the general interests of One Horse Gulch had attracted the attention of this powerful capitalist—that he intended to erect a new Hotel, or "start" an independent line of stage-coaches from Sacramento, were among the accepted theories. Everybody offered him vast and gratuitous information, and out of the various facts and theories submitted to him he gained the particular knowledge he required without asking for it. Given a reputation for business shrewdness and omnipresence in any one individual, and the world will speedily place him beyond the necessity of using them.
And so in a casual, general way, the stranger was shown over the length and breadth and thickness and present and future of One Horse Gulch. When he had reached the farther extremity of the Gulch he turned to his escort—"I'll make the inquiry you ask now."
"By telegraph—if you'll take it."
He tore a leaf from a memorandum-book and wrote a few lines.
"And you?"
"Oh, I'll look around here—I suppose there's not much beyond this?"
"No; the next claim is Gabriel Conroy's."
"Not much account, I reckon?"
"No? It pays him grub!"
"Well, dine with me at three o'clock, when and where you choose—you know best. Invite whom you like. Good-bye!" And the great man's escort, thus dismissed, departed, lost in admiration of the decisive promptitude and liberality of his guest.
Left to himself, the stranger turned his footsteps in the direction of Gabriel Conroy's claim. Had he been an admirer of Nature, or accessible to any of those influences which a contemplation of wild scenery is apt to produce in weaker humanity, he would have been awed by the gradual transition of a pastoral landscape to one of uncouth heroics. In a few minutes he had left the belt of sheltering pines and entered upon the ascent of a shadowless, scorched, and blistered mountain, that here and there in places of vegetation had put on the excrescences of scoria, or a singular eruption of crust, that, breaking beneath his feet in slippery grey powder, made his footing difficult and uncertain. Had he been possessed of a scientific eye, he would have noted here and there the evidences of volcanic action, in the sudden depressions, the abrupt elevations, the marks of disruption and upheaval, and the river-like flow of débris that protruded a black tongue into the valley below. But I am constrained to believe the stranger's dominant impression was simply one of heat. Half-way up the ascent he took off his coat and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. Nevertheless, certain peculiarities in his modes of progression showed him to be not unfamiliar with mountain travel. Two or three times during the ascent he stopped, and, facing about, carefully resurveyed the path beneath him. Slight as was the action, it was the unfailing sign of the mountaineer, who recognised that the other side of the mountain was as yet an undetermined quantity, and was prepared to retrace his steps if necessary. At the summit he paused and looked around him.
Immediately at his feet the Gulch which gave its name to the settlement, and from which the golden harvest was gathered, broadened into a thickly wooded valley. Its quivering depths were suffused by the incense of odorous gums and balms liberated by the fierce heat of the noonday sun that rose to his face in soft, tremulous waves, and filled the air with its heated spices. Through a gap in the cañon to the west, a faint, scarcely-distinguishable line of cloud indicated the coast range. North and south, higher hills arose heavily terraced with straight colonnades of pines, that made the vast black monolith on which he stood appear blacker and barer by contrast. Higher hills to the east—one or two peaks—and between them in the sunlight odd-looking, indistinct, vacant intervals—blanks in the landscape as yet not filled in with colour or expression. Yet the stranger knew them to be snow, and for a few moments seemed fascinated—gazing at them with a fixed eye and rigid mouth, until, with an effort, he tore himself away.
Scattered over the summit were numerous holes that appeared to have been recently sunk. In one of them the stranger picked up a fragment of the crumbled rock, and examined it carelessly. Then he slowly descended the gentler slope towards the west, in the direction of a claim wherein his quick eye had discovered a man at work. A walk of a few moments brought him to the bank of red clay, the heap of tailings, the wooden sluice-box, and the pan and shovel which constituted the appurtenances of an ordinary claim. As he approached nearer, the workman rose from the bank over which he was bending, and leaning on his pick, turned his face to the new-comer. His broad, athletic figure, his heavy blonde beard, and serious, perplexed eyes, were unmistakable. It was Gabriel Conroy.
"How are ye?" said the stranger, briskly extending a hand, which Gabriel took mechanically. "You're looking well! Recollect you, but you don't recollect me. Eh?" He laughed curtly, in a fashion as short and business-like as his speech, and then fixed his eyes rather impatiently on the hesitating Gabriel.
Gabriel could only stare, and struggle with a tide of thick-coming remembrances. He looked around him; the sun was beating down on the old familiar objects, everything was unchanged—and yet this face, this voice.
"I am here on a matter of business," continued the stranger briskly, dismissing the question of recognition as one unessential to the business on hand—"and—what have you got to propose?" He leaned lightly against the bank and supported himself by thrusting Gabriel's pickaxe against the bank, as he waited a reply.
"It's Peter Dumphy," said Gabriel, in a awe-stricken voice.
"Yes. You recollect me now! Thought you would. It's five years and over—ain't it? Rough times them, Gabriel—warn't they? Eh! But you're lookin' well—doin' well, too. Hey? Well—what do you propose to do about this claim? Haven't made up your mind—hey? Come then—I'll make a proposition. First, I suppose your title's all right, hey?"
It was so evident from Gabriel's dazed manner that, apart from his astonishment at meeting Peter Dumphy, he did not know what he was talking about, that Dumphy paused.
"It's about these specimens," he added, eyeing Gabriel keenly, "the specimens you sent me."
"Wot specimens?" said Gabriel vaguely, still lost in the past.
"The ones your wife sent me—all the same thing, you know."
"But it ain't," said Gabriel, with his old truthful directness. "You better talk to her 'bout thet. Thet's her look-out. I reckon now she did say suthin'," continued Gabriel, meditatively, "about sendin' rock to Frisco to be tested, but I didn't somehow get to take an interest in it. Leastways, it's her funeral. You'd better see her."
It was Mr. Dumphy's turn to be perplexed. In his perfect misapprehension of the character of the man before him, he saw only skilful business evasion under the guise of simplicity. He remembered, moreover, that in the earlier days of his prosperity as Dumphy and Jenkins, Commission Merchants, he was himself in the habit of referring customers with whom he was not ready to treat, to Jenkins, very much as he had just now been referred to Mrs. Conroy.
"Of course," he said briskly; "only I thought I'd save time, which is short with me to-day, by coming directly to you. May not have time to see her. But you can write."
"Thet's so," said Gabriel, "p'r'aps it's just as well in the long run. Ef ye don't see her, she'll know it ain't your fault. I'll let on that much to her." And having disposed of this unimportant feature of the interview, he continued, "Ye haven't heard nought o' Grace—ye mind Grace? Dumphy!—a purty little girl ez was with me up thar. Ye ain't heerd anything o' her—nor seen her, may be—hev you?"
Of course this question at such a moment was to Mr. Dumphy susceptible of only one meaning. It was that Mrs. Conroy had confessed everything to Gabriel, and that he wished to use Dumphy's complicity in the deceit as a lever in future business transactions. Mr. Dumphy felt he had to deal with two consummate actors—one of whom was a natural hypocrite. For the first time in his life he was impatient of evil. We never admire truth and sincerity so highly as when we find it wanting in an adversary.
"Ran off with some fellow, didn't she? Yes, I remember. You won't see her again. It's just as well for you! I'd call her dead, anyway."
Although Dumphy was convinced that Gabriel's interest in the fate of his sister was hypocritical, he was not above a Christian hope that this might wound a brother's feelings. He turned to go.
"Can't you come back this way and hev a little talk about ol' times?" said Gabriel, warming toward Dumphy under the magic of old associations, and ignoring with provoking unconsciousness the sting of his last speech. "There's Olly ez 'ud jest admire to see ye. Ye mind Olly?—the baby, Grace's little sister, growed a fine likely gal now. See yer," continued Gabriel with sudden energy, putting down his pick and shovel, "I'll jess go over thar with ye now."
"No! no!" said Dumphy quickly. "Busy! Can't! 'Nother time! Good-day; see you again some time. So long!" and he hurriedly departed, retracing his steps until the claim and its possessor were lost in the intervening foliage.
Then he paused, hesitated, and then striking across the summit of the hill, made his way boldly to Gabriel's cottage.
Either Mrs. Conroy was expecting him, or had detected him coming through the woods, for she opened the door to him and took him into her little parlour with a graciousness of demeanour and an elaboration of toilet that would have been dangerous to any other man. But, like most men with a deservedly bad reputation among women, Mr. Dumphy always rigidly separated any weakness of gallantly from his business.
"Here only for a few moments. Sorry can't stay longer. You're looking well!" said Mr. Dumphy.
Mrs. Conroy said she had not expected the pleasure of a personal interview; Mr. Dumphy must be so busy always.
"Yes. But I like to bring good news myself. The specimens you sent have been assayed by first-class, reliable men. They'll do. No gold—but eighty per cent silver. Hey! P'r'aps you expected it."
But Mr. Dumphy could see plainly from Mrs. Conroy's eager face that she had not expected it.
"Silver," she gasped—"eighty per cent!"
He was mystified, but relieved. It was evident that she had not consulted anybody else, and that he was first on the ground. So he said curtly—
"What do you propose?"
"I don't know," began the lady. "I haven't thought"——
"Exactly!" interrupted Dumphy. "Haven't got any proposition. Excuse me—but" (taking out his watch) "time's nearly up. Look here. Eighty per cent's big thing! But silver mine takes gold mine to run it. All expense first—no profit till you get down. Works, smelting—cost twenty per cent. Here's my proposition. Put whole thing in joint-stock company; 100 shares; five millions capital. You take fifty shares. I'll take twenty-five—dispose of other twenty-five as I can. How's that? Hey? You can't say! Well—think of it!"
But all Mrs. Conroy could think of was two and a half millions! It stared at her, stretching its gigantic ciphers across the room. It blazed in golden letters on cheques,—it rose on glittering piles of silver coin to the ceiling of the parlour. Yet she turned to him with a haggard face, and said—
"But this—this money—is only in prospective."
"Cash your draft for the sum ten minutes after the stock's issued. That's business."
With this certainty Mrs. Conroy recovered herself.
"I will talk—with—my husband," she said.
Mr. Dumphy smiled—palpably, openly, and shamelessly. Mrs. Conroy coloured quickly, but not from the consciousness Mr. Dumphy attributed to her, of detected cunning. She had begun to be ashamed of the position she believed she occupied in this man's eyes, and fearful that he should have discovered her husband's indifference to her.
"I've already seen him," said Mr. Dumphy quietly.
The colour dropped from Mrs. Conroy's cheeks.
"He knows nothing of this," she said faintly.
"Of course," said Dumphy half contemptuously, "he said so; referred to you. That's all right. That's business."
"You did not tell him—you dared not"——she said excitedly.
Mr. Dumphy looked curiously at her for a moment. Then he rose and shut the door.
"Look here," he said, facing Mrs. Conroy in a hard, matter-of-fact way, "do you mean to say that what that man—your husband—said, was true? That he knows nothing of you; of the circumstances under which you came here?"
"He does not—I swear to God he does not," she said passionately.
It was inexplicable, but Mr. Dumphy believed her.
"But how will you explain this to him? You can do nothing without him."
"Why should he know more? If he has discovered this mine, it is his—free of any gift of mine—as independent of any claim of mine as if we were strangers. The law makes him the owner of the mine that he discovers, no matter on whose land it may be found. In personating his sister, I only claimed a grant to the land. He has made the discovery which gives it its value! Even that sister," she added with a sudden flash in her eyes—"even that sister, were she living, could not take it from him now!"
It was true! This woman, with whose weakness he had played, had outwitted them all, and slipped through their fingers almost without stain or blemish. And in a way so simple! Duped as he had been, he could hardly restrain his admiration, and said quite frankly and heartily—
"Good—that's business!"
And then—ah me! this clever creature—this sharp adventuress, this Anonyma Victrix began to cry, and to beg him not to tell her husband!
At this familiar sign of the universal feminine weakness, Dumphy picked up his ears and arts again.
"Where's your proof that your husband is the first discoverer?" he said curtly, but not unkindly. "Won't that paper that Dr. Devarges gave his sister show that the doctor was really the discoverer of this lead?"
"Yes; but Dr. Devarges is dead, and I hold the paper."
"Good!" He took out his watch. "I've five minutes more. Now look here. I'm not going to say that you haven't managed this thing well—you have!—and that you can, if you like, get along without me—you can! See! I'm not going to say that I went into this thing without the prospect of making something out of it myself. I have! That's business. The thing for you to consider now is this: understanding each other as we do, couldn't you push this thing through better with my help—and helping me—than to go elsewhere! Understand me! You could find a dozen men in San Francisco who would make you as good an offer and better! But it wouldn't be to their interest to keep down any unpleasant reminders of the past as it would be mine. You understand?"
Mrs. Conroy replied by extending her hand.
"To keep my secret from every one—from him," she said earnestly.
"Certainly—that's business."
Then these two artful ones shook hands with a heartfelt and loyal admiration and belief for each other that I fear more honest folks might have profited by, and Mr. Dumphy went off to dine.
As Mrs. Conroy closed the front door, Olly came running in from the back piazza. Mrs. Conroy caught her in her arms and discharged her pent-up feelings, and, let us hope, her penitence, in a joyful and passionate embrace. But Olly struggled to extricate herself. When at last she got her head free, she said angrily—
"Let me go. I want to see him."
"Who—Mr. Dumphy?" asked Mrs. Conroy, still holding the child, with a half-hysterical laugh.
"Yes. Gabe said he was here. Let me go, I say!"
"What do you want with him?" asked her captor with shrill gaiety.
"Gabe says—Gabe says—let me go, will you? Gabe says he knew"——
"Whom?"
"My dear, dear sister Grace! There! I didn't mean to hurt you—but I must go!"
And she did, leaving the prospective possessor of two and a half millions, vexed, suspicious, and alone.
CHAPTER III.
MR. DUMPHY MEETS AN OLD FRIEND.
Peter Dumphy was true to his client. A few days after he had returned to San Francisco he dispatched a note to Victor, asking an interview. He had reasoned that, although Victor was vanquished and helpless regarding the late discovery at One Horse Gulch, yet his complicity with Mrs. Conroy's earlier deceit might make it advisable that his recollection of that event should be effaced. He was waiting a reply when a card was brought to him by a clerk. Mr. Dumphy glanced at it impatiently, and read the name of "Arthur Poinsett." Autocrat as Dumphy was in his own counting house and business circle, the name was one of such recognised power in California that he could not ignore its claims to his attention. More than that, it represented a certain respectability and social elevation which Dumphy, with all his scepticism and democratic assertion, could not with characteristic shrewdness afford to undervalue. He said, "Show him in," without lifting his head from the papers that lay upon his desk.
The door opened again to an elegant-looking young man, who lounged carelessly into the awful presence without any of that awe with which the habitual business visitors approached Peter Dumphy. Indeed, it was possible that never before had Mr. Dumphy's door opened to one who was less affected by the great capitalist's reputation. Nevertheless, with the natural ease of good breeding, after depositing his hat on the table, he walked quietly to the fireplace, and stood with his back toward it with courteous, but perhaps too indifferent patience. Mr. Dumphy was at last obliged to look up.
"Busy, I see," yawned Poinsett, with languid politeness. "Don't let me disturb you. I thought your man said you were disengaged. Must have made a mistake."
Mr. Dumphy was forced to lay aside his pen, and rise, inwardly protesting.
"You don't know me by my card. I have the advantage, I think," continued the young man with a smile, "even in the mere memory of faces. The last time I saw you was—let me see—five years ago. Yes! you were chewing a scrap of buffalo hide to keep yourself from starving."
"Philip Ashley!" said Mr. Dumphy in a low voice, looking hastily around, and drawing nearer the stranger.
"Precisely," returned Poinsett somewhat impatiently, raising his own voice. "That was my nom de guerre. But Dumphy seems to have been your real name after all."
If Dumphy had conceived any idea of embarrassing Poinsett by the suggestion of an alias in his case, he could have dismissed it after this half-contemptuous recognition of his own proper cognomen. But he had no such idea. In spite of his utmost effort he felt himself gradually falling into the same relative position—the same humble subordination he had accepted five years before. It was useless to think of his wealth, of his power, of his surroundings. Here in his own bank parlour he was submissively waiting the will and pleasure of this stranger. He made one more desperate attempt to regain his lost prestige.
"You have some business with me, eh? Poinsett!" He commenced the sentence with a dignity, and ended it with a familiarity equally inefficacious.
"Of course," said Poinsett carelessly, shifting his legs before the fire. "Shouldn't have called otherwise on a man of such affairs at such a time. You are interested, I hear, in a mine recently discovered at One Horse Gulch on the Rancho of the Blessed Innocents. One of my clients holds a grant, not yet confirmed, to the Rancho."
"Who?" said Mr. Dumphy quickly.
"I believe that is not important nor essential for you to know until we make a formal claim," returned Arthur quietly, "but I don't mind satisfying your curiosity. It's Miss Dolores Salvatierra."
Mr. Dumphy felt relieved, and began with gathering courage and brusqueness, "That don't affect"——
"Your mining claim; not in the least," interrupted Arthur quietly, "I am not here to press or urge any rights that we may have. We may not even submit the grant for patent. But my client would like to know something of the present tenants, or, if you will, owners. You represent them, I think? A man and wife. The woman appears first as a spinster, assuming to be a Miss Grace Conroy, to whom an alleged transfer of an alleged grant was given. She next appears as the wife of one Gabriel Conroy, who is, I believe, an alleged brother of the alleged Miss Grace Conroy. You'll admit, I think, it's a pretty mixed business, and would make a pretty bad showing in court. But this adjudicature we are not yet prepared to demand. What we want to know is this—and I came to you, Dumphy, as the man most able to tell us. Is the sister or the brother real—or are they both impostors? Is there a legal marriage? Of course your legal interest is not jeopardised in any event."
Mr. Dumphy partly regained his audacity.
"You ought to know—you ran away with the real Grace Conroy," he said, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Did I? Then this is not she, if I understand you. Thanks! And the brother"——
"Is Gabriel Conroy, if I know the man," said Dumphy shortly, feeling that he had been entrapped into a tacit admission. "But why don't you satisfy yourself?"
"You have been good enough to render it unnecessary," said Arthur, with a smile. "I do not doubt your word. I am, I trust, too much of a lawyer to doubt the witness I myself have summoned. But who is this woman?"
"The widow of Dr. Devarges."
"The real thing?"
"Yes, unless Grace Conroy should lay claim to that title and privilege. The old man seems to have been pretty much divided in his property and affections."
The shaft did not apparently reach Arthur, for whom it was probably intended. He only said, "Have you legal evidence that she is the widow? If it were a fact, and a case of ill-treatment or hardship, why it might abate the claim of my client, who is a rich woman, and whose sympathies are of course in favour of the real brother and real sister. By the way, there is another sister, isn't there?"
"Yes, a mere child."
"That's all. Thank you. I sha'n't trespass further upon your time. Good-day."
He had taken up his hat and was moving toward the door. Mr. Dumphy, who felt that whatever might have been Poinsett's motives in this interview, he, Dumphy, had certainly gained nothing, determined to retrieve himself, if possible, by a stroke of audacity.
"One moment," he said, as Poinsett was carefully settling his hat over his curls. "You know whether this girl is living or not. What has become of her?"
"But I don't," returned Poinsett calmly, "or I shouldn't come to you."
There was something about Poinsett's manner that prevented Dumphy from putting him in the category of "all men," that both in his haste and his deliberation Mr. Dumphy was apt to say "were liars."
"When and where did you see her last?" he asked less curtly.
"I left her at a hunter's cabin near the North Fork while I went back for help. I was too late. A relief party from the valley had already discovered the other dead. When I returned for Grace she was gone—possibly with the relief party. I always supposed it was the expedition that succoured you."
There was a pause, in which these two scamps looked at each other. It will be remembered that both had deceived the relief party in reference to their connexions with the unfortunate dead. Neither believed, however, that the other was aware of the fact. But the inferior scamp was afraid to ask another question that might disclose his own falsehood; and the question which might have been an embarrassing one to Arthur, and have changed his attitude toward Dumphy, remained unasked. Not knowing the reason of Dumphy's hesitation, Arthur was satisfied of his ignorance, and was still left the master. He nodded carelessly to Dumphy and withdrew.
As he left the room he brushed against a short, thick-set man, who was entering at the same moment. Some instinct of mutual repulsion caused the two men to look at each other. Poinsett beheld a sallow face, that, in spite of its belonging to a square figure, seemed to have a consumptive look; a face whose jaw was narrow and whose lips were always half-parted over white, large, and protruding teeth; a mouth that apparently was always breathless—a mouth that Mr. Poinsett remembered as the distinguishing and unpleasant feature of some one vaguely known to him professionally. As the mouth gasped and parted further in recognition, Poinsett nodded carelessly in return, and attributing his repulsion to that extraordinary feature thought no more about it.
Not so the new-comer. He glanced suspiciously after Arthur and then at Mr. Dumphy. The latter, who had recovered his presence of mind and his old audacity, turned them instantly upon him.
"Well! What have you got to propose?" he said, with his usual curt formula.
"It is you have something to say; you sent for me," said his visitor.
"Yes. You left me to find out that there was another grant to that mine. What does all this mean, Ramirez?"
Victor raised his eyes and yellow fringes to the ceiling, and said, with a shrug—
"Quien sabe? there are grants and grants!"
"So it seems. But I suppose you know that we have a title now better than any grant—a mineral discovery."
Victor bowed and answered with his teeth, "We, eh?"
"Yes, I am getting up a company for her husband."
"Her husband—good!"
Dumphy looked at his accomplice keenly. There was something in Victor's manner that was vaguely suspicious. Dumphy, who was one of those men to whose courage the habit of success in all things was essential, had been a little shaken by his signal defeat in his interview with Poinsett, and now became irritable.
"Yes—her husband. What have you got to propose about it, eh? Nothing? Well, look here, I sent for you to say that as everything now is legal and square, you might as well dry up in regard to her former relations or your first scheme. You sabe?" Dumphy became slangy as he lost his self-control. "You are to know nothing about Miss Grace Conroy."
"And there is no more any sister, eh—only a wife?"
"Exactly."
"So."
"You will of course get something for these preliminary steps of yours, although you understand they have been useless, and that your claim is virtually dead. You are, in fact, in no way connected with her present success. Unless—unless," added Dumphy, with a gratuitous malice that defeat had engendered, "unless you expect something for having been the means of making a match between her and Gabriel."
Victor turned a little more yellow in the thin line over his teeth. "Ha! ha! good—a joke," he laughed. "No, I make no charge to you for that; not even to you. No—ha! ha!" At the same moment had Mr. Dumphy known what was passing in his mind he would have probably moved a little nearer the door of his counting-room.
"There's nothing we can pay you for but silence. We may as well understand each other regarding that. That's your interest; it's ours only so far as Mrs. Conroy's social standing is concerned, for I warn you that exposure might seriously compromise you in a business way, while it would not hurt us. I could get the value of Gabriel's claim to the mine advanced to-morrow, if the whole story were known to-night. If you remember, the only evidence of a previous discovery exists in a paper in our possession. Perhaps we pay you for that. Consider it so, if you like. Consider also that any attempt to get hold of it legally or otherwise would end in its destruction. Well, what do you say? All right. When the stock is issued I'll write you a cheque: or perhaps you'd take a share of stock?"
"I would prefer the money," said Victor, with a peculiar laugh.
Dumphy affected to take no notice of the sarcasm. "Your head is level, Victor," he said, returning to his papers. "Don't meddle with stocks. Good day!"
Victor moved toward the door. "By the way, Victor," said Dumphy, looking up, calmly, "if you know the owner of this lately discovered grant, you might intimate that any litigation wouldn't pay. That's what I told their counsel a moment ago."
"Poinsett?" asked Victor, pausing, with his hand on the door.
"Yes! But as he also happens to be Philip Ashley—the chap who ran off with Grace Conroy, you had better go and see him. Perhaps he can help you better than I. Good day."
And, turning from the petrified Victor, Mr. Dumphy, conscious that he had fully regained his prestige, rang his bell to admit the next visitor.
CHAPTER IV.
MR. JACK HAMLIN TAKES A HOLIDAY.
For some weeks Mr. Hamlin had not been well, or, as he more happily expressed it, had been "off colour." The celebrated Dr. Duchesne, an ex-army surgeon, after a careful diagnosis, had made several inquiries of Jack, in a frank way that delighted Mr. Hamlin, and then had said very quietly—
"You are not doing justice to your profession, Jack. Your pulse is 75, and that won't do for a man who habitually deals faro. Been doing pretty well lately, and having a good time, eh? I thought so! You've been running too fast, and under too high pressure. You must take these weights off the safely valve, Jack—better take the blower down altogether. Bank your fires and run on half steam. For the next two months I shall run you. You must live like a Christian." Noticing the horror of Jack's face, he added hastily, "I mean go to bed before midnight, get up before you want to, eat more and drink less, don't play to win, bore yourself thoroughly, and by that time I'll be able to put you back at that table as strong and cool as ever. You used to sing, Jack; sit down at the piano and give me a taste of your quality. * * * There, that'll do; I thought so! You're out of practice and voice. Do that every day, for a week, and it will come easier. I haven't seen you stop and talk to a child for a month. What's become of that little boot-black that you used to bedevil? I've a devilish good mind to send you to a foundling hospital for the good of the babies and yourself. Find out some poor ranchero with a dozen children, and teach 'em singing. Don't mind what you eat, as long as you eat regularly. I'd have more hopes of you, Jack, if I'd dragged you out of Starvation Camp, in the Sierras, as I did a poor fellow six years ago, than finding you here in these luxurious quarters. Come! Do as I say, and I'll stop that weariness, dissipate that giddiness, get rid of that pain, lower that pulse, and put you back where you were. I don't like your looks, Jack, at all. I'd buck against any bank you ran, all night."
From which the intelligent reader will, I hope and trust, perceive that this popular doctor's ideas of propriety resided wholly in his intentions. With the abstract morality of Hamlin's profession as a gambler he did not meddle; with his competency to practise that profession only was he concerned. Indeed, so frank was he in his expression, that a few days later he remarked to a popular clergyman, "I must put you under the same treatment as I did Jack Hamlin—do you know him?—a gambler and a capital fellow; you remind me of him. Same kind of trouble—cured him as I will you." And he did.
The result of which advice was that in two weeks Mr. Jack Hamlin found himself dreadfully bored and ennuyé, but loyal to his trust with his physician, wandering in the lower coast counties. At San Luis Rey, he attended a bull-fight, and was sorely tempted to back the bull heavily, and even conceived the idea of introducing a grizzly bear, taking all the odds himself, but remembered his promise, and fled the fascination. And so the next day, in a queer old-fashioned diligence, he crossed the coast range, and drifted into the quiet Mission of San Antonio. Here he was so done up and bored with the journey and the unpromising aspect of the town, that he quietly yielded his usual profane badinage of the landlord to his loyal henchman and negro body-servant, "Pete," and went to bed at the solitary "Fonda," in the usual flea-infested bedroom of the Spanish California inn.
"What does she look like, Pete?" said Jack, languidly.
Pete, who was familiar with his master's peculiarities of speech, knew that the feminine pronoun referred to the town, and responded with great gravity—
"De fac' is, Mahs Jack, dah don't peah to be much show heah foh you. Deys playin' three-card monte in the bah room, but 'taint no squar game. It 'ud do you no good, it might jess rile you. Deys a fass pinto hoss hitched to a poss in de yard—a hoss dat de owner don't seem to understand nohow. If you was right smart agin, I might let you go down thar and get a bet outer some o' dem Greasers. But 'twon't do nohow. Deys a kind o' school—Sunday-school, I reckon—nex doah. Lots o' little children saying prayers, singin' and praisin' de Lord, sah."
"What day is this?" asked Jack, with sudden trepidation.
"Sunday, sah."
Jack uttered a plaintive groan and rolled over.
"Give one of these children a quarter, and tell him there's another quarter waiting for him up here."
"You won't get no child to fool wid dis day, Mahs Jack, shuah. Deys bound to get licked when dey goes. Folks is mighty hard on dem boys, Sunday, sah; and it's de Lord's day, Mahs Jack."
Partly for the sake of horrifying his attendant, who notwithstanding his evil associations was very devout, Jack gave way to violent denunciation of any system of theology that withheld children from romping with him any day he might select.
"Open that window," he groaned, finally, "and shove the bed alongside of it. That'll do. Hand me that novel. You needn't read to me to-day; you can finish that Volney's 'Ruins' another time."
It may be remarked here that it had been Jack's invalid habit to get Pete to read to him. As he had provided himself with such books as were objectionable to Pete, as they were always utterly incomprehensible when filtered through his dialect, and as he always made the reader repeat the more difficult words, he extracted from this diversion a delicious enjoyment, which Pete never suspected.
"You can go now," he said, when Pete had arranged him comfortably. "I shan't want you this afternoon. Take some money. I reckon you won't find any church of your kind here, but if anybody interferes with you, jest lambaste him! If you can't do it, jest spot him, and I will!" (Mr. Hamlin never allowed anybody but himself to object to his follower's religious tendencies.) "Have a good time, Pete! Don't tangle yourself up if you can help it. The liquor about here is jest pizen."
With this parting adjuration Mr. Hamlin turned over and tried to devote himself to his book. But after reading a few lines the letters somehow got blurred and indistinct, and he was obliged to put the book down with a much graver recollection of the doctor's warning than he had ever had before. He was obliged to confess to a singular weariness and lassitude that had become habitual, and to admit that he had more pain at times than—as he put it—"a man ought to have." The idea of his becoming blind or paralysed dawned upon him gradually, at first humorously; wondering if he couldn't deal faro as well without the use of his legs, for instance, which were of no account to a man under the table; if there could not be raised cards for the blind as well as raised letters. The idea of feeling a "pair" or a "flush" amused him greatly, and then he remembered more gravely poor Gordon, who, becoming gradually paralysed, blew his brains out. "The best thing he could do," he soliloquised, seriously. The reflection, however, had left such a depressing effect upon his mind that the exaltation of liquor for a moment seemed to be the proper thing for him; but the next moment, remembering his promise to the doctor, he changed his mind, and—with an effort—his reflections.
For relief he turned his paling face to the window. It gave upon a dusty courtyard, the soil of which was pulverised by the pawing of countless hoofs during the long, dry summer; upon a tiled roof that rose above an adobe wall, over which again rose the two square whitewashed towers of the Mission church. Between these towers he caught a glimpse of dark green foliage, and beyond this the shining sea.
It was very hot and dry. Scarcely a wave of air stirred the curtains of the window. That afternoon the trade-winds which usually harried and bullied the little Mission of San Antonio did not blow, and a writhing weeping willow near the window, that whipped itself into trifling hysterics on the slightest pretext, was surprised into a stony silence. Even the sea beyond glittered and was breathless. It reminded Jack of the mouth of the man he met in Sacramento at the hotel, and again had quarrelled with in San Francisco. And there, absolutely, was the man, the very man, gazing up at the hotel from the shadows of the courtyard. Jack was instantly and illogically furious. Had Pete been there he would at once have sent an insulting message; but, while he was looking at him, a sound rose upon the air which more pleasantly arrested his attention.
It was an organ. Not a very fine instrument, nor skilfully played; but an instrument that Jack was passionately fond of. I forgot to say that he had once occupied the position of organist in the Second Presbyterian Church of Sacramento, until a growing and more healthy public sentiment detected an incongruity between his secular and Sunday occupations, and a prominent deacon, a successful liquor-dealer, demanded his resignation. Although he afterwards changed his attentions to a piano, he never entirely lost his old affections. To become the possessor of a large organ, to introduce it gradually, educating the public taste, as a special feature of a first-class gambling saloon, had always been one of Jack's wildest ambitions. So he raised himself upon his elbow and listened. He could see also that the adjacent building was really a recent addition to the old Mission church, and that what appeared to be a recess in the wall was only a deeply embrasured window. Presently a choir of fresh young voices joined the organ. Mr. Hamlin listened more attentively; it was one of Mozart's masses with which he was familiar.
For a few moments he forgot his pain and lassitude, and lying there hummed in unison. And then, like a true enthusiast, unmindful of his surroundings, he lifted his voice—a very touching tenor, well known among his friends—and joined in, drowning, I fear, the feebler pipe of the little acolytes within. Indeed, it was a fine sight to see this sentimental scamp, lying sick nigh unto dissolution through a dissipated life and infamous profession, down upon his back in the dingy cuarto of a cheap Spanish inn, voicing the litanies of the Virgin. Howbeit, once started in he sang it through, and only paused when the antiphonal voices and organ ceased. Then he lifted his head, and, leaning on his elbow, looked across the courtyard. He had hoped for the appearance of some of the little singers, and had all ready a handful of coin to throw to them, and a few of those ingenious epithets and persuasive arguments by which he had always been successful with the young. But he was disappointed.
"I reckon school ain't out yet," he said to himself, and was about to lie down again, when a face suddenly appeared at the grating of the narrow window.
Mr. Hamlin as suddenly became breathless, and the colour rose to his pale face. He was very susceptible to female beauty, and the face that appeared at the grating was that of a very beautiful Indian girl. He thought, and was ready to swear, that he had never seen anything half so lovely. Framed in the recess of the embrasure as a shrine, it might have been a shadowed devotional image, but that the face was not so angelically beautiful as it was femininely fascinating, and that the large deeply fringed eyes had an expression of bright impatience and human curiosity. From his secure vantage behind the curtain Mr. Hamlin knew that he could not be seen, and so lay and absorbed this lovely bronze apparition which his voice seemed to have evoked from the cold bronze adobe wall. And then, as suddenly, she was gone, and the staring sunlight and glittering sea beyond seemed to Mr. Hamlin to have gone too.
When Pete returned at sunset, he was amazed and alarmed to find his master dressed and sitting by the window. There was a certain brightness in his eye and an unwonted colour in his cheek that alarmed him still more.
"You ain't bin and gone done nuffin' agin de doctor's orders, Mahs Jack?" he began.
"You'll find the whisky flask all right, unless you've been dippin' into it, you infernal old hypocrite," responded Jack, cheerfully, accepting the implied suspicion of his servant. "I've dressed myself because I'm goin' to church to-night, to find out where you get your liquor. I'm happy because I'm virtuous. Trot out that Volney's 'Ruins,' and wade in. You're gettin' out o' practice, Pete. Stop. Because you're religious, do you expect me to starve? Go and order supper first! Stop. Where in blank are you going? Here, you've been gone three hours on an errand for me, and if you ain't runnin' off without a word about it."
"Gone on an errand foh you, sah?" gasped the astonished Pete.
"Yes! Didn't I tell you to go round and see what was the kind of religious dispensation here?" continued Jack, with an unmoved face. "Didn't I charge you particularly to observe if the Catholic Church was such as a professing Christian and the former organist of the Second Presbyterian Church of Sacramento could attend? And now I suppose I've got to find out myself. I'd bet ten to one you ain't been there at all!"
In sheer embarrassment Pete began to brush his master's clothes with ostentatious and apologetic diligence, and said—
"I'se no Papist, Mahs Jack, but if I'd thought"——
"Do you suppose I'm going to sit here without my supper while you abuse the Catholic Church—the only church that a gentlemen"——but the frightened Pete was gone.
The Angelus bell had just rung, and it lacked a full half hour yet before vespers, when Mr. Hamlin lounged into the old Mission church. Only a few figures knelt here and there—mere vague, black shadows in the gloom. Aided, perhaps, more by intuition than the light of the dim candles on the high altar, he knew that the figure he looked for was not among them; and seeking the shadow of a column he calmly waited its approach. It seemed a long time. A heavy-looking woman, redolent of garlic, came in and knelt nearly opposite. A yellow vaquero, whom Mr. Hamlin recalled at once as one he had met on the road hither,—a man whose Spanish profanity, incited by unruly cattle, had excited Jack's amused admiration,—dropped on his knees, and with equally characteristic volubility began a supplication to the Virgin. Then two or three men, whom Jack recognised as the monte-players of the "Fonda," began, as it seemed to Jack, to bewail their losses in lachrymose accents. And then Mr. Hamlin, highly excited, with a pulse that would have awakened the greatest concern of his doctor, became nervously and magnetically aware that some one else was apparently waiting and anxious as himself, and had turned his head at the entrance of each one of the congregation. It was a figure Jack had at first overlooked. Safe in the shadow of the column, he could watch it without being seen himself. Even in the gloom he could see the teeth and eyes of the man he had observed that afternoon—his old antagonist at Sacramento.
Had it been anywhere else Jack would have indulged his general and abstract detestation of Victor by instantly picking a quarrel with him. As it was, he determined upon following him when he left the church—of venting on him any possible chagrin or disappointment he might then have, as an excitement to mitigate the unsupportable dreariness of the Mission. The passions are not so exclusive as moralists imagine, for Mr. Hamlin was beginning to have his breast filled with wrath against Victor, in proportion as his doubts of the appearance of the beautiful stranger grew stronger in his mind, when two figures momentarily darkened the church porch, and a rustle of silk stole upon his ear. A faint odour of spice penetrated through the incense. Jack looked up, and his heart stopped beating.
It was she. As she reached the stall nearly opposite, she put aside her black veil, and disclosed the same calm, nymph-like face he had seen at the window. It was doubly beautiful now. Even the strange complexion had for Jack a bewildering charm. She looked around, hesitated for a moment, and then knelt between the two monte-players. With an almost instinctive movement Jack started forward, as if to warn her of the contaminating contact. And then he stopped, his own face crimsoned with shame. For the first time he had doubted the morality of his profession.
The organ pealed out; the incense swam; the monotonous voice of the priest rose upon the close, sluggish air, and Mr. Jack Hamlin dreamed a dream. He had dispossessed the cold, mechanical organist, and, seating himself at the instrument, had summoned all the powers of reed and voice to sing the pæans—ah me! I fear not of any abstract Being, but of incarnate flesh and blood. He heard her pure, young voice lifted beside his; even in that cold, passionless commingling there was joy unspeakable, and he knew himself exalted. Yet he was conscious even in his dream, from his own hurried breathing, and something that seemed to swell in his throat, that he could not have sung a note. And then he came back to his senses, and a close examination of the figure before him. He looked at the graceful, shining head, the rich lace veil, the quiet elegance of attire, even to the small satin slipper that stole from beneath her silken robe—all united with a refinement and an air of jealous seclusion, that somehow removed him to an immeasurable distance.
The anthem ceased, the last notes of the organ died away, and the lady rose. Half an hour before, Jack would have gladly stepped forward to have challenged even a passing glance from the beautiful eyes of the stranger; now a timidity and distrust new to the man took possession of him. He even drew back closer in the shadow as she stepped toward the pillar, which supported on its face a font of holy water. She had already slipped off her glove, and now she leaned forward—so near he could almost feel her warm breath—and dipped her long slim fingers into the water. As she crossed herself with the liquid symbol, Jack gave a slight start. One or two drops of holy water thrown from her little fingers had fallen on his face.
CHAPTER V.
VICTOR MAKES A DISCOVERY.
Happily for Mr. Hamlin, the young girl noticed neither the effect of her unconscious baptismal act, nor its object, but moved away slowly to the door. As she did so, Jack stepped from the shadow of the column, and followed her with eyes of respectful awe and yearning. She had barely reached the porch, when she suddenly and swiftly turned and walked hurriedly back, almost brushing against Mr. Hamlin. Her beautiful eyes were startled and embarrassed, her scarlet lips parted and paling rapidly, her whole figure and manner agitated and discomposed. Without noticing him she turned toward the column, and under the pretext of using the holy water, took hold of the font, and leaned against it, as if for support, with her face averted from the light. Jack could see her hands tighten nervously on the stone, and fancied that her whole figure trembled as she stood there.
He hesitated for a moment, and then moved to her side; not audaciously and confident, as was his wont with women, but with a boyish colour in his face, and a timid, half-embarrassed manner.
"Can I do anything for you, Miss?" he said, falteringly. "You don't seem to be well. I mean you look tired. Shan't I bring you a chair? It's the heat of this hole—I mean it's so warm here. Shan't I go for a glass of water, a carriage?"
Here she suddenly lifted her eyes to his, and his voice and presence of mind utterly abandoned him.
"It's nothing," she said, with a dignified calm, as sudden and as alarming to Jack as her previous agitation—"nothing," she added, fixing her clear eyes on his, with a look so frank, so open, and withal, as it seemed to Jack, so cold and indifferent, that his own usually bold glance fell beneath it, "nothing but the heat and closeness; I am better now."
"Shall I"——began Jack, awkwardly.
"I want nothing, thank you."
Seeming to think that her conduct required some explanation, she added, hastily—
"There was a crowd at the door as I was going out, and in the press I felt giddy. I thought some one—some man—pushed me rudely. I daresay I was mistaken."
She glanced at the porch against which a man was still leaning.
The suggestion of her look and speech—if it were a suggestion—was caught instantly by Jack. Without waiting for her to finish the sentence, he strode to the door. To his wrathful surprise the lounger was Victor. Mr. Hamlin did not stop for explanatory speech. With a single expressive word, and a single dexterous movement of his arm and foot, he tumbled the astonished Victor down the steps at one side, and then turned toward his late companion. But she had been equally prompt. With a celerity quite inconsistent with her previous faintness, she seized the moment that Victor disappeared to dart by him and gain her carriage, which stood in waiting at the porch. But as it swiftly drove away, Mr. Hamlin caught one grateful glance from those wonderful eyes, one smile from those perfect lips, and was happy. What matters that he had an explanation—possibly a quarrel on his hands? Ah me! I fear this added zest to the rascal's satisfaction.
A hand was laid on his shoulder. He turned and saw the face of the furious Victor, with every tooth at a white heat, and panting with passion. Mr. Hamlin smiled pleasantly.
"Why, I want to know!" he ejaculated, with an affectation of rustic simplicity, "if it ain't you, Johnny. Why, darn my skin! And this is your house? You and St. Anthony in partnership, eh? Well, that gets me! And here I tumbled you off your own stoop, didn't I? I might have known it was you by the way you stood there. Mightn't I, Johnny?"
"My name is not Johnny—Carámba!" gasped Victor, almost beside himself with impatient fury.
"Oh, it's that, is it? Any relation to the Carámbas of Dutch Flat? It ain't a pretty name. I like Johnny better. And I wouldn't make a row here now. Not to-day, Johnny; it's Sunday. I'd go home. I'd go quietly home, and I'd beat some woman or child to keep myself in training. But I'd go home first. I wouldn't draw that knife, neither, for it might cut your fingers, and frighten the folks around town. I'd go home quietly, like a good nice little man. And in the morning I'd come round to the hotel on the next square, and I'd ask for Mr. Hamlin, Mr. Jack Hamlin, Room No. 29; and I'd go right up to his room, and I'd have such a time with him—such a high old time; I'd just make that hotel swim with blood."
Two or three of the monte players had gathered around Victor, and seemed inclined to take the part of their countryman. Victor was not slow to improve this moment of adhesion and support.
"Is it dogs that we are, my compatriots?" he said to them bitterly; "and he—this one—a man infamous!"
Mr. Hamlin, who had a quick ear for abusive and interjaculatory Spanish, overheard him. There was a swift chorus of "Carámba!" from the allies, albeit wholesomely restrained by something in Mr. Hamlin's eye which was visible, and probably a suspicion of something in Mr. Hamlin's pocket which was not visible. But the remaining portion of Mr. Hamlin was ironically gracious.
"Friends of yours, I suppose?" he inquired, affably. "'Carámbas' all of them, too! Perhaps they'll call with you? Maybe they haven't time and are in a hurry now? If my room isn't large enough, and they can't wait, there's a handy lot o' ground beyond on the next square—Plaza del Toros, eh? What did you say? I'm a little deaf in this ear."
Under the pretence of hearing more distinctly, Jack Hamlin approached the nearest man, who, I grieve to say, instantly and somewhat undignifiedly retreated. Mr. Hamlin laughed. But already a crowd of loungers had gathered, and he felt it was time to end this badinage, grateful as it was to his sense of humour. So he lifted his hat gravely to Victor and his friends, replaced it perhaps aggressively tilted a trifle over his straight nose, and lounged slowly back to his hotel, leaving his late adversaries in secure but unsatisfactory and dishonourable possession of the field. Once in his own quarters, he roused the sleeping Pete, and insisted upon opening a religious discussion, in which, to Pete's great horror, he warmly espoused the Catholic Church, averring, with several strong expletives, that it was the only religion fit for a white man, and ending somewhat irreverently by inquiring into the condition of the pistols.
Meanwhile Victor had also taken leave of his friends.
"He has fled—this most infamous!" he said; "he dared not remain and face us! Thou didst observe his fear, Tiburcio? It was thy great heart that did it!"
"Rather he recognised thee, my Victor, and his heart was that of the coyote."
"It was the Mexican nation, ever responsive to the appeal of manhood and liberty, that made his liver as blanched as that of the chicken," returned the gentleman who had retreated from Jack. "Let us then celebrate this triumph with a little glass."
And Victor, who was anxious to get away from his friends, and saw in the prospective aguardiente a chance for escape, generously led the way to the first wine-shop.
It chanced to be the principal one of the town. It had the generic quality—that is, was dirty, dingy, ill-smelling, and yellow with cigarette smoke. Its walls were adorned by various prints—one or two French in origin, excellent in art, and defective in moral sentiment, and several of Spanish origin, infamous in art, and admirable in religious feeling. It had a portrait of Santa Anna, and another of the latest successful revolutionary general. It had an allegorical picture representing the Genius of Liberty descending with all the celestial machinery upon the Mexican Confederacy. Moved apparently by the same taste for poetry and personification, the proprietor had added to his artistic collection a highly coloured American handbill representing the Angel of Healing presenting a stricken family with a bottle of somebody's Panacea. At the farther extremity of the low room a dozen players sat at a green-baize table absorbed in monte. Beyond them, leaning against the wall, a harp-player twanged the strings of his instrument, in a lugubrious air, with that singular stickiness of touch and reluctancy of finger peculiar to itinerant performers on that instrument. The card-players were profoundly indifferent to both music and performer.
The face of one of the players attracted Victor's attention. It was that of the odd English translator—the irascible stranger upon whom he had intruded that night of his memorable visit to Don José. Victor had no difficulty in recognising him, although his slovenly and negligent working-dress had been changed to his holiday antique black suit. He did not lift his eyes from the game until he had lost the few silver coins placed in a pile before him, when he rose grimly, and nodding brusquely to the other players, without speaking left the room.
"He has lost five half-dollars—his regular limit—no more, no less," said Victor to his friend. "He will not play again to-night!"
"You know of him?" asked Vincente, in admiration of his companion's superior knowledge.
"Si!" said Victor. "He is a jackal, a dog of the Americanos," he added, vaguely intending to revenge himself on the stranger's former brusqueness by this depreciation. "He affects to know our history—our language. Is it a question of the fine meaning of a word—the shade of a technical expression?—it is him they ask, not us! It is thus they treat us, these heretics! Carámba!"
"Carámba!" echoed Vincente, with a vague patriotism superinduced by aguardiente. But Victor had calculated to unloose Vincente's tongue for his private service.
"It is the world, my friend," he said, sententiously. "These Americanos—come they here often?"
"You know the great American advocate—our friend—Don Arturo Poinsett?"
"Yes," said Victor, impatiently. "Comes he?"
"Eh! does he not?" laughed Vincente. "Always. Ever. Eternally. He has a client—a widow, young, handsome, rich, eh?—one of his own race."
"Ah! you are wise, Vincente!"
Vincente laughed a weak spirituous laugh.
"Ah! it is a transparent fact. Truly—of a verity. Believe me!"
"And this fair client—who is she?"
"Donna Maria Sepulvida!" said Vincente, in a drunken whisper.
"How is this? You said she was of his own race."
"Truly, I did. She is Americana. But it is years ago. She was very young. When the Americans first came, she was of the first. She taught the child of the widower Don José Sepulvida, herself almost a child; you understand? It was the old story. She was pretty, and poor, and young; the Don grizzled, and old, and rich. It was fire and tow. Eh? Ha! Ha! The Don meant to be kind, you understand, and made a rich wife of the little Americana. He was kinder than he meant, and in two years, Carámba! made a richer widow of the Donna."
If Vincente had not been quite thrown by his potations, he would have seen an undue eagerness in Victor's mouth and eyes.
"And she is pretty—tall and slender like the Americans, eh?—large eyes, a sweet mouth?"
"An angel. Ravishing!"
"And Don Arturo—from legal adviser turns a lover!"
"It is said," responded Vincente, with drunken cunning and exceeding archness; "but thou and I, Victor, know better. Love comes not with a brief! Eh? Look, it is an old flame, believe me. It is said it is not two months that he first came here, and she fell in love with him at the first glance. Absurdo! Disparátado! Hear me, Victor; it was an old flame; an old quarrel made up. Thou and I have heard the romance before. Two lovers not rich, eh? Good! Separation; despair. The Señorita marries the rich man, eh?"
Victor was too completely carried away by the suggestion of his friend's speech, to conceal his satisfaction. Here was the secret at last. Here was not only a clue, but absolutely the missing Grace Conroy herself. In this young Americana—this—widow—this client of her former lover, Philip Ashley, he held the secret of three lives. In his joy he slapped Vincente on the back, and swore roundly that he was the wisest of men.
"I should have seen her—the heroine of this romance—my friend. Possibly, she was at mass?"
"Possibly not. She is Catholic, but Don Arturo is not. She does not often attend when he is here."
"As to-day?"
"As to-day."
"You are wrong, friend Vincente," said Victor, a little impatiently. "I was there; I saw her."
Vincente shrugged his shoulders and shook his head with drunken gravity.
"It is impossible, Señor Victor, believe me."
"I tell you I saw her," said Victor, excitedly. "Borrachon! She was there! By the pillar. As she went out she partook of agua bendita. I saw her; large eyes, an oval face, a black dress and mantle."
Vincente, who, happily for Victor, had not heard the epithet of his friend, shook his head and laughed a conceited drunken laugh.
"Tell me not this, friend Victor. It was not her thou didst see. Believe me, I am wise. It was the Donna Dolores who partook of agua bendita, and alone. For there is none, thou knowest, that has a right to offer it to her. Look you, foolish Victor, she has large eyes, a small mouth, an oval face. And dark—ah, she is dark!"
"'In the dark all are as the devil,'" quoted Victor, impatiently, "how should I know? Who then is she?" he demanded almost fiercely, as if struggling with a rising fear. "Who is this Donna Dolores?"
"Thou art a stranger, friend Victor. Hark ye. It is the half-breed daughter of the old commander of San Ysabel. Yet, such is the foolishness of old men, she is his heiress! She is rich, and lately she has come into possession of a great grant, very valuable. Thou dost understand, friend Victor? Well, why dost thou stare? She is a recluse. Marriage is not for her; love, love! the tender, the subduing, the delicious, is not for her. She is of the Church, my Victor. And to think that thou didst mistake this ascetic, this nun, this little brown novice, this Donna Dolores Salvatierra for the little American coquette. Ha! Ha! It is worth the fee of another bottle? Eh? Victor, my friend! Thou dost not listen. Eh? Thou wouldst fly, traitor. Eh? what's that thou sayst? Bobo! Dupe thyself!"
For Victor stood before him, dumb, but for that single epithet. Was he not a dupe? Had he not been cheated again, and this time by a blunder in his own malice? If he had really, as he believed, identified Grace Conroy in this dark-faced devotee whose name he now learned for the first time, by what diabolical mischance had he deliberately put her in possession of the forged grant, and so blindly restored her the missing property? Could Don Pedro have been treacherous? Could he have known, could they all—Arthur Poinsett, Dumphy, and Julie Devarges—have known this fact of which he alone was ignorant? Were they not laughing at him now? The thought was madness.
With a vague impression of being shaken rudely off by a passionate hand, and a drunken vision of a ghastly and passionate face before him uttering words of impotent rage and baffled despair, Vincente, the wise and valiant, came slowly and amazedly to himself, lying over the table. But his late companion was gone.
CHAPTER VI.
AN EXPERT.
A cold, grey fog had that night stolen noiselessly in from the sea, and, after possessing the town, had apparently intruded itself in the long, low plain before the hacienda of the Rancho of the Holy Trinity, where it sullenly lingered even after the morning sun had driven in its eastern outposts. Viewed from the Mission towers, it broke a cold grey sea against the corral of the hacienda, and half hid the white walls of the hacienda itself. It was characteristic of the Rancho that, under such conditions, at certain times it seemed to vanish entirely from the sight, or rather to lose and melt itself into the outlines of the low foot-hills, and Mr. Perkins, the English translator, driving a buggy that morning in that direction, was forced once or twice to stop and take his bearings anew, until the grey sea fell, and the hacienda again heaved slowly into view.
Although Mr. Perkins' transformations were well known to his intimate associates, it might have been difficult for any stranger to have recognised the slovenly drudge of Pacific Street, in the antique dandy who drove the buggy. Mr. Perkins' hair was brushed, curled, and darkened by dye. A high stock of a remote fashion encompassed his neck, above which his face, whitened by cosmetics to conceal his high complexion, rested stiffly and expressionless as a mask. A light blue coat buttoned tightly over his breast, and a pair of close-fitting trousers strapped over his japanned leather boots, completed his remarkable ensemble. It was a figure well known on Montgomery Street after three o'clock—seldom connected with the frousy visitor of the Pacific Street den, and totally unrecognisable on the plains of San Antonio.
It was evident, however, that this figure, eccentric as it was, was expected at the hacienda, and recognised as having an importance beyond its antique social distinction. For, when Mr. Perkins drew up in the courtyard, the grave major domo at once ushered him into the formal, low-studded drawing-room already described in these pages, and in another instant the Donna Dolores Salvatierra stood before him.
With a refined woman's delicacy of perception, Donna Dolores instantly detected under this bizarre exterior something that atoned for it, which she indicated by the depth of the half-formal curtsey she made it. Mr. Perkins met the salutation with a bow equally formal and respectful. He was evidently agreeably surprised at his reception, and impressed with her manner. But like most men of ill-assured social position, he was a trifle suspicious and on the defensive. With a graceful gesture of her fan, the Donna pointed to a chair, but her guest remained standing.
"I am a stranger to you, Señor, but you are none to me," she said, with a gracious smile. "Before I ventured upon the boldness of seeking this interview, your intelligence, your experience, your honourable report was already made known to me by your friends. Let me call myself one of these—even before I break the business for which I have summoned you."
The absurd figure bowed again, but even through the pitiable chalk and cosmetics of its complexion, an embarrassed colour showed itself. Donna Dolores noticed it, but delicately turned toward an old-fashioned secretary, and opened it, to give her visitor time to recover himself. She drew from a little drawer a folded, legal-looking document, and then placing two chairs beside the secretary, seated herself in one. Thus practically reminded of his duty, Mr. Perkins could no longer decline the proffered seat.
"I suppose," said Donna Dolores, "that my business, although familiar to you generally—although you are habitually consulted upon just such questions—may seem strange to you, when you frankly learn my motives. Here is a grant purporting to have been made to my—father—the late Don José Salvatierra. Examine it carefully, and answer me a single question to the best of your judgment." She hesitated, and then added—"Let me say, before you answer yes or no, that to me there are no pecuniary interests involved—nothing that should make you hesitate to express an opinion which you might be called upon legally to prove. That you will never be required to give. Your answer will be accepted by me in confidence; will not, as far as the world is concerned, alter the money value of this document—will leave you free hereafter to express a different opinion, or even to reverse your judgment publicly if the occasion requires it. You seem astounded, Señor Perkins. But I am a rich woman. I have no need to ask your judgment to increase my wealth."
"Your question is"——said Mr. Perkins, speaking for the first time without embarrassment.
"Is that document a forgery?"
He took it out of her hand, opened it with a kind of professional carelessness, barely glanced at the signature and seals, and returned it.
"The signatures are genuine," he said, with business-like brevity; then he added, as if in explanation of that brevity, "I have seen it before."
Donna Dolores moved her chair with the least show of uneasiness. The movement attracted Mr. Perkins' attention. It was something novel. Here was a woman who appeared actually annoyed that her claim to a valuable property was valid. He fixed his eyes upon her curiously.
"Then you think it is a genuine grant?" she said, with a slight sigh.
"As genuine as any that receive a patent at Washington," he replied, promptly.
"Ah!" said Donna Dolores, simply. The feminine interjection appeared to put a construction upon Señor Perkins' reply that both annoyed and challenged him. He assumed the defensive.
"Have you any reason to doubt the genuineness of this particular document?"
"Yes. It was only recently discovered among Don José's papers, and there is another in existence."
Señor Perkins again reached out his hand, took the paper, examined it attentively, held it to the light and then laid it down. "It is all right," he said. "Where is the other?"
"I have it not," said Donna Dolores.
Señor Perkins shrugged his shoulders respectfully as to Donna Dolores, but scornfully of an unbusiness-like sex. "How did you expect me to institute a comparison?"
"There is no comparison necessary if that document is genuine," said the Donna, quickly.
Señor Perkins was embarrassed for a moment. "I mean there might be some mistake. Under what circumstances is it held—who holds it? To whom was it given?"
"That is a part of my story. It was given five years ago to a Dr. Devarges—I beg your pardon, did you speak?"
Señor Perkins had not spoken, but was staring with grim intensity at Donna Dolores. "You—said—Dr. Devarges," he repeated, slowly.
"Yes. Did you know him?" It was Donna Dolores' turn to be embarrassed. She bit her lip and slightly contracted her eyebrows. For a moment they both stood on the defensive.
"I have heard the name before," Mr. Perkins said at last, with a forced laugh.
"Yes, it is the name of a distinguished savant," said Donna Dolores, composedly. "Well—he is dead. But he gave this grant to a young girl named—named"—Dolores paused as if to recall the name—"named Grace Conroy."
She stopped and raised her eyes quickly to her companion, but his face was unmoved, and his momentary excitement seemed to have passed. He nodded his head for her to proceed.
"Named Grace Conroy," repeated Donna Dolores, more rapidly, and with freer breath. "After the lapse of five years a woman—an impostor—appears to claim the grant under the name of Grace Conroy. But perhaps finding difficulty in carrying out her infamous scheme, by some wicked, wicked art, she gains the affections of the brother of this Grace, and marries him as the next surviving heir." And Donna Dolores paused, a little out of breath, with a glow under her burnished cheek and a slight metallic quality in her voice. It was perhaps no more than the natural indignation of a quickly sympathising nature, but Mr. Perkins did not seem to notice it. In fact, within the last few seconds his whole manner had become absent and preoccupied; the stare which he had fixed a moment before on Donna Dolores was now turned to the wall, and his old face, under its juvenile mask, looked still older.
"Certainly, certainly," he said at last, recalling himself with an effort. "But all this only goes to prove that the grant may be as fraudulent as the owner. Then, you have nothing really to make you suspicious of your own claim but the fact of its recent discovery? Well, that I don't think need trouble you. Remember your grant was given when lands were not valuable, and your late father might have overlooked it as unimportant." He rose with a slight suggestion in his manner that the interview had closed. He appeared anxious to withdraw, and not entirely free from the same painful pre-absorption that he had lately shown. With a slight shade of disappointment in her face Donna Dolores also rose.
In another moment he would have been gone, and the lives of these two people thus brought into natural yet mysterious contact have flowed on unchanged in each monotonous current. But as he reached the door he turned to ask a trivial question. On that question trembled the future of both.
"This real Grace Conroy then I suppose has disappeared. And this—Doctor—Devarges"—he hesitated at the name as something equally fictitious—"you say is dead. How then did this impostor gain the knowledge necessary to set up the claim? Who is she?"
"Oh, she is—that is—she married Gabriel Conroy under the name of the widow of Dr. Devarges. Pardon me! I did not hear what you said. Holy Virgin! What is the matter? You are ill. Let me call Sanchez! Sit here!"
He dropped into a chair, but only for an instant. As she turned to call assistance he rose and caught her by the arm.
"I am better," he said. "It is nothing—I am often taken in this way. Don't look at me. Don't call anybody except to get me a glass of water—there, that will do."
He took the glass she brought him, and instead of drinking it threw back his head and poured it slowly over his forehead and face as he leaned backward in the chair. Then he drew out a large silk handkerchief and wiped his face and hair until they were dry. Then he sat up and faced her. The chalk and paint was off his face, his high stock had become unbuckled, he had unbuttoned his coat and it hung loosely over his gaunt figure; his hair, although still dripping, seemed to have become suddenly bristling and bushy over his red face. But he was perfectly self-possessed, and his voice had completely lost its previous embarrassment.
"Rush of blood to the head," he said, quietly; "felt it coming on all the morning. Gone now. Nothing like cold water and sitting posture. Hope I didn't spoil your carpet. And now to come back to your business." He drew up his chair, without the least trace of his former diffidence, beside Donna Dolores, "Let's take another look at your grant." He took it up, drew a small magnifying glass from his pocket and examined the signature. "Yes, yes! signature all right. Seal of the Custom House. Paper all regular." He rustled it in his fingers, "You're all right—the swindle is with Madame Devarges. There's the forgery—there's this spurious grant."
"I think not," said Donna Dolores, quietly.
"Why?"
"Suppose the grant is exactly like this in everything, paper, signature, seal and all."
"That proves nothing," said Mr. Perkins, quickly. "Look you. When this grant was drawn—in the early days—there were numbers of these grants lying in the Custom House like waste paper, drawn and signed by the Governor, in blank, only wanting filling in by a clerk to make them a valid document. She!—this impostor—this Madame Devarges, has had access to these blanks, as many have since the American Conquest, and that grant is the result. But she is not wise, no! I know the handwriting of the several copyists and clerks—I was one myself. Put me on the stand, Donna Dolores—put me on the stand, and I'll confront her as I have the others."
"You forget," said Donna Dolores, coldly, "that I have no desire to legally test this document. And if Spanish grants are so easily made, why might not this one of mine be a fabrication? You say you know the handwriting of the copyists—look at this."
Mr. Perkins seized the grant impatiently, and ran his eye quickly over the interlineations between the printed portions. "Strange!" he muttered. "This is not my own nor Sanchez; nor Ruiz; it is a new hand. Ah! what have we here—a correction in the date—in still another hand? And this—surely I have seen something like it in the office. But where?" He stopped, ran his fingers through his hair, but after an effort at recollection abandoned the attempt. "But why?" he said, abruptly, "why should this be forged?"
"Suppose that the other were genuine, and suppose that this woman got possession of it in some wicked way. Suppose that some one, knowing of this, endeavoured by this clever forgery to put difficulties in her way without exposing her."
"But who would do that?"
"Perhaps the brother—her husband! Perhaps some one," continued Donna Dolores, embarrassedly, with the colour struggling through her copper cheek, "some—one —who—did—not—believe that the real Grace Conroy was dead or missing!"
"Suppose the devil!—I beg your pardon. But people don't forge documents in the interests of humanity and justice. And why should it be given to you?"
"I am known to be a rich woman," said Donna Dolores. "I believe," she added, dropping her eyes with a certain proud diffidence that troubled even the preoccupied man before her, "I—believe—that is I am told—that I have a reputation for being liberal, and—and just."
Mr. Perkins looked it her for a moment with undisguised admiration. "But suppose," he said, with a bitterness that seemed to grow out of that very contemplation, "suppose this woman, this adventuress, this impostor, were a creature that made any such theory impossible. Suppose she were one who could poison the very life and soul of any man—to say nothing of the man who was legally bound to her; suppose she were a devil who could deceive the mind and heart, who could make the very man she was betraying most believe her guiltless and sinned against; suppose she were capable of not even the weakness of passion; but that all her acts were shrewd, selfish, pre-calculated even to a smile or a tear—do you think such a woman—whom, thank God! such as you cannot even imagine—do you suppose such a woman would not have guarded against even this? No! no!"
"Unless," said Donna Dolores, leaning against the secretary with the glow gone from her dark face and a strange expression trembling over her mouth, "unless it were the revenge of some rival."
Her companion started. "Good! It is so," he muttered to himself. "I would have done it. I could have done it! You are right, Donna Dolores." He walked to the window and then came hurriedly back, buttoning his coat as he did so, and rebuckling his stock. "Some one is coming! Leave this matter with me. I will satisfy you and myself concerning this affair. Will you trust this paper with me?" Donna Dolores without a word placed it in his hand. "Thank you," he said, with a slight return of his former embarrassment, that seemed to belong to his ridiculous stock and his buttoned coat rather than any physical or moral quality. "Don't believe me entirely disinterested either," he added, with a strange smile. "Adios."
She would have asked another question, but at that instant the clatter of hoofs and sound of voices arose from the courtyard, and with a hurried bow he was gone. The door opened again almost instantly to the bright laughing face and coquettish figure of Mrs. Sepulvida.
"Well!" said that little lady, as soon as she recovered her breath. "For a religiously inclined young person and a notorious recluse, I must say you certainly have more masculine company than falls to the lot of the worldly. Here I ran across a couple of fellows hanging around the casa as I drove up, and come in only to find you closeted with an old exquisite. Who was it—another lawyer, dear? I declare, it's too bad. I have only one!"
"And that one is enough, eh?" smiled Donna Dolores, somewhat gravely, as she playfully tapped Mrs. Sepulvida's fair cheek with her fan.
"Oh yes!" she blushed a little coquettishly—"of course! And here I rode over, post haste, to tell you the news. But first, tell me who is that wicked, dashing-looking fellow outside the courtyard? It can't be the lawyer's clerk."
"I don't know who you mean; but it is, I suppose," said Donna Dolores, a little wearily. "But tell me the news. I am all attention."
But Mrs. Sepulvida ran to the deep embrasured window and peeped out. "It isn't the lawyer, for he is driving away in his buggy, as if he were hurrying to get out of the fog, and my gentleman still remains. Dolores!" said Mrs. Sepulvida, suddenly facing her friend with an expression of mock gravity and humour, "this won't do! Who is that cavalier?"
With a terrible feeling that she was about to meet the keen eyes of Victor, Donna Dolores drew near the window from the side where she could look out without being herself seen. Her first glance at the figure of the stranger satisfied her that her fears were unfounded; it was not Victor. Reassured, she drew the curtain more boldly. At that instant the mysterious horseman wheeled, and she met full in her own the black eyes of Mr. Jack Hamlin. Donna Dolores instantly dropped the curtain and turned to her friend.
"I don't know!"
"Truly, Dolores?"
"Truly, Maria."
"Well, I believe you. I suppose then it must be me!"
Donna Dolores smiled, and playfully patted Mrs. Sepulvida's joyous face.
"Well, then?" she said invitingly.
"Well, then," responded Mrs. Sepulvida, half in embarrassment and half in satisfaction.
"The news!" said Donna Dolores.
"Oh—well," said Mrs. Sepulvida, with mock deliberation, "it has come at last!"
"It has?" said Donna Dolores, looking gravely at her friend.
"Yes. He has been there again to-day."
"And he asked you?" said Donna Dolores, opening her fan and turning her face toward the window.
"He asked me."
"And you said"——
Mrs. Sepulvida tripped gaily toward the window and looked out.
"I said"——
"What?"