SILCOTT DISCOVERS HE IS NOT WELCOME
RUTH lay snuggled up on the lounge in her sewing room, one foot tucked comfortably under her, half a dozen soft pillows piled at her back. She was looking rather indolently over the two days’ old Wagon Wheel Spoke to see if it gave any beef quotations. The day had been a busy one. In the morning she had ridden across to Pine Hollow to inspect a drift fence. Later she had come home covered with dust after watching the men fan oats. Getting out of her serviceable khaki, she had revelled in a hot bath and put on a loose morning gown and slippers. To-night she was content to be lazy and self-indulgent.
A leaded advertisement caught and held her eye. It was on the back page and boxed to draw more attention:
The Open A N C Ranch, together with all cattle and personal property pertaining thereto, is offered for sale by me at a figure much below its value to an immediate purchaser.
I shall be at the ranch, ENTIRELY UNARMED, for a week beginning next Monday. Prospective buyers may see me there.
LAWRENCE SILCOTT
The young woman read the announcement with contemptuous interest. She had expected Silcott to leave the country. It was not to be looked for that a man weak enough to betray his friends would run the risk of living in the neighbourhood of those who had suffered from his treachery. At the two capitalized words she smiled bitterly. They were both a confession and a shield of defense. They admitted fear, and at the same time disarmed the righteous anger of his former neighbours. Ruth conceded the shrewdness of his policy, even while her pluck despised the spirit that had dictated it.
Inevitably she compared him with Rowan. Her imagination pictured McCoy as he had sat through the strain of the trial—cool, easy, undisturbed, master of whatever fate might be in store for him. She saw in contrast Silcott, no longer graceful and debonair, smiles and gaiety all wiped out, a harried, irritable wretch close to collapse. It was the first time she had ever seen two men’s souls under the acid test. One had assayed pure gold; the other a base alloy.
Why? What was the difference between them? Both had lived clean, hard lives in the open. Neither of them had spurred their nerves with alcohol or unduly depressed them with overmuch tobacco. Externally both of them were fine specimens of the genus man. But in crisis one had crumpled up, his manhood vanished; the other had quietly stood his punishment. The distinction between them was that one had character and the other lacked it.
Yet all these years Silcott had been accepted in the community as a good fellow. His showy accomplishments, his shallow good looks, and his veneer of friendliness had won a place for him. Ruth was deeply ashamed that she had let him go as far with her as he had.
Her thoughts went back to Rowan. They never wandered very long from him these days. He was the centre of her universe, though he was shut up behind bars in a dingy prison. She knew she was not responsible for the thing he had done, but she reproached herself that she had not been a greater comfort to him in the dark days and nights of trial. She had thought of herself, of her grievances, too much; not enough of him and his needs.
No, that was not true. He had been in her mind enough, but she had not been able to forget the treason to love in which he had involved himself. It had risen like a barrier between them every time she had wanted to let him know how much she suffered with him. There was something about it almost unforgiveable, something that struck at the very roots of faith and confidence and hope. It negatived everything she had believed him to be, since it proved that he could not be the man she had so tremendously admired.
Even now she would not let herself think of it if she could help. She thrust the memory back into the unused chambers of her mind and tried to forget.
What she wanted to see in Rowan, what she always did see except for this one incongruous aspect, was what others saw, too, the fineness and the strength of him.
Some sound on the porch outside attracted her attention. A loose plank creaked. It seemed to her she heard the shuffling of furtive feet. Then there was silence.
Ruth sat up. The curtains were drawn, so that she could not see out without rising.
Fingers fumbled at the latch of the French window she had had made. She was not afraid, but she felt a curious expectant thrill of excitement. Who could be there?
Slowly the casement opened. A man’s head craned forward. Eyes searched the room warily and found the young woman.
Ruth rose. “You—here!”
Larry Silcott put his finger to his lips, came in, and closed the window carefully.
“What do you want?” demanded the girl, eyes flashing.
The man looked haggard and miserable. All his gay effrontery had been wiped out.
“I want to see you—to talk with you,” he pleaded.
“What about?” Her manner was curt and uncompromising.
“I want to explain. I want to tell you how it was.”
“Is that necessary?” asked Ruth, her scornful eyes full on him.
“Yes. I don’t want you to blame me. You know how—how fond I am of you.”
She threw out a contemptuous little gesture. “Please spare me that.”
“Don’t be hard on me, Ruth. Listen. They had the goods on us. We were going to hang—every one of us. They kept at me day and night. They pestered me—woke me out of my sleep to argue and explain. If it hadn’t been me it would have been one of the others that gave evidence for the State.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true. Both Haight and Matson told me so. The only question was who would come through first.”
“If that was the only question for you, then it shows just what you are. Did you never hear of such things as honour and decency and fair play? If anybody was entitled to the benefit of State’s evidence it should have been the married men, poor Sam Yerby or Mr. Rogers. They have children dependent on them. Anybody with the least generosity could see that. But you’re selfish to the core. You never think of anybody but yourself.”
“How can you say that when you know that I love you, Ruth?”
Her eyes blazed. “Don’t say that. Don’t dare say it,” she cried.
“It’s true.”
“Nothing of what you say is true. You don’t know the truth when you see it. They picked you, Haight and Matson did, because they knew you had no strength or courage. Do you suppose that the others didn’t get a chance to betray their friends, too? All of them did. Every one of them. But they were men. That was the difference. So the prosecution focused on you. And you weakened.”
“Why not? I didn’t kill Tait or Gilroy. Why should I be hanged for it? I wasn’t guilty.”
“You are as guilty as Rowan was.”
“I dunno about that. He shot Gilroy, if Falkner didn’t,” Silcott said sulkily.
“Never! Never in the world!” she cried. “Don’t tell me so, you cowardly Judas!”
“You can talk. That’s easy. But you’ve never had a rope round your neck. You’ve never awakened in the night from a dream where they were taking you out to hang you. You’ve never been hounded till your nerves were ragged and you wanted to scream out.”
“I don’t care to discuss all that. You had no business to come here. You made your choice to save yourself. That was your privilege, just as it is mine to prefer never to see you again.”
His voice rose. “Why do you say that? I’m not a leper. I’m still Larry Silcott, your friend. Say I did wrong. Don’t you suppose I’ve paid? Don’t you suppose I’ve lived in hell ever since? Have I got to spend all the rest of my life an outcast?”
She would not let herself sympathize with his wretchedness. He had betrayed the man she loved, had struck at his life. The harsh judgment of youth condemned him.
“You should have thought of that before you sold out the men who trusted you,” she told him coldly.
“I didn’t sell them out. I didn’t get a penny for it. I told the truth. That’s all,” he cried wildly.
“You had forfeited the right to tell the truth. And you did sell them out. You wouldn’t be here to-night if you hadn’t.”
Silcott shifted his defense. “I’m sick and tired of things to-night, Ruth. Let’s not quarrel,” he begged.
“I’m not quarrelling. I don’t quarrel with any one except my friends, and I’m trying to make it clear that Mr. Lawrence Silcott is not one of them. You are not welcome here, sir. I ask you to leave.”
“Do you chuck your friends overboard when they make one mistake? Don’t you ever give them a second chance?” he appealed. “Can’t you make any allowance for circumstances? I was sick all the time I was in jail. They took advantage of me. I never would have done it if I’d been well. You’ve got to believe me, Ruth.”
“Maybe it’s true. I hope so.” In spite of herself she was touched by his misery.
“You’ve got to forgive me, Ruth. I—oh, you don’t know what I’ve been through!” He broke down and brushed his hand across his eyes. “I haven’t slept for a week. It’s been hell every hour.”
“You’d better go away somewhere,” she suggested. “Leave your affairs with an agent. You ought not to stay here.”
“No. My nerves are all jumpy. I’ve got to get away.” He took a long breath and plunged on: “I’m going to begin all over again in Los Angeles or San Francisco. I’ve had my lesson. I’ll run straight from now on. I’m going to work hard and get ahead. If you’d only stand by me, Ruth. If you’d——”
“I can’t be a friend of the man who betrayed my husband, if that’s what you mean.”
“You’d have to choose between him and me. That’s true. Well, Rowan is in the penitentiary for life. You’re young. You can’t wait for ever. It wouldn’t be right you should. Besides, you and Rowan never did get along well. I’m not saying a word against him, but——”
“You’d better not!” she flamed, the lace on her bosom rising and falling fast with her passionate anger. “You say he is in the penitentiary. Who put him there?”
“That isn’t the point, Ruth. Hear me out. You can get free from him without any trouble. The law says that a convict’s wife can get a divorce any time——”
“I don’t want a divorce. I’d rather be his wife, if he stays in prison for ever, than be married to any other man on earth. I—I never heard such insolence in my life. I’ve a good mind to call the men to throw you off the place. Every moment you stay here is an insult to me.”
He moistened his parched lips with the tip of his tongue. “There is no use getting excited, Ruth. I came here because I love you. If you’d only be reasonable. Listen. I’m going to California. If you change your mind and want to come out there——”
Ruth marched past him and flung the door open. She turned on him eyes that blazed. “If you’re not gone in five seconds, I’ll turn the men loose on you. They’ve been aching for a chance.”
His vanity withered before her wrath. For the moment he saw himself as she saw him, a snake in the grass, hateful to all decent human beings. It was a moral certainty that she would keep her word and call the Circle Diamond riders. What they would do to him he could guess.
He went without another word.
Presently she heard him galloping down the road and out of her life.
The anger died out of Ruth almost instantly. She was filled with a sense of desolating degradation. There had been a time in her life when she had put this weakling before Rowan, when her laughter and her friendliness had been for him instead of for the man to whom she was married. He had never of course been anything vital to her life, never one hundredth part as important to her as Rowan. Indeed, she had used him as an instrument with which to punish her husband. But the fact remained that she had offered him her friendship, had in resentment flirted with him and skirted the edge of sex emotion.
The feeling that flooded her now was almost a physical nausea.