“You cursed prying fool! you've spoiled all. There!” he shouted despairingly, as the quick clatter of hoofs rang from the arroyo behind them, “there they go! That's your work, blockhead! Out of my way, or by God—” but the sentence was left unfinished as, joined by the sheriff, who had galloped up at the sound of the robbers' flight, he darted past the unconcerned Ezekiel. Demorest would have followed, but Blandford, with a warning cry to him to remain and protect the carriage, halted him at the side of Corwin as the vehicle now rapidly approached.
But Ezekiel was before him even then, and as the driver pulled up, that inquiring man tumbled from his horse, ran to the door and opened it. Demorest rode up, glanced into the carriage, and fell back in blank amazement.
It was his wife who was sitting there alone, pale, erect, and beautiful. By some illusion of the moonlight, her face and figure, covered with soft white wrappings for a journey, looked as he remembered to have seen her the first night they had met in the Boston train. The picture was completed by the traveling bag and rug that lay on the seat before her. Another terrible foreboding seized him; his brain reeled. Was he going mad?
“Joan!” he stammered. “You? What is the meaning of this?”
Ezekiel whom but for his dazed condition he might have seen violently contorting his features in Joan's face, presumably in equal astonishment—broke into a series of discordant chuckles.
“Wa'al, ef that ain't Deacon Salisbury's darter all over. Ha! Here are ye two men folks makin' no end o' fuss to save that Mexican gal with pistols and ambushes and plots and counterplots, and yer's Joan Salisbury shows ye the way ha'ow to do it. And so, ma'am, you succeeded in fixin' it up with Dona Rosita to take her place and just sell them robbers cheap! Wa'al, ma'am, yer sold this yer party, too—for”—he advanced his face close to hers—“I never let on a word, though I knew it, and although they nearly knocked me off my hoss in their fuss and fury. Ha! ha! They wanted to know what I was doin' here, he-he! Tell 'em, Joan, tell 'em.”
Demorest gazed from one to another with a troubled face, yet one on which a faint relief was breaking.
“What does he mean, Joan? Speak,” he said, almost imploringly.
Joan, whose color was slightly returning, drew herself up with her old cold Puritan precision.
“After the scene you made this morning, Richard, when you chose to accuse your wife of unfaithfulness to her friend, her guest, and even your reputation, I resolved to go myself with Dona Rosita to Los Osos and explain the matter to her father. Some rumor of the ridiculous farce I have just witnessed reached us through Ezekiel, and frightened the poor girl so that she declined—and properly, too to face the hoax which you and some nameless impersonator of a disgraced fugitive have gotten up for purposes of your own! I wish you joy of your work! If the play is over now, I presume I may be allowed to proceed on my journey?”