CHAPTER XIII
WHEREIN AN OLD SITUATION SEEMS ABOUT TO BE REPEATED, ANOTHER SHOT IS FIRED, AND THE BAD MAN COMES BACK
Deeper and deeper grew the darkness. Outside, indeed, the first stars had begun to shine, and soon the heavens were a miraculous glory. But there was no moon. Every road was hushed, and the trees waved their long arms in the gloom. The little machine that took Angela and her father home, rolled down the quiet valley. Its chug-chug was the only sound for miles around. "Red" was happy in the cool night. He rode all the way out to the Hardy ranch. He and Angela sang an old song, and let Jasper Hardy sit at the wheel and whirl them to the lights of home.
Meantime, back in Gilbert's adobe, the Mexican cook came from his stuffy kitchen and fetched a lamp for the sitting-room. He lighted two candles by the fireplace, closed the shutters and door, and went back to his pots and pans. He said nothing, noticed nothing. It had been a day of intense excitement for him, and he was glad to crawl back, like some tiny worm, into the cave where he ruled supreme.
Lucia, in the lamplight, was paler than before. The three of them were standing, curiously enough, almost as they had stood only a few brief hours ago; and as she looked around her now she thought of this.
"So," she said. "We're back just where we started from!" The grim humor of it came over her. Ten minutes ago she had thought her husband dead—done for, out of the way. Now he stood before her in all his virility, in all his cruelty; and behind him was the one man in the world that she loved.
"Not quite," said Gilbert. He stepped forward a pace or two. He saw that Lucia was alarmed. "Come," he begged of her. "Don't be afraid." Oh, the balm of those few words!
But she was not wholly herself yet. "What are you going to do?" she asked, and came nearer Gilbert. How strong and determined he looked in the dim light!
"I'm going to have this thing out," he said. "You can never go back to him now." There was finality in his voice.