“Any one but Estrada! He’s about the only man in this camp without enmities,” thought Rickard, and then he wondered if any one had told Innes Hardin. He went in search of her, passing Coronel, whose head rested on his chest. His snores could be heard above the noise of the rock bombardment.
Mrs. Marshall, weeping, was being led back to the car by her husband. Innes, he could see, had heard! Her eyes, fixed on the conquered waters, were seeing Estrada, buried out there.
Rickard turned away without being seen. The minute he had been waiting for was not his. It belonged to Estrada.
CHAPTER XL
A DESERTION
WHEN the afternoon waned, and Godfrey did not follow her, Gerty was roused to uneasiness. Had she angered him by refusing to make the definite promise? Could it be love, the sort of love she wanted, if he could stay away like this when they could have the camp to themselves, every one down at the break, no Hardins running in every minute? Their first chance, and Godfrey slighting it! Something was wrong. The Godfrey who had rushed on work like a glad hungry tiger, was incomprehensible to her. Something must have happened.
She ruffled down to a disordered mess-tent. Wooster and one of the Reclamation Service men were leaving as she went in. She had the table to herself. MacLean, Jr., untidy, his clothes wet and dirty, came in to snatch a bite, as she passed out, gay, indifferent. No Godfrey in sight! Nor waiting for her in her tent. He would surely come that evening, knowing that she would be alone! She arranged without conscious thought the setting for a scene of pretty domesticity in the ramada. After an hour or more, she tossed down the fluffy sewing and picked up a novel, her work within reach of her hand. The approach of her own climax dulled the printed sensations.
The little watch Tom had given her for an almost forgotten birthday set the pace for her resentment. Nine, ten, eleven! How dared he treat her so? She blew out the lamps when she found that she was shaking with anger, and undressed in the dark. She could not see him, if he came now, her self-control all gone! But she could not go to bed. She stood in her darkened tent, shaken by her angry passions. Cruel, these men to her. That black moment stripped her thoughts to nakedness. If she had any other refuge, she would never forgive him, never. But what else could she do? Where could she go? Those lonely, straitened widowhoods! Not for her. She had been poor long enough. Even her little importance, as the wife of Thomas Hardin, was gone. She dared not lose her hold on Godfrey. It came to her then, how slight her hold on him was. A rover with a conquering voice like that! Keep him tied to her wrist like a tamed falcon?
Suppose that he were only trifling with her? What was that paper he had thrust in her hand? Where had she laid it? Had she dropped it on the way from the river? She groped for a match, and lighted a candle. Not in the dress she had on, for none of her gowns had pockets. Not on the floor, nor on the piano! There! She had dropped candle grease all over the green mandarin skirt, but she didn’t care. A fond message, perhaps, and she had lost it—out there somewhere, food for horrid talk! Her bureau drawers were ransacked in a frenzy of fear and haste. Suddenly, she remembered putting it in her handkerchief box.
Candle grease dripped over the yellow paper. It was a copy of a telegram to Godfrey’s lawyer. “Start divorce proceedings at once. Any grounds possible. Back soon. Godfrey.”
The frightened blood resumed its normal flow. If he had done this, for her, then she had not lost him. But she had seen what a desert her life would be, if she let him slip through her fingers. She couldn’t endure Tom Hardin. And Rickard—they would expect her to play the glad grandmother to their young romance! She couldn’t get away quick enough.