In any great and growing business, there is often a readjusting and shifting of duties from shoulder to shoulder, as one official after another discovers aptitude for a special line of work.
Thus it happened that, contrary to Helen's fears, no comment was excited either in the office itself or in Ysleta over Elijah's prolonged absence. In both places it was tacitly assumed that his new venture was consuming the greater part of his time. For some weeks most of the routine business transacted in Elijah's name had in reality been performed by Helen, so that it was easy for her to take upon herself the entire direction of the office work. In their intimate official relations, Helen had discovered Elijah's weak points, but this discovery had drawn her closer to him. In the multitudinous business details of the office, often petty and annoying, Elijah had shown a restless impatience, and an inability to straighten them out satisfactorily. He had discovered a lack of the subtle distinctions of honor and honesty, characteristic of a man of strong, rugged integrity. With the development of the Las Cruces to a point of assured success, there had grown up in Elijah an increasing sense of the magnitude of his work and of himself.
Helen had taken the details of the office upon herself and with infinite patience she had worked them into harmony. She had been Elijah's conscience in a thousand different ways that were buried from sight in the work as a whole. Sometimes patiently, more often impatiently, Elijah had rebelled against her insistent suggestions, but in the end he had yielded. To a certain extent Helen had been blinded as to the real Elijah by her preconceived notions of him. She had regarded him as a great man with great ideas. With this central thought she had looked leniently upon his faults, as weaknesses inseparable from greatness. With a loyal devotion, especially characteristic of women, she had largely submerged herself in Elijah. She had gradually come to believe in him almost as he believed in himself. The disintegrating effects of this belief upon her character were gradual and insinuating. She was deteriorating from the strong, sturdy sense of honor that had been her chief characteristic. Upon Elijah, the effects of her loyalty were bound to be equally disastrous. She was his ideal of womanhood. She was his devoted ally. The result was a growing belief that what he desired was right and that this right should not be questioned.
Beyond a vague, ill-defined consciousness that she was getting on dangerous ground, Helen had given little thought to what might be the end of her intimate relations with Elijah. He was a married man. She had met his wife. The meeting had had the sinister effect of developing her sympathy for Elijah in a new line.
In the affairs of the Las Cruces, Helen had been Elijah's conscience. He had repeatedly yielded to her judgment. She had experienced a glow of satisfaction in this that had strengthened the bonds between them. Of late, she had been conscious that her influence was becoming less potent, but she had not connected this fact with the advent of Mrs. MacGregor. The first indication that Elijah's actions were not as wholly in her keeping as she had assumed was her suspicion of his transaction with the Pacific Bank. This had startled her, but to a certain extent she had glossed it over.
When she learned, not through Elijah, but through the published fact, of Elijah's mortgage to Mellin, the veil of his influence was thinned. It had startled her, shocked her, but it had strengthened her determination to make the venture a success, even at the price of an open rupture when her strength would be pitted against Elijah's. She had no fear for results; Elijah had placed too many weapons in her hands which she could use against him. She would compel him, if her influence failed. If Elijah should force her to go to Seymour or Ralph, she was ready to take any consequences they might thrust upon her.
When she had learned, not by Elijah's voluntary confession, but by the confession which she had forced from him, that he had converted the company's money to his own use, and had in reality made her a party to it, the shock impelled her to open rupture and at once. Then came the reaction to pity for the strained, agonized face that pleaded more strongly for mercy than his words. Her thoughts were not deliberately logical, but vibrating from point to point.
Another swing of her mental pendulum and the confession of his guilty love came back to her with crushing, humiliating force. She could not forget the shame of it. Even to this day the pain was not lulled. But in the first withering humiliation, when the last remnant of the veil of her illusion had been torn away, the sense of self-preservation had been strong within her. The open rupture had come. From now on she must fight Elijah and alone, fight for her honor and his redemption if possible. In the days that followed she had forgiven Elijah, but she could not forgive herself without atonement. The forgiveness had not drawn her to Elijah, it had put him farther away. She forgave him in justice, for she felt that in some way, she did not see why, she could not reason why, but in some way, she had opened the road that had led to his declaration. Personalities were at an end between them; she had a right to this much; but in the Pico ranch transaction, the end was not yet. She revolted against it in her heart, but in this matter were involved more than herself and Elijah. She would see it through; she must.