Nan was ready to follow him whithersoever he led. She was ready to obey his lightest command, for she understood his skill. She had no thought for anything but the man she loved. No possibilities of mischance, no threat to herself could find place in her thought. For her Jeff's well-being was her single concern.
Elvine rode beside her, step for step. She had told her story as they rode. After that silence between them prevailed. It was a silence fraught with an emotion too deep for any words. A fierce jealousy mingled with her passionate longing. Her world was empty of all but two figures. The man she loved, and the girl who had confessed her love with all the strength of a great, simple courage.
Whatever the night might bring forth, whatever tragedy might be in store, she scarcely had thought for anything but her own almost mad resolve. This girl, this child of the plains, should obtain no advantage. She was prepared to yield all for the succor of the husband who had scorned her—even to life itself.
CHAPTER XXIV
TO SPRUCE CROSSING
The eyes of the night were there alone to see. It was as well. There are moments in men's lives when it is best that it should be so. Passions are not always sane. They are not always human.
So it was with Jeffrey Masters. The change in him had been rapid. It was almost magical. Always one who lacked something of the softer human qualities, he yet must have been counted a man of balance. If sympathy, sentiment, were never his strong points, he was by no means lacking in loyalty, kindliness, rightness of purpose. All his life, achievement, achievement under the strictest canons of honesty, or moral scruple, had been the motive urging him. He had seen neither to the right nor to the left of these things.
Then had come the woman into his life and the lighting of those natural fires which belong to all human life. He yielded to them, and the suddenness of it all seemed to sweep away every cooler method which had always governed him. There had been no thought, no calculation in his yielding, such as might have been expected. He was the victim of his own temperament. His powerful restraint had been suddenly relaxed. And, for the time, he had been completely overwhelmed by the intensity of his passion.
But this passion for the woman who had so suddenly entered his life was merely the opening of vials of emotion hitherto held sealed. It was no radical transformation. All that had been his before still remained, buried perhaps for the moment under the avalanche of feeling, but nevertheless still occupying its place. These things could not be swept away. They could not be destroyed. They would remain when the passionate fires had completely burned themselves out.
But the unlooked-for had happened. These fires had not been permitted to burn themselves out. They had been extinguished, deluged out of existence when the idol of his worship was flung headlong from its pedestal by the complete revolt of his moral being. His prejudices, his instincts, matured through years of effort, were the stronger part of him, and the conflict was decided before it began. The shock of discovery had brought a terrible reaction. His love was killed under the blow. And though for a while the sense of overwhelming disaster had been crushing, the measure of that disaster was taken swiftly. It left him disillusioned, it left him harder, colder. But it left him sane.