ALMOST A TRAGEDY
Morton's passion for the beautiful girl beside him had overcome his discretion to such an extent that he was hardly responsible for what he did. The exhilaration of this swift ride through the gathering darkness, the sense of nearness to the woman he believed he loved with every force in him, the certainty that they were alone, and that, for the moment at least, she was his sole possession, stirred up within the young ranchman's mind those elements of barbaric wildness which had grown and thrived to riotousness and recklessness during the life he had lived on the cattle-ranges of Montana, but which had been more or less dormant during his Eastern experiences. He forgot, for the moment, the Sunday-night scene wherein he had promised to be Patricia's friend, and had ceased to be her lover; he remembered only that she was there beside him, with her terror-stricken eyes peering into his beseechingly, and that she looked more beautiful than ever she had before. But, more than all else, the influence she had had over him was absent, and this was so because her haughty defiance and the proud spirit she had hitherto manifested in her attitude were gone. He had never seen her like this before, with the courage taken out of her. It was a new and unknown quality, alluringly feminine, wholly dependent, that possessed her now. She was frightened. And so Morton forgot himself. He permitted the innate wildness of his own nature to rule. He followed an impulse, as wild as it was unkind. He seized her in his arms, and crushed her against him, raining kisses upon her cheeks and brow, and upon even her lips. Patrica strove bravely to fight him off; she struggled mightily to prevent this greatest of all indignities. She cried out to him, beseeching that he release her, but he seemed not to hear, or, if he heard, he paid no heed, and, after a moment more of vain effort, Patricia's figure suddenly relaxed. She realized the utter futility of her effort to hold the man at bay, and she was suddenly inspired to practise a subterfuge upon him. She permitted herself to sink down helplessly, into his confining grasp, and she became, apparently, unconscious.
It was Richard Morton's turn to be frightened, then. On the instant, he realized what he had done. The enormity of the offense he had committed against her rushed upon him like a blow in the face, and he released her, so that she sank back into the confining seat beside him.
"Patricia! Patricia!" he called to her. He seized her hands, and rubbed them; he turned them over and struck the palms of them sharply, for he had somewhere heard that such action would bring a person out of a swoon; but, although he struggled anxiously, doing whatsoever he could to arouse her, and beseeching her in impassioned tones to speak to him, she seemed to remain unconscious, with her head lying back against the seat, her eyes closed, and her face paler than he had ever seen it before.
The car had stopped before the edge of a wood. Just beyond it, there was a bridge over which they must have passed, had they continued on their way. Morton raised his head and looked despairingly about him. He saw the bridge, and experience taught him that there must be a stream of water beneath it. With quick decision, he sprang from the car and ran forward, believing that, if he could return with his cap filled with water, he might restore his companion to consciousness. Then, strange to relate, no sooner had he left the car than Patricia opened her eyes, straightened her figure, and with a quick leap changed her seat to the one beneath the steering-wheel. She accomplished this while Morton was speeding away from her, toward the water.
She saw him arrive at the bridge and disappear down the bank, beneath it; and forthwith, she reversed the gear of the steamer, and opened the throttle. The engine responded instantly, and at the imminent risk of wrecking the car, she backed it, and turned it, reversing and going forward several times, before she quite succeeded in bringing it around, within the narrow space. But, at last, she did succeed, and, just at the moment when the car was headed in the opposite direction, Richard Morton reappeared. He saw, at a glance, what had happened during his short absence. He understood that Patricia had outwitted him, and he ran forward, shouting aloud as he did so.
Patricia caught one glimpse of him over her shoulder, and saw that he carried in his hands the cap he had filled with water to use in restoring her to consciousness—a consciousness she had not for a moment lost, which now was so alert and manifest in effecting her escape.
She paid no heed to his shouts. She opened the throttle wider and wider, and the steam roadster darted away through the darkness, with Patricia Langdon under the wheel, leaving Richard Morton, cap in hand, standing in the middle of the highway, gazing after her, speechless with amazement and more than ever in love with the courageous young woman who could dare, and do, so much.
Patricia Langdon was thoroughly capable of operating any automobile, as was demonstrated by this somewhat startling climax to the unpleasant scene through which she had just passed. Beneath her customary repose of manner, her outward self-restraint and her dignified if somewhat haughty manner, there was a spirit of wildness, which, for years, had found no expression, till now. But, the moment she turned the car about and succeeded in heading it in the opposite direction, the instant she realized that she was mistress of the situation, which, so short a time before, had been replete with unknown terrors, she experienced all that sense of exhilaration which the winner of any battle must feel, when it is brought to a successful issue. She heard herself laugh aloud, defiantly and with a touch of glee, although it did not seem to her as if it were Patricia Langdon who laughed; it was, perhaps, some hitherto undiscoverable spirit of recklessness within her, which called forth that expression of defiant joy, which Richard Morton could not fail to hear.
The night was dark, by now, and there were only the stars to light the narrow way along which Patricia was compelled to guide the flying car; but she thought nothing of this, for she could dimly discern the outlines of the roadway before her, and she believed she could follow it to the main highway, without accident. Morton had not lighted his lamps. There had been no opportunity to do so. But the road was an unfrequented one; and Patricia, as she fled away from Morton, through the darkness, thought only of making her escape, not at all of the dangers she might encounter while doing so.