Word of this was abroad through all the Valley. Underground speculation was rife as to which of the two women whom Courtrey favoured, Lola or Tharon, was responsible. Some said one, some the other. But Lola knew.
Then came the day itself––a golden summer 254 day as sweet and bright as that one years ago when Courtrey had married Ellen––at this same pine building where the laughable legal farces were enacted now.
Pale as a new moon Ellen rode in across the rolling stretches on one of the Ironwoods, with Cleve beside her. She was spiritless, silent. Cleve was silent, too, though for a far different reason. There was a frown between his brows, a glitter in his narrowed eyes. He was thinking of the only man in Corvan whom he had been able to persuade to present Ellen’s protest––Dick Burtree, one-time lawyer and man of parts in the outside, now a puffed and threadbare vagabond, whose paramount idea was whiskey and more whiskey. But Burtree could talk. Over his mottled and shapeless lips could, on occasion, pour a stream of pure oratory silver as the Vestal’s Veil.
When he was drunk he feared neither man nor devil, and he could speak best so. Therefore Cleve had given him enough money in advance to put him in trim.
“What you think Buck’ll say about me, Cleve?” Ellen asked anxiously. “What’s he mean to accuse me of?”
“Any dirty thing he can trump up, Sis,” said Cleve gravely, “he’s a-goin’ to make it a nasty 255 mess––an’ I wish to God you’d jest ride on down th’ Wall with me an’ never even look back.”
He leaned from his saddle and took the blue-veined hand in his. There was an unspeakable tenderness in his eyes as he regarded his sister. “What you say, Ellen? There’s life below, an’ work an’ other men. You’ll marry again, sometime–––”
But Ellen shook her head with its maize-gold crown.
“Nary other man, Cleve,” she said gently. “I’m all Buck’s woman.”
So they rode on toward the town, and Cleve knew that his last faint hope was dead.