The San Rosario Ranch
expression which made him draw back; and the girl, without a word,
passed out of the doorway and stood unprotected in the driving storm.
Before her mute grief, his passionate longing was turned to a great and
holy pity. He stood beside her and said gently,--
"Millicent, you will not leave me without a word? You must not go out
into the storm; I will leave you here alone, if you wish, until the rain
is over. Do not be so cruel as to doubt me, dear one."
He stopped, for his words had made her tremble. She feared him no
longer, and with a little sigh laid her hand in his and suffered him to
lead her into the room. The artist placed his visitor in a great chair,
and busied himself in making a fire on his cold hearth.
"Now this is more cheerful, fair lady, is it not?" he cried, in a
pleasant voice. "And pray tell me what brought you to my lonely
dwelling."
"I had always wanted to see your tower, Graham; and this morning they
all went to San Francisco for the day, and I thought I would ride over
and look at it from the outside. I found old John airing the room, and
accepted his invitation to rest here for half an hour before riding
home. He came up just now to tell me that it was going to rain, but as
he thought it would be only a shower he had put my horse under shelter.
This is how I came here; and now tell me what brought you so
unexpectedly from town."
"I cannot tell, white one. Your will, perhaps."
"Nay, friend, that has never swayed thee one hair's-breadth from thine
appointed course."
He shook his head sadly, and looked out of the window. She did not
know--it was better for her perhaps that she never should know--how
great an influence she had wielded over his life. She did not know that
for her, faith and youth had bloomed in his heart when he had thought
them dead. Her untruth was killing them, and their death-agony had
shaken and worn him cruelly. She thought him hard and relentless. It
might be easier for her to dull the pain in her heart, with this
consciousness of injury received. He would never tell her of the
irreparable wrong she had done him. If he was not forgiving he was
magnanimous. No word of reproach should pass his lips.
Outside the rain was pouring down, but less steadily; the patter of the
drops sounded more and more lightly on the window-panes. The shower
would not long continue. Graham took note of the clearing sky, and
sighed heavily. With all her faults he loved her; the tower would be
lonelier than ever when she had flitted from it like a sprite of the
rain-storm. The great trees outside lifted up their branches with a
mighty wailing, echoing his sigh; and Millicent, as if conscious that
love was pleading against pride in that strong heart which had never
learned the lesson of forgiveness, turned her white, appealing face
towards him. The man's being had been swept that day with fiery
impulses from the first moment of consciousness. Passionate love, pity,
scorn, and anger had in turn written their impress on his mobile face.
He came close to her side, and taking both her hands in his, knelt at
her side:
"O Millicent, Millicent! could he not have spared you? We could have
loved each other so truly! Poor child, poor child! What fiend was he
to have betrayed you! But now it can never be, never, never, never!"
The words rang out drearily, the death-knell of all that had made life
beautiful to them both. The pale girl sat motionless, speechless, her
eyes dark with horror, her hands nerveless in his passionate grasp.
Tears fell upon those white fingers which he had so often kissed,--cruel
tears wrung from the bruised heart of the man she loved; tears that she
had no power to check, tears that had their source in her own sin. In
that hour of agony, if remorse may in aught atone for error, Millicent
must have been forgiven of the angels. The proud man knew how to suffer,
but he could not forgive. He arose and dashed the tears from his eyes;
they had cost him mortal pain.
The rain was over, the gray sky had cleared; and Millicent, like a gray
shadow, slipped from the tower, leaving her lover alone, with the
mocking sunlight shining on his dark, tear-stained face.
CHAPTER XVII.
"Our bread was such as captives' tears
Have moistened many a thousand years,
Since man first pent his brother men
Like brutes within an iron den."
It was a long chase that brought Hal Deering and Maurice Galbraith face
to face with the ruffian, whom Hal readily identified. They found him
with a group of new-found friends in the chief liquor saloon of a small,
rather disreputable town, fifty miles from the Ranch. When the two
young men entered the place, the man they were looking for asked them to
join in the "all-round drink" he was about to "stand treat for," which
invitation was promptly declined by Hal Deering. After a whispered
word, Galbraith had left the shop; and Hal, seating himself at a table,
awaited the return of his friend, quietly enduring the insulting remarks
which the offended Horton heaped upon him. The loafers in the shop had
a kindly feeling toward the man who had treated them, and did not
discourage him in his attempts to force the new-comer into a quarrel.
But Hal was imperturbable, and answered neither with look nor word.
Stimulated by the whiskey he had imbibed, and the admiring attention of
his friends, the rowdy finally called out in a brutal voice,--
"If you think yerself too good to drink with this yere crowd, p'raps yer
would n't mind amusing 'em by showing 'em the last style of dancing down
in 'Frisco. 'T would raley please us to see you step out."
As he spoke he drew his pistol from his belt and pointed it at Deering.
The more sober ones of the party here interfered; and the burly
saloon-keeper stepped forward with the remark, that he "did n't mean to
'low anything but fair play in his shanty; and that if the genl'm'n had
a difference between them they must settle it outside."
The man whom Deering was after seated himself astride a hogshead of beer
and cocked his pistol, advising the "boss" to keep out of the affair if
he valued his "sweet life."
"Now, then, young man, if yer don't cut a caper before I count three, I
shall be obliged to see how much of your right boot-heel I can carry
away with this bullet, without endangering them handsome feet o' yourn."
Hal, only afraid of losing his man, answered coolly,--
"You can shoot if you want to. I am a stranger in this place, and I
prefer to do my dancing at home."
The proprietor again interposed, and laying his hand on the bully's
shoulder, ordered him to put up his shooting-irons. Horton threw him
off, and things were beginning to look rather serious; when Deering saw
Galbraith crossing the street with two men, one of whom he recognized as
the county sheriff.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I have come a long distance to find this man; I
am anxious to have his company as far as the San Bernardino prison,
where he will find comfortable board provided for him. If you are
law-abiding citizens, you will not interfere with the arrest of Daniel
Horton on an indictment of murder."
As he finished speaking, the three men entered, and the sheriff laid his
hand on Horton's shoulder. Murder is an ugly word, and a silence
followed Hal's speech. The crowd instinctively drew back from the man
who had been charged with the foul crime; and a silence ensued, which
was broken by the sheriff, a high-voiced little man, who said in a loud
tone,--
"I arrest you, Dan Horton, for the murder of Ah Lam, committed at
Carey's Bridge, on the afternoon of Wednesday last."
A revulsion of feeling was manifest in the faces of the crowd. The
horror for a person who has committed the unatonable crime of murder had
been felt; but when it transpired that the victim was a Chinaman, the
case appeared to be very much altered. The man, quick to see the
favorable change in public sentiment, cried,--
"Wall, boys, you see I am 'spected of having done the business for one
of these Chinese vermin. What sort of a town 's this as will see a man
'rested for that?"
Daniel Horton's experience of life in the rough mining towns, where the
last five years of his life had been spent, gave him the hope that the
men in the saloon would help him to escape from arrest. But though
sympathy for him was evinced by the group of idlers, there was no
attempt at resisting the officers; and the sheriff, assisted by
Galbraith and Deering, finally succeeded in placing the hand-cuffs on
his wrists. When he saw that there was no help for him, he submitted to
be led from the saloon, giving one parting look of scorn at the friends
whom he had won by a glass of liquor and lost on the appearance of an
officer.
"Of all the derned mean skunks as I ever met, this town numbers the
most," he muttered, as the screen door swung to behind him.
The examination of the prisoner was to be held in the court-room of the
county prison of San Bernardino. Millicent was summoned to be present.
Escorted by Deering and Galbraith, she arrived before the entrance of
the gloomy building, one bright October morning. It was a day when life
seemed a pleasant thing, if only because there were sunlight and color
in the odorous woods and pleasant highways. Just as they reached the
doorway, a line of people filed out from the narrow portal. They were
the discharged prisoners, some of whom had been in confinement for
twenty-four hours only, while others had not breathed the free air for
many weary months. A girl not older than Millicent passed them with a
slow, inelastic step and downcast eyes. Her slender figure was poorly
but decently clad in a gown of rusty black, her hair neatly arranged,
her hands and face clean and of a remarkable pallor. She alone among
the little group seemed loath to leave the prison, where at least she
had been among those who could not look down on her. At the threshold
she paused and shuddered, as if the wide street, with its row of young
shade-trees and neat sidewalk, were more forbidding than the narrow
prison-yard, with its spiked rails and dismal barred windows. Those who
were behind became impatient at her delay; and she was pushed not
ungently into the street by the man next to her in the sad procession.
As she found herself alone outside the dreary stone building, she gave a
low groan, clasping her poor thin hands together over her breast.
Millicent, moved by the pathetic gesture, spoke to her gently, asking if
she could in any way help her; but the girl shook her head as if annoyed
by the question, and walked quickly down the street, taking the first
turn which led her out of sight of the prison. All those who followed
were men, most of whom wore a conscious expression, as if they were more
embarrassed at being seen leaving the prison than mortified at having
merited the punishment which they had undergone. As the last of the
queue filed out, Galbraith entered the doorway, Millicent following him,
and Deering bringing up the rear. In the wide stone hall which they
entered were groups of men talking together or leaning idly against the
rails. A heavy grated door swung open with a rusty, grinding sound, and
two men appeared, arm-in-arm. The taller of the two was a handsome
young fellow, with blond, curling hair, blue eyes, and fresh rosy
cheeks. His expression was almost infantine in its beauty; and this,
with his jaunty air, contrasted strangely with his companion's ugly,
stooping figure and downcast, shamed face. The latter was a misshapen
creature, with a humped back and a large, ugly head furnished with
coarse hair and beard. As the grate clanged behind the couple, the
handsome young fellow laughed cheerily, stretched his limbs, and drew a