CHAPTER VII.

WHAT Pa.s.sED UNDER THE PINE AND WHAT REMAINED THERE.

Ramirez was not as happy in his revenge as he had antic.i.p.ated. He had, in an instant of impulsive rage, fired his mine prematurely, and, as he feared, impotently. Gabriel had not visibly sickened, faded, nor fallen blighted under the exposure of his wife's deceit. It was even doubtful, as far as Ramirez could judge from his quiet reception of the revelation, whether he would even call that wife to account for it.

Again, Ramirez was unpleasantly conscious that this exposure had lost some of its dignity and importance by being wrested from his as a _confession_ made under pressure or duress. Worse than all, he had lost the opportunity of previously threatening Mrs. Conroy with the disclosure, and the delicious spectacle of her discomfiture. In point of fact his revenge had been limited to the cautious cowardice of the anonymous letter-writer, who, stabbing in the dark, enjoys neither the contemplation of the agonies of his victim, nor the a.s.sertion of his own individual power.

To this torturing reflection a terrible suspicion of the Spanish translator, Perkins, was superadded. For Gabriel, Ramirez had only that contempt which every lawless lover has for the lawful husband of his mistress, while for Perkins he had that agonising doubt which every lawless lover has for every other man but the husband. In making this exposure had he not precipitated a catastrophe as fatal to himself as to the husband? Might they not both drive this woman into the arms of another man? Ramirez paced the little bedroom of the Grand Conroy Hotel, a prey to that b.a.s.t.a.r.d remorse of all natures like his own,--the overwhelming consciousness of opportunities for villany misspent.

Come what might he would see her again, and at once. He would let her know that he suspected her relations with this translator. He would tell her that he had written the letter--that he had forged the grant--that----

A tap at the door recalled him to himself. It opened presently to Sal, coy, bashful, and conscious. The evident agitation of this young foreigner had to Sal's matter-of-fact comprehension only one origin--a hopeless, consuming pa.s.sion for herself.

"Dinner hez bin done gone an hour ago," said that arch virgin, "but I put suthin' by for ye. Ye was inquirin' last night about them Conroys. I thought I'd tell ye thet Gabril hez bin yer askin' arter Lawyer Maxwell--which he's off to Sacramento--altho' one o' Sue Markle's most intymit friends and steddeyist boarders!"

But Mr. Ramirez had no ear for Gabriel now.

"Tell to me, Mees Clark," he said, suddenly turning all his teeth on her, with gasping civility, "where is this Senor Perkins, eh?"

"Thet shiny chap--ez looks like a old turned alpacker gownd!" said Sal; "thet man ez I can't abear," she continued, with a delicately maidenly suggestion that Ramirez need fear no rivalry from that quarter. "I don't mind--and don't keer to know. He hezn't bin yer since mornin'. I reckon he's up somewhar on Conroy's Hill. All I know ez thet he sent a message yer to git ready his volise to put aboard the Wingdam stage to-night.

Are ye goin' with him?"

"No," said Ramirez, curtly.

"Axin' yer parding for the question, but seein' ez he'd got booked for two places, I tho't ez maybe ye'd got tired o' plain mounting folks and mounting ways, and waz goin' with him," and Sal threw an arch yet reproachful glance at Ramirez.

"Booked for two seats," gasped Victor; "ah! for a lady perhaps--eh, Mees Clark? for a lady?"

Sal bridled instantly at what might have seemed a suggestion of impropriety on her part. "A lady--like his imperance--indeed! I'd like to know who would demean theirselves by goin' with the like o' he! But you're not startin' out agin without your dinner, and it waitin' ye in the oven? No? La! Mr. Ramirez, ye must be in luv! I've heerd tell ez it do take away the appet.i.te; not knowin' o' my own experense, though it's little hez pa.s.sed my lips these two days, and only when tempted."

But before Sal could complete her diagnosis, Mr. Ramirez gasped a few words of hasty excuse, seized his hat and hurried from the room.

Leaving Sal a second time to mourn over the effect of her coquettish playfulness upon the sensitive Italian nature, Victor Ramirez, toiling through the heat and fiery dust shaken from the wheels of incoming teams, once more brushed his way up the long ascent of Conroy's Hill, and did not stop until he reached its summit. Here he paused to collect his scattered thoughts, to decide upon some plan of action, to control the pulse of his beating temples, quickened by excitement and the fatigue of the ascent, and to wipe the perspiration from his streaming face. He must see her at once; but how and where? To go boldly to her house would be to meet her in the presence of Gabriel, and that was no longer an object; besides, if she were with this stranger it would not probably be there. By haunting this nearest umbrage to the house he would probably intercept them on their way to the Gulch, or overhear any other conference. By lingering here he would avoid any interference from Gabriel's cabin on the right, and yet be able to detect the approach of any one from the road. The spot that he had chosen was, singularly enough, in earlier days, Gabriel's favourite haunt for the indulgence of his noontide contemplation and pipe. A great pine, the largest of its fellows, towered in a little opening to the right, as if it had drawn apart for seclusion, and obeying some mysterious attraction, Victor went toward it and seated himself on an ab.u.t.ting root at its base. Here a singular circ.u.mstance occurred, which at first filled him with superst.i.tious fear. The handkerchief with which he had wiped his face--nay, his very shirt-front itself--suddenly appeared as if covered with blood. A moment later he saw that the ensanguined hue was only due to the dust through which he had plunged, blending with the perspiration that on the least exertion still started from every pore of his burning skin.

The sun was slowly sinking. The long shadow of Reservoir Ridge fell upon Conroy's Hill, and seemed to cut down the tall pine that a moment before had risen redly in the sunlight. The sounds of human labour slowly died out of the Gulch below, the far-off whistle of teamsters in the Wingdam road began to fail. One by one the red openings on the wooded hillside opposite went out, as if Nature were putting up the shutters for the day. With the gathering twilight Ramirez became more intensely alert and watchful. Treading stealthily around the lone pine tree, with shining eyes and gleaming teeth, he might have been mistaken for some hesitating animal waiting for that boldness which should come with the coming night. Suddenly he stopped, and leaning forward peered into the increasing shadow. Coming up the trail from the town was a woman. Even at that distance and by that uncertain light, Ramirez recognised the flapping hat and ungainly stride. It was Sal--perdition! Might the devil fly away with her! But she turned to the right with the trail that wound toward Gabriel's hut and the cottage beyond, and Victor breathed, or rather panted, more freely. And then a voice at his very side thrilled him to his smallest fibre, and he turned quickly. It was Mrs. Conroy, white, erect, and truculent.

"What are you doing here?" she said, with a sharp, quick utterance.

"Hush!" said Ramirez, trembling with the pa.s.sion called up by the figure before him. "Hush! There is one who has just come up the trail."

"What do I care who hears me now? You have made caution unnecessary,"

she responded, sharply. "All the world knows us now! and so I ask you again, what are _you_ doing here?"

He would have approached her nearer, but she drew back, twitching her long white skirt behind her with a single quick feminine motion of her hand, as if to save it from contamination.

Victor laughed uneasily. "You have come to keep your appointment; it is not my fault if I am late."

"I have come here because for the last half-hour I have watched you from my verandah, coursing in and out among the trees like a hound as you are! I have come to whip you off my land as I would a hound. But I have first a word or two to say to you as the man you have a.s.sumed to be."

Standing there with the sunset glow over her erect, graceful figure, in the pink flush of her cheek, in the cold fires of her eyes, in all the thousand nameless magnetisms of her presence, there was so much of her old power over this slave of pa.s.sion, that the scorn of her words touched him only to inflame him, and he would have grovelled at her feet could he have touched the thin three fingers that she warningly waved at him.

"You wrong me, Julie, by the G.o.d of Heaven! I was wild, mad, this morning--you understand--for when I came to you I found you with another! I had reason, Mother of G.o.d! I had reason for my madness, reason enough; but I came in peace. Julie, I came in peace!"

"In peace," returned Mrs. Conroy, scornfully; "your note was a peaceful one, indeed!"

"Ah! but I knew not how else to make you hear me. I had news--news you understand, news that might save you, for I came from the woman who holds the grant. Ah! you will listen, will you not? For one moment only, Julie, hear me, and I am gone."

Mrs. Conroy, with abstracted gaze, leaned against the tree. "Go on," she said coldly.

"Ah! you will listen then!" said Victor, joyfully; "and when you have listened you shall understand! Well. First I have the fact that the lawyer for this woman is the man who deserted the Grace Conroy in the mountains--the man who was called Philip Ashley, but whose real name is Poinsett."

"Who did you say?" said Mrs. Conroy, suddenly stepping from the tree, and fining a pair of cruel eyes on Ramirez.

"Arthur Poinsett--an ex-soldier, an officer. Ah, you do not believe--I swear to G.o.d it is so!"

"What has this to do with me?" she said scornfully, resuming her position beside the pine. "Go on--or is this all?"

"No, but it is much. Look you! he is the affianced of a rich widow in the Southern Country, you understand? No one knows his past. Ah, you begin to comprehend. He does not dare to seek out the real Grace Conroy.

He shall not dare to press the claim of his client. Consequently, he does nothing!"

"Is this all your news?"

"All!--ah, no. There is one more, but I dare not speak it here," he said, glancing craftily around through the slowly darkening wood.

"Then it must remain untold," returned Mrs. Conroy, coldly; "for this is our last and only interview."

"But, Julie!"

"Have you done?" she continued, in the same tone.

Whether her indifference was a.s.sumed or not, it was effective. Ramirez glanced again quickly around, and then said, sulkily, "Come nearer, and I will tell you. Ah, you doubt--you doubt? Be it so." But seeing that she did not move, he drew toward the tree, and whispered--"Bend here your head--I will whisper it."

Mrs. Conroy, evading his outstretched hand, bent her head. He whispered a few words in her ear that were inaudible a foot from the tree.

"Did you tell this to him--to Gabriel?" she asked, fixing her eyes upon him, yet without change in her frigid demeanour.

"No!--I swear to you, Julie, no! I would not have told him anything, but I was wild, crazy. And he was a brute, a great bear. He held me fast, here, so! I could not move. It was a forced confession. Yes--Mother of G.o.d--by force!"

Luckily for Victor the darkness hid the scorn that momentarily flashed in the woman's eyes at this corroboration of her husband's strength and the weakness of the man before her. "And is this all that you have to tell me?" she only said.

"All--I swear to you, Julie--all."

"Then listen, Victor Ramirez," she said, swiftly stepping from the tree into the path before him, and facing him with a white and rigid face.

"Whatever was your purpose in coming here, it has been successful! You have done all that you intended, and more! The man whose mind you came to poison--the man you wished to turn against me--has gone!--has left me--left me never to return!--he never loved me! Your exposure of me was to him a G.o.dsend, for it gave him an excuse for the insults he has heaped upon me, for the treachery he has always hidden in his bosom!"