"Oh, I'll be long asleep when they return, and I'll not speak of it to Ruth in the morning. She'll not rise before noon, I suspect, as it will be one or two o'clock before they're home. Or she may stay with one of the girls she's chummy with and come up with him to-morrow.

Probably that."

Lee made ready to go. He gave Imogene a sardonic smile.

"May the music she hears to-night strengthen her soul for the morrow's smash," he said; and went out.

Where the trail from the cabins debouched upon the main mesa road he slowed the car to a stop and sat for a time in thought, with the engine humming softly and the freezing night air biting at his cheeks.

It seemed to make little difference where he went, or if he went at all. Nothing worth while was at the end of any road. His inclination, however, was working and at last he set out for the Graham ranch.

Since his Christmas visit he had made a number of calls there, a rather large number, indeed, considering everything. He had schooled his face and words on those occasions to a pa.s.sivity he was far from feeling, and had left Louise's presence each time with a greater torment of mind. Now this was the end--of her as of everything so far as he was concerned. To-morrow the project came down in wreckage. Then he should go from Perro Creek, poorer in purse, poorer in spirit, poorer in faith, sore, and bitterly disillusionized.

Louise Graham observed a shadow upon his countenance as she invited him to a seat before the fireplace. Her father was absent and she had been reading a book when Bryant's knock came. She had been wondering, too, if the engineer might not choose this night to call again. How much these calls of his now meant to her she did not dare consider.

"What's wrong, Lee?" she asked at once, anxiously. "I see something has happened."

He moved round on the divan that he might fully face her.

"Everything so far as my affairs go," he replied. "Work stops on the ca.n.a.l to-morrow. That will result, of course, in the water right lapsing and in the ditch never being finished or used, except under the circ.u.mstance of my handing over my interest gratis to Gretzinger and the bondholders. If I did that even, I don't believe Gretzinger could finish it on time, for neither Carrigan nor the men would exert themselves for him as they have for me, and they would be sure of their pay in any case. The trouble is, I've used up all the money and can borrow no more. I'm through. And I can't bring myself to the point of surrendering my interest in the company to the bondholders merely to pull them out. They're trying to strangle me in order that they may profit; they could put up the cash needed easily enough if they would; but they count on my yielding. I shall not do so. And so the project fails. Those New Yorkers will wait too long if ever they do put up the funds; and I can do nothing myself. The uncompleted ditch will remain simply a scar on the mesa."

"I never dreamed you were in this strait!"

"No, probably not. One always hopes to the last that somehow--by a credulous belief in one's own letter of credit with Providence, I presume--one will pull through. So I delayed telling you of what was impending."

"If--perhaps father----"

"Your father? No. Above all persons, no. That's a suggestion I can't consider for an instant."

"But what will you do?" she exclaimed, nervously.

Lee glanced at her, then compressed his lips.

"I'm going away; I couldn't stay here on the scene of this disaster.

It would be intolerable. Before long people will be describing the unfinished project by the name of 'Bryant's Folly', or the like.

Haven't you seen old, windowless structures that were never completed, or gra.s.s-grown railroad enbankments never ironed, or rusting mine machinery never a.s.sembled? Men's failures, men's 'follies'."

"Lee, Lee! It never will be so!" she cried. "Nor will your project be a failure to me who have known how you've striven and sacrificed."

Bryant looked past her and about the room, but his eyes in the end came back to hers.

"You have always been generous in your thoughts of me," he said, in an unsteady voice.

"No more than you deserved."

"Listen, Louise," he went on, after a pause. "This is the last time I shall see you for a long time, possibly for all time, and it's of your kindness I wish to speak--and of another matter. Of course, I shouldn't be quite human if I hadn't complained a bit about this blow, but my complaints are done now. I'll possibly do some grimacing to myself hereafter, though. What I came to say is that wherever I go in the future I'll always carry with me as a treasure the memory of your goodness and of your face."

Louise's lips had parted, while the colour slowly receded from her cheeks.

"But we shall see each other," she gasped. "We'll meet, we can keep in touch." After a silence there came in a whisper, "Friends should."

Bryant began to tremble. He turned away from her in order to gaze into the fire. Her low utterance had wrung the chords of his heart; he dared not allow his eyes to continue to dwell upon her face.

"What good in that?" he asked. Then he gave a pa.s.sionate shake of his head. "The risk for me is too great. I shall seek an engineering billet altogether out of the country, in South America, in Asia, wherever one is open. A job without responsibility, preferably. No, no; I can't remain and play with fire--any longer."

An intense stillness rested in the room after these words. He doubted if Louise even breathed.

"Would it be that?" she asked, at last.

"Of course. Haven't you seen?"

"I--I----" Her voice failed her.

"I could no more help loving you, Louise, after I came to know you, than can the earth its blooming under a summer sun. The thing was inevitable." He was speaking now in a slow, fixed attempt at restraint. "And this love coming when it did, after I was betrothed to Ruth Gardner, is the capping madness of the whole nightmarish situation in which I find myself. 'Nightmarish' isn't an exaggeration, honestly. By all the empty, senseless conventions I ought to seal my lips on my love and to go dumbly away, because I'm engaged to Ruth Gardner." He turned abruptly to her. "Do you think I should?"

Her hands were locked together in a clasp that expelled the blood and left them white. Her regard had the intentness of a stare.

"If you love me, if you're going away--" She suddenly became agitated.

"Oh, I am unhappy!" And with a quick movement she bent her head aside.

"Louise, forgive me for causing this distress," he exclaimed.

Without looking about she put out a hand, touched and pressed his. The unexpected act filled Bryant with amazement. He sat gazing stupidly at the hand until she withdrew it. Then he found an explanation.

"You feel compa.s.sion for me," he said. "You would." A sound, low, inarticulate, reached him. "It's your kind nature to make some return for my love even if it's not love you can give. Or ought to give! I'm expecting nothing, can expect nothing. That is out of the question. If I were entirely calm and rational, I should doubtless be asking myself why I should speak of my pa.s.sion instead of trying to tear it out of my heart. But, of course, being in love I'm neither the one nor the other. The only explanation for the impulse to pour out a confession like this is overcharged nerves. Or, after all, is it just unconscious egotism?" His composure had slipped off and his tone had grown savage.

"Don't, don't, Lee! Don't cut at yourself!"

"What was it I had started to say? Oh, yes. I had said I felt no compunction in brushing aside the usual conventions of duty as proscribed for an engaged man. Cobwebs in my case! Why pretend lies?

No honour is involved that I can discover. I don't love Ruth, and I think she's incapable of loving me or any one else. She never felt half the affection I did for her, and mine withered quickly, G.o.d knows! A dash of pa.s.sion on my part, and lonesomeness and the belief I should have wealth on her side--there's the salad."

Louise leaned forward a little breathlessly.

"And if she believes you're ruined?" she asked.

"She'll hold me if she thinks she can't do better," Lee responded, bitterly. "I at least beat homesteading."

"Lee!"

Louise had risen. The pallor of her face startled him. Her hands were fast clenched.

"What is it?" he asked, fearfully.

"I can bear this. To have you love me--love me and go away! It will break my heart. To stay here alone!"

The words struck his brain as if they were cast in a fierce glare of light. The suddenness of the knowledge they gave, the revelation they made, left him speechless. Louise loved him in return. The first effect upon his mind was to produce a blank incredulity; he stared at her as if to ascertain whether or not this was in truth she; for though he well knew he possessed her friendship, he had never conceived so fantastic a possibility as that of winning her love. Then a swift exaltation succeeded. He swam in a kind of spiritual ether.

"Louise, Louise, my dear beloved!" he murmured.

He caught her hand, pressed it. She glanced at him without replying, looked away, back again. Her bosom rose and fell with a slow and tremulous movement, as though stirring with deep, soundless sighs. A little smile hovered on her lips, tender, rapturous.